Pickup truck plows into Barton Middle
The schedule at Barton Middle School in the Hays school district is now expected to be impacted today following a weekend crash. Officials say a pickup truck plowed through the wall of the school. Employees over the weekend managed to secure that room and move the teacher into a nearby vacant room. The Department of Public Safety is investigating this crash. That driver, Luis Reyes, was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Education Austin voices concerns
The group representing Austin school district employees, Education Austin, is not happy that the district is moving ahead with plans to restart on-campus learning next week. It’s president, Ken Zarafis, says even with the 25% capacity limit, the on-campus students will still be learning via digital instruction.
“Coming back in the buildings will needlessly expose kids to catching COVID-19 and that’s a real concern for us,” says Zarafis.
Over the weekend, hundreds of parents, teachers and students taped letters to the Austin ISD headquarter windows, demanding a safer reopening plan.
Mental health check up via Zoom
Before the end of this semester, all the students in the Austin school district will get a one on one zoom meeting with a counselor checking on their mental health. AISD’s Shakira Hamilton-Adams tells CBS Austin this has been a tough year for kids.
“Collective grief, if you will, from being sheltered in place and then family members that may have experienced loss and then the loss of the connection with peers,” says Adams.
230 counselors across all grade levels will check in on the more than 80,000 students. And for those without WiFi, a phone call will be made instead of a zoom call.
COVID-19 update
There’s been some good movement in terms of Travis County’s COVID numbers over the weekend. As of today, 84 people are in the hospital, that’s five less than this time Friday. Active cases have fallen by 30 down to 692. The county has eclipsed the 28,000 mark for recoveries. Since March, 29,252 cases were found and 28,134 are recoveries.
Only a dozen of Williamson County’s 146 active cases of coronavirus involved someone in the hospital this morning. After seeing a bit of a jump back upward last week, the county’s positivity rate for new tests is now back below 5% again. 8,565 cases have been confirmed in total and 8,277 of them are recoveries.
Incoming flu season
Just last week, Travis County officials warned of a ‘twindemic’ in which COVID-19 and the flu ramp up simultaneously. And now some clinics are seeing huge demand for a flu shot. Dr. Adrian Dennington, with Austin Diagnostics, tells FOX 7 getting vaccinated this year is especially important.
“What’s the concern this year is what happens if somebody gets the flu plus COVID-19 at the same time, and that’s something we really don’t know yet. But it’s speculated that that could be a very dangerous combination,” says Dennginton.
He is holding out hope that efforts being taken to slow the spread of coronavirus, masking and social distancing, will also have a big impact on slowing the spread of influenza as well.
New economic development corporation
The Austin City Council may approve a new way to help the struggling music scene this week. The council is set to rule on the creation of a new economic development corporation this Thursday. Austin’s Mayor Steve Adler says this should help certain industries hurt by the pandemic.
”My hope is we end up with the fund that could be focusing on live music venues, a fund that could be focusing on child care, a fund that could be focusing on other really important businesses in the city,” says Adler.
And while the council’s working on that, Adler also hopes to see the state throw down more CARES Act funding to cities.
Tenant assistance fund
Speaking of that, struggling tenants have gotten some more help on the state level with Governor Abbott’s announcement that $171 million is being used to help renters. Here in Austin, this is welcome news. Council member Greg Casar says renter protections may be needed for a while.
“There’s a lot of people hurting right now that we have to do our best to take care of everyone. There are really limited resources,” says Casar.
The governor says $167 million CARES act funding goes directly toward rental assistance, while $4.2 million will go toward attorneys and legal staff.
Austin home sales
Realtors are seeing a jump and out-of-state movers coming to Austin. Heather Brown with RE/MAX tells KVUE that between June and September, 30% of buyers were from somewhere other than Texas.
“They may not have jobs here, but they can work from anywhere and Austin’s a great place to be and, in their eyes, way more affordable,” says Brown.
The Austin Board of Realtors has said it does expect this to be a record breaking year for home sales, which have skyrocketed amid the pandemic.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-9-28-20
