Yeaaaa VISD board. Time to get some emphasis back on the real mission of the school. If anyone looked at the District 30-4A Spring Academic Meet results - which the Advocate chose not to report week before last - they'd see that East and West combined finished a distant third behind Port Lavaca, and Gregory Portland. (Official results are on the UIL website for all to see.) That's in contests that test your students reading, speaking, writing, and 'rithmatic skills. Its time for some truth about the non-UIL/FFA competitions that have grown up in the past 25 years. All these so-called national cheer and dance contests actually only draw teams that can afford the trips from a small number of states. I once worked in a school where the dance team "won" a national competition where there were only teams from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas in attendance. There is no true "national" governing body for any of those activities. The same is generally true for TFL and NFL (Texas Forensic League and National Forensic League) speech and debate where their state and national contests have so many "junk" events added in that almost every kid wins a medal of some kind and points toward going to nationals at every meet - win, lose or draw. In contrast, UIL contests are true structured state level competition and FFA (the contest parts, not the stock show part) does have a truely national organization with rules and standards.
All I know is that when I moved to Victoria 6 years ago there were very few children in my neighborhood. For the last 9 months or so, when a house in the development sells, it seems to bring in HS/middle school aged kids. FWIW, I'm in the West zone.
Four points:
1) If you think VCAD is competent and not corrupt to the core, you don't own anything of value in the county or you're dumb enough to just pay what ever they ask every year without looking at your statements.
2)If you think someone who earns money by renting property doesn't work for the money, you (again) obviously own nothing of value to the community.
3)If you've ever wondered why other cities the size of Victoria and smaller have more businesses and more national brand businesses than Victoria (eg Bay City) the answer is the stupidity and corruption in the existing city government. No one with a brain would invest in a city with this kind of council and law enforcement - increasing gang activity and tagging with close to zero law enforcement response and a council hell bent on blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on unneeded sidewalks in a downtown where no one ever goes.
4) If you think getting monetary support from a large businessman disqualifies a candidate from public office then why did you vote for Obama with his $947,000 from Goldman Sachs?
I'd have likely got through Saturday with out voting but this two-bit Advocate hatchet job and the related comments has got me all fired up to vote and get as many as I can out to vote as well. Personally I'd vote for Wayne in addition to Williams if he were on the ballot.
Overall, the graffiti simply shows how lazy and inneffective city government and local law enforcement is and turns off any quality businees thinking of locating here.
Cities that are serious about gang interdiction have programs whereby law enforcment/government helps and requires property owners to remove or paint over the graffiti as soon as it appears.
New business, especially national level restaurants and retailers, isn't coming to a ghetto town that lets graffiti linger on the buildings and public places (parks).
BTW, I know from personal experience, that any corporation thinking of investing a town sends people in to drive around/look around long before they make contact with the local Chamber of Commerce/Economic Development council types.
jhnsn283, Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
You won't find the "law" in either the penal code or the education code. However, case law establishes that there is "no expectation of privacy" for a student in a public school. This applies to the contents of lockers, backpacks, vehicles they might park on school grounds, and their cell phones - which are considered legal contraband and actually subject to outright confiscation if the school officials chose to do so. There is a line past which school officials may not go but it is drawn at strip searches, video monitoring of restrooms, and actual search of students by drug dogs. School officials, under the guise of their duty to provide a "safe" environment for the students have rights of search and seizure far beyond the rights of police.
Speechfree,
If you had any actual knowledge of the world you would be aware that the census worker was probably killed after stumbling onto a marijuana farm.
In the area of Kentucky where he was killed, marijuana farming has been the number one source of revenue for the locals for several years - google it.
In my experience, liberal pot heads tend to be anti-government in a big way.
By your own reporting back in June, Finley was a finalist for the Beeville job vacated by Sosa.
By itself, that shows how little commitment he has to VISD.
Its 9:45 on Saturday morning. Other than this Friday Night Rewind amatuer video there are no HS football results or scores to be found in your on-line paper. You'd have more clicks and more readers if you'd do the basic job of a newspaper and REPORT the information people want to know.
Hmmmmm, lets see here.
$15 million for a road across vacant land to an airport no one actually uses.
Why would you want to do this? Who will benefit?
Not the traveling public - airport traffic jams don't occur that often and it will be a dead end that doesn't make it easier to get out-of-town toward Houston.
Oh! Silly me, I forgot about the owners of the former rice farms.
They will get to open the property for development of new tracts of cookie cutter houses just like the thousands of "housing units" on the other side of the loop.
Editor, grow some and tell us who owns the property the road will open for development and how much they stand to make selling it off a 1/4 acre at a time.
Then ask us to back a $15 million gift from the public treasury - city, county, state or federal.
Its all our tax dollars regardless of what agency its laundered through
Newsletter
Yeaaaa VISD board.
Time to get some emphasis back on the real mission of the school.
If anyone looked at the District 30-4A Spring Academic Meet results - which the Advocate chose not to report week before last - they'd see that East and West combined finished a distant third behind Port Lavaca, and Gregory Portland. (Official results are on the UIL website for all to see.)
That's in contests that test your students reading, speaking, writing, and 'rithmatic skills.
Its time for some truth about the non-UIL/FFA competitions that have grown up in the past 25 years.
All these so-called national cheer and dance contests actually only draw teams that can afford the trips from a small number of states.
I once worked in a school where the dance team "won" a national competition where there were only teams from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas in attendance.
There is no true "national" governing body for any of those activities.
The same is generally true for TFL and NFL (Texas Forensic League and National Forensic League) speech and debate where their state and national contests have so many "junk" events added in that almost every kid wins a medal of some kind and points toward going to nationals at every meet - win, lose or draw.
In contrast, UIL contests are true structured state level competition and FFA (the contest parts, not the stock show part) does have a truely national organization with rules and standards.
All I know is that when I moved to Victoria 6 years ago there were very few children in my neighborhood.
For the last 9 months or so, when a house in the development sells, it seems to bring in HS/middle school aged kids.
FWIW, I'm in the West zone.
Four points:
1) If you think VCAD is competent and not corrupt to the core, you don't own anything of value in the county or you're dumb enough to just pay what ever they ask every year without looking at your statements.
2)If you think someone who earns money by renting property doesn't work for the money, you (again) obviously own nothing of value to the community.
3)If you've ever wondered why other cities the size of Victoria and smaller have more businesses and more national brand businesses than Victoria (eg Bay City) the answer is the stupidity and corruption in the existing city government.
No one with a brain would invest in a city with this kind of council and law enforcement - increasing gang activity and tagging with close to zero law enforcement response and a council hell bent on blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on unneeded sidewalks in a downtown where no one ever goes.
4) If you think getting monetary support from a large businessman disqualifies a candidate from public office then why did you vote for Obama with his $947,000 from Goldman Sachs?
I'd have likely got through Saturday with out voting but this two-bit Advocate hatchet job and the related comments has got me all fired up to vote and get as many as I can out to vote as well. Personally I'd vote for Wayne in addition to Williams if he were on the ballot.
Overall, the graffiti simply shows how lazy and inneffective city government and local law enforcement is and turns off any quality businees thinking of locating here.
Cities that are serious about gang interdiction have programs whereby law enforcment/government helps and requires property owners to remove or paint over the graffiti as soon as it appears.
New business, especially national level restaurants and retailers, isn't coming to a ghetto town that lets graffiti linger on the buildings and public places (parks).
BTW, I know from personal experience, that any corporation thinking of investing a town sends people in to drive around/look around long before they make contact with the local Chamber of Commerce/Economic Development council types.
jhnsn283,
Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
You won't find the "law" in either the penal code or the education code. However, case law establishes that there is "no expectation of privacy" for a student in a public school.
This applies to the contents of lockers, backpacks, vehicles they might park on school grounds, and their cell phones - which are considered legal contraband and actually subject to outright confiscation if the school officials chose to do so.
There is a line past which school officials may not go but it is drawn at strip searches, video monitoring of restrooms, and actual search of students by drug dogs.
School officials, under the guise of their duty to provide a "safe" environment for the students have rights of search and seizure far beyond the rights of police.
Speechfree,
If you had any actual knowledge of the world you would be aware that the census worker was probably killed after stumbling onto a marijuana farm.
In the area of Kentucky where he was killed, marijuana farming has been the number one source of revenue for the locals for several years - google it.
In my experience, liberal pot heads tend to be anti-government in a big way.
By your own reporting back in June, Finley was a finalist for the Beeville job vacated by Sosa.
By itself, that shows how little commitment he has to VISD.
Its 9:45 on Saturday morning.
Other than this Friday Night Rewind amatuer video there are no HS football results or scores to be found in your on-line paper.
You'd have more clicks and more readers if you'd do the basic job of a newspaper and REPORT the information people want to know.
Hmmmmm, lets see here.
$15 million for a road across vacant land to an airport no one actually uses.
Why would you want to do this? Who will benefit?
Not the traveling public - airport traffic jams don't occur that often and it will be a dead end that doesn't make it easier to get out-of-town toward Houston.
Oh! Silly me, I forgot about the owners of the former rice farms.
They will get to open the property for development of new tracts of cookie cutter houses just like the thousands of "housing units" on the other side of the loop.
Editor, grow some and tell us who owns the property the road will open for development and how much they stand to make selling it off a 1/4 acre at a time.
Then ask us to back a $15 million gift from the public treasury - city, county, state or federal.
Its all our tax dollars regardless of what agency its laundered through