A concerned parent from Bethany Elementary School in Plano ISD in Plano, Texas forwarded me the PTA newsletter that went out to parents today, as the school grapples with numerous outbreaks of COVID-19. Anna Hulse, the PTA President at Bethany Elementary gathered the following information that proves the impossible circumstances faced by parents, like me, who feel we have no safe education options for our children in Texas public schools.

Chris Hill, the Collin County Judge, is full-on trolling the parents in Collin County with Facebook posts asking parents “WTF is wrong with you?” and “Freedom is more important than education,” when parents challenge him and his interpretation of the law. Well, that freedom has consequences. As of today, 14,000 public school students have tested positive in the state. 15% of all Texans with COVID last week were public school students and staff.

The following Newsletter outlines exactly how few options Texas parents have:

Dear PTA Families – As you are aware, COVID positive cases are climbing at Bethany Elementary.  While the PISD Dashboard (link) is frozen at 13 student and 3 staff as of Sunday, our positive case count is at a minimum of 22 known positives, including both students and staff. Bethany Elementary’s 2019-20 TEA official population was 338. Some easy math tells you that 6% of our student population is COVID positive at 11 days into the school year. Several of these cases are concentrated in specific classes. Page 18 of the PISD Return to School Plan 2021-2022 (link) has levels stating the following:

I messaged with Mr. Bird, Collin County Judge Chris Hill and the Elementary Executive Team for PISD about this. In addition, I invited PISD’s Director for District Health Services, Staci Antelo, to our PTA Board meeting Thursday morning to further discuss what options Bethany Elementary, PISD, and CCHSC have to control the positive case count at Bethany. Staci Antelo, BSN, RN, NCSN, was very gracious to give us almost an hour of her day to answer our questions and discuss our concerns. I am grateful to her for taking this time to speak with the Executive Board. Here is a summary of the issues: TEA has mandated that ISDs do not contact trace – the county will. Collin County Health Services Center (CCHSC) is short staffed and is not doing contact tracing themselves. They forward cases to the state and Texas Health Trace will do the contact tracing. For PISD, an antigen (rapid) OR a PCR positive test result equals a positive COVID case. For the county and state, only PCR counts as a positive case and is reported. The others are ‘probable’ cases. Collin County Judge Chris Hill has stated that CCHSC does not have the authority to close schools for disease spread in the case of COVID. TEA has told school districts that they cannot close classrooms/facilities due to COVID. Also, they cannot mandate quarantining in cases of close contact. If a school district does close due to COVID, they will not receive a temporary attendance waiver like they might for a flu outbreak. Any missed days must be made up. For an individual school, this would mean they continue after the school district is closed. For PISD, we would add those days to the end of the school year. To truly break transmission, facilities need to close for a minimum of 14 days. However, this will not prevent community spread. If a school district advocates for anything other than in person learning, they face the real possibility of losing funding. Because of Bethany’s positive case count, PISD started “strongly encouraging” students in close contact of several positive cases in a class to choose the remote conferencing option. While this is available and sanctioned, PISD is taking a risk with this wording. PISD is doing it because it is the right thing to do. Bethany Elementary currently has the highest positive case percentage in PISD. Unfortunately, other PISD schools positive case percentages are climbing as well. Advocating to our elected officials in the Texas Legislature, County Leadership and our TEA commissioner is the best way to let them know how their policies are affecting our school community. Hearing from constituent parents has a larger effect than hearing from Superintendents, school administrators and teachers. Our local elected officials are: Texas House District 67: Jeff Leach, jeff@jeffleach.com (469) 855-0417 Texas House District 66: Matt Shaheen, Matt.Shaheen@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0594 Texas Senator: Angela Paxton, angela.paxton@senate.texas.gov (512) 463-0108 TEA Commissioner: Mike Morath, commissioner@tea.texas.gov (512) 463-9734 Collin County Commissioner: Duncan Webb, jdwebb@collincountytx.gov (972) 548-4631 Collin County Judge: Chris Hill, chill@co.collin.tx.us (972) 548-4632 Please be respectful, passionate, and professional when contacting these representatives. In the last 2 days, I have personally been in communication with PISD Superintendent Sara Bonser, PISD’s Director for District Health Services Staci Antelo and extensively with our Principal Bryan Bird. Each of these people are dedicated and doing the ultimate best that they can for all PISD students and staff. They hear and feel our frustrations. They want what is best for our students both for their health and their education. This situation is not ideal, and they are doing the best they can within the guidelines, mandates, and executive orders they have been given by state and county government. Because of my messages this week, PISD has been assigned a different epidemiologist at CCHSC who is much more responsive to our staff. Respectful, passionate, professional advocacy can affect change. If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, Mr. Bird, or Mrs. Miller. Stay healthy, Be safe, Anna Hulse Bethany Elementary PTA President

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Y’all, Texas politicians are playing politics with our children’s lives in a way that I’ve really never seen in my lifetime. I’ve contacted so many officials and everyone keeps passing the buck all the way up to Governor Abbott, who won’t make any changes no matter how many Texas students fall ill, in order to have a better chance in the next primary against Allen West and Don Huffines.

I’ve run out of colloquialisms about how mad I am at the Texas Government. Y’all give me your best in the comments if you don’t mind me using them in the future. I’m madder than ….. (fill in the blank)

The Texas Observer ran this story. I’ll do my best to sum it up but y’all go read the details over there- it’s good work.

Let’s review the facts:

• Texas power grid fails and hundreds of Texans die
• Texans who live suffer billions of dollars in damage from broken pipes and water damage (My personal number was $3,544.00)
• Kelcy Warren’s company, Energy Transfer Partners, makes $2.4 Billion in that same week
• Greg Abbott assures Texans all that can be done to fix the grid is done (you be the judge – here’s what they did)
• Kelcy Warren donates a cool $1 million dollars to Greg Abbott’s re-election campaign.

I assumed it was some kind of violation of election finance law for any one person to donate such a huge sum to a campaign. I checked and sure enough, as of May 2015 an individual can make a donation of any amount to a campaign. (Who was governor in May of 2015? Greg Abbott).

The blatant corruption is exhausting. I’m more tired than a one-legged woman in an ass-kicking contest.

It’s almost as if I predicted it. I wish I I could say I was clairvoyant. I wish I could say I have massive powers of deduction. I suppose I could say that, but no one would take me seriously. It would be like predicting the Texans finish in last place in the division next year. It’s hardly a brilliant prediction and this situation could be seen coming a mile away.

 

Greg Abbott has suggested building a wall on the southern border. I wonder where he got that idea from. Moreover, one of his would be opponents Allen West suggested it as well. Furthermore, Abbott wants to round up migrants and send them back where they came from. He is even planning a joint task force with Arizona to do the trick across state lines.

 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why he is doing this. It’s a combination of things. First, when someone has done something wrong the best thing to do is make sure no one pays attention. Magicians do it all the time. They focus your attention at one spot so you’re not paying attention to the other hand. Look at the shiny object in this hand and ignore what the other hand is doing.

 

The second point is that someone still casts a long shadow over the party and those that remain have to make a choice. Either they stand their ground and become a part of the opposition or they keep diving to the right in hopes that he gives them his approval. The more who enter the fray the worse it’s going to get.

 

Like I said, I predicted this along with thousands of others. Abbott has a long history of doing this. He isn’t a bad guy necessarily. He’s certainly not a crazy one. He’s just a weak one. Every time he has had to make a choice between the base and reality he chooses the base. Of course, whether that makes him bad is in the eye of the beholder.

 

First there was Jade Helm. If you don’t remember you can be forgiven. The military were doing training exercises in the hill country and suddenly kooks and jackasses came out in force saying that it was going to be a federal takeover. He could have ignored it. He could have made a statement that there was no reason for alarm because they do this stuff all the time. He could have called them out as idiots and kooks. He did none of those things. Instead he said he was sending a letter to make sure they didn’t do anything untoward.

 

It was classic Abbott. He didn’t really do anything but it was a gentle nod in their direction. It was a gentle nod to the conservative crazies that he was one of them. Those same folks that could have predicted this latest capitulation also predict not a single brick will be added to a wall. That was never the point of the wall anyway. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. You make a lot more by saying you will build it then by actually doing it.

 

So, no pats on the back here. We all know the score and we all know what’s going on. The next year will be a fun year for those of us that aren’t crazy. We have multiple crazies competing for the chance to be governor and the guy sitting in the chair that must act like he is in order to get their support. Buckle up. It’s going to be a lovely ride.

In what truly portends as a sign that the end is nigh, reports are coming out that Greg Abbott is seriously considering a run for the presidency. I’m not kidding about this. I really wish I were.

In some respects, I guess a presidential run from the governor’s chair is just inevitable. Obviously, George W. Bush successfully made the jump. He at least won the job. How successful he was I guess depends on the eye of the beholder. Rick Perry tried a couple of times and failed miserably. There was an issue with counting that I recall that may have had an impact.

What both of them had in common is that they could at least point to signs of success. Sure, we know Bush wasn’t the brightest bulb in the batch and Perry is not much beyond the great hair, but they were savvy enough to stay out of the way and let Texans do their own thing. At least that is how many people will remember it.

As usual, when you pair down the flim flam and really look at things you would see a different picture, but most people are not accustomed to moving beyond the flim flam. They didn’t have a horribly mismanaged virus or a once in a century energy grid crisis. Most people would hide away in a broom closet after the last 14 months, but not Abbott. He is proudly considering bringing his clown show to Washington.

If it weren’t so real it would be comical. In order to appeal to the base, you have to be more flamboyant in your stupidity than the next guy or gal. If Jewish lasers only keep you in the news for a solid week you need to find something else to do.

Maybe throw out an old racist phrase while coming up with a new way to suppress the vote. Maybe count ballots with companies that don’t have a clue and hire people that would make my parents look like spring chickens. Maybe pass another bathroom bill or ban transgender kids from the lunchroom. Maybe remove background checks before a 9 year old can carry a bazooka into his STAAR test. Yup, the apocalypse is coming and it ain’t a pretty sight.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott made a joke today about shooting reporters.  Yeah, while body-slamming a reporter is still in the news.

Too soon, Governor.  Ten years from now, still too soon.

 

Okay, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has gotten himself into a street fight with the NFL.

Yeah, start your eyes rolling now because it gets worse.

The NFL has warned Texas that if they pass the “Show Me What You Pee With” bathroom bill, another Super Bowl in Texas might be “out of the question.”

Abbott shook his finger at the NFL (literally, he shook his finger) and said that if they are going to be that way about it, he will “force football players to stand for the national anthem.”  And if they don’t stand, he will boo them.  Because that’s the only tool he’s got to enforce that.

Once Abbott’s people discovered that his threat carried about as much weight as a hungry pissant, they decided that he was “only kidding.”

Abbott, who has studied at the knee of Donald Trump, now says he was making a statement about the NFL.

“It was intentional hyperbole to make a point: demonstrating the NFL’s own shortcoming of how they are disconnecting with their fan base by allowing players to disrespect the U.S. flag,”

Yes, mind the flag and shred the constitution.  Welcome to Republicanland.