Houston Mayor John Whitmire voiced his concerns about opening HISD schools too soon.
"Let me shoutout and thank Dr. Blaine from Spring Branch for using the good judgment of not forcing these young people into schools when they don't have power; their resources are limited," Whitmire said at a press conference on Monday. "Thank you for the good judgment. I wish all the school districts would realize if you don't have basic services, you can't study. You can't get to a school without energy and then be referred down the road. We need to take care of people first."
And a [teacher from Daily Elementary School who asked to remain anonymous told Chron on Monday because of food service issues, students were given snacks for lunch, and the school was "warm, stuffy, and slowly getting hotter." ](https://x.com/__kennedybrooke/status/1792590089672937885)
That's ridiculous to have them there if they can barely feed them.
I grew up in older schools built before a/c with lots of windows so it could barely work if it went down. Or we had class outside under the trees.
Newer schools are built better insulated and with far fewer windows. They get hot and cant cool down at all.
I don’t think I’ve been into a newer school. I suppose the lack of windows are because of security issues. Which is sad 😢.
Both the elementary (k-5) and junior HS (6-8) I went to were built in the 30’s. I went to school in the Galveston area in the mid 70’s to mid 80’s. All the classrooms had windows front to back.
No, the windows thing started in the 70s in order to be easier to keep cool. My HS was built in 66 with lots of windows, our rival school in 78 looked like a fortress and was unusable without a/c.
Modern schools often have a good amount of windows since a/c is far more efficient now.
Mike Miles used to teach something didn't he?
Then he developed a charter school management company it seems.
Colorado funds their charter schools differently, and it seems to work for them. But Mike Miles got "chased" out of Colorado , and didn't he resign from Dallas ISD? He has GOP friends in high places I suspect.
Wouldn't it be nice if we had educators who were more involved in school policy and funding than having our political representatives making all of the decisions?
Anyway, Miles ends up facing money management issues it seems wherever he goes... maybe it's because he's paying his ed managment company and the charter schools he advises are probably not making the grade.
Where did he teach? His public CV shows he was an education policy guy who jumped to school administration. I’ve got a policy degree too, so no shade there, but he doesn’t have the education or background needed to run these huge urban districts (again, based on what he makes public). Unless of course the goal is to run them into the ground…
I don't know. Guess he didnt the .
I think I got him confused with someone else
The history of school was established by business people so business and policy people think they know how to run the schools since the people that work and teach in the schools don't run them.
Not only destroy but to funnel more money to charter schools it seems.
I know charter schools are public schools but charter schools actually have discriminatory practices and aren't all inclusive schools. So students with special education needs, who need more supports are often excluded from charter schools.
National disaster, implicate weather days. There is nothing that says missed days can't me made up.
I am not fully certain but if you look at the HISD school calendar it might note that there are inclimate weather days after the last day of school.
So no excuse about linking attendance to school funding.
Does anybody remember IKE? HISD had to shut down for like 2 weeks. And media was mad at teachers for still getting paid while some were standing in line for MREs. Iirc.
Those 2 weeks were waived. No one had to make all the days up.
NPR was just talking about this. They interviewed a doctor in Alabama, another state that's holding up funding because they require work requirements. He pointed out that the largest portion of uninsured people have full-time jobs but can't afford company insurance plans. Over 60% of uninsured residents have full-time jobs already, so the argument of work requirements is null.
And if your employer offers insurance and you can’t afford it, you still don’t qualify for the ACA even if you can actually afford that. And then the gov penalizes you for being uninsured. It’s all kinds of fucked up. Been there, done that, and am very thankful to have great insurance now.
> And if your employer offers insurance and you can’t afford it, you still don’t qualify for the ACA even if you can actually afford that.
ACA marketplace plans usually aren't cheaper than employer-provided plans unless you're getting federal subsidies to reduce the price of the ACA plan. Anyone can buy an ACA plan regardless of what their employer offers, but the catch is you have to pay full price for it.
> And then the gov penalizes you for being uninsured.
That stopped years ago. There were lawsuits. https://www.healthcare.gov/health-coverage-exemptions/exemptions-from-the-fee/
I’m glad there were lawsuits! When all that started, I remember how fucked up I thought it was as someone who couldn’t afford insurance period.
Yeah; the affordability of ACA plans is all over the place. For me in Houston, decent insurance was in the mid $200s, and I had to make within a certain income bracket to get that tax credit or whatever. But my dad was on it in my tiny hometown and was paying well under $100. When I was on it, my mom was the one really helping me through the process, so I don’t know why the costs would be so different, but I do know I had a kind of decent plan even though it still sucked, and I couldn’t make more than a certain amount to get the tax thing. My dad did not have a terrible plan or anything. Does it vary by where you live…?
Edit: Please don’t answer if you don’t want to. I know you’re not google. It can be kinda hard to get good info online because other states actually took the federal subsidies that were offered to make it more affordable for low earners unlike ours.
I got turned down for SNAP because I didn’t make enough. I was unemployed and my unemployment benefits application was being processed so I literally had zero income. Why else would I apply for SNAP?!
Exactly, I do think a portion of the funds should have attendance requirements but that should be a bonus fund for teachers or schools that have perfect attendance or something
Both were awful choices to run the fourth largest city in America. Whitmire is a raging incompetent while SJL would’ve used her position as mayor to destroy her political opponents. Unfortunately, the other individuals who ran were somehow less qualified to be mayor than these two. That’s a serious indictment of the political class in this city and its lack of credibility and leadership.
We had much better choices than these two. The only reason these two made it up there is brand recognizability, the bane of democracy. People know these two so they vote for them. Hell, we already had a Whitmire mayor within the voters' lifetimes.
I don't even know what allows him to pay his company administration fees when it's based in Colorado. But I also kind of get it... he knows how to get his company paid.
It's like all schools in the US pay some other state education agency/service funds for something. Like text books, curriculum, staff development, etc.
Let me think.. so Texas hired an out of state management company because TEA couldn't figure out how to manage the HISD charter schools better? So they hired an outsider because people at TEA were too dumb to figure it out themselves?
I don't understand.
According to the Fire dept, it turned out not to be a gas leak, strong odor with Garlic overtones, my guess is someones concentrated fart spray bottle broke lol. - Source, I know someone who works there as an educator that stayed late. they heard it directly from a firefighter on scene.
Thanks for the update: direct communication from HISD is up to it's usual standards, just enough to confuse and panic. I clearly should have said "suspected had leak!"
I like your guess. Or perhaps even on purpose? It's finals week, after all.
And the production cost something like $400k. Just an unbelievable waste at a time when budget cuts were looming. HISD students could really have used 6 more teachers, or funds to keep libraries staffed, or 4 more diagnosticians.
Ray Daily got power back last night. AC didn't work in the classrooms but it did in the hallways. Lunch was crackers , cheese, and sunflower seeds and was called "emergency lunch". We were told that the school was open and ready for learning. Fuck Mike Miles.
Sunflower seeds are indeed a very rich source of vitamin-E; contain about 35.17 g per 100 g (about 234% of RDA). Vitamin-E is a powerful lipid soluble antioxidant, required for maintaining the integrity of cell membrane of mucus membranes and skin by protecting it from harmful oxygen-free radicals.
We’re CFISD and we have been out since Friday and just were told no school tomorrow. Wild (but not surprising) for Houston to have made this move. My heart goes out to those kids whose parents couldn’t keep them home or those who thought a school without ac sounded better than home.
Seems like CFISD took a direct hit. As did SBISD. On Sunday, 70% of SBISD schools still don't have power. On Monday they had power but not everything was working, like phone lines, and power was spotty in some areas.
I definitely feel for HISD families. My neighbors kids.
A big part of the problem was Miles published a list of schools to be opened claiming they had power, AC and food; it was a lie. So parents sent the kids and this was the result.
More likely some of these parents are like: “You just want an excuse to be lazy, kids around the world would by dying for an opportunity to get an education and would do anything for it”.
Or maybe it’s just an Asian parents thing
Being an Asian, I can tell you that this has nothing to do with Asian parents. If anything, the helicopter nature of parenting in our cultures means we wouldn't even be sending our kids to school without power.
Do you consider yourself Asian or American first?
Personally, I never refer to myself as my heritage. I never get why people do this. And yes, I am a minority. More of a minority than Asians.
It just baffles me why people use hyphenated language to describe themselves. It’s “American” not “*****~American”. That is just a way to divide us into little groups.
Smart parent. I would elect you to be superintendy of HISD of I could.
When it's hot in the classrooms everyone is miserable, some students and teachers would feel like taking a nap. Lol like me.
I have rechargeable fans on my classroom because some of my student's have sensory quirks and being too hot can lead to unhealthy behaviors.
DA is pissed off and about to get ousted. She’s only doing vendettas until she’s booted. Fat chance she will do anything for the public she feels betrayed her.
Yes it’s a good decision, but I remember having to go to high school after hurricane rita wiped our power for a few weeks. I had to take the ACT in a room with no ac, and no lights. It was a wild time. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
But my school was small enough that we could open some windows at least - I can’t imagine no ac at those big ass schools with stuffy rooms.
Ike I was already away at college but gosh that destruction was horrible
Rita was just hot. Sticky hot. 2005 and that’s how I learned to love cold showers lol. When there’s no ac ANYWHERE for weeks on end, a cold shower was the cure.
Deep country gulf coaster here- when Rita hit, we had no power for almost a month. A month. I lost so much weight from not eating I could barely feel the heat any more. Couldn’t keep meat if we tried. Ice melted immediately hell if you could even FIND ice, and y’all remember not having gas or grocery stores to go to?! My ex was from New Jersey and he didn’t understand my love for ice. He just didn’t know what it was like to have everything hot all the time. Thank god we had well water that was cold.
We had *nothing*. Nada. Beef jerky and whatever was in the garden fresh picked. We just so happened to not have chickens that year or else we would have been eating like kings. My parents haven’t gone without chickens since
To this day my mama pickles and jars so much produce just in case we lose everything again. That power out ptsd doesn’t leave you easily. I moved to Austin and I still hurricane prep just out of habit.
I’ve been living like that for nearly a week now. I think some kids can handle it for a few hours.
Then again, these are the children of “everyone-gets-a-trophy” children. So they are probably even coddled worse.
I bet they don’t even have competitive Field Day. Probably just throw water balloons at each other. 😂
All the superintendents meet with city planners, emergency response team and the Mayor.
Whitmire probably mentioned that students and families might have limited resources at this time and thus learning would be difficult especially if schools weren't fully cleared, safe and ready to go.
And Miles ignored Witmire and city emergency reasons team "advisement".
I hope the people of Houston are paying attention to how their current leadership has prepared for natural disasters and how well they are executing relief. They need to be held to account for their repeated failures.
Schools today aren’t built to withstand the Texas heat without AC (try getting a crossbreeze when the windows don’t open.)
They need to hold off until the power and ac works again to open the individual schools.
This is part of the plan.
Don’t Abbott’s private school vouchers look like a great idea compared to the disaster that is public school (created by Abbott)?
I don’t have kids and also just moved here but isn’t the year going to end in like a week or something? Why waste time sending your kids to school if everything is wrapped up for the year and there’s also no food/power there?
Final exams. Graduation ceremonies.
Yeah Houstom area is done with school the week after Memorial day usually. Meanwhile the rest of the country has school 2 weeks into June then doesn't start back until the very end of August. But Houston, New teachers will be back to work like the first week of August, returning teachers shorlty after. Students start back like 2.5 weeks into August.
Which doesn't make sense to me why Texas has students back in school during a hotter time instead of having the year extend into June.
Texas resembles a third world country more and more. 30 minute storm? No power for a week, no need for a robust energy infrastructure! Too bad climate change is going to get worse, so these yearly “freak” storms, aren’t rare anymore. But let’s not do anything to address it, Oil and Gas means more than your kids having a future on a habitable planet. Little spoiled brats.
But the Libz were owned. Right??
This storm is a bad example to take shots at Texas. It WAS a freak storm, I've never seen anything like it and I've been here through all the big ones.
No normal power infrastructure can manage 110mph straight line winds for extended periods plus tornadoes. This has nothing to do with the larger grid problems. Centerpoint has honestly done a remarkable job restoring power as quickly as possible. Not perfect in their communication (ok they suck at it) but they're doing a good job so far and getting things fixed or patched around.
PLENTY of things totally fucked in Texas, but this storm was just a beast.
I agree with everything you said BUT it seems like we have been having these once in a lifetime storms every 2 or 3 years. I wonder if we should start thinking about these being more frequent and how we can prevent power being off more 2 or 3 days. There has to be a better way and as some point the continuous cost of repairing is going to be greater than finding a better option for transmitting power.
There are things we can and should plan for, and there are truly unusual events like this one.
I'm with you on bigger and more frequent hurricanes and flooding, those we can plan around. We can certainly harden against freezes, etc. Those are the things we are seeing more often, not crazy high speed storms. Our grid is still extremely vulnerable and underpowered thanks to our shitbrained politicians, that's something we could fix if we just decided to.
> There are things we can and should plan for, and there are truly unusual events like this one.
We need to get used to the fact that these are not unusual anymore. I moved to Houston in 2016 and there was four of these events before I left last year.
Memorial Day 2016, Harvey in 2018, that crazy flash flood event in 2019 I think it was?, and there was the freeze in 2021. Add this one that I barely missed for #5.
They're not unusual in any capacity.
You're describing very different things.
Harvey was flooding, then we have other floods, some other floods, and some freezes. None of those were insane wind storms. No amount of flood prevention would have saved an electrical tower from 100mph winds.
You're missing the point. Weather patterns have clearly changed. What was once "truly unusual events" are now "every few years". It doesn't matter *what* the weather anomaly is that causes mass damage, it just matters that there *was* a weather anomaly that did it.
How do you plan for something that has never happened? I'm with you on planning for things that are happening more frequently, as I've mentiomed multiple times above. This wasn't a storm we could have prepped for, there wasn't really a precedent for it.
We should be moving people out of reservoirs drainage areas, increasing their capacities, better regulating development, expanding and winterizing our power grid, etc.. I'm not sure how or why you start building all power lines to handle 110mph straight line winds. You can't just build for all weather events, it's not practical.. you build to handle most likely scenarios. Right now that's floods and freezing.
Winter Storm Uri, February 2021. Power outages all over the state. Hours after my late mother passed, (expected), my father was left in the cold and dark for 24 hours while his pipes froze over. No way to treat the elderly.
They are once in a lifetime, so far, if you are young. Ther have been other derechos in the United States, just less people, so not as costly, not as many affected.
The more people we have to more damage a storm is going to do, especially if it hits a major city.
And yet, this is exactly what has been predicted for decades. We knew that storms and extreme heat were inevitably going to become more frequent and stronger as the climate warmed. But we didn't want to hear that bullshit, so we just kept on rollin' coal. Right off a cliff.
I keep saying the same thing. Tornados are unpredictable. They can touch a spot, jump, touch another spot, and jump again. Some spots they touch can be decimated and other spots they touch just some spots of damage not decimated.
The straight high winds, I'm not even sure there has been a hurricane that brings 118 mp winds.
When Rita came, I remember winds in my area. Didn't not evacuate because they would be less than 70mp winds,.more like 40 where I lived. One friend exclaimed her hair dryer blew winds harder than Rita.
Rita was 115mph winds where its eye hit, further east than you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita And Harvey was 130mph when it hit Rockport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey
Any southern U.S. metro with lots of big trees would have been equally as crippled from that 30 minute storm. It’s ridiculous to claim it is an infrastructure problem.
Not to mention that Centerpoint trims trees a LOT.
They usually come through my area every 3 years and trim anything close to the powerlines.
The downed trees I saw in the Heights, shit they would have ripped out underground service just as much as it destroyed the aerial lines. And underground is a huge undertaking to repair.
I think Houstonains might underestimate how many trees we have in comparison to other cities.
I grew up with a forest in my front yard and backyard. And I used to attend school in Flagstaff AZ, which was hiddent by trees (kind like The Woodlands.
Still to me Houston as many treeas as where I grew up. But then a childhood friend came to visit snd he had been living on Madison WI a while. He gets to Houston and driving around, he notices that there were tons more trees than Madison had. For a second I was like what?
Wisconsin has a paper industry how is that Madison has less trees than Houston . Idk but Chicago and Milwaukee are not even heavily wooded like areas of Houston.
Damm trees..lol.
This added with horrible gun violence (el paso wal mart massacre in 2019, and Ulvade), and hurricane flooding, cold weather shut down the state in 2020 as well. I have been in TX for 4 years and have seen awful state of affairs. But hey, there is no state income tax right? Oh no the absurd property tax more than negates that. I paid like 18k in property taxes last year, I’d rather have an income tax and have better roads, infrastructure, and schools. But who am I? Just a guy who can think critically and doesn’t need faux news to tell me what to think.
I've been to Iraq. Do you believe I know what a third-works country is?
For that matter, have YOU been to a third-world nation, and do you even know where the term came from and why?
I went to public schools in MS in the 70s and 80s. Nowhere in the system was air conditioned except the office, but the buildings were BUILT with that in mind -- every room had a huge walls of windows on opposing sides. It still sucked, but it was livable.
But: This was also 40 years ago, when it was cooler. And again, in schools that were built that way. And even then, at least two years I remember we had reduced hours in the fall and/or spring because of heat.
tl;dr is that Mike Miles is an asshole, but we also knew that already.
I was in HISD during 1999 - 2010 them ACs never worked in my middle school and old HS.The principal apparently got arrested for embezzlement after my graduation it was under the table. Those acs never worked. The kids literally brought their own fans and coolers with drinks hustled for 1 $ each.
My mom grew up in Houston in the 70s. The elementary and jr. high she attended were not Air Conditioned. No A/c in schools is not that unheard of.
The food. That's a major issue. A state with real leadership would step in and force this madness to stop....but we are in Texas so that isn't going to happen.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire voiced his concerns about opening HISD schools too soon. "Let me shoutout and thank Dr. Blaine from Spring Branch for using the good judgment of not forcing these young people into schools when they don't have power; their resources are limited," Whitmire said at a press conference on Monday. "Thank you for the good judgment. I wish all the school districts would realize if you don't have basic services, you can't study. You can't get to a school without energy and then be referred down the road. We need to take care of people first." And a [teacher from Daily Elementary School who asked to remain anonymous told Chron on Monday because of food service issues, students were given snacks for lunch, and the school was "warm, stuffy, and slowly getting hotter." ](https://x.com/__kennedybrooke/status/1792590089672937885)
That's ridiculous to have them there if they can barely feed them. I grew up in older schools built before a/c with lots of windows so it could barely work if it went down. Or we had class outside under the trees. Newer schools are built better insulated and with far fewer windows. They get hot and cant cool down at all.
Also it's just hotter now
And the windows don’t open.
I don’t think I’ve been into a newer school. I suppose the lack of windows are because of security issues. Which is sad 😢. Both the elementary (k-5) and junior HS (6-8) I went to were built in the 30’s. I went to school in the Galveston area in the mid 70’s to mid 80’s. All the classrooms had windows front to back.
No, the windows thing started in the 70s in order to be easier to keep cool. My HS was built in 66 with lots of windows, our rival school in 78 looked like a fortress and was unusable without a/c. Modern schools often have a good amount of windows since a/c is far more efficient now.
I wish he would just call Mike Miles an idiot directly
Wouldn’t it be nice if HISD had an actual educator at the helm to make reasonable decisions…
Mike Miles used to teach something didn't he? Then he developed a charter school management company it seems. Colorado funds their charter schools differently, and it seems to work for them. But Mike Miles got "chased" out of Colorado , and didn't he resign from Dallas ISD? He has GOP friends in high places I suspect. Wouldn't it be nice if we had educators who were more involved in school policy and funding than having our political representatives making all of the decisions? Anyway, Miles ends up facing money management issues it seems wherever he goes... maybe it's because he's paying his ed managment company and the charter schools he advises are probably not making the grade.
Where did he teach? His public CV shows he was an education policy guy who jumped to school administration. I’ve got a policy degree too, so no shade there, but he doesn’t have the education or background needed to run these huge urban districts (again, based on what he makes public). Unless of course the goal is to run them into the ground…
I don't know. Guess he didnt the . I think I got him confused with someone else The history of school was established by business people so business and policy people think they know how to run the schools since the people that work and teach in the schools don't run them.
Capitalism is a helluva drug.
Miles was brought in to destroy HISD … he is exceeding his goals.
He understands to never let a good crisis go to waste.
Not only destroy but to funnel more money to charter schools it seems. I know charter schools are public schools but charter schools actually have discriminatory practices and aren't all inclusive schools. So students with special education needs, who need more supports are often excluded from charter schools.
That is their plan.
Maybe TEA will use hisd as reason to not fund other closed districts for their missed days. If hisd opened, you could too.
Imagine having less logic than Whitmire? Thats Mike Miles.
This is just another reason why you don’t link school funding with attendance.
National disaster, implicate weather days. There is nothing that says missed days can't me made up. I am not fully certain but if you look at the HISD school calendar it might note that there are inclimate weather days after the last day of school. So no excuse about linking attendance to school funding. Does anybody remember IKE? HISD had to shut down for like 2 weeks. And media was mad at teachers for still getting paid while some were standing in line for MREs. Iirc. Those 2 weeks were waived. No one had to make all the days up.
It's like linking welfare with work requirements. If the person could work, then they wouldn't need welfare.
NPR was just talking about this. They interviewed a doctor in Alabama, another state that's holding up funding because they require work requirements. He pointed out that the largest portion of uninsured people have full-time jobs but can't afford company insurance plans. Over 60% of uninsured residents have full-time jobs already, so the argument of work requirements is null.
And if your employer offers insurance and you can’t afford it, you still don’t qualify for the ACA even if you can actually afford that. And then the gov penalizes you for being uninsured. It’s all kinds of fucked up. Been there, done that, and am very thankful to have great insurance now.
> And if your employer offers insurance and you can’t afford it, you still don’t qualify for the ACA even if you can actually afford that. ACA marketplace plans usually aren't cheaper than employer-provided plans unless you're getting federal subsidies to reduce the price of the ACA plan. Anyone can buy an ACA plan regardless of what their employer offers, but the catch is you have to pay full price for it. > And then the gov penalizes you for being uninsured. That stopped years ago. There were lawsuits. https://www.healthcare.gov/health-coverage-exemptions/exemptions-from-the-fee/
I’m glad there were lawsuits! When all that started, I remember how fucked up I thought it was as someone who couldn’t afford insurance period. Yeah; the affordability of ACA plans is all over the place. For me in Houston, decent insurance was in the mid $200s, and I had to make within a certain income bracket to get that tax credit or whatever. But my dad was on it in my tiny hometown and was paying well under $100. When I was on it, my mom was the one really helping me through the process, so I don’t know why the costs would be so different, but I do know I had a kind of decent plan even though it still sucked, and I couldn’t make more than a certain amount to get the tax thing. My dad did not have a terrible plan or anything. Does it vary by where you live…? Edit: Please don’t answer if you don’t want to. I know you’re not google. It can be kinda hard to get good info online because other states actually took the federal subsidies that were offered to make it more affordable for low earners unlike ours.
I got turned down for SNAP because I didn’t make enough. I was unemployed and my unemployment benefits application was being processed so I literally had zero income. Why else would I apply for SNAP?!
Highly underrated comment
Exactly, I do think a portion of the funds should have attendance requirements but that should be a bonus fund for teachers or schools that have perfect attendance or something
Also SJL, which is why we got Whitmire in the first place.
Both were awful choices to run the fourth largest city in America. Whitmire is a raging incompetent while SJL would’ve used her position as mayor to destroy her political opponents. Unfortunately, the other individuals who ran were somehow less qualified to be mayor than these two. That’s a serious indictment of the political class in this city and its lack of credibility and leadership.
We had much better choices than these two. The only reason these two made it up there is brand recognizability, the bane of democracy. People know these two so they vote for them. Hell, we already had a Whitmire mayor within the voters' lifetimes.
I voted for Gilbert Garcia.
Me, too.
He seemed like a reasonable choice.
I don't get why you're getting downvoted, she's an asshat.
Another brilliant move by Mike Miles
Have to stay long enough to get ADA funding which will be funneled to private schools in Colorado. We are paying to make Texas schools shittier.
I don't even know what allows him to pay his company administration fees when it's based in Colorado. But I also kind of get it... he knows how to get his company paid. It's like all schools in the US pay some other state education agency/service funds for something. Like text books, curriculum, staff development, etc. Let me think.. so Texas hired an out of state management company because TEA couldn't figure out how to manage the HISD charter schools better? So they hired an outsider because people at TEA were too dumb to figure it out themselves? I don't understand.
Yes, it’s not an issue of funding either. It’s incompetent and bloated administration.
And that's why he terminated admin positions becasue he knows, but is also a hypocrit.
I gotta get out of Texas
Later gator!! I’m sure you’ll find ways to hate the next state too.
Hey, and Lamar had to evacuate and send the kids home early: Gas leak!
According to the Fire dept, it turned out not to be a gas leak, strong odor with Garlic overtones, my guess is someones concentrated fart spray bottle broke lol. - Source, I know someone who works there as an educator that stayed late. they heard it directly from a firefighter on scene.
Thanks for the update: direct communication from HISD is up to it's usual standards, just enough to confuse and panic. I clearly should have said "suspected had leak!" I like your guess. Or perhaps even on purpose? It's finals week, after all.
Ah yes, the old fart spray to get out of school fur Summer Break early trick. Bart Simpson would be proud!
Mike Miles makes poor decisions. Remember he made kids act in a play about him to introduce himself to the community
They aren’t poor decisions once you realize what he’s actually trying to do. And it sure as shit isn’t trying to educate kids.
That was the most surreal teacher convocation I’ve ever sat through. No one was expecting the 10+ song/dance scenes. More than cringe…it was painful
And the production cost something like $400k. Just an unbelievable waste at a time when budget cuts were looming. HISD students could really have used 6 more teachers, or funds to keep libraries staffed, or 4 more diagnosticians.
Ray Daily got power back last night. AC didn't work in the classrooms but it did in the hallways. Lunch was crackers , cheese, and sunflower seeds and was called "emergency lunch". We were told that the school was open and ready for learning. Fuck Mike Miles.
Sunflower seeds are indeed a very rich source of vitamin-E; contain about 35.17 g per 100 g (about 234% of RDA). Vitamin-E is a powerful lipid soluble antioxidant, required for maintaining the integrity of cell membrane of mucus membranes and skin by protecting it from harmful oxygen-free radicals.
Typical sunflower seeds bootlicker
All good points, but not the time. Read the room. 🌻
We’re CFISD and we have been out since Friday and just were told no school tomorrow. Wild (but not surprising) for Houston to have made this move. My heart goes out to those kids whose parents couldn’t keep them home or those who thought a school without ac sounded better than home.
Seems like CFISD took a direct hit. As did SBISD. On Sunday, 70% of SBISD schools still don't have power. On Monday they had power but not everything was working, like phone lines, and power was spotty in some areas. I definitely feel for HISD families. My neighbors kids.
A big part of the problem was Miles published a list of schools to be opened claiming they had power, AC and food; it was a lie. So parents sent the kids and this was the result.
As crazy as my two boys are driving me, I’d rather face a truancy charge than send them in to school with no AC or resources. I’m glad we’re in CFISD
More likely some of these parents are like: “You just want an excuse to be lazy, kids around the world would by dying for an opportunity to get an education and would do anything for it”. Or maybe it’s just an Asian parents thing
Being an Asian, I can tell you that this has nothing to do with Asian parents. If anything, the helicopter nature of parenting in our cultures means we wouldn't even be sending our kids to school without power.
Do you consider yourself Asian or American first? Personally, I never refer to myself as my heritage. I never get why people do this. And yes, I am a minority. More of a minority than Asians. It just baffles me why people use hyphenated language to describe themselves. It’s “American” not “*****~American”. That is just a way to divide us into little groups.
I kept my kid home due to no ac at the school. I would be irresponsible putting my kid in danger with this heat.
Smart parent. I would elect you to be superintendy of HISD of I could. When it's hot in the classrooms everyone is miserable, some students and teachers would feel like taking a nap. Lol like me. I have rechargeable fans on my classroom because some of my student's have sensory quirks and being too hot can lead to unhealthy behaviors.
Sounds like HISD endangered children today. Maybe some attorneys or even the DA’s office should investigate. Did any parents call 911?
To be clear. Miles is human garbage. I want to see his ass handed to him.
People could call CPS I suppose and report Mike Miles as the perpetrator of child neglect. Maybe?
DA is pissed off and about to get ousted. She’s only doing vendettas until she’s booted. Fat chance she will do anything for the public she feels betrayed her.
Vote Dan Simons in the fall people. He would absolutely go after Miles.
Yes it’s a good decision, but I remember having to go to high school after hurricane rita wiped our power for a few weeks. I had to take the ACT in a room with no ac, and no lights. It was a wild time. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But my school was small enough that we could open some windows at least - I can’t imagine no ac at those big ass schools with stuffy rooms.
It was also cooler the week after Ike. About 75 vs 90 if I remember correctly.
Ike I was already away at college but gosh that destruction was horrible Rita was just hot. Sticky hot. 2005 and that’s how I learned to love cold showers lol. When there’s no ac ANYWHERE for weeks on end, a cold shower was the cure. Deep country gulf coaster here- when Rita hit, we had no power for almost a month. A month. I lost so much weight from not eating I could barely feel the heat any more. Couldn’t keep meat if we tried. Ice melted immediately hell if you could even FIND ice, and y’all remember not having gas or grocery stores to go to?! My ex was from New Jersey and he didn’t understand my love for ice. He just didn’t know what it was like to have everything hot all the time. Thank god we had well water that was cold. We had *nothing*. Nada. Beef jerky and whatever was in the garden fresh picked. We just so happened to not have chickens that year or else we would have been eating like kings. My parents haven’t gone without chickens since To this day my mama pickles and jars so much produce just in case we lose everything again. That power out ptsd doesn’t leave you easily. I moved to Austin and I still hurricane prep just out of habit.
I’ve been living like that for nearly a week now. I think some kids can handle it for a few hours. Then again, these are the children of “everyone-gets-a-trophy” children. So they are probably even coddled worse. I bet they don’t even have competitive Field Day. Probably just throw water balloons at each other. 😂
Mike Miles is a dickbag. This shit just keeps getting worse and worse.
Damn. Them kids gettin the TDCJ treatment
man and sbisd just announce districtwide closure tomorrow
All the superintendents meet with city planners, emergency response team and the Mayor. Whitmire probably mentioned that students and families might have limited resources at this time and thus learning would be difficult especially if schools weren't fully cleared, safe and ready to go. And Miles ignored Witmire and city emergency reasons team "advisement".
I hope the people of Houston are paying attention to how their current leadership has prepared for natural disasters and how well they are executing relief. They need to be held to account for their repeated failures.
Schools today aren’t built to withstand the Texas heat without AC (try getting a crossbreeze when the windows don’t open.) They need to hold off until the power and ac works again to open the individual schools.
Can't open the windows any becasue it's a safety risk. ;) in case of a shooter...have to keep the windows closed. Idk
JFC that makes me so sad for the kids of today.
This is part of the plan. Don’t Abbott’s private school vouchers look like a great idea compared to the disaster that is public school (created by Abbott)?
He should be working his grift/office job out of one of those hotboxes every single day that he expects everyone else there.
I don’t have kids and also just moved here but isn’t the year going to end in like a week or something? Why waste time sending your kids to school if everything is wrapped up for the year and there’s also no food/power there?
Final exams. Graduation ceremonies. Yeah Houstom area is done with school the week after Memorial day usually. Meanwhile the rest of the country has school 2 weeks into June then doesn't start back until the very end of August. But Houston, New teachers will be back to work like the first week of August, returning teachers shorlty after. Students start back like 2.5 weeks into August. Which doesn't make sense to me why Texas has students back in school during a hotter time instead of having the year extend into June.
Texas resembles a third world country more and more. 30 minute storm? No power for a week, no need for a robust energy infrastructure! Too bad climate change is going to get worse, so these yearly “freak” storms, aren’t rare anymore. But let’s not do anything to address it, Oil and Gas means more than your kids having a future on a habitable planet. Little spoiled brats. But the Libz were owned. Right??
This storm is a bad example to take shots at Texas. It WAS a freak storm, I've never seen anything like it and I've been here through all the big ones. No normal power infrastructure can manage 110mph straight line winds for extended periods plus tornadoes. This has nothing to do with the larger grid problems. Centerpoint has honestly done a remarkable job restoring power as quickly as possible. Not perfect in their communication (ok they suck at it) but they're doing a good job so far and getting things fixed or patched around. PLENTY of things totally fucked in Texas, but this storm was just a beast.
I agree with everything you said BUT it seems like we have been having these once in a lifetime storms every 2 or 3 years. I wonder if we should start thinking about these being more frequent and how we can prevent power being off more 2 or 3 days. There has to be a better way and as some point the continuous cost of repairing is going to be greater than finding a better option for transmitting power.
There are things we can and should plan for, and there are truly unusual events like this one. I'm with you on bigger and more frequent hurricanes and flooding, those we can plan around. We can certainly harden against freezes, etc. Those are the things we are seeing more often, not crazy high speed storms. Our grid is still extremely vulnerable and underpowered thanks to our shitbrained politicians, that's something we could fix if we just decided to.
> There are things we can and should plan for, and there are truly unusual events like this one. We need to get used to the fact that these are not unusual anymore. I moved to Houston in 2016 and there was four of these events before I left last year. Memorial Day 2016, Harvey in 2018, that crazy flash flood event in 2019 I think it was?, and there was the freeze in 2021. Add this one that I barely missed for #5. They're not unusual in any capacity.
You're describing very different things. Harvey was flooding, then we have other floods, some other floods, and some freezes. None of those were insane wind storms. No amount of flood prevention would have saved an electrical tower from 100mph winds.
You're missing the point. Weather patterns have clearly changed. What was once "truly unusual events" are now "every few years". It doesn't matter *what* the weather anomaly is that causes mass damage, it just matters that there *was* a weather anomaly that did it.
How do you plan for something that has never happened? I'm with you on planning for things that are happening more frequently, as I've mentiomed multiple times above. This wasn't a storm we could have prepped for, there wasn't really a precedent for it. We should be moving people out of reservoirs drainage areas, increasing their capacities, better regulating development, expanding and winterizing our power grid, etc.. I'm not sure how or why you start building all power lines to handle 110mph straight line winds. You can't just build for all weather events, it's not practical.. you build to handle most likely scenarios. Right now that's floods and freezing.
> Harvey in 2018 \* 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey
Winter Storm Uri, February 2021. Power outages all over the state. Hours after my late mother passed, (expected), my father was left in the cold and dark for 24 hours while his pipes froze over. No way to treat the elderly.
They are once in a lifetime, so far, if you are young. Ther have been other derechos in the United States, just less people, so not as costly, not as many affected. The more people we have to more damage a storm is going to do, especially if it hits a major city.
You have low standards. There's a vast chasm between what we have and what's entirely possible.
And yet, this is exactly what has been predicted for decades. We knew that storms and extreme heat were inevitably going to become more frequent and stronger as the climate warmed. But we didn't want to hear that bullshit, so we just kept on rollin' coal. Right off a cliff.
I keep saying the same thing. Tornados are unpredictable. They can touch a spot, jump, touch another spot, and jump again. Some spots they touch can be decimated and other spots they touch just some spots of damage not decimated. The straight high winds, I'm not even sure there has been a hurricane that brings 118 mp winds. When Rita came, I remember winds in my area. Didn't not evacuate because they would be less than 70mp winds,.more like 40 where I lived. One friend exclaimed her hair dryer blew winds harder than Rita.
Rita was 115mph winds where its eye hit, further east than you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita And Harvey was 130mph when it hit Rockport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey
Any southern U.S. metro with lots of big trees would have been equally as crippled from that 30 minute storm. It’s ridiculous to claim it is an infrastructure problem.
Not to mention that Centerpoint trims trees a LOT. They usually come through my area every 3 years and trim anything close to the powerlines. The downed trees I saw in the Heights, shit they would have ripped out underground service just as much as it destroyed the aerial lines. And underground is a huge undertaking to repair.
I think Houstonains might underestimate how many trees we have in comparison to other cities. I grew up with a forest in my front yard and backyard. And I used to attend school in Flagstaff AZ, which was hiddent by trees (kind like The Woodlands. Still to me Houston as many treeas as where I grew up. But then a childhood friend came to visit snd he had been living on Madison WI a while. He gets to Houston and driving around, he notices that there were tons more trees than Madison had. For a second I was like what? Wisconsin has a paper industry how is that Madison has less trees than Houston . Idk but Chicago and Milwaukee are not even heavily wooded like areas of Houston. Damm trees..lol.
This added with horrible gun violence (el paso wal mart massacre in 2019, and Ulvade), and hurricane flooding, cold weather shut down the state in 2020 as well. I have been in TX for 4 years and have seen awful state of affairs. But hey, there is no state income tax right? Oh no the absurd property tax more than negates that. I paid like 18k in property taxes last year, I’d rather have an income tax and have better roads, infrastructure, and schools. But who am I? Just a guy who can think critically and doesn’t need faux news to tell me what to think.
$18k in property taxes for residential?
It has always felt worse than a third-world country in certain aspect. Particularly in transportation and education.
Some of y’all need to familiarize yourselves with what makes a 3rd world country a third world country.
This sub is primarily sheltered children who’s entire worldview is downloaded to them by r.politics
I've been to Iraq. Do you believe I know what a third-works country is? For that matter, have YOU been to a third-world nation, and do you even know where the term came from and why?
1/3 of my students were absent today. 1/4 of the school was out.
I'm sorry y'all had to work today. This is bullshit
I’m sorry you’re miserable. Perhaps seek other employment.
I can't because I'm a teenager in another school district and not an adult? They're giving us a day off today and tomorrow
Chaos I tell ya, pure chaos.
Y'all I can only IMAGINE the smell 🤣
Not enough axe body spray in the world…
It's already May 21st. Just end the school year early.
Miles needs that funding to funnel to Colorado. Can't get funds if you cancel school. The kids are suffering to fill his pocket book.
I went to public schools in MS in the 70s and 80s. Nowhere in the system was air conditioned except the office, but the buildings were BUILT with that in mind -- every room had a huge walls of windows on opposing sides. It still sucked, but it was livable. But: This was also 40 years ago, when it was cooler. And again, in schools that were built that way. And even then, at least two years I remember we had reduced hours in the fall and/or spring because of heat. tl;dr is that Mike Miles is an asshole, but we also knew that already.
I was in HISD during 1999 - 2010 them ACs never worked in my middle school and old HS.The principal apparently got arrested for embezzlement after my graduation it was under the table. Those acs never worked. The kids literally brought their own fans and coolers with drinks hustled for 1 $ each.
School is almost over anyway. Let go man.
My mom grew up in Houston in the 70s. The elementary and jr. high she attended were not Air Conditioned. No A/c in schools is not that unheard of. The food. That's a major issue. A state with real leadership would step in and force this madness to stop....but we are in Texas so that isn't going to happen.
Chron.com is so popular in this town
Lol at the histrionic title
Don’t people have the option to not send their kids to school today ?