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With COVID-19 cases surging in Travis County and a return to Stage 4 of Austin Public Health's risk-based guidelines, Austin ISD is considering a return to remote learning, according to an email sent to parents on Friday.
Austin ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said the district was "evaluating the option of temporarily transitioning to remote-only instruction" in the week following Thanksgiving and that a firm decision will be announced no later than Wednesday.
Elizalde added that after eight months of the pandemic the district has learned that sometimes health guidelines sometimes call for quick pivots. She also urged parents to have their children bring school supplies home with them today.
Her full statement is posted here.
Between Nov. 9 and Nov. 15, AISD reported more COVID-19 cases than any other school district in Travis County: nearly a quarter of total student cases and more than half of staff cases reported that week, according to Austin Public Health.
AISD also paused in-person learning at Austin High School on Nov. 16, resuming remote-only classes, after school officials grew concerned about the growing number of COVID-19 cases on campus.
AHS was only closed for three days; it was the first and only campus AISD closed again since opening back up. The school also offered drive-thru testing.
Austin-Travis County's COVID-19 dashboard shows that almost 4,500 children aged 1-19 have had the virus with no deaths, and local health officials have said the classroom setting is still safe for children. Most cases have been traced to extracurricular and social activities.
Hospitals in the Austin metro are reporting 79% occupancy, and officials are again sounding the alarm that area ICUs could soon be at capacity if residents don't take more precautions, especially over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dr. Mark Escott, Austin-Travis County Public Health's interim health authority, said that if Austin isn't careful, "Thanksgiving is going to be bad and Christmas may look worse."
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A $6,000 cockatoo named Lemon Grab was stolen from a pet store Sunday afternoon, owner Kelsey Fernandez said. (Kelsey Fernandez)
A big-money bird has been stolen from a northwest Austin pet store.
Kelsey Fernandez, the owner of a $6,000 sulphur and citron-crested cockatoo named Lemon Grab, said the emotional support animal was taken from the Gallery of Pets store, around closing time on Sunday.
"I've struggled with mental illness my entire life, and ever since I got him I've been doing so much better," Fernandez told Austonia.
The $6k cockatoo is young and will starve unless he is fed by hand, Fernandez said.
In a surveillance video, a man appears to have something under his shirt as he and two others exit the business around the same time the store believes that Lemon Grab was stolen.
Fernandez said a report has been filed with the Austin Police Department with an $1,000 reward for his return.
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(Pexels)
Introverts and personal space lovers may not want to make the move to Austin anytime soon: The Texas capital saw a bigger increase in one-bedroom rent prices than almost any other U.S. city in April, according to a Rent.com report.
Austin's one-bedroom rent has more than doubled—a 112% increase—from April 2021 to 2022, the report said. Only Oklahoma City saw a higher year-over-year increase with a 133% jump.
Austin also had the fourth-highest increase in two-bedroom rent, with a 50% increase in the past year. The city joined a nationwide trend where rents were up 8.3% year-over-year across the U.S, a trend exacerbated by a 6.2% increase in inflation in the same time period.
But "not everyone is experiencing inflation the same way," Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr said in the report, and a brunt of the load has gone to cities with more move-ins. While over 90% of state rental markets increased in the last year, that jump was seen most in Sun Belt states, including Texas, Arizona and Florida.
Even with breakneck increases in rent, however, Austin's rent prices still haven't cracked the top 10: the city's one-bedroom apartments are the 12th most expensive in the nation with an average price of $2,918. Meanwhile, its two-bedrooms fall behind Texas cities Frisco, Dallas and Plano and come out 34th on the list with a $2,302 average monthly rent.
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