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It’s not just my business, It’s my neighborhood
Businesses ready for reopening of Wakefield Drive By Matt deGrood news@theleadernews.com After almost a year of street closure and fewer patrons, Andy Dunn can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dunn is a co-owner of Walking Stick Brewing, 956 Judiway St., near Wakefield Drive and is one of several business owners counting down the days until crews finish work along the stretch of road. “I think we’re all ready to power forward,” he said. For almost a year, crews have been at work on a multi-million
dollar drainage project along Wakefield Drive – a project that has included frequent street closures since September 2021, according to nearby businesses. But contractors are finally finishing street paving and sidewalk restoration, and should reopen the stretch of road by early September, according to Erin Jones, interim communications director for Houston Public Works. “This project is bringing muchneeded flood mitigation and Photo by Matt deGrood storm drainage improvements to Businesses are anticipating the conthe neighborhood, and I’m glad clusion of a construction project on it’s making progress,” said Abbie Wakefield Drive. Kamin, a Houston councilperson
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Good times Check out reviewer Sonia Ramos’ latest report, as she ventured out to Peony and Crane in the Heights last week.
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Contributed photo Students walk down the hall at St. Thomas High School. St. Thomas is one local private school experiencing enrollment increases in recent years amidst enrollment drops in Houston-area public school districts.
Enrollment increasing at local private schools By Landan Kuhlmann landan@theleadernews.com
Get your fix Art columnist Mitch Cohen has the scoop on art shows from Houston to Sugar Land in his latest column
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THE INDEX. Food/Drink................................................. 2 Church........................................................... 3 Opinion....................................3 Public Information............................. 4
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“It’s not debilitating to pan-
Community split on HISD police equipment approval
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Same place, new face Gr8 Plate Hospitality is expanding its footprint in the area, with a new concept coming to the old Union Kitchen on Washington Avenue.
whose District C encompasses Wakefield Drive. The news comes as a boon for nearby businesses, such as Walking Stick Brewing and William Price Distilling, 970 Wakefield Dr., who have seen business slow during construction. Dunn in a conversation with the Leader said he estimated his gross revenues during construction were down about 20 percent from what they were the year before construction began.
A surge of students across the state and nation has left public schools in favor of private education since March 2020, but both administrators at local institutions and experts argue the coronavirus pandemic simply exacerbated a pre-existing trend. Smaller class sizes, continuity of education and the stop-and-start nature of school during the pandemic have all combined to pull students and families away from their traditional public school districts in favor of other options, including local private schools such as St. Thomas High School,
St. Pius X High School, and LEAH Schools North Academy (formerly Lutheran High North). “We’ve had parents say they felt they were not getting the education they needed,” said Mark deTranaltes, director of advancement at St. Thomas High School. “It was such a startstop situation at some of the other high schools. We had a pretty good system here, so the parents were hoping they could get a little more of a consistent educational package than they were getting at other schools.” About 194,600 students attended Houston ISD schools last year, which was down about 1 percent
from 2020-2021 and 7.4 percent from the 20192020 school year, according to the district. A report from the Texas Tribune said nearly 30,000 students in grades 7-12 withdrew from Texas public schools to be homeschooled in the 2020-2021 school year. HISD has continued to see declining overall enrollment numbers in recent years in conjunction with some of the region’s private schools gaining students. And the pattern of increased private school attendance amid lower public school enrollment has manifested not just in the Houston region but in states around the country,
according to experts. “Parents were responsive to the kind of (virtual or hybrid) instruction that was being offered and fled those public schools that didn’t offer that type of education,” Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee said Tuesday. At St. Thomas, a college preparatory Catholic school at 4500 Memorial Dr., deTranaltes said the school’s enrollment numbers have risen steadily since 2018, and significantly - about 13.5 percent - from 20202021 (621 students) to 2022-2023 (705 students). St. Thomas had even previously purchased an
Houston Independent School District recently allocated more than $2.3 million for equipment it says will better arm its police officers in the event of an emergency situation, but the image of highly-armed law enforcement in schools doesn’t please some residents. “Training is important, weaponry is not,” said Jennifer Layer, a Garden Oaks resident. “The fact that the money went to armor and weaponry is counterintuitive in my thinking.” However, proponents say it is an attempt to better protect HISD’s nearly 195,000 students along with more than 27,000 full and part-time teachers and staff in the event of an active shooter or other emergency situations. “Considering that HISD has (more than 280) campuses, this doesn’t feel like a huge price tag,” Laura McFarland said. HISD approved the motion 6-3 during its regular board meeting on Aug. 11, in the ongoing aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde this past May in which 19 students and two teachers were killed. Houston ISD Superintendent Millard House II said funds will be used to equip the district’s police department, which consists of 140 campus police officers and 45 additional officers in the department’s patrol division. Both board members and local community members were split on whether dedicating more than $2 million on such resources is the best way to prioritize the safety of students. According to a report from KHOU, HISD police chief Pedro Lopez has said the $2.3 million was previously allocated to the department as part of the district’s $2.26 billion budget for the 2022-2023 school year that was approved on June
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Home sales slow down slightly amid higher interest rates By Matt deGrood
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Photo from HAR website Houston home sales have slowed in recent months, according to realtors.
Home sales have slowed across the Houston region amid higher interest rates, but that has done little locally to stem the interest in buying in the area, according to several real estate agents. Single-family home sales declined about
17 percent in July, compared to the same month in 2021, according to an August report from the Houston Association of Realtors. That makes it the fourth-straight month of declining sales, according to the report. But just because the region has seen some slow-down doesn’t mean the Leader’s cov-
erage area has as well, according to Michael Clark, a Houston area real estate agent. “It’s all neighborhood and market specific,” he said. “Some areas are slowing down more than others. But the hot areas are remaining pretty lively.” Clark does a lot of See SALES P. 7
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