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Neo-Nazi Flyers Attacking Black Lives Matter Appear at Texas Homes Just Days after Election Declared White supremacist flyers which included swastikas appeared outside the homes of people in Texas one day after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election over Donald Trump.
The racist notes were left at numerous homes in Van, Texas a and attacked the Black Lives Matter movement. “The entire country is sick of your ****,” the flyer reads. “Sick of the
lawlessness, sick of the riots, sick of the threats and demands. The only thing you’ve managed to accomplish in all of this is to live up to the ghetto stereotypes. Congratulations.” The flyer also dipicted the Nazi Flag and was spread over many neighborhoods, The flyer was also mentioned on several Social media platforms including Facebook. The flyers, which state they are from a “pro white org fighting for the white race” called the 14First. This is the same group that did a similar thing in neighborhoods in San Antonio. According to a Van Police department spokesman said, the issue has been referred to the Federal Bureau of Investrigation. As of press time Van Police would not divulge how many flyers have been recovered. Lone Star Shopper has contacted Dallas FBI for more comment.
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Many Texas families say remote learning isn’t working and they want it fixed had the authority to keep By Aliyya Swaby
November 20, 2020
Almost midway through the school year, it has become increasingly clear that virtual learning is failing a sizable number of Texas public school students whose parents decided to keep them home as COVID-19 grips the state. The disturbing number of students posting failing grades while trying to learn in front of computer screens has also brought into sharper focus the failure of state education and political leaders to prepare for an academic year they knew would be like no other. Over the last month, The Texas Tribune has interviewed more than 30 educators, students, parents and experts across the state about their experiences with remote learning. Parents and students describe a system in which kids are failing, not necessarily because they don’t understand the material, but because the process of teaching them is so broken that it’s difficult to succeed. Teachers say they are scrambling to retool education, creating new videos and online lessons from scratch and struggling with new demands and limited time. They blame state leaders for squandering valuable months over the summer by delaying key decisions, frequently reversing course and sending conflicting messages to educators on the ground. Instead of immediately giving local school officials the guidelines and tools needed to prepare, state leaders waffled on policies that school communities needed to make their decisions. They challenged local health officials over who
classrooms closed in areas with high coronavirus infection rates, feeding uncertainty about when and where students would return to classrooms. By the time the fog cleared, school officials had mere weeks to roll out plans for the fall semester, including training teachers, students and parents on new technology; designing ways to keep track of students falling through the cracks; and upholding some semblance of academic rigor. The Texas Education Agency indicated it has done the best it could in limited time, working throughout the pandemic to continue providing resources for districts thinking about remote, hybrid and in-person instruction. Students are now paying the price, and the highest is being exacted from students Texas already struggled to educate. According to a Texas Tribune analysis, school districts with mostly Black, Hispanic and low-income students have higher shares of students learning from home. And state data showed those students were less likely to be engaged in online learning in the spring, when all schools were online. “There’s a level of fatigue with this that, given the way that the distance curriculum is being structured, is just wearing on kids and families in a way that’s really untenable, especially in those communities that were already disadvantaged before this,” said Benjamin Cottingham, who has studied the quality of remote learning in California and put out recommendations on how districts can im-
prove. A squandered summer Confusion and uncertainty have marked Texas’ response to the pandemic across all fronts. Constantly changing, confusing top-down guidance from Gov. Greg Abbott this spring eventually led to surges in the number of Texans hospitalized and dead from COVID-19. As the Trump administration aggressively pushed schools to reopen their doors — seeing it as the key to invigorate a slumping economy — Abbott and Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath decided all Texas schools would be required to open their doors to all students who wanted to return in person, but must also be prepared to teach remotely those who did not want to return. But guidelines on how to do both those jobs effectively and safely were delayed for weeks this summer as Abbott reconsidered his handsoff approach to the pandemic. By late June, the TEA had promised it would keep state funds flowing to districts for the students who attended remotely, and it began offering districts a little more flexibility as it became clear the pandemic was getting worse. In July and August, state leaders publicly bickered with local health authorities who wanted to keep classrooms closed during COVID-19 spikes, eventually taking away some of their authority to make those decisions. As state leaders put out conflicting mandates, school superintendents attempted to prepare for the fall ahead. They repeatedly surveyed families, trying to figure out how to cater to two groups of students, some coming to school in person and others staying home.