Bay Area Houston

OMG what joy!

According to the Houston Chronicle the Katy ISD School Board voted to give a MASSIVE incentive to teachers who pass their 5 year mark.

After five years of service teachers will be given $250, according to data from the district. In 10 years they’ll receive $500. The payments continue in increments until 50 years of service, at which point a teacher will receive a one-time payment of $3,000.

The response from teachers was overwhelming positive. “A one time payment of $3000 at the age of 75 will go a long way in paying for my funeral!”. “I cannot tell you the feelings I have about this. It is just overwhelming. I just want to go to the next school board meeting and thank each and everyone of them face to face.” “That $250 after 5 years will go a long way for me to pay for my school supplies for the next year.” “What the living fuck? $250? Is that all?”

Well you can’t really defend some of the teachers. They are republicans. They vote for republicans. They wanted MAGAts like Calhoun on the board. So they did this to themselves. They deserve this slap on the face as if it was money on the dresser. Unfortunately their stupidity also affected those who have worked hard to make our public school system better and not 47th in the nation for school funding. Texas teachers deserve better than this slap in the face.

For those who voted republican, enjoy that $50/year bonus. You truly deserve it.

It wasn’t enough for Katy ISD Trustee Morgan Calhoun to post a a pic of her family on a Katy ISD Instagram account coddling the same type of weapon that killed 19 children in Uvalde, 27 christians in Sutherland Springs, 8 kids in Santa Fe, 5 police in Dallas, and 21 first graders in Sandy Hook.

And it’s bad enough the Houston Chronicle as well as all local media didn’t report on it. If a teacher had posted a picture like this the Chronicle would have been all over it. But now the Chronicle has woken up a bit.

Now Calhoun is taking fire (no pun intended) for her comments about tracking the immigration status of students. Even the MAGAts who supported her display of firearms as a Happy Easter post was critical of her ignorance of federal and state laws. From the Houston Chronicle story:

It is against state and federal law to ask the immigration status of a student, Superintendent Ken Gregorski noted.

Speakers at the Katy School Board meeting reminded Calhoun that the election held in early May had record turnout and Calhoun’s MAGAt buddies lost their races. Katy parents are not putting up with the takeover of Katy ISD. Calhoun is a Mexican MAGAt and was funded by a PAC that raised over a million dollars. It’s said that a Mexican American can be a MAGAt, one that supports a porn phucker, a liar, a cheater, a filthy human being like Donald Trump.

Maybe someone ought to ask if she is here legally.

Hear me out.

The Biden administration has been trying to forgive federal student loans for thousands of students. So far he has been semi-successful. There are a lot of obstacles remaining and I doubt if he could get a bill passed in Congress no matter who is in control of the two chambers. I’ve got a problem with loan forgiveness.

I feel the pain of those who are saddled with debt. I walked out of school with a loan that took 10 years to pay off but I paid it. My biggest concern about loan forgiveness is when does it stop. Let’s assume next year Biden is successful in wiping out all federal student loans. What happens to the loans the following year? And the year afterward? When does the forgiveness stop? This is unsustainable.

Also who is expected to pay for this forgiveness? It’s not free money. Someone is going to pay for it and it’s the taxpayers. Yes student loan debt is a problem but simply forgiving a loan that someone agreed to is not the answer.

Instead how about eliminating the interest on the loan as long as the debt is paid on a periodic basis. How about giving credits to those who work in education, the military, or other qualified professions? How about giving credits to those who volunteer with various organizations that benefit your community? How about helping those with debt instead of just giving them a free ride for something they agreed to?

Then how about fixing the damn problem so it won’t continue to happen? Interest rates should be low or completely eliminated. Loans should not be bloated by adding on non school related expenses such as entertainment. How about regulating the cost of education based upon income? And once the loan is due the payments should be flexible based upon income. There are many ways to relieve student debt.

Forgiveness isn’t that way.

This is going to get much worse……

Email obtained via an open records request (not by me) show that the Patriot Mobile Trustees Sandi Walker, Micah Young, and Joni Smith were notified about the Dutch film crew and was in communication with them. A Facebook post explains it in depth.

The poster asks some very valid questions like who else knew about this? What devices were used to conduct KISD business? Are any of them personal devices? From the emails it sure seems like all of them received the email from the Dutch crew then went silent choosing to conduct their business on their personal account.

I believe it was made very clear that if you use your personal device for official business then you could possibly be in violation of the open records laws if you delete them. I do not believe a person filing a grievance would be able to obtain any records, but I bet if a lawsuit is filed these records will have to be produced.

The emails clearly show the filming was political in nature. They contacted Walker and Smith and Walker forward it to Young asking for comments. The crew said:

Trustee Walker, who has since resigned, responded with:

There is going to be a lot of sunshine being shoved up someones back end in the near future. Trustees who had any prior knowledge of this need to come out, come clean, and then resign.

The first board meeting for Keller Independent School Board after the filming incident at a high school is schedule for 5:00 PM Feb 29 (tonight). It is expected to be wild.

Parents are not happy with the board, specifically Trustee Micah Young, who escorted a foreign, right wing, extreme, evangelical film crew through the school, filming students without consent from their parents. School board Trustee Sandi Walker organized the event and resigned immediately once outed. Trustee Young’s Facebook post apologizing for the incident has been flooded by hundreds of parents calling for him to resign.

NOTE TO SPEAKERS: Those wishing to address the Board during the Audience with Individuals portion of the agenda can do so by filling out the online sign-up form. Individuals may not sign up in person at the time of the meeting. To provide staff with sufficient time to organize a report of speakers for the presiding officer, the deadline to submit your request to speak is noon on the day of the meeting. Please click here to access the online sign-up form.    

You can watch the meeting here.

Patriot Mobile PAC.

Parents are pretty mad about KISD Trustee Walker and Young invited a foreign, evangelical, film crew into a public high school and filming their children without their consent. So who helped put these candidates into office and how much did they donate? Patriot Mobile. A lot.

Patriot Mobile PAC was created in January 2022 and funded mainly by Patriot Mobile LLC, a cell phone company. Since then they have raised $1,341,515. Of this total, 98%, came from two donors. $1,200,000 came from Patriot Mobile LLC and $120,000 came from Bryan Bradford, an investor in Austin, Texas. Patriot Mobile’s share is 90%.

Since January 2022 Patriot Mobile PAC spent $985,385. Of that $392,000 was spent on candidates in school district races and MUDs. Each KISD candidate Walker, Young and Shaw received $45,321 for their campaigns. As I said, this is A LOT for a school race that usually costs a couple of thousand dollars. All three were elected.

If you look at their personal campaign finance reports they each raised just a few thousand dollars but let Patriot Mobile PAC spend $45,321 on each of their campaigns hidden in campaign finance reports on the Texas Ethics Commission website. They never denounced their participation. They never denounced an LLC meddling in local school boards. They gladly accepted it. They took their money and have done their bidding.

And now two years later one has resigned (Walker) and one should (Young)

This is the first board meeting to be held after the film crew controversy at a Keller ISD high school west of Fort Worth.

Parents of Keller ISD have an opportunity to demand accountability at the upcoming school board meeting to be held Feb 29, 2024 at 5 PM. Details can be found here. The meeting will also be online. Hopefully parents will give the board an earful after two of their members were involved with a foreign Christian right film crew who was escorted into a high school. The film crew was part of a group that published a documentary titled “God, Jesus, Trump.”.

One of the members quickly resigned while the other, Micah Young, is hanging on claiming he “I briefly assisted my colleague in an interview about Texas public schools.” That is truly a bunch of horse shit. That “colleague” has resigned. The film crew claims they will air the segment with the kids faces obscured.

That’s not enough. Heads need to roll. Young should be removed. Parents should file a grievance against Young, file a suit against the film crew and the former board member. This is truly unacceptable. Who in their far right mind thinks this was acceptable at a school?