The Hays Consolidated School
District voted unanimously in favor
of more than $12 million in budget
cuts ahead of the next school year.
It's the largest such budget slash
in more than a decade, and it's a
move other school districts could be
facing in coming years.
And there's not much known about the
tactics and technology used by Texas
state police and ICE agents to
detain people, but video from
a detention last summer in East
Austin is providing a better picture
of how enforcement operations
unfold.
More about these stories coming up
on today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
Plus, around a hundred million years
ago, a small baby dinosaur about
two years old died amid the harsh
landscape.
Fast forward a few years, and now
that little dinosaur is at the
center of an exciting new discovery.
Come hear about it, that's next
on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, thank you for
tuning in to Austin Signal.
I'm your host, Jerry Keconnell, it
is Tuesday, March 31st, the
last day of the month.
Thanks for spending part of your day
here with us.
Last night, Hays Consolidated ISD
voted to cut 12 and a half million
dollars from its school budget for
next year.
What does that mean and how is that
gonna impact the county?
Well, for more, we are joined by
KUT's Hays County reporter, Lee
Walden. Lee, thanks for joining us
on the show.
Thanks for having me.
So, let's start first by talking
about a big thing I know
is that some educators will be
losing their job amidst
this job budget slash,
excuse me. Can you tell us more
about those proposed layoffs?
Yeah, yeah.
It was a tough meeting
to sit through.
There's going to be educator layoffs
and reclassifications and
job title changes throughout the
district.
They don't really have an exact
number of the number of instructors
that they're losing or
reclassifying.
They're trying to do as best a job
as possible to keep people within
the district, but we
like seven librarians are going to
be lost. Teachers are going to be
laid off and they've been having
those conversations slowly and I
think more information about that
will come out once they have a final
number of how many educators are
no longer going to have their
positions.
But yeah, it's kind of
going to be a big transition for the
district as they come to terms with
their new numbers.
Yeah, there will be a lot of
educators who lose their job and
there will a lot others who still
have their jobs but will be affected
in other ways. Tell us about those.
Yeah, there's going to be a
change in the stipends that
teachers receive.
For one thing, there
are stipends offered to teachers
within Hays CISD
for things like professional
degrees, so if you've got your
master's or your PhD.
So folks who have gotten used
to and been reliant on
that money being in their paycheck
are going to have to make
substantial adjustments next year
because it's several hundred dollars
a month and you know that adds up
over the course of a school year.
I talked to a teacher and
parent within Hays
Ruah Gleason, and she told me
that this is gonna be felt
for folks.
It's definitely reduces
their ability
to bring their paycheck
up just a tiny bit for their things
like their master's degree, their
doctor's degree which they've worked
very hard for, probably put
their families on the back burner,
probably taken student loans out.
So it seems really
really punitive and unfair.
Okay, Lee, what else do we know
about these budget cuts for next
school year?
Yeah, so another addition
to these budget cuts or, you know,
within this plan is fees for
sports.
So they're going to ask athletes,
student athletes to start to pay
fees to participate, something
that's been happening for folks who
are doing like fine arts
extracurriculars for years now.
So it's kind of a question
of equity at a certain point, too,
but fees for folks in sports,
they're cutting some arts programs.
And one of the particular issues...
Of interest, and that came up a
lot last night, was class sizes
being increased.
So they're going to have more
students to teachers across
the board.
So pre-K is
going to be 24 to 1.
Fifth grade is somewhere around
27, I believe, and then,
yeah, 6 through 12 are going to have
class sizes of around 30.
So it's a lot of kids in a
classroom, and I
think teachers and parents alike are
concerned about what those numbers
are going to look like.
In your reporting you talk about how
the way the district is funded is an
issue and how many folks or how
folks have proposed funding by
attendance instead.
Can you tell us how it's currently
funded?
Yeah, it's a little funky.
Texas is one of six states to be
funded on what's called average
daily attendance, or ADA,
instead of just enrollment.
So in most of the country,
districts are funded
based on the number of students
enrolled. But in Texas, they use
this equation where it's the number
students enrolled multiplied by
that ADA, that average daily
attendance, which in Hays, I mean,
it took a hit in the pandemic as
students I just lost some engagement
because of...
You know, online schooling and we're
taking time off because they were
getting sick.
So it's sitting around 93.7%,
but that around 6%
is deeply felt.
I talked to the HACISD
Chief Communications
official yesterday and
Tim Savoy was telling me that this
is something that, you know they've
been thinking about for years, but
it's especially pertinent as they
start to make these budget cuts.
Texas still funds on average
daily attendance.
And like I said, ours is 93.7,
but that doesn't mean we pay the
teacher 93.
7% of their salary and we
don't get to pay 93.
7% of the elected bill
for the school.
All the bills and expenses are 100%,
but we're not funded at 100%.
We have been speaking with Lee
Walden. She is KUT's Hays
County reporter.
We're going to have a link to her
reporting in today's show notes and
at kut.org slash
signal Lee. Thank you.
Thanks so much.
And in more education news,
Austin Independent School District
yesterday decided to close the
oldest operating elementary school
in Austin. That's Blackshear
Elementary.
The plan set for 2028
is to merge the Blacksheer campus
community with the more modern Oak
Springs Elementary.
We're gonna have more about that in
today's show notes.
Texas state police and ICE agents
last summer conducted an immigration
sweep in East Austin that resulted
in the detention of five workers
near a construction site.
The arrest sparked anger from
immigrant rights groups and raised
questions about due process and
police tactics.
Recently, the Texas newsroom
obtained police dash and body
cam video of the event through an
open records request.
As the Texas Newsroom's Moe's
Bouchelle reports, those videos
shed light on how police, and
federal agents.
Use traffic stops to pull people
into deportation proceedings,
and reveal Department of Public
Safety agents breaking state policy
on wearing face masks.
Early in the morning of July 31st,
State Trooper Ricky Cotto was
watching traffic on Pleasant Valley
Road in East Austin when he
spotted Gabriel Martinez Segura
driving a white Chevy van
to a drywall job.
Cotto later said the van's front
license plate looked out of place.
Driver, can you hear me?
Can you pull forward?
We're kind of blocking the road.
Within about 11 minutes
of being stopped, Martinez Segura
and the four other occupants
of the van were in handcuffs and
turned over to ICE.
During the time in between, the
videos show Cotto treating the
encounter like a normal traffic stop
with Martinez Segur, well,
back in his police car.
I need somebody at my location right
away.
I got a van with four to five.
He was requesting backup and
planning how to detain the men over
his radio.
So the right side of the vehicle is
accessible to the fence that
leads into the work site.
So when we come up, we're going to
have to block it.
When more officers arrive, some
wearing ski masks or other face
coverings, their vests bear the
markings of state DPS agents,
ICE and ATF.
After the men from the van are taken
away, the recordings show officers
dealing with paperwork like the
traffic citation.
Give ice a copy.
Congratulations each other on the
operation, at one point Cotto calls
it a jackpot and explains
how he pulled the men over.
Improperly placed plate and I
do it every time better no
traffic
and interacting with the public.
At the very end, a construction
worker asked Cotto if he was the
one who reported the men to ICE.
You call ICE?
Yes. You call ICE?
Take it?
To which the trooper replies,
Highway Patrol don't stop anybody
except for traffic violations.
I just want to stop anybody from
having traffic violations, that's
it.
I got nothing to do, really gotta
stop.
That's it,
I've got nothing to do with the
other stuff.
But a statement provided by the
Texas Department of Public Safety
contradicts that.
It says that Cotto was working with
a Homeland Security strike team when
he pulled the men over and that,
quote, During the stop, the trooper
was unable to verify the identity
of the driver through DPS databases,
so they contacted HSI.
HSI is Homeland Security
Investigations, a division of
ICE.
What is so interesting about this
particular video is the exact
same types of collaboration
that we used to see along the border
has now moved to the
interior.
Kristin Eder is policy director
for the Texas Immigration Law
Council, one of the experts we asked
to review the videos.
She says they highlight the speed
and relative quietness
of these operations in states
like Texas where local and
state police partner with ICE
agents.
So one out of every four
immigration apprehensions in the
country is happening in Texas.
So while we might not have the
big kind of occupations that
we see in Minneapolis,
Chicago, LA, we
are doing that type
of disappearance at
a much larger scale in
a very quiet way.
Ian Adams, a former police officer
and professor of criminal justice at
the University of South Carolina,
said the videos show an almost
textbook example of cross-agency
partnerships, including the
close communication between
agencies, the speedy arrival of
backup, the preoccupation with
paperwork, and even the officer's
celebratory tone after the arrest.
What comes to mind is, for example,
fugitive task forces
Both Adams and Etter said some
of the police tactics on display
might surprise the general public,
but are actually pretty standard
practice from the use of what's
called pretextual traffic
stops.
Pretextual stops just
means I'm going to
stop somebody for a violation I've
actually observed.
And maybe I'll also
keep my eyes out for, you
know, other suspicious or possibly
criminal activities.
An officer allowing a
suspect to believe the stop was
about one thing when it's really
about something else.
All law enforcement, including state
and federal law enforcement
officers, are allowed
to use trickery, lies,
and deceit to gain cooperation,
confession.
Admissions.
In response to email questions,
Texas Department of Public Safety
spokesperson Sheridan Nolan wrote
that the operation last year was
part of a state and federal
partnership that is making our state
safer. Though Kristen Eder notes,
none of the men arrested were
charged with criminal offenses.
The DPS declined an interview
request with state trooper Ricky
Cotto.
Cotto did not wear a
mask during the operation, but
some state police agents did.
When emailed about the agent's face
masks, Nolan replied that
it is not DPS practice
to conceal identities,
and the use of face-concealing masks
by criminal investigations
division's special agents, as shown
in the video, is specifically
prohibited.
He wrote that each agent will be
counseled and their chain of command
will be making it clear face
coverings should not be worn on duty
unless for reasons outlined in
policy.
Again, Ian Adams.
When the police start believing
that policing needs to be hidden,
that sort of attacks the
trust that the community can have.
I think professionally a lot of
officers themselves have concerns
about it because
The operation documented in these
videos did not involve the City
of Austin police department, but
the videos are coming out as Austin
announces new policies over how
to manage city officers'
interactions with ICE, and Austin
City Council considers new rules
banning all law enforcement from
using face coverings while in the
city. For Austinites and other
Texans in cities that oppose the ICE
surge, these videos are a
reminder that regardless of local
policy state police
have been in power to enforce
immigration law anywhere in Texas.
In fact, in the months since these
arrests, they've been given greater
powers to make immigration
apprehensions.
Again, Kristin Eder.
It's safe to assume that any
time law enforcement is involved,
there is a risk of immigration
detention.
One unanswered question is
what happened to the men detained
that day.
Where nationality was included in
the arrest records, the men were
listed as being from Mexico.
ICE did not respond to repeated
requests for information.
Austin Immigrant Advocacy Groups and
the Mexican Consulate in Austin said
they had no information.
But there is some indication the men
may have been removed from the
country.
Federal records made available by
the Deportation Data Project
show that five men with Mexican
citizenship were booked into an
ice holding room in Austin at
10 a.m.
On the same morning that the East
Austin operation took place.
While the records do not include
names, they indicate that all
five of them were ultimately
deported.
For the Texas Newsroom, I'm Mose
Buchele.
And we're gonna have a link to
Mose's story in today's show notes
and at kut.org
slash signal.
This is Austin Signal.
We will be back after a break.
This is Austin Signal, welcome back.
Around a hundred million years ago,
a small, possibly fuzzy baby
dinosaur, about two years old,
died amid its harsh landscape.
Fast forward a few hundred years
or so, and that little dinosaur is
now the center of an exciting new
discovery in Korea involving
researchers from the University of
Texas at Austin.
It's called the Doolysaurus
and it's being held as a new species
of baby dinosaur.
Two of the researchers among those
who made this discovery spoke with
Texas Standard recently, Jongyun
Jung, a visiting postdoctoral
researcher at UT's Jackson School
of Geosciences, and Julia
Clark, a professor at the Jackson
School. They spoke with the
Texas Standard host, Angela
Kocherga.
So when did you realize you had
a new species and how did
you feel at that moment?
Yeah, actually my research
background was the fossil footprint
and concept of their footprints
and tracks.
But yeah, I'm always dreaming to
finding new dinosaur species by
my hands.
So after we excavated these dinosaur
fossils and scanning this specimen,
we figured out very different
character with other dinosaur
species.
And yeah, this is the one
of the very important moments in my
life.
I would, you know, I'm going to add
to that, I'll just say that
figuring out whether you have a new
species, it might be
interesting to know, is not
an easy process
because you have to compare the
attributes of the new specimen,
the new skeleton,
to all other known
dinosaurs. And there
are different datasets that help you
do that, but it's like You
have to look at every bump on every
bone, at the characteristics of
every part of the skull
to make
sure that you don't have another
representative of
a previously described species.
So when we finally had
that evidence and we could clearly
say that this was a new species.
Yeah, it was a very exciting moment.
I mean, given this is the first a
new dinosaur species
described from Korea in how many
years is it Jung-Yoon?
After 15 years.
In 15 years.
Years. So it's pretty remarkable.
Well, I know much of the research
around this fossil was done
there at UT Austin.
Dr. Clark, can you share a bit about
the role of the geosciences
department there and what
it did in undertaking this study?
Yeah, it's
It's been a really fun collaboration
and I'll go
back a little bit further in time.
I was visiting Korea to
give a seminar at
the home university of the Korean
Dinosaur Center and
Jongyun and his colleagues
showed me the fossil in
the block and I was like, wow,
that's very cool, but I can't tell
what it is.
And I could see that this rock was
really, really hard and
the bones actually softer than the
surrounding rock.
And so I was like, this
is a great candidate for
CAT scanning or CT scanning,
using X-rays to see inside
the block.
And so, I invited Dr.
Jung and his colleagues to come to
UT and we would CT
scan the fossil.
And I think that's where we had like
the totally crazy aha
moment where
you know, Dr. Jung and colleagues
were looking inside the block and
they're like, we have a skull.
And that was just very cool.
Dr. Clark, since, as
we mentioned, this is being hailed
as a new species of baby dinosaur,
tell us about what this discovery
means to our evolving understanding
of the dinosaur world.
Yeah, it's very cool.
You have, essentially,
in the Korean Peninsula, a
chance to sample Far
East Asian dinosaurs from
this really key time interval,
which is this mid-Cretaceous
time.
And this is a time period where
there's a lot of exchange between
what we now, you know, Eurasia
and North America.
And so what is really
neat about the new species is
it samples part
of a lineage that has
representatives both in North
America during this time period and
Asia, but it fills in kind
of another piece of that story.
It tells us more about the
connections between those species on
these two, what are today, you know,
very distant continents.
Tell us what this dinosaur looks
like. You mentioned it's a baby,
but what some of the characteristics
are?
Well, the first thing I'd
mention is that this
dinosaur would fit on your desk.
It's a desk-sized dinosaur.
You know, it's comfortably,
you know, maybe the size of
a small dog or
a large cat,
you know.
So it's not a particularly large
animal. Of course, dinosaurs are not
closely related to mammals.
They are, you know,
birds are living dinosaurs.
Other parts of the group of
dinosaurs that this, that
Doolysaurus is a part of,
were fuzzy.
And so we don't have fuzz preserved
in the actual fossil in
this case, but we know that
relatives of Dulis was fuzzy.
And Jung Yoon, what do you
hope to learn more about
when it comes to this dinosaur?
Actually, this site, we also
find many dinosaur egg fossils,
including bird eggs also.
So we're expecting much more diverse
dinosaurs will live in this site.
And maybe we're also
we're expecting finding new
dinosaur fossils in this side.
So, Dr. Jung, we're calling it
Doolysaurus, but tell us about the
species.
This species' name is Doolysaurus
hominae and is named
after Professor Minha from Korea
who excavated the first dinosaur
nest fossil in this site and
also worked
on various paleontological
projects of Korea over 30
years.
Yeah, to add to Dr.
Jung's comments, the full
name of this dinosaur is
Doolysaurus homini,
as he mentioned.
And what it references,
what I'd like to call out as
a key contribution,
another key contribution of
Dr. Homin,
is working
to preserve fossil sites
in Korea.
So, he's been very active
in...
The UNESCO mission to
preserve geoparks and those
include a lot of the sites in
Korea with these amazing trackways
and egg fossils and
it's just been really
wonderful to see that effort to
conserve paleontological sites.
Well, this is all so fascinating and
all so fun, and I'm a huge dinosaur
fan, like so many people,
so we really appreciate all of your
research.
We've been speaking with Julia
Clark, a professor at UT Austin's
Jackson School of Geosciences,
and Jongyun Jung, a post-doctoral
researcher at the school, about the
discovery of the Doolysaurus,
a brand new baby dinosaur
species.
Julia, Jongyun, thank you again for
joining us on The Texas Standard.
Pleasure.
And you can have a peek at the
Dualisaurus yourself.
There's a link in the show notes for
today's podcast and at
kut.org slash
signal. That is it for today's
show. Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director, Kristen Cabrera is
our managing producer, and
I'm your host Jerry Quijano.
We will be back with you tomorrow.
Have a great day.