County Judge Clay Jenkins issued a written statement saying in part: “The improving numbers, while early, are an indication that residents are renewing their strength and engaging in shared sacrifice and patriotism to keep our community and our country strong until such time as the vaccine can be widely distributed and have its effect.”
Dallas County recently announced it is counting only positive antigen tests – also known as rapid tests – as probable cases. In other notifications of results, antibody and “household” results were included.
1675 New COVID19
November Dallas County hit 1500 daily cases. These rising cases are also contributing to the nearly 1600 in Dallas Independent School District. In early November, that number was less than 800.
The rising numbers do not appear to be stopping multiple public events where attendees forgo masks though meaning numbers will continue to rise.
An alleged Dallas serial killer arrested in Denton is linked to a shooting there. The Dallas police department announced they had arrested possible serial killer in connection to shootings in Dallas, Celina, Frisco, Prosper, and Denton.
Dallas Serial Killer Arrested Is Jeremy Harris
Harris, who police have described as an alleged “serial killer”, is accused of four murders in North Texas. The include the death of Southern Methodist University (SMU) student Jaden Urrea.
Jeremy Harris, who is 31, is also linked to at least four deaths — three in Dallas and one in Celina — after his arrest earlier this week. He was taken into custody after police found a victim, 60-year-old Blair Carter, dead inside a burning home in Celina on Wednesday.
Now, Harris has been charged with three other murders in Dallas, which police described as random killings.
Harris is being held in the Collin County Jail, and his bail is set at $3 million with four murder charges pending.
Harris may be linked to the shooting of two parents picking up their child earlier this week.
Two parents were shot Sunday night – victims of another reckless gun crime after an accident in 5900 block of Forest Lane in North Dallas. They were on their way to pick up their two year old child from a childcare provider per Dallas Police.
The parents are a 32-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman. They got into a car accident at around 9 p.m. near the Dallas North Tollway. The couple was on the way to their childcare provider.
The driver of the second vehicle, a 20-year-old man, shot the couple, police said. He remains at-large.
Two Parents Shot Today – Violent Crime, Murder Well Up Over 2019
There were 219 homicides in Dallas in all of 2019. The Dallas Police Department dashboard currently lists 233 as of November 16, 2020 with 45 days left in November.
Earlier this year the Dallas City Council voted to defund Dallas Police Department’s overtime budget removing officers from the street and reprogramming those dollars into bike lanes and solar power systems.
Additionally, Dallas Police officers have been openly attacked and Community Police Oversight Board appointees have taken to vigilantism.
Two Dallas MAGA supporters attack an unarmed woman on Ervay Street in Dallas per video from this weekend. They are claiming she threw eggs at them during a Trump Train Parade.
The suspects in this case operate out of Pantego, Texas, a small city adjacent to Arlington, Texas. They are Trevor Turnbow and Chris Covington.
Turnbow turned to social media to say he would not be firing himself after calls were made to Turnbow Construction.
Dallas Police Department has not responded to a request for comment as of this post.
Dallas MAGA Supporters Attack – Again
Dallas has had multiple incidents recently including a Nazi swastika painted on a city parking garage. This summer a Boogaloo Boy posted on Faxcebook his intent to “hunt antifa.” He was later arrested for illegally selling steroids by federal officials.
Virtual only instruction may be returning to Dallas ISD after the Thanksgiving Break per two sources in Dallas ISD administration meaning another major change to the Dallas ISD calendar.
Dallas ISD has shut down Caillet Elementary, a 586-student campus located in Northwest Dallas, this week over concerns about the coronavirus spreading among the school’s staff and students.
Virtual only instruction, or online classes, were mandated after five positive cases among staff and students within the span of a week.
The campus is the second school in Dallas ISD to be temporarily closed because of COVID19 concerns. Hotchkiss Elemenyary was closed in mid-October for three days, allowing school administrators and central staff to track down those who might have been in contact with positive cases, and perform a deep clean of the school.
Caillet will be closed until Nov. 17 when in-person instruction is expected to resume. On Nov. 16, rapid COVID tests will be provided to teachers and staff in the morning, and students in the afternoon.
According to the DISD’s tracker, there have been close to 900 cases of COVID19 among staff, teachers and students since the district started reporting data October 5, 2020. Almost a third of those cases have happened since the start of November, reflecting a larger trend of cases in Dallas County and Texas.
The state is closing in on one million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and Dallas County hit a single-day record on Tuesday, with 1,401 cases.
Jennifer Finley, the district’s director of health services, said that county health officials have indicated that there’s likely a wave of cases on the way.
With the holiday season — and flu season — right around the corner, and a general level of “COVID fatigue” in the community, Finley said she could potentially see a rise in cases within the school system.
COVID response teams have been created on each campus, and the district has been “trying to ramp up” its staff for contact tracing, Finley said, “as to not exceed our bandwidth” if cases at schools do start to climb.
At the beginning of the month, Dallas County officials reported 1500 new cases per day. Dallas County has clearly returned as a hot zone for infection rate well beyond our July numbers.
What Does A Return To Virtual Only Instruction Mean?
Dallas ISD’s Board of Trustees had already planned to take up lowering educational goals due to COVID19 at their Thursday, November 19 Board of Trustees meeting. Now it appears they will also consider a return to virtual only instruction predicting lowered standards will become the norm.
It is not clear if teachers whose pay is based on student success will enjoy this same standard on goal changes with a move back to virtual only instruction.
Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center is providing Thanksgiving meals for 400 in South Dallas at the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center. This will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
After a successful kick off last month, the Center Table Fall Harvest series – presented by The Mark Cuban Foundation, The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation, The Heroes Foundation and North Texas Food Bank – will continue Thursday, November 19, from 9 am-noon at the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center. The center is located at 1800 Bonnie View Road, Dallas, TX 75216.
With many families facing tough times, the drive-up event will offer free food boxes for 400 families. The event is open to people who reside in the surrounding neighborhoods of the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center including Cedar Crest, south Oak Cliff, southern Dallas County and Joppa.
Food boxes are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis to 400 families. Pre-registration is not required. Volunteers and staff from the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center will wear masks and gloves and will practice social distancing.
In addition, as part of the Center Table Fall Harvest efforts, free chef-prepared meals for four will be delivered to senior citizens and grandparents in the Center’s surrounding neighborhoods in advance of Thanksgiving week (November 21-23). Made by The Bearded Chef and Chef Joslyn of Sankofa, the meal packs include a turkey, two sides, dessert and tea. Also, free meal packs for homeless high school and college students will be delivered to schools or available for pick up.
“The true heroes are all of our neighbors who have been impacted by the pandemic. Many of them are and have been essential workers. They are hardworking women and men who have and continue to make significant sacrifices and contributions to our city and society. And to that end, we owe them a debt of gratitude. This is one way to express our gratitude,” said Trina Terrell-Andrews, CEO of the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center. “While we all are experiencing a challenging season, we must do all we can to support one another.”
Center Table Fall Harvest will continue in December (date forthcoming).
Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center
The Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center is a multi-purpose facility for neighborhood youth and families providing sports and leadership programs.
Our Calling and the homeless were left out in the cold when Our Calling, located just outside Downtown Dallas, was not included when Dallas City Council approved an exception for churches to operate as emergency homeless shelters during extreme cold.
City Council and staff has worked for years on a policy that would create a legal way for churches to open their doors to the homeless on freezing nights. Staff from Our Calling said a change made in the final hour will now leave 270 people out in the cold.
“I think what they are communicating is they don’t care about minorities that are poor, and they sure don’t want them Downtown, and now they don’t even want them a half mile away from Downtown,” said Pastor Wayne Walker, with Our Calling, which is a discipleship ministry to the unsheltered homeless.
Two years ago, the city gave Pastor Wayne Walker a citation for sheltering the homeless during a freezing night.
Our Calling is located immediately outside Downtown, near The Cedars, a community experiencing economic revitalization, bringing calls of racism and privilege.
Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Adam Medrano, Adam Bazaldua, and Omar Narvaez – the Woke Caucus as some refer to them – seemed to justify limiting the homeless at Our Calling.
“We are listening to our constituents, we have enough shelter Downtown. We do. This was supposed to spread it out throughout the city,” said Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Adam Medrano.
This same constituency pushed defunding the police earlier in the year and re-programming funds away from the police department. Their previous stances seem more in favor of bike lanes than actually social services for those in need.
Earlier this year these same members of City Council were prepared to push through $1.9M in CARES Act funding for the Lorenzo Hotel until D12 City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn called attention to the issue.
Additionally, these more challenged socioeconomic areas of Dallas received a smaller percentage of the city rental assistance program than their more wealthy neighbors.
Our Calling
Our Calling is on the frontline of the battle to cure homelessness. They’re on the streets every day meeting the unsheltered homeless of Dallas County, learning their stories, identifying their needs, and theysay connecting their hearts to Christ. We have formed lasting connections with thousands of individuals who we are proud to be able to include among our friends.
Dallas ISD failing to educate black and brown students is the headline in new reports showing students can not read on grade level. At the upcoming Dallas ISD Board of Trustees meeting staff plans to ask trustees to lower goal standards for students in the district.
Administrators recommended that trustees reduce goals to be “more realistic” for the current academic year after new testing data showed significant drops.
Tests results from Dallas ISD’s Measurement of Academic Progress, or MAP, test, have had all the hallmarks of a district failing its students.
Current goals for the 2020-2021 school year expected four out of every nine third grade students would meet standards for third grade math. That is less than fifty percent of third graders would meet third grade math standards.
Currently just over ten percent of third graders could meet standards for third grade math. The staff requested goal is to double that number by end of year to roughly one in four students meeting minimum math standards.
On the reading side, the benchmark was for 42% of third grade students to be able to read at level. Only one third of students are able to hit this goal currently.
Dallas ISD Administration wants to revise both of these goal numbers down while simultaneously talking about the need for an educated workforce to attact international companies ot bring jobs to Dallas.
Additionally, it is unclear what the real assessment is as several students never returned to campus so it is unclear what the level would be if full attendance had been achieved.
Students in Dallas ISD Failing…Again
The board also discussed goals for Superintendent Michael Hinojosa at Thursday’s board briefing. Part of the superintendent’s contract allows trustees to set seven performance incentive goals, with a potential reward of $20,000 for meeting each goal.
Since Hinojosa rejoined the district as its leader in 2015, he has not achieved his incentive goals, Micciche said. The board has until Nov. 30 to set these incentives, but Hinojosa said he’d be willing to waive that timeline if trustees wanted more time to deliberate on the matter.
The November COVID19 numbers continue to be a headache for both local politicians, businesses, and residents as cases are rising quicker than expected. On Tuesday Dallas County health officials reported 1400 more COVID19 cases — all presumed new and the highest single-day total of the pandemic.
In July, Dallas was considered a “hot zone” because we were averaging more than two hundred cases per day. Dallas is now running between five and seven times that number. This may cause local hospitals to move to a surge capacity model.
Currently, the county is running out of available hospital beds. Per county data, the inventory of adult ICU beds was 52 as of Tuesday — one of its lowest points since the virus’s peak in July. The figure does not include beds that hospitals can add if needed. Each hospital has its own surge plan, which could include doubling up beds in rooms and converting surgical centers, but COVID19 is not the only user of bed space.
Every fall and winter elderly patients suffering from influenza use ICU space. Additionally, victims of car wrecks, heart attacks, and strokes all need these beds also.
“We are 7-10 days away from reaching our highest COVID hospitalization census to date if we do not immediately renew our resolve and change our behaviors,” County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a written statement.
According to Jenkins’ chief of staff, Lauren Trimble, Dallas County epidemiologists have recently spent less time sorting through which cases came from the state’s reporting system, since there have been so few older or backlogged cases.
Health officials use hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and emergency room visits as COVID19 tracking metrics to evaluate impact in Dallas. In the 24-hour period that ended Monday, 479 COVID-19 patients were in acute care in hospitals in the county. During the same period, 431 ER visits were for symptoms of the disease.
Dallas ISD November COVID19 Numbers
The cases in Dallas ISD are no better.
Between the first day back, October 5, 2020, and November 9, 2020, Dallas ISD is reporting an eighteen fold increase in COVID19 cases. This rise is occuring in all areas: central staff, school staff, and students. These numbers seem to match Dallas County at large which recently reported 1500 cases in a single day.
“We Did It” was the message of the Dallas County Democratic Party, but local election results are not as clear. The Dallas party seems to be claiming wins that do not exist.
The winning message came out just hours after US House Candidate Candace Valenzuela conceded defeat in her run for Congress (TX24) and local results were not much better.
As noted last week, it took hours for the circular firing squad to begin as to why Joanna Cattanach and Brandy Chambers won their guaranteed races. Additionally, while Texas Democrats said they would be putting Texas in play for Joe Biden, one of their designates for the Electoral College is former tax fraud felon Terri Hodge.
“We Did It” In TX24 Doesn’t Get Across Finish Line
After days of tallying votes across three counties, Democrat Candace Valenzuela has conceded the race for Texas’ 24th Congressional District.
In a concession speech posted on YouTube, Valenzuela said she is ending her campaign “after a thorough count of the votes.” She thanked supporters for helping to build momentum around her campaign, which came close to flipping this historically red district.
“Most importantly, we have forced the gatekeepers of the political process to reimagine who belongs at the table,” Valenzuela said.
