By Emily Hunt-Hinojosa
In the wake of COVID-19, everyone wants to know what the data says. Numbers and stories can reveal the facts of a situation and help us to better understand it. Making use of data is a process — first, finding data, then understanding, then guided responses.
The hunt for data and facts is really a quest for truth-finding. At its best, meaningful data can lead us to real awareness of a given situation, which can help governments, health organizations, businesses,nonprofits, and people plan for the days ahead.
Leaders need precise data, accurate data, data that can help us understand for whom COVID-19 is a problem and for whom it is less of a problem. Who is getting sick? Who is dying? Who is losing their jobs? Who isn’t losing their job? Who wears a mask? Who doesn’t? Why in the world not? Where should I put resources? Who is fine? Who is not fine? Why is this happening to us?
Answers to these good questions are not easy to discover. The yearning for data speaks to a larger issue. When we are truly honest, we aren’t quite sure what to do in this current moment; we have never lived through this before. However, our efforts do not have to be just a shot in the dark. We can make informed decisions to the best of our ability.
In addition to Covidwaco.com, here are five data tracking tools/websites that can enhance our understanding of the effect of COVID-19 on our Waco community.
- City Health Dashboard COVID Local Risk Index
The COVID Local Risk Index can help us understand where in the community the risk for COVID infection and illness severity may be concentrated. The purpose of this index is to estimate which parts of the community may need the most support as coronavirus cases increase, focusing on neighborhoods as a way of gaining key insight for policy. The estimate of risk is based on socioeconomic and demographic factors as well as underlying COVID-related issues and outcomes in the community. Waco scores a 9 out of 10 for local risk. Data is available for the city and census tracts, as well.
- COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index
Surgo Foundation’s COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index (CCVI) combines the CDC’s social vulnerability index with additional data for a total of six themes and 34 variables. The CCVI can help us consider what factors are contributing to vulnerability for a given community/neighborhood in McLennan County. Data is available for the county and census tracts.
- Texas 2036 COVID-19 Tracking Dashboard
Texas 2036 has a dashboard to find out about COVID’s impact across Texas. The focus is mostly on economic and health data, including unemployment filings, and mobility trends. Data is available at the county level.
- COVID-19 Demographic and Economic Resources.
The Census Bureau has two noteworthy resources: First, the COVID-19 Impact Report available for McLennan County. This report contains a variety of quick facts such as basic demographic information, who has and doesn’t have health insurance, and what percentage of county residents have access to the Internet. Secondly, the Census has created a measure for Community Resilience to estimate how resilient a given community is after experiencing disasters — including pandemics. The Community Resilience Estimates are available for census tracts throughout our county.
- Waco RoundTable
WacoRoundTable.org is Prosper Waco’s newly launched Community Data Platform for Waco. Over 100 quantitative indicators have been mapped across various community geographies to highlight pressing issues in our community. To explore COVID-related data, under Topics, click COVID-19, choose an Indicator, and choose a Geography. You can also add to this site by entering data on your organization, business or nonprofit as a profile on Waco RoundTable.
If you have questions about any of these sources or know of other sources we should be considering, contact [email protected].
Emily Hunt-Hinojosa is director of research and community impact at Prosper Waco. She is responsible for evaluating progress toward community goals in the areas of education, health, and financial security. Dr. Hunt-Hinojosa holds an Associate Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, where she was employed prior to joining Prosper Waco. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Sociology at Baylor University, as well as both a master’s in higher education and student Affairs and a bachelor’s in social studies education from Taylor University.
Padres,
Mientras planeamos reabrir nuestras escuelas el próximo mes, queremos saber de usted. Le pedimos que tome unos minutos para completar nuestra Encuesta de reapertura de escuelas. Sus comentarios son importantes para nosotros para que podamos satisfacer mejor las necesidades de usted y su familia en el año escolar 2020-21. Puedes hacer clic en el siguiente enlace para la escuela de su hijo.
● Alta Vista Elementary School
● Brook Avenue Elementary School
● J.H. Hines Elementary School
Gracias,
Robin McDurham
Chief Executive Officer
Transformation Waco
Parents,
As we plan for reopening our schools next month, we want to hear from you. We ask that you take a few minutes to complete our School Reopening Survey. Your feedback is important to us so we can best meet the needs of you and your family in the 2020-21 school year. Please click on the name of your child’s school to start the survey.
● Alta Vista Elementary School
● Brook Avenue Elementary School
● J.H. Hines Elementary School
Thank you,
Robin McDurham
Chief Executive Officer
Transformation Waco
NEWS RELEASE
A pair of familiar Waco ISD campus leaders have been selected as the district’s newest elementary principals. Provident Heights Elementary Assistant Principal Courtney Whitaker will transition to her new role at that campus, while Cesar Chavez Middle School Assistant Principal Lena Ortiz will join Parkdale Elementary.
Whitaker has been with Waco ISD for six years, starting at Provident Heights as an instructional specialist. Before coming to Waco, she spent six years as an elementary school teacher in Carrollton/Farmers Branch ISD. She has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in education from Texas Woman’s University, where she also minored in special education. Whitaker is taking over leadership from Debbie Sims, who is retiring after 38 years in the district.
“I am both excited and honored to be the new principal of Provident Heights Elementary,” Whitaker said. “This year, we will carry on the tradition of pursuing academic excellence and establishing a growth mindset for all students. I look forward to continuing to build relationships with parents, staff and students.”
Ortiz is a 12-year educator with experience as a classroom teacher and instructional specialist at Kendrick Elementary, where she was selected as the school’s teacher of the year for 2011–2012. She received her bachelor’s degree from University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and a master’s of educational administration from Tarleton State University, where she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in educational leadership. Ortiz is succeeding principal Marsha Henry, who recently retired after serving 15 years as principal at Parkdale.
“It is a privilege to have been selected as the new Parkdale principal,” Ortiz said. “I am excited for the opportunity to join WISD instructional leaders in the pursuit of educational excellence for all students. I look forward to building new relationships and collaborating with students, staff and parents to build and enhance Parkdale’s success.”
Waco ISD Superintendent Susan Kincannon said, “Courtney and Lena bring a wealth of campus leadership experience to their new roles as elementary principals for our district. . . . I’m thrilled for them and know they’re ready to get to work with their campus teams and continue building important relationships.”
By Jo Welter, on behalf of the Community Race Relations Coalition
In response to the request for community input regarding the choice of a new police chief for Waco, the board of the Community Race Relations Coalition (CRRC) offers the following.
We are grateful to live in a city with courageous leaders who have decided to begin again with the search for a new police chief after considering input from some in the community. This was a difficult and wise decision and we commend them for this and for now asking for wider input from Waco citizens.
In a July 1 Waco Trib piece by reporter Kristin Hoppa, Waco Police Detective Ken Reeves was quoted as saying, “I think we just want to find the right chief that will be there for our officers.”
In a June 6 guest column in the Waco Trib, attorney Mark Osler wrote, “The great challenge going forward is the same as it has been for decades: to create a police force that truly protects and serves all of the people.”
Our first suggestion is that we go with Osler’s suggestion and look for someone who will serve and protect everyone – officers and citizens as well.
We would love to see a chief who is a person of color or a woman, with no regard for religion or gender preference. It is important for us all to see people from groups that are underrepresented in positions of authority and importance, and this will serve us in many ways. The other qualities we would like to see considered in looking for a new chief include:
- Truthfulness and openness, including indications that he/she would give thoughtful consideration to all possibilities in any situation
- A genuine interest in improving equity and creating justice for all citizens in our community
- An understanding of what Black Lives Matter really means
- An interest and commitment to learning and promoting de-escalation techniques in interaction for use between officers and citizens
- A striving to do what is morally right, standing up against political interests and police union and civil service issues when called for
- An attitude of compassion and understanding toward the citizens they serve and protect, treating citizens as allies, not as “others”
- Openness to ideas like a citizens’ board to oversee disciplinary decisions
- Positive attitude toward cultural sensitivity learning for officers and for youth involved in police programs
We believe that specific policies against forms of restraint and treatment of offenders are certainly necessary.
An issue that might be even more important here in Waco is the need to purposefully work to eliminate the “us against them” attitude that is so pervasive in our society, including between the police department and citizens. This attitude has become so ingrained in us that we are often not even conscious of the ways in which it affects our behavior.
We are drawing from a pool of candidates that, like all of us, is influenced by the “us against them” attitude. The police in many communities have circled the wagons around themselves in self-protection. It makes it difficult to find the perfect new police chief for Waco.
We support and appreciate these efforts in finding the right chief for Waco. We look forward to the future here in our beloved Waco.
Jo Welter has lived in the Waco area for 29 years and has been an active participant in the Community Race Relations Coalition (CRRC) for 20+ years. She currently serves as chair of the CRRC board.
The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected]for more information.
By Liya Scott
Remember the name “Texans Recovering Together” because you and I may need it. No matter where you live or who you work for, we are in this together.
The Crisis Counseling Program of Texans Recovering Together provides free, anonymous, and confidential support services to individuals and families coping with the ongoing effects of the Coronavirus. Yes, the pandemic — which was declared a national disaster in March — created an opportunity for this program.
It is staffed by a team of Crisis Counselors who don’t keep case files (the anonymous and confidential part) and Community Liaisons who will meet with any person or group that needs short-term support during the disaster. Here’s how the disaster has affected my fellow staff.
Jonnell is one of four community liaisons. She told me about a distant family member who fell ill with the coronavirus prior to its big introduction to the United States. This family member ended up in a Waco hospital’s intensive care unit with little-to-no outside contact. She recovered and was released just in time for the Christmas holiday season. Six months later, Jonnell said, “Seeing her lie in the fetal position struggling to breathe, knowing now what she had, I now take it much more seriously.”
Jamie is also a community liaison. She told me about her next-door neighbor in her Wisconsin hometown who was diagnosed with coronavirus. The man was experiencing flu-like symptoms for two weeks prior to the diagnosis — the results frightened her. “We could hear him cough through the walls of our house,” Jamie recalled. She added, “It feels like a circle creeping closer and closer around the people I love. I just wonder when it will close around me.”
Alice is one of our counselors. She told me about a friend who recently lost her father to COVID-19. He was an elderly man who fit the “at risk” criteria. Although he is survived by five children, his children still express frustration regarding people who choose not to comply with Centers for Disease Control guidelines.
Gabby is also a counselor. Here’s what she shared about her niece who had a potential run-in with an asymptomatic carrier: “She’s like my kid! She’s also my babysitter,” Gabby said with a lump in her throat. Gabby explained how the family has had to deviate from their usual routine of hosting their niece for the summer. But this story has a happy ending: Gabby’s niece tested negative. While relieved to know their niece did not contract the virus, the family continues to practice safe measures, including wearing face masks in public.
Then there’s my story. I’m Liya, one of the community liaisons. If there is one thing I have learned from this pandemic/disaster, it is to increase my empathy for others.
I realize this thing is so much bigger than me. I do well to recognize the need to be my brother’s keeper and consider how my actions affect others. The little changes I adopt to slow the spread really do make a difference. I continue to avoid large crowds; I wear a mask to protect others and myself; and I decontaminate when I re-enter my home. I choose to do what I can.
This spring, I lost a family member to COVID-19. She was a mother, a sister, a wife, and a daughter. To me, she was also a friend. They say a thing does not become real until you have some skin in the game. Well, the death of my aunt gave me the wake-up call I needed.
Another fellow colleague summarized: “If you think you are doing enough, do more. I don’t think people need to lose a loved one in order to wake up to this message.”
I’ve heard this phrase tossed around town: “We are all bound to contract the virus at some time or another.” Maybe so, but I don’t believe all of us will survive.
That’s why I’m here. #TexansRecoveringTogether can help with accessible, caring and responsive support services for anyone who’s struggling to cope with the effects of this pandemic. We’re only a phone call away.
Liya Scott is a Community Liaison / Linkage Coordinator with the Crisis Counseling Program. She is a Colorado native but calls Waco home. A graduate of Baylor University, Liya thoroughly enjoys the meaningful work she is able to do with the Texans Recovering Together CCP. In her spare time, Liya enjoys creative cookery, hiking the trails, browsing the local Farmer’s Market, and trying out amazing local cuisine.
The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected]for more information.
A new data platform is rolling out for use across Greater Waco. It’s called WacoRoundTable.org.
WacoRoundTable.org houses over 100 quantitative indicators about our community that will help nonprofits, businesses, governmental entities, and other organizations understand better the statistical reality of Greater Waco across a variety of interest areas and geographies.
Nonprofits, businesses, governmental entities, and other organizations are now able to go to the site and share basic information in order to help other groups and individuals to know about them and what they do.
For instance, already in this early stage, a person can go to the site looking for information about health organizations and see several in the city of Waco. That will expand as more organizations add their profile information. But it’s not just for the city of Waco; it is for the broader McLennan County community.
There is no cost to adding your organization profile. This is a free service to organizations provided by Prosper Waco, with support from the City of Waco.
It’s easy to add your organizational profile.
You might first view a couple of existing profiles to see the type of information that can be shared. For instance, here is the profile for Act Locally Waco. And here is the one for Grassroots Community Development. And, the one for Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
To set up a profile, an acknowledged representative of a nonprofit, business, governmental entity, or other organization will go to WacoRoundTable.org and click the button below “Create a Profile.”
You will then be prompted for your email address and to create a password.
Once you have logged in, you will see a page with four tabs at the top — Dashboard, Organization Profile, Manage Programs, and Users.
Click on Organization Profile and there will be a form to input the different information, some are required but not all. You can save each item as you go or at the end.
At the end, click submit.
Prosper Waco staff reviews all submissions and, if everything is in order, shares them publicly.
Once you have completed the basic profile information, you can sign back in and add more detailed information on your organization’s varied programs. For instance, Act Locally Waco has a program called Waco Walks; check it out.
The profiles and programs help groups and individuals connect with needed organizations, but more is coming to the site.
For more information or for help completing a program, contact Ferrell Foster at [email protected].
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, McLennan Community College is diligently planning for what will be a different kind of semester this fall.
This new initiative, #McLennanTogether, focuses on opening MCC safely and efficiently this fall. MCC is using a phased approach in returning to campus based on federal, state, and local guidelines regarding public health. Leaders hope to have all employees back on campus on Aug. 3, with some flexibility.
Courses that would normally use face-to-face instruction have become “blended” courses – a combination of both in-person and online instruction. The in-person format will use safety measures like face coverings, social distancing, and disinfectants. Online instruction includes secure lessons through videoconferencing software, including Zoom, and utilization of the learning management system, Brightspace, where students and teachers may interact and submit assignments.
How does that look practically?
Classes that meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, could include class meetings on Tuesdays and virtual sessions on Thursdays. This gives students the advantages of a physical classroom – direct access to professors and classmates – and the online classroom, which allows for flexibility, technological capabilities, and slowing the spread of COVID-19. Again, face coverings are vital to the success of this system and having students in classrooms.
If the number of local cases of COVID-19 continues to increase at a dangerous rate, the college is preparing to again convert all courses to purely online formats. Communications with professors will be especially important this semester and even more so if courses must go completely online.
Here are a few tips for success in blended courses:
- Create a routine. Scheduling days around school and work can bring a sense of normalcy. Marking due dates, meetings, and other obligations can be done in your email account, phone calendar, or physical calendar. Sometimes, the easy step of jotting down a reminder is the difference between staying ahead or falling behind in a course.
- Use available resources. In her frequent communications, MCC President Johnette McKown has encouraged students to take advantage of the many resources available to them. Success coaches, Paulanne’s Pantry, the Counseling Center, the MCC Foundation, the Financial Aid office, and the library provide unique resources that students may access.
- Have a communication plan. Keeping in touch with professors and classmates in different formats will be pivotal this semester. Ask questions of professors and classmates through email and Brightspace and check student email account frequently for campus communications.
- Take breaks! These are difficult, unprecedented times for us all. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, take some deep breaths, go for a walk, call a friend or family member, or read a book for fun.
One success story from the spring, after the abrupt conversion to online courses, came from Jamaal Greene, the assistant men’s basketball coach and a weightlifting instructor at MCC. He said the transition wasn’t always easy, but it was rewarding. The format of an interactive course like weightlifting benefits from in-person motivation.
“What I like about those classes, and the students said the same thing – I did every workout with them,” Greene said. “When they were tired, I was tired. When they wanted to quit, I was able to push. When they went through misery, I went through misery with them, so that helped.”
In place of that, he refamiliarized himself with Brightspace, and students completed new at-home workouts with little or no equipment. Greene said students measured heart rates and relayed their thoughts on each exercise. Creative solutions, with the guidance of MCC’s Center for Teaching and Learning, have been instrumental in completing work during these difficult times.
Faculty and staff members were “comforting my anxieties of doing this, and they helped tremendously,” he said.
Phillip Ericksen is marketing and communications specialist at McLennan Community College. For about four years, he was a journalist at the Waco Tribune-Herald covering higher education and local government. He enjoys following the news, reading books and drinking coffee. As a San Antonio native, he is an avid fan of Mexican food and the Spurs basketball team. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Baylor University. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected]for more information.
| By Strategic Communications Workgroup As Waco begins to reopen attractions and businesses, and tourism starts to return to the area, it is important to the community that we keep both our citizens and our visitors safe. The incidence of COVID-19 has increased over the last few weeks, and we all want to do our part to slow the spread. The Waco Safe Campaign is a two-way pledge. Waco business owners are committed to keeping residents and visitors as safe as possible by implementing safety practices to limit the spread of COVID-19. We also respectfully ask our visitors to do their part by following recommendations and best practices for travelers. This pledge is based on what we know now, and that may change. We will continue to stay informed of the latest information and adjust policies and procedures to keep our employees and patrons as safe as possible. Take the Pledge: Sign up to take the pledge at mclennancountycovid.com. Post to Social Media: Once you sign up, you will receive a toolkit that includes social media templates available for your use. Display your Waco Safe Badge: The toolkit includes a printable badge. We will also hand deliver a sticker badge for you to display in your window. |
By Ashley Bean Thornton
What am I doing now that people 100 years in the future will look back on with outrage?
There could be many things. Drinking water from plastic bottles? Eating beef that takes acres and acres of land to raise? Driving a gas guzzler?
Maybe it’s something I am not actively “doing,” but something I am tolerating: Homelessness? Drastic disparities in education? People getting locked up because they crossed some arbitrary border between countries to look for work?
I don’t know exactly what it will be, but I imagine there are things that I think of as normal, or practical, or unsolvable, or “within my rights” today — things that I hardly think twice about or even things that make me proud — that will be reason for outrage, disbelief, or disgust 20, 50 or a 100 years from now.
It may sound odd, but that idea feels hopeful to me.
It means that our children and grandchildren can make progress, that they can be better than us, smarter, that the long arc of the moral universe can truly bend toward justice, and goodness, and loving our neighbors.
If I had been a resident of Little Rock in 1957 when nine students integrated Central High, I think there’s a better than 50/50 chance that I would have been against it. I imagine I would have gone along with what my family thought, and I know my family would have been against it.
When I was a child, the “n-word” was not a bad word in my house, it was just a regular word that my dad used every day. I was not allowed to invite Black children home from school to play. Nobody had to make a big deal about telling me, it was just something you didn’t do in my family.
I don’t remember the news stories from when I was a child, but I can only imagine that incidents like what happened to George Floyd and others were happening then just like now. Except then, no one I would have known would have ever heard a thing about it. If we had heard about it, I imagine it would have been met with a shoulder shrug and a thought, spoken or unspoken, that he surely must have deserved what he got.
In the span of my lifetime, things that were normal in my family and my world when I was a child have become an outrage, even in my middle-of-the-road White circle of friends and family and acquaintances. (Surely they were always an outrage in the Black community.) That is good. Outrage at bad things that were once accepted as normal is progress.
That is the thought in the front of my mind.
In the back of my mind I have another thought. My dad, my grandmother, some of the White people in the towns where I was raised were very nearly 100% wrong in the way they thought about and often treated Black people. They were not, however, 100% bad people. They were hard working people, teachers, builders, church goers, people who made your favorite pickles for your birthday and chicken and dumplings when you came for a visit. People who came to get you when you were homesick. People who made you laugh so hard you cried. People like me. People I loved.
As we take down monuments and re-name school buildings, the biggest part of me is proud of us for moving forward, for realizing we should – at the very least – not continue to glorify the wrong thinking, wrong actions, and wrong actors of our checkered history.
Some part of me though wonders if there wasn’t more to that slave owner or confederate general than the worst thing he ever did. Was he also a hard worker? A church goer? A story teller? A builder? A dreamer? I say that not to condone what that slave owner or Confederate general did, but to humanize him and to be able to tolerate making the connection to myself.
When we look back into history and categorize people as “bad,” that lets us off the hook in a way. They were bad, we are good, we would not have done that bad thing. To be honest with myself, I need to be able to hold in my heart two truths that grate against each other: (1) What they did was terrible. (2) They probably also did good things, and I would have probably liked them.
There is good in us even though we do bad, just like there is certainly bad in us even though we do good. Throughout history, some of the most terrible things that we have done to each other have not been done by evil people, but by people who are like us — a mixture of good and bad — who thought of themselves as mostly good, and maybe even were mostly good.
So that makes me wonder: what am I doing/not doing now that people 100 years in the future will look back on with outrage, or disbelief, or disgust? It’s probably something that I don’t think much about. Something normal. Something widely believed or at least tolerated by my friends and family. I might hear people speaking out about it, but it’s easy to dismiss them as overly sensitive “fringe elements,” or worry-warts, or people who just don’t understand how the world works.
What monuments, social structures, norms am I building or maintaining now that will be justifiably torn down in outrage 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now?
It’s a disturbing, interesting thought. It gives me hope for the generations who will come after me. It allows me to have compassion for the generations who came before me without accepting what they did as right. It challenges me to look at my actions now through the lens of the future. And, it allows for a tiny teaspoon of patience for people who think differently from me.
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, she has lived in Waco almost 20 years now. Far longer than she ever lived anywhere else. She is retired from Baylor works part time helping to organize after school programs for Transformation Waco. She likes to walk. If you see her out walking, honk and wave and say, “Hi!”
The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.