Parents and students arrive at a rally as AISD community members gather ahead of the Board of Trustee vote on the final closure plan at the AISD headquarters, Nov. 20, 2025.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
An internal investigation into the Austin Independent School District’s school closure process found no evidence of data manipulation or inappropriate changes to criteria the district used to close schools.
However, the investigative report authored in early January raised concerns with how some senior staff talked behind the scenes about the closure process.
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The district launched the internal review after the jarring removal on Nov. 4 of three schools – Bryker Woods, Maplewood and Palm elementaries – and comprehensive boundary changes from an emotional school closure plan. At the time, the removals sparked anger and heartache across the city.
The same day the changes were announced, the district placed two senior staff members on leave, raising questions about the process used to strike the three schools from the list.
The school board ultimately closed 10 campuses and set aside comprehensive boundary changes for a future decision.
District leadership launched the investigation because of remarks made on a recording of an Oct. 30 internal campus consolidation planning meeting involving senior AISD staff and a third-party consultant. The report did not detail how the district obtained or learned of the recording.
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District investigators cautioned that the employees’ comments made under stress during late-stage discussions “do not meet expectations for senior leadership during a high-impact public initiative.” Staff members on the internal call, which took place virtually, talked – with clear exhaustion and frustration – about how to consider requests from trustees and the public to exclude Bryker Woods Elementary from the list of closing schools, according to the Jan. 8 report.
The scope of the investigation spanned the entire closure process. The investigator found no evidence that district staff had strayed from its originally established framework or failed to disclose key information. Although district staff did consider and make changes based on community input, the tight timeline limited the opportunity to fully consider feedback.
The Oct. 30 call came the day after a workshop in which trustees gave feedback on potential changes to the closure plan and the morning of a public feedback meeting at Bryker Woods Elementary.
The call included at least 11 people who spoke. None of the comments highlighted by the district’s investigator Jola Khan were spoken by Ali Ghilarducci or Raechel French, the two district employees placed on administrative leave.
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Comments highlighted by the Khan included: “This is a time for mature people to be serving on this board and get over their selfish intent and don’t screw us over;” “I am sick to my stomach from watching hypocrisy in action;” and “I also want to choose something that they’re not gonna want to do.”
Though the investigation found no wrongdoing, the investigator recommended that the district clarify its expectations for professional and respectful language that staff and partners use, even during internal meetings. How senior staff speak about the community “can affect trust if those comments are later heard outside of the original setting or taken out of context,” Khan wrote.
“Frustration with timing, workload, or process does not change the expectation that they communicate in a way consistent with their leadership role,” Khan wrote.
The investigation also recommended the district clarify how detailed information will be requested and shared with trustees and the community. The review revealed that staff became overwhelmed with responding to detailed requests under strict timelines.
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After launching the investigation, the district placed Ghilarducci and French – the senior executive director of communications and community engagement and the director of planning, respectively – on leave Nov. 4. The two AISD employees had led the consolidation work, Superintendent Matias Segura said in a Jan. 29 statement announcing the conclusion of the investigation. Both employees returned from leave Jan. 23, a district spokeswoman confirmed.
Ghilarducci told investigators she was only active in the Oct. 30 meeting for about 15 to 20 minutes because she was also speaking with parents at Bryker Woods Elementary, where the district had held a public meeting that morning.
French told investigators that the frustration from her and others on the Oct. 30 meeting came “from being asked, very late in the process, to explore changes that went against the timeline and ground rules they had communicated publicly,” Khan wrote. She told investigators those ground rules included telling communities not to expect major changes after a closure draft was released on Oct. 3.
Both employees did not immediately return requests for comment.
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This sudden change to the plan in November placed a strain on families and staff, Segura said in his statement.
“However, we could not ask our community to move forward without absolute certainty that our process aligned with the framework and rubric co-created with our community,” Segura said.
Segura plans to continue conversations about realigning attendance boundaries this spring, he said.
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A vote on any additional school closures or boundary changes will come in October of this year, he said.