It is good to report some positive news from Texas, instead of news of guns, death, and hatred, the specialties of Governor Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick.
Billionaire Charles Butt, owner of the H-E-B grocery chain, has pledged $10 million to build a new elementary school in Uvalde to replace the Robb Elemebtary School, site of a massacre.
The Uvalde school district on Tuesday announced that it had secured signature support from donors to build a new school to replace Robb Elementary, site of a mass shooting in May that killed 19 children and two teachers.
The Butt family and H-E-B grocery stores have pledged a combined $10 million in funding, officials announced. In addition, Huckabee, a Fort Worth-based architectural firm, and Joeris General Contractors, which will assist in the design and construction of the school, will waive the fees for their architectural work and contracting services.
“Public schools are the foundation of a community,” says Huckabee CEO Chris Huckabee in a statement. “Our team is honored to partner with Joeris construction, the Butt family, H-E-B, and so many others to design a new facility that will honor Uvalde and serve its future generations.”
Charles Butt is a good friend of the five million children in Texas public schools, as well as Pastors for Texas Children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
$10 million from a multi-billion dollar company is like you giving a homeless guy a twenty. And in H-E-B’s case, it’s only done to rehab their public image which suffers from scandals such as Medicaid fraud in filling prescriptions for more than the allowed amount and underpaying employees (how else do you think people become billionaires besides wage theft and other abusive practices?). H-E-B was among the leaders in replacing cashiers with self-checkout and were among the first to eliminate mask requirements, against the wishes of their employees.
Don’t get me wrong, a new school is nice, but that benefits one community and allows H-E-B to pretend to be a moral company. Paying their employees living wages and benefits would benefit hundreds of communities and then they might actually be a moral company.
Hilarious, Greg! H-E-B is known throughout Texas for its generosity in times of catastrophe and its support of public schools.
When Houston was crippled by Hurricane Harvey for days, HEB sent tractor trailers of food and supplies and distributed them to hard hit communities.
It it great that H.E.B., the architect, and the general contractor are so willing to step up and build a new school in Uvalde. But, we all know that $10M will not enough to build a new school that is adequate to meet the need the educational needs for the children of Uvalde. The cost of construction materials has gone sky high and climbing. The cost of a new school will be $30M-$35M.
The state of Texas will have to step up with a hugh chuck of change to make this project happen. I do not see Abbott and his minions willing to come up with the additional funds. Abbott is NOT pro-public education.
Good luck Uvalde.
Charles Butt’s parents told him, “With privilege—whether inherited or earned—comes responsibility. Value and invest in people and your communities. Be generous. Don’t wait until you’re asked. Do all you can!”
It is refreshing when billionaires actually live with a sense of social responsibility instead of dreaming up dystopian schemes to separate the working class from their hard earned dollars. Butt’s contribution to the children of Uvalde shows that he lives by what he says. Mr. Butt stood by his workers during the pandemic and extended health benefits to them. “Texas Monthly” called Mr. Butt one of the best things in Texas in 2021. He is certainly still one of the best things in Texas in 2022.
This points to an example of why I have deep love for Norway and its people. They have an extensive network of huts for hikers throughout the nation, some with staff during a high season, most self-service, stocked with dried and canned food that is helicoptered in once or twice a year. It’s all on the honor system, you pay for what you use, put it in a box, clean up with others, and move on to the next one. Every year when they do their final accounting, there is a substantial surplus from the self-service huts because there is a tradition that if you make more, you spend more and round up, sometimes significantly. There is a national understanding among the better-to-do that with prosperity and good government services there comes an obligation to pay for it. They exchange exorbitant wealth for public good. And the rich are still rich. Just not as rich as elsewhere. But still pretty rich.
One of my best friends is Norwegian American. Even though her father left Norway right after WW ll and is now deceased, she still owns part of a summer cottage in Norway. They operate it like a family ‘time share.’ They all share in the upkeep and other expenses of the cottage, and this cooperative system has worked for more than sixty years.
The Appalachian Trail has a similar system of huts. At least for the part I hiked. You can hike with only water and minimal clothing. The guys are stocked with beds, sheets, and food, as well as an energetic young staff to feed you. The hits are known as “the high huts of the White Mountains.”
One year when I was in a hut I mentioned to a Norwegian that these kind of huts could never exist in the U.S. He answered, “Oh, we have those kind of people here in Norway too. They never come up here.”
Charles Butt has been a generous donor to Pastors for Texas Children and other pro-public school groups. He funds “Raise Your Hand, Texas,” which supports public schools.
It’s surprising to hear about a billionaire being altruistic instead of conniving in times of disaster. I’ve gotten so used to capitalism disguised as generosity, like Dienne I have trouble believing it’s even possible for a business owner or CEO to give back to the society that enriched them. Eli Broad and Bill Gates really did a number on my head when they had Race to the Top of Greed Mountain.
Agreed. Most of them have too much and want more.
HEB is a big and generous presence in TX Communities. Hispanic and beyond. Uvalde’s Robb Elementary has done without for decades. While the white schools thrived and ate up far more than their share of public dollars.
But Charles Pierce/Esquire wrote this so we remember.
But when President Joe Biden visited Uvalde, he told Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez “We’re going to look to raze that school. Build a new one,”
Gutierrez said there is now a federal grant process for schools to be razed after a mass shooting. And that fact alone is depressing.
We are living in the world of heavily armed madmen who regularly refresh the Tree of Liberty with the blood of schoolchildren and people in the produce aisle.
There are now two sources for the data on children who have died in school shootings: Education Week, a nonprofit that provides research and reporting on K-12 education, and the School Shooting Database Project, conducted by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS), which works in partnership with FEMA.
“Gutierrez said there is now a federal grant process for schools to be razed after a mass shooting.”
Wow. Depressing don’t cut it. If anyone has info on this, please share. Will research this weekend. The Dickey Amendment prevents federal agencies from collecting shooting data and there’s a program for this? Just when I thought I could really care less about this issue…
Magnificent
Odd how the brain works. Your choice of word triggered a memory of a song about a newly born girl. But I realize it could also apply to a slightly older woman in Brooklyn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQl5KYiiFDI
Greg,
I’m going to recommend a TV series. It is without doubt the most vulgar show I’ve ever seen. But it is fascinating , funny, and bears some slight semblance to history. It’s on Hulu. It’s called “The Great,” and it’s about the marriage of the son of Peter the Great and his Austrian bride Catharine. It is sexual without being erotic. Every other word is the F word. The violence is comical. It is about the rise of Catharine the Great. British humor.
I’ll give it a try. Please do same for Derry Girls on Netflix. Funniest thing since Fawlty Towers.
A billionaire supporting public schools, that is incredible and unique. The horror of children and their teachers being butchered in their classrooms by high powered tissue destroying bullets is not enough. Then the schools or buildings where these massacres take place have to be demolished because they have become toxic memorials to senseless death and destruction. All this at tremendous cost, materially and spiritually, to the affected cash-strapped communities.
There is no amount of hand sanitizer that will ever wash the blood off his hands.
Also–this is the answer (one of the first comments to come out) to school shootings: disappear the building. Rebuilt Sandy Hook School. Razed & built a new lecture hall at Northern IL University after that mass shooting, which also happened on a Valentine’s Day, as did Parkland. Not an answer, &, if I were any of these students–or a school student in general–I wouldn’t WANT to walk into a school building.
When they sit down to design this school, please make sure they invite the teachers FIRST, to get their input. That would help immensely.
Sadly, the opinions of teachers have little-to-nothing to do with shaping education policy.
Read the next post–build bunkers in these new schools! (Or “Safe Rooms.”)
Does someone have/can someone post the link to Lawrence O’Donnell’s show (“The Last Word”) last night?
He’d the ONLY journalist who’s referenced teachers being armed, & made an excellent analogy (“Imagine that those were armed TEACHERS in the hallways.”), w/the piece “afraid of the AR15.” It’s an important segment that needs to be watched, & I’d forwarded it to parents, teachers & everyone who is going to speak to school borads as to why teachers SHOULDN’T be armed.
Maybe the Ohio legislature & Mike DeWine need to see it.