¶ Today's Headlines
The Austin Independent School District is being investigated again by the Texas Education Agency. This time the investigation is focused on the district celebration last month of Pride Week. We're gonna have more about that story and the Attorney General is a powerful role. Governors, senators, and even vice presidents got their start as AG. Is Ken Paxton next? That's coming up on today's show. The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Plus, have you ever wanted a handy one-stop guide to everything Austin? Well, lucky for you, we already have that here at KUT, and we're bringing you even more ways to know about the city so many of us call home, the latest on the field guide to Austin, and an update on Austin's outlet that survived. Got a lot coming up for you today. That's up next on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, you are listening to Austin Signal. It is the final Monday of the month, April 27th. I'm your host, Jerry Kekano.
Thank you for kicking off the week here with community-powered public radio.
¶ AISD Pride Week under investigation
This is KUT News. State officials announced last week an investigation of Austin ISD over the district celebration of Pride Week. It follows a complaint from conservative state Board of Education member Brandon Hall from the Fort Worth area. Greta Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez is here to tell us more. She is KUT's education reporter. Good afternoon, Greta. Hi Jerry! So first, can you tell us a bit about Austin ISD's Pride Week celebrations and what actually took place?
Yeah, so this is an annual celebration, and this year was from March 23rd to March 27th, and the theme was be you-tiful. Beautiful. Be you-Tiful. Okay, okay. So the district sent guidelines to teachers and families in advance, and all activities were to happen outside instructional time. So either before or after school or during lunch even, and they were all voluntary, all activities were voluntary. Okay. And so each day had a different
activity. So Monday students brought photos of their families to feel proud of themselves. Tuesday there were walkie socks to show that they were unique. And you know, there were other activities, another day they were encouraged to sit with somebody else at lunch to see the diversity of schools. And on Friday, each grade level were a different
color. On previous years, the district had provided a suggested curriculum and distributed even like they had even distributed swag but this year they didn't and under guidelines officials said that this year would look different due to a quote ever-changing environment. Okay, so it sounds like there are lots of activities going on, but it maybe had been pared down a little bit from years past a little.
The investigation appears to have been opened because of a complaint from a member of the State Board of Education. Can you tell us more about that, and what is he alleging? Yeah, so in early March State Board of Education member Brandon Hall, who represents the Fort Worth area, not Austin, said he had concerns about AISD breaking the law and, quote, indoctrinating students by celebrating Pride Week.
He went as far as to say that AISC needed to be defunded and that Superintendent Matias Segura needed to have to be criminally investigated. Here he is talking about AIST with the conservative nonprofit Texas Values that was back in March. Instead of focusing on education, they're focusing on gender identity and celebrating pride and things like that. My constituents are very concerned about that. I think people across the state are. We don't stop it in Austin ISD.
We're going to see a lot more of this across the state. So we need to make a statement and set an example. We will not put up with you breaking the law. Sahal is saying that AISD is now complying with Senate Bill 12, it was passed last year, and the law prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion duties that reference gender or sexual orientation in K-12. Okay, so we've heard from Hall. What have you heard from AISD so far? So we reached out to the district.
And while they confirmed that the Texas, Texas education agency had launched an investigation in March, they didn't comment on the matter, but I have to add, Jerry, this is not the first time the district has come under scrutiny this year, and it is also not the last, but, I will back up. I will start from the beginning, or at least the beginning of the year. In February, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said he had launched an investigation after AIU students participated in walkouts.
You might remember this, a high school student, mainly high school students in Austin, walked out earlier this year to protest ICE law enforcement. Then in March, Paxton also said that he had notified the district against a complaint regarding SB 8, which is better known as the bathroom bill. It forbids students from going into bathrooms that are not consistent with the sex assigned at birth.
And I said, it is not the last time because today Paxton announced that he's following up on that previous investigation and he alleges that a student went into a bathroom they shouldn't have had at the AISD Performing Arts Center. So today Ken Paxton is saying that he sent out another letter to the district asking for documents or documentation showing that the district is enforcing rules consistently across the district.
He also said that he will continue holding AISD accountable and ensuring that AISd is complying with the law. But Jerry, we have not heard what has come out of these investigations, so we will keep an eye out. Yes, yes, we will definitely keep an eye out. This is just one thing that Austin ISD is dealing with at the moment. You were at last week's school board meeting, and we have about a minute left. What stood out to you from that meeting? Yeah, so there were a couple of things, Jerry.
First is that Superintendent Matias Segura announced that there wouldn't be any more school closures, but he did say that the district will move on with changing boundaries and that this will happen in the fall. The district will hold community meetings. They have already posted the dates on their website, but they haven't posted the places. But if people want to keep up with the dates, they can check it out. It's also divided by...
Zones, district zones, so people can go to the closest meeting that, you know, that is best for them. They also talked about budget cuts and we will keep an eye on that because the district has a 181 million dollar budget deficit and they will be making cuts and these cuts will potentially or very likely impact campuses and thus students. And so we will working on it during May. And then it's expected to be approved in June and it starts in July.
Alright, that is Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vazquez, KUT's education reporter, we'll have a link to her latest in today's show notes. Greta, thank you. Thank you, Jerry. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and former Vice President Kamala Harris have something in common. They both served as their state's attorney general. I'm sure they have other things in common, too.
KERA's Caroline Love reports their time in that role helped launch their national political careers, and Texas AG Ken Paxton hopes that he is next.
¶ How AG can be a kingmaker role
Harris and Abbott aren't the only notable former attorneys general who moved up into higher office. U.S. Senator John Cornyn from Texas was also AG. So was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his predecessor, Elliot Spitzer. Paxton has been Texas Attorney General for over a decade. Now he's challenging Cornynn in the Republican primary runoff election. A lot of Texas voters have already checked the box next to Paxton's name on their it more than once.
Attorney General is a statewide office, just like governor or senator. Thomas Gray says running for AG is good practice for campaigning for higher office. He's a political science professor at UT Dallas. It's like the backup quarterback has already played a bunch of games against the first string and has shown he can do it. The AG role can be a good place to build a political profile. AGs have flexibility to be more creative and less reactive than a governor.
Sometimes something happens in the state and the governor has to respond, like a natural disaster or a mass shooting. An AG might file a lawsuit or launch an investigation related to such an event, but they usually don't have to. Jashua Blank from the Texas Politics Project says AGs can spend more time on issues that are important to their political agenda. They really don't have a lot of limits on their ability to choose the issues on which they want to align themselves.
And that's a really powerful asset. There's no other office in state government like that. Many of Paxton's lawsuits focus on national Republican priorities and issues that are important to President Donald Trump. He filed multiple lawsuits on abortion access and gender-affirming care for minors, and he challenged the 2020 election results. Focusing on those issues is strategic. If done right, you can sort of tick the boxes of the constituencies that you will need in
future. That's Rebecca Dean. She's a political science professor at UT Arlington. Texas has become a leader for championing often divisive conservative causes at the national level with Paxton as AG. And he hasn't had to do much compromising as the AG of a red state. That's different from legislative seats, like a U.S. Senate seat. Cornyn has been in office for more than two decades. He sometimes has had to work with Senate Democrats to get things done.
Paxton argues that makes him the more conservative candidate. Gray says Paxton's campaign messaging on Cornyn's record goes something like this. Senator Cornyn compromises. Senator Corbyn gives in to liberal demands. And what A.G. Paxton has done is basically never give in to that compromise. Paxton is leveraging his record as attorney general in his Senate campaign.
The candidates who want to succeed Paxton as AG could wield the office for their own political agenda someday, but first they need to get elected. Blank says that can be challenging. Most candidates that they have not run statewide find themselves bewildered by the amount of ground they have to cover, the amount money they have raised to be able to put up ads. Whoever Texans choose as their next AG will head a powerful office with national political influence.
And they'll have the opportunity to wield that power to potentially follow a path to a higher office like others before them. That was KERA's Caroline Love. We are about to take a break here on Austin Signal, but before we go, a quick update on a story that we shared with you last week here on the show. Archery club students from Highland Park Elementary and Austin, the ones who don't barf, well they won big over the weekend at the US Western Nationals in Salt Lake City.
The team scored a first place win and two students, Madeline and John Fox, were named individual champions. That's Highland Park's first ever individual champions at the national tournament. The school will celebrate with the trophy walk on May 10th. And in case you missed that story and you don't know what I'm talking about about the barfing thing, we have more at kut.org slash signal. We have more show after this break. Thanks for being with us. This is Austin Signal.
This is Austin Signal, welcome back. Last week we told you about how the nest of Athena, the great horned owl who has for years nested at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, had failed. One of her outlets sadly died, another was rescued. That owl is currently being rehabilitated at Austin Wildlife Rescue. Experts are still trying to figure out what exactly went wrong in this situation, but some clues are emerging. Luz Moreno Lozano is here.
She has been following this story and she's got the latest for us. Howdy, Luz. Hey, Jerry. So first off, I'm definitely worried about that little owlet. How are they doing? What's the status there? Yeah, you know, I went to visit him last week. He, I think he's gonna be okay.
¶ What happened to Athena's mate?
They have really high hopes for him. When I saw him, it was kind of late. He'd already eaten dinner. So he was very cozy in his little incubator. So yeah, I thinks he's going to be okay, he's doing well. Okay. He's gonna, he's doing well. Okay, that's good to hear. In case you haven't seen, we have some video online at KUT, or on our Instagram rather. It's the cutest little thing you've ever seen. Okay, so let's talk. Let's go back to Athena and talk about her nest.
You've been speaking with experts. What do they have to say about the factors that may have caused this failure? Yeah, you know, I talked with the Cornell people who are basically running the the the camera were running the camera and they had a lot of speculation. But yeah, Ben kind of talk with us about it and you can hear him a little bit more and more about this.
If for some reason he had abandoned or disappeared for some reason, like an injury, that could be one determining factor as to why there was a lower food supply because the male is generally tasked with providing most of the food, especially during the early window of the nestling period. Yeah, so okay, so we're learning a little bit more obviously, but you know, there's been a lot of speculation like was he injured? Did he abandon the nest? Was something happening?
You know, we've had a lot of rain lately, maybe that was a contributing factor. But yeah, it does sound like if something did happen to him, and since he is the main food provider that that could be a factor. Okay, excuse me, there were also reports of an injured male owl found near the wildlife center. Do we know if that was Athena's partner or what happened to that owl in the first place? Yeah, you know, it's hard to say if it was her mate. They're not tagged.
And so without, you know knowing that, and you know all their markings are all very similar. So it's hard to see if it's him. You know, and they're not sure what happened. You know this woman who I talked to on Friday basically was like her name is Suzanne and she was like, I was just walking by from my home office and saw this thing on my porch and I was like confused at first and then I realized it was an owl and he was there for and so I had to... You know, do something to help them.
But yeah, she, you know she explains that a little more for us and you can hear a little bit more about that. I called 311 and they sent someone out to pick it up later that evening and I had hoped what I understood was when they picked it up that it was going to go to the Austin Wildlife Rehab Center in Elgin and that's what I was told that they were going to do after they picked up either that night or the next morning.
So unfortunately, if you read my story already, you know that they did pick them up and they took them back to the Austin Animal Center because it was so late in the evening. So that's normal protocol. They'll take them back and then in the morning, they'll deliver the owl, or in this case it was an owl, but the animal to the rehab center. Well, they got back that morning and the owl unfortunately had died.
Um, I talked with the Austin animal center on Friday and she told me that his wound on his wing was really infected. Like it already had maggots in it. I mean, he, like, we don't know how long he was injured or what happened. And so she thinks that like, you know, they bought him in, they were getting ready to take him in and he just, you know, couldn't make it to the next morning. Very sad ending. Going back to the outlet who was able to survive and hopefully has a bright future.
Yeah. What does that future look like? Do you know how much time he might be spending with Austin Wildlife Rescue? Yeah, they're thinking probably till like July or August, raising baby owls, especially great horned owls. It takes them a good amount of time to like get oriented. But if you did read that story, you know that he's gonna be placed with a surrogate owl, which is very exciting. Yeah. And this, she's basically a foster mom, and she takes care of like a dozen babies a year.
And she just like feeds them and raises them and teaches them to be an owl. And so he'll be placed with her until he's ready to be released. Okay so a little bit of good news to go on and hopefully maybe we'll have you back to continue to find out what this recovery looks like. It would be a pleasure. Does this owl have a name yet? He doesn't have a name yet. I've seen some circulation online that they want to name him Phoenix, which would be pretty appropriate.
Um, but obviously, you know, the Wildflower Center, if they do decide to do that, um, you know, they'll, they will decide. Okay. Alrighty, that is KUT's Luce Moreno Lozano. Thank you for the update, Luce. In Austin, whether you're one of those unicorns born and raised here or you're a transplant like the rest of us, it seems like there's always something new to learn about the city and always something to discover or perhaps rediscover.
Now, if there was only a place online specifically focused on fleshing those things out for all of us. Well, that's where KUT's field guide to Austin comes into the picture. For more about this, we've got Wyn Davis, a digital editor at KUT, and the project manager for Field Guide to Austin. Welcome to Austin SignalWin. Thanks for having me. So, for a listener who might not be familiar with the Field Guide, give us a few examples of some of the things that KUT has done
¶ KUT's Field Guide to Austin
with the field guide so far. Yeah, so so far we have a field guide to running spots in Austin, some great swimming holes, you know we have some critter coverage going on, so if you want to know more about venomous snakes in Austin and want to look out for, be aware of, bobcats, coyotes, we also have some history features in there, pronunciations, which are a big thing. A big thing here in Austin and across the state of Texas.
It sounds like it really covers your experience or covers one's experience here in Austin. Is that what you envision the field guide being kind of like a handy, your one stop guide to everything to Austin? Yeah, I mean, I think it's exactly what you were saying. The idea is that whether you were born here and raised here or you moved here, it's a great way to discover and rediscover what makes Austin, Austin.
So, you know, maybe you just need a reminder of the great things you can do in the city, some of the fun happening around you, or maybe you're new and you don't know where to start and you can just dive in. Yeah, there's always a discussion about, like, who is the authority on what Austin is or what Austin will be in the future, so who are some of the people who are writing these field guides?
Yeah, so one really cool thing about this is that we like to pair our reporters, editors, really anyone in, you know, the KUT public media stratosphere, I guess, of who is really passionate about this to write the story. So we're looking at people who are experts or, you know, we have someone who's really into running. She wrote the running spot one. People who are really excited about the animals in Austin writing those. Yeah, it's, you know, sometimes here in journalism, your beat is
your beat. You can't cover all the stories that you want to cover, but I've seen a lot of people have fun with these field guide entries, because it's something that they're passionate about as well, so it's not only just a guide to Austin, but it's coming from an expert in that guide, or in that field, rather. So there was this first run of entries into the field guide. I understand that there's gonna be more coming out.
Yeah, so we have some new stories publishing this week, really excited about them. One of them is, you know, your entry guide to birding in Austin, everything you need to know to get started. There's actually a pretty big birding community here, I feel like, and there are a lot of people in the station who are very passionate about the bird. I was gonna say, are you talking about Austin or are you talking about KUT specifically?
Because it seems as though we have a booming population of birders here. Yeah, definitely, I mean, definitely within KUT. People get excited. Yeah, there's one about cycling in Austin. So, you know, maybe you're not super comfortable biking on the roads here. That can help get you to that point where you are. What else do we have coming? We have one about rock climbing in Austin, we've one about Mexican restaurants to check out.
Um, we have one coming that is eight tips from librarians from the Austin Public Library on like what they think are the most exciting things, so a reporter went out and talked to them. That one's pretty cool. There's a wide variety of things that you can do at the Public Library that people might not know about. Okay, so that was going to be my next question. Have you learned a good deal from being the project manager of the field guide?
Oh, totally, you know, I mean, I went to school in Austin, but you can only learn so much when you're a college student. So I feel like I've really learned more past, you know, my little area that I lived in when I was in school. Definitely even, you know, a frequent user of the public library, but I still learned things while editing these stories.
Yeah. Yeah, that's funny the person who's working on that story sits right next to me and so I use the library quite frequently as well So I'm excited to hear what I don't know and you can find lots of things that maybe you don't know or maybe you just need a little Rediscovery of in the field guide to Austin We have been speaking with Wynn Davis a digital editor for KUT and a project manager for the field guy to Austin we're gonna have a link to the field Guide in our show notes, but You
can also find more at kut.org slash field guide win. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Jerry. And thank you out there for spending your Monday afternoon here with Austin Signal. And yeah, definitely check out the Field Guide to Austin. I've been out to several KUT and KUTX events where we're meeting lots of people who are new to Austin or have been here for six months. And they're using Google, they're their search engine of choice to look up all these different things.
The Field Guide Austin has you covered with so much already and we'll be bringing you more. Again, you can find that in the podcast show notes. And at kut.org slash signal. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director, Alexa Hart is our producer, and Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. I'm your host, Jerry Quijano. Austin Signal will be back tomorrow. We'll talk to you then.