They got a response that the margs were each triples, which is why the price was so high. The majority of the service charge went to the server as a tip. Original complainant said the absolutely did not order triples and you had to find the fine print on the menu to understand the service charge situation. In general, the public perception that Vegas is a ripoff is heating up. There has always been grumbling about the resort fees and high prices but we have now entered scam territory in some cases. A guy on tiktok was charged something like $12 for a candy bar in the shop at the bottom of his hotel. I love Vegas and have been many times, but the last time I went (June) I saw much more of what people have been complaining about. The planned stuff like meals, gambling, getting some free drinks, and hitting the pool were all great and fairly normal. It was walking around and trying to grab something like a drink or a snack or even Starbucks that turned into a ripoff.
People want the other state schools to improve but the PUF funds are off limits. Nothing will drastically change in our lifetimes. UH, TXST, UNT and some others grew with the population growth. But the birth rate is declining enough that it will impact them in the next 20 years unless Texas stays drastically ahead of the curve in people moving here. I focus mostly on k-12 education but the declining birth rate is going to be a huge shakeup that’s coming sooner than people realize. Way more seniors this year than kindergartners.
I call them Waffle House teachers. Yesterday they worked at Waffle House, today they’re your kids teacher. 54% of teachers hired in Texas last year were uncertified.
After hammering VOO for all of last year, I’m starting to add to mid-cap growth ETFs. If the top of the market continues to run, then I have a lot of it. Hard for me to not see it as over-inflated though.
This is the main problem I have with the states ability to take over a district because of one failing school. It encourages a shell game with students and doesn’t solve any real problems. Is Mendez better now or did they just run off the lower performing students? Did they make the nearby middle schools worse off when it comes to academic performance by indirectly forcing them to take in these students? My guess is yes to both questions. We are making a lot of disruptive changes but there aren’t any students that are actually better off. I guess you could make it he argument that the higher performing Mendez kids may have fewer distractions now….but it will be back to the same old stuff once AISD takes over.
Somewhat related to this topic. In the past AISD gave Mendez middle school to a charter operator to avoid a state takeover. It is now a B rated campus and AISD is taking control back in the fall. I get the desire to operate all of your own campuses, but the situation is dire for AISD and middle schools are a big source of the problem. If you have a low income school getting good scores, just leave it alone.
It’s really niche. Districts legally have to provide services to high needs special education students, even ones they don’t have the capacity to serve. I set up programs for the .01% of students that are the most challenging, with my company’s staff, but in their buildings. They give us the space, pay us, and we do everything else.
Cost is in the range of 50k per student per year, but many are spending more than that to send them to day treatment or a residential facility. Or they are just tired of their staff quitting, paying workers comp claims, or dealing with lawsuits from parents.
The deals are complex and often involve state departments of education and/or cooperatives between multiple districts.
I sell to school districts so our fiscal year starts in September. Pipeline at this moment is 9.3 million in ARR. Quota is 4 million, so hoping about half of that closes.
It’s a rough market but I’ve managed to make it work, even with a 1-2 year sales cycle. I have half of the teams pipeline, which seems like it would be a good thing but it’s really just the CEO up my ass all the time. They sure know how to motivate you to bust your ass.
If you’re just looking to add to your income while preserving the 500k, you can get a 1 year CD at 4%. That would boost your income by 20k a year pretty much risk free.
If you are looking for true dividends with a chance of growth, a fund like SCHD would pay almost the same in dividends with more upside potential. Obviously some risk involved with market swings.
If you don’t really need that much dividend income and want to increase your chances of growing the 500k while taking on more risk, a total market fund like VTI would still get you an extra 5-6k per year in dividends.
Closing 10 schools should help for now but if enrollment declines continue they are going to have to look at more. Any school that has under 400 students is going to have a higher than average per student cost and should be up for consideration. Obviously a million other factors such as location, building condition, school ratings, parent support, special programs housed at the school, etc.
Was down to 400 last time I checked. My extended family all lived there and it’s where my grandmother was raised. Don’t think I have any living relatives left there.
And to make this on topic. There’s plenty of cheap housing in the US. It’s just in the south and Midwest. Desirable places like southern Cali are always going to be expensive. People like me would move there as soon as it got cheaper and drive the prices right back up.
That’s a pretty typical sentiment because they don’t know what the offer truly is yet. Once an administration has been hired and the school starts to develop and image, that begins to change. Note that this is NOT applicable to charters taking over well run magnet programs. That’s just TEA not wanting to deal with one offs.
I’ll add that doing this gives the school a two year break from accountability ratings and additional funding to support the turnaround. Other than pride, it should be a no-brainer for Austin ISD to “fix” the campuses that get an F rating every year.
Not really interested in the magnet type schools but would consider having the company I work for take over the F rated schools. Not a huge believer in setting up charters to compete with public schools, but the district would be better served turning over certain campuses. They don’t know how to turn them around.
The average Austinite has no idea if they are even paying for Project Connect, let alone what they will get out of it. They know for sure they are being robbed on the school taxes due to the state. Tough environment to ask for more tax money.
I live in Round Rock so I haven’t been following this as closely as most of you. Project Connect would be my biggest hurdle in voting for this though. I was a vocal supporter and ride the train down from the Lakeline station pretty often. But since the vote passed, all we have seen is ballooning costs, cutting the additional lines down to 1 new one, and it not being online until 2033.
Maybe somebody knows the answer, but I keep asking where the tax money being collected is going. Is it in an al gore lock box, being blown on consultants, being mixed with the general budget? Nobody seems to know.
I would have serious hesitation voting for more taxes based on the above. Huge mass transit supporter but I feel burned.
Back of the napkin math says 8 mil gets you 26,000 a month at a 4% draw rate. Thats also assuming no other income. Obviously have to factor in taxes, but what am I missing? You would probably die with 15+ million.
Almost hit my goals for the year:
Max IRAs for me and the wife. Done.
Max my 401k. Will get there with continued contributions.
Start a brokerage account and get it to at least 25k. I’m a few thousand short but will get there easily.
Save for next rental property. Haven’t done as much on this one but have been prioritizing the accounts above since I feel behind on those. Working in public education for 15 years didn’t allow for much saving outside of TRS and IRAs.
This is more of a broad conversation about measurables in education, but TEA is good at coming in and fixing those. So, they are good at fixing compliance issues, failing schools, the budget, and addressing some student discipline issues.
They are bad at just about everything else and are willing to take a sledgehammer approach to achieve the metrics they are looking for. I think this approach is such a culture clash with Austin ISD campus level staff and parents, that it will go poorly. It is in no way collaborative. Don’t like libraries being turned into detention centers? Fuck right off.
So, at the end of the day, you may get a district that runs efficiently and has no failing schools but still be unhappy with it because they cut your fine arts programs, pushed out your favorite campus principal, and re-zoned you to another school without a second thought.