The city of Dallas is receiving 5,000 vaccine doses from the state next week, allowing fire department paramedics to vaccinate members of the public for the first time.

The city is also establishing its own vaccine registration sites to help sign up residents who may lack a computer or internet access, or who are just unaware that they need to register with the county. Prior to this, the state had only provided vaccine doses to the county, outside of some for EMTs and other first responders. Now city employees will take a more proactive role in the distribution of the vaccine as well as signing up residents for appointments.

There are now two city registration efforts working independently of one another: a more grassroots-style sign-up push led by individual council members and another approved by the mayor’s office that is being promoted as more intentional and targeted but may take more time, perhaps days, to set up and execute.

The bitter memos written by council members that led to these two initiatives have also triggered a specially called City Council meeting on Monday night. Council members Chad West, Adam Bazaldua, and Paula Blackmon requested the meeting and will “urge the mayor … to designate the city manager as the emergency management coordinator.” The council members also want clarity on the city’s plan to administer the vaccines to the public; they say they have not been briefed. The city says it will use the existing Dallas County registration database and prioritize residents based on recommendations from the state and federal governments. Dallas-Fire Rescue paramedics will administer the doses at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.

This is the latest conflict between the mayor and a bloc of council, but, rather ironically, the split this time might generate more resources for the public. We just had to walk through mud to get here.

The Texas Hospital Association is advocating for expanded health coverage, improved Medicaid reimbursement rates, and increased behavioral health funding as the 87th Texas Legislature convenes this month. 

The pandemic has created massive revenue shortfalls that could total $4.6 billion, so the ask for increased funding may be a tall order. Still, THA officials are optimistic that the health challenges wrought from the pandemic will increase the likelihood of advancing their goals. 

Medicaid expansion has become a dirty word for many of those with the power to bring bills to the Texas Legislature floor, even with ample evidence that expanding coverage could boost the state’s revenue. For several years, Texas has led the nation in the number (5 million), and rate (18 percent) of uninsured residents, and expanding the eligibility for Medicaid would not only give vulnerable populations access to regular healthcare, but decrease the amount of uncompensated care provided by hospitals to uninsured residents who have nowhere to go but the emergency room.

Feds Nab Another North Texas Capitol Rioter. Noah Bernard Cooke documented his time inside the Capitol using a GoPro and posted the footage to TikTok and Instagram. At least three tips to the FBI came in, and it was a matter of time before they took him into custody. He is charged with acts during civil disorder, unlawful activities on Capitol grounds, entering or remaining on restricted buildings or grounds, and disorderly or disruptive conduct in or near restricted buildings or grounds. Cooke lived in Savoy, east of Sherman. He spoke to agents during a search of his home, in which he admitted to banging on a window at the Capitol with a flagpole but denied entering the building. He’s at least the fifth person in Dallas-Fort Worth to be arrested.

Eviction Moratorium Extended. The Biden administration has extended the national moratorium on evictions through the end of March. Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, and Denton counties are also getting expanded rental assistance efforts beginning on Feb. 1. Meanwhile, there were 1,978 new coronavirus infections in Dallas County yesterday, along with 27 deaths. The county has used all of its vaccine at Fair Park for the week, which means another 9,000 doses will come on Monday. Judge Clay Jenkins says 18,500 have been vaccinated there in the past two weeks.

Some Southlake Parents Push Back Against Diversity Plan. It has been two years since a video was made public of White students shouting the N-word at a party in Southlake. And after the school district came up with a diversity plan, a group of organized White parents have made their distaste known. Now, the city’s problems have gone national: NBC News goes deep into the matter, profiling Robin Cornish, the wife of the late Cowboys lineman Frank Cornish, and the racism her family has endured there for years. More videos have surfaced, and racial slurs were spray painted at Carroll High School. Some residents formed a political action committee and raised more than $100,000 to fight the plan. Texas Republican Party chair Allen West has spoken out against it at a church in town and a mayoral candidate seems to support it. Meanwhile, the plan is now stuck in litigation.

Foggy Morning Today, Likely Stormy Weekend Ahead. No rain is in the forecast today, but expect some spotty showers and heavy clouds tomorrow. A storm system moves into town Sunday evening into Monday, bringing a threat of severe storms once the sun goes down. Highs are in the upper 50s through the weekend.

If you live in Dallas and hope to get the COVID-19 vaccine soon, good luck. Bureaucracy and infighting are in far greater supply.

The mayor is at odds with the county judge and members of the City Council over how to register residents for vaccinations. The state of Texas has threatened the County Commissioners Court with pulling the Fair Park mega center’s vaccine supply, which triggered an emergency meeting to kill an order. And members of the City Council allege the mayor is making it harder to get people living in poor neighborhoods signed up for appointments. It has been a mess.

It started with the vaccination center at Fair Park. The county wants people to register to get their spot, a message that hasn’t been effectively communicated to underserved neighborhoods in southern parts of the city. So when the registry launched, three weeks ago, residents from more affluent parts of town flooded it. That led county commissioners to pass an order that would prioritize residents vulnerable to the virus in 11 underserved ZIP codes, nine of which are south of Interstate 30 and east of Interstate-45 — which in turn led the state to threaten to pull vaccine allotments. Commissioners were forced to rescind the order Wednesday night. (Those 11 ZIP codes were chosen because they ranked high on the county health department’s vulnerability index or were identified by Parkland as the county’s most inequitably served.)

The state allows local governments to prioritize appointments, but they can’t make those decisions without a robust registry. While about 319,000 people have signed up to get the vaccine, county officials say the vast majority of those are from ZIP codes with plenty of pharmacies, doctor’s offices, and hospitals. Fair Park’s center was set up to prioritize residents in a part of town that lacks such infrastructure. About 90 percent of the county’s vaccines are actually going to hospitals and clinics that are largely concentrated north of downtown. Including Fair Park, there are just eight providers that have received vaccine between I-45 and Balch Springs below I-30.

In an interview Thursday, County Judge Clay Jenkins said just 27,000 people had registered from those 11 underserved ZIP codes, which are home to about 600,000 residents.

“You can prioritize, but you can’t exclude,” Jenkins said. “We can’t be prescriptive in our order, but we can talk about the need for prioritization.”

Jenkins noticed this problem last week and started reaching out to churches and community leaders to encourage residents from poorer neighborhoods to go to Fair Park. He began vaccinating walk-ups, which was in contrast to the original plan. The mayor learned about Jenkins’ move and got upset, arguing that it was tantamount to special treatment and a policy change that should have been OKed with the city prior to implementation. He even threatened to pull the city’s public health contract with the county.

Here is the problem: those 319,000 people who have signed up on the vaccine registry represent a small fraction of the county’s 2.6 million residents. The state doles out vaccines but local agencies are responsible for getting them into people’s arms. The state has now begun to prioritize hubs like the Fair Park mega-center, which last week received about 9,000 doses. There are now 77 hubs across the state, up from 28 last week. As reported by national outlets yesterday, there was no federal plan to help sort all this out. Local governments have to navigate local politics to get the job done. It isn’t always going smoothly.

Out of the gate, Solar Preparatory School for Girls was a gamble. It was 2016, just a year since Michael Hinojosa returned as the superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District. He was rolling out a single-gender desegregation pilot school, the brainchild of the reform team assembled by the previous superintendent, Mike Miles. Miles’ tenure had been so contentious some might say executing on his legacy was an act of courage. Hinojosa was undeterred.

The single gender approach was not altogether new. Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School launched in 2004 and the Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy opened in 2011. Both had built solid track records. But the economic integration model, instituted by Miles’ Office of Transformation and Innovation (OTI), had not been tested in Dallas.

Solar Prep would serve a split of students: 50 percent of low-income families in the district, and 50 percent from middle-to-high income families. It was desegregation not by race, but disparate socio-economic experiences. One of the DISD’s “choice” pilots, Solar was designed to lift opportunities for the district’s low-income and socially disadvantaged students and, as a secondary benefit, bring middle class families back into the public school system. Another fundamental element: admission would be impossible to game. Aside from engineering a mix of socio-economic circumstances, enrollment would be based on a lottery system.

Co-founders Dr. Nancy Bernadino and the late Jennifer Turner were optimistic. Bernadino was raised in Pleasant Grove and attended The Hockaday School on scholarship. She wanted to replicate that experience in a STEM* program for public school girls. The all-female launch team had personally experienced gender bias in different academic settings. This resonated with the data produced by the Girl Scouts of the USA, showing that most girls in co-ed schools “lose their voice” by 5th grade. At the same time, the Socio-Economic Status (SES) model advanced by the OTI had been tried in a handful of the 14,000 public school districts across the country, and in each case both disadvantaged kids and those from the middle class experienced a win.

Still, no one was betting, three years down the road, that Solar’s academic achievement among third and fourth graders would approach those attending Highland Park ISD, the richest, and arguably most privileged, district in Texas. Which is why Solar’s 2019 STAAR Achievement Test scores are on the high side of remarkable.

Take a look.

The Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance usually schedules the annual point-in-time homeless count for a cold night in January, when many of those experiencing homelessness are in shelters. But for those residents who aren’t housed, hundreds of volunteers divide Dallas and Collin counties into sections, driving and walking through neighborhoods to count and survey unsheltered individuals. 

These point-in-time counts are federally mandated for any local government receiving U.S. Housing and Urban Development grants to combat homelessness. Questionnaires help cities get a census, but also better understand the situations and needs of those who are living on the streets. They ask whether the individual is a member of a family unit or by themselves. These identify the number of chronically homeless as well as houseless individuals with disabilities. The questionnaires also can help local governments find these people again later.

Cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco have canceled or postponed their point-in-time counts, even as the number of those experiencing homelessness has swelled due to COVID-19. In Dallas, according to the MDHA, the monthly increase in homelessness was 165 people, more than the same increase last year. Because the city has been able to house more people due to increased funding from the CARES act, the increased number of homeless coming into the system may not result in a net gain of those experiencing homelessness. The count will help clear that up.

Between 2019 and 2020, the total number of those experiencing homelessness declined for the first time in three years, though the number of unsheltered homeless increased. In 2020, the point-in-time count identified 4,471 people experiencing homelessness, a decrease of 1.4 percent from the year before. Dallas and Collin counties saw increases of 9 percent each of the previous two years. Unsheltered individuals, which are the people who were found outside of shelters, increased from 1,153 in 2019 to 1,211 in 2020, a jump of just over 10 percent.

Counting involves gathering with strangers and packing into cars. So MDHA officials changed how the count will occur. First, the date has been moved. Cities waited so long for guidance from the federal government about how the count should proceed that the organization didn’t have time to plan it in January. The count will begin February 18. Instead of the normal 1,700 volunteers, the count will be done by street outreach professionals. It will take two weeks to complete.

The smaller group of professionals won’t cover the entire city but will focus on areas where homeless camps are known to be, based on past counts and other outreach efforts. Though the count will take over two weeks, they will be asking where the resident was sleeping on February 18 to get a point-in-time count. They will also be asking a truncated set of questions to decrease the amount of time spent together.