Everything posted by Larry T. Spider
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Austin ISD School Consolidation
I’ll try to say what I can without doxing myself. I know the building well and what it would take to get it up to a functional standard. We are talking many millions of dollars that the district doesn’t have. Hell, even some of the portables they aren’t counting are falling apart. When you look at schools with an enrollment of 350 or less, the overhead costs are insane. You are still paying a principal, AP, counselor, librarian, nurse, registrar, admin assistant, etc but not spreading the costs across 700+ students. The size causes a laundry list of other complications for the district. One very quick example: due to its small size, it has limited ability to serve special education students and any student that can’t be served in an inclusion setting has to go to another campus. The school has a lot of transfers that would likely go to another AISD school. So at the end of the day you are talking about keeping a crumbling school built in 1939 open at an extreme per student cost to serve about 200 neighborhood kids. And that number is with a lot of former Pease zoned kids, who I do feel for in this whole shit show. This district desperately needs efficiency and nothing about BW is efficient.
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Austin ISD School Consolidation
100%. Do it and do it all at once so that we aren’t in the same place in 5 years.
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Austin ISD School Consolidation
Bryker Woods isn’t the sacrificial lamb their community will make it out to be. It’s a small and declining enrollment school in a dilapidated building needing millions in repairs. Very few neighborhood kids go there and it has only made it this far with transfers. The IB program is new so it’s not like people moved there with the intent of sending their kids through that program. On a cost per student basis, it has to be one of the most expensive to run in AISD.
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What the fuck is wrong with you, Austin?
Nm, just saw the other thread on AISD.
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What the fuck is wrong with you, Austin?
The district is at about 60% of capacity. Anything other than major closures is fiscal irresponsibility. My guess is that they will actually go for it but the school board will play politics and we get about half the closures that we actually need. The can will be kicked a few years down the road and we can play this game again in 2030.
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Yogurt shop murders
My biggest takeaway from this has nothing to do with some dead guy that did it. It’s that “we” wrongly convicted people, drug their names through the mud in the national media, locked them up, and sentenced one guy to death. We collectively seem to realize how fucked the system is when information like this comes out but never stop immediately assuming guilt after the next big arrest is made.
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What the fuck is wrong with you, Austin?
Where is all the Project Connect money going? I live in RR, but seem to remember a decent tax increase was coming for Austinites. Never get a straight answer though. Is it being set aside for adding the new lines or is it getting mixed in with current cap metro operational costs.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Yes, that’s what I watched. Shocking behavior for somebody in a critical position, with so much control over the public image and livelihood of educators that had been cleared.
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The destruction of America's public education system
I watched a clip of Walters getting into it with the State Board of Education in a meeting. They kept imploring him to put a bunch of teachers who were facing disciplinary action on the agenda as they have due process rights. He would go on tangents about protecting the kids when nobody else would. Looks like some of those teachers we found to have done nothing wrong but couldn’t get cleared to go back to work because of his political stunts. The board was concerned about being sued for not following the law and he aggressively challenged people to sue. Total shitshow. Also worth noting that you can end up with certification issues for a million things that don’t involve kids. Everything from social media posts about Charlie Kirk to breaking your contract early. TEA is investigating 300+ complaints about Charlie Kirk social media posts currently…..
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Blastfurnace 2025
I think late September makes me more ragey about the heat than the higher temperatures in July and August. At this point, I am just over it and watching other parts of the country drink their pumpkin spice lattes makes it worse.
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RFK Jr. off the chain and off his rocker
You know what doesn’t cause autism? Ivermectin.
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Blastfurnace 2025
40-60 indoor days in Chicago. Lulz. All of January and February will get you to that total.
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The destruction of America's public education system
As an education major, there is no way I’m reading all that. Maybe one of the hotties can summarize it for me.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Can’t blame them, especially if they have a waiting list regardless. The state is offering up to 30k for special education vouchers. I’m researching it for my company but the system isn’t making a ton of sense. Sounds like you take then kid and hope the state pays you enough to cover the costs with 30k being the max. Many of our students cost about 50k, so if we charged the parent 20k and the state shorts us, we are screwed. Districts would be thrilled to get some of these kids off their tab though.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Participation is optional.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Also, that’s the current amount of vouchers. Now that the cat is out of the bag, the number will increase each year, just like the number of charter schools. I’ll make another post on it later but you are going to see a lot of for profit companies entering the state. You can already turn over management and operations of charters to for profit companies. Depending on your beliefs about economics and education this could be a good or bad thing.
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The destruction of America's public education system
I think they are underestimating the decline they will see. When they close schools, charters are going to pop up in those neighborhoods and take a significant amount of students. West Austin will get hit by vouchers. Probably most importantly, housing prices will probably start to rise again at some point forcing more families to the burbs to be replaced by people with 0 or 1 kid. All of that isn’t even factoring in a state takeover that would also kill west Austin schools where parents have options. The district bends over backwards for those parents in many cases and that will stop with a Mike Miles type in charge.
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The destruction of America's public education system
They need to close as many as they need to this year and rezone once. Closing a couple and kicking the can down the road 5 years just continues the death spiral. Then sell off a property each year to help cover the budget shortfall that will still be there even with the closures. Start with Pease Elementary, which the district still owns.
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Texas -- a failed state
No such thing as a good academic to many conservatives.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Bryker Woods has a lot of transfers that bump the total enrollment to 370ish. The building is from 1939 and needs a ton of work. It’s got to be a really high cost per student to keep it open.
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Aggy President resigns…
Quick check of the Texags politics board and 99% wanted him out for being too woke. They are all celebrating.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Consolidation causes declining enrollment. Declining enrollment turbofucks the recapture formula. Round and round we go. When considering closing east side schools you also have to map out the nearby charters. If you close a school that’s right next to one, your families will opt for the charter vs a school a lot farther away.
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The destruction of America's public education system
I agree that AISD is fucked. Only way out is fixing recapture and that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. They are being set up for a state takeover and that will speed up the decline in enrollment, especially at the higher end schools that can take advantage of vouchers. The lower end will continue to get whittled away by charters. I feel the district has been dealt the most unfair hand of any district in the state. However, that does not absolve the district of terrible leadership over the last 10 years. Cruz had no idea how to put large scale systems in place. Elizalde was the nail in the coffin by running off most of the competent, long-term staff then bouncing to Dallas. They had to hire a home grown guy just to try to salvage what staff was left. They are good at hiring west Austin principals who work with their involved communities. No clue how to run the other 2/3rds of schools. Not really my main focus with work right now but my company does own, manage and operate charters in other states. Would be hilariously ironic to come back to AISD to run 20 of their schools as charters and give no fucks about what their clown show administration wants.
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2021 - Is inflation finally back in the conversation?
So now there is talk that the US would have to pay back all the tariffs that have been collected with money we don’t have. That doesn’t sound great for inflation. However, my guess is that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of Trump because cloak room. Is there a way for the ruling to be that Trump can’t unilaterally decide tariffs moving forward but we don’t have to come up with 500 billion dollars to pay back?
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Report: 14 billion dollar deal for Bullet train from Houston to Dallas is done
I’m all for metro/commuter rail as well as high speed that connects cities. My main objection is based on a lack of trust. Many countries get these things built quickly and they are marvels of engineering. In Austin we collect the money through taxes and have almost nothing to show for it. It’s been difficult to get an answer on where the money is going for the expanded metro rail in Austin. You know the one that was advertised as 386 new lines that’s down to 1 new one starting in 2045? How is it possible that other countries pull this off routinely and we can’t?