East Austin neighbors met this week with Austin Independent School District officials to discuss the future of the Martin Middle School campus. It’s one of the 10 AISD buildings that closed at the end of the school year. Some of those campuses will be sold, others will be leased, and others, like Martin, will be reimagined.
“I want to challenge you on this. I know Martin Middle School existed for decades, it’s an incredible school, and there’s a lot of history here, but there are lots of different types of programs that can exist in a building like Martin,” Superintendent Matias Segura said during the meeting with neighbors. “It’s a building that can be used to do a lot of incredible things, and it doesn’t have to be one thing. It can be multiple things.”
Since the decision to close Martin was made, the neighborhoods around the school have been gathering feedback through a survey to provide ideas for the future of the building. During the meeting, community members suggested going back to a time when the building served as a school during the day and as a community center in the late afternoons, where adults could learn to read or speak English.
Gabriel Estrada, a Martin graduate, said the district and the community need to work together to revitalize the school.
“The district is academic savvy, but we also know that the district is often not aware of what’s going on within the community. And that’s where the community needs to step up and tell the district, ‘hey, don’t forget about this!’” Estrada said. “Because we can’t work in isolation; we need to work together as a community to make something great for everyone.”
Segura said the district will continue to work on renovations to the outside of the Martin campus. The inside of the campus will be renovated once the district has a clearer idea of its future. The renovations are part of the 2022 voter-approved $2.44 billion bond program, the largest bond package in the district’s history.
Monetizing properties
Even if they were set to be renovated, not all closed campuses will be reimagined. In June, the AISD board of trustees voted to designate six properties as surplus, which means they can be repurposed through a long-term lease or by selling them.
James Valadez, AISD’s director of real estate, said the district is prioritizing the monetization of three properties. Sunset Valley and Dawson elementaries are set to be sold entirely. Part of the grounds of Bedichek Middle School are also expected to go under a long-term lease. The Bedichek building is currently being used by the Special Education Department.
“So given the timeline that’s needed to close some of those types of transactions around land leases and fee simple sales, we need to prioritize those first,” Valadez said.
The district is counting on $60 million that will come out of those properties to balance the budget for the upcoming 2026-27 school year. The district also relied on property sales to balance the budget in the 2025-26 school year but failed to sell Rosedale and Brooke school properties for $30 million, leading to a larger budget deficit than expected.
Greta Díaz González Vázquez
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KUT News
Superintendent Matias Segura speaks with East Austin community members about the future of Martin Middle School during a meeting held at the campus. The campus was one of 10 schools that were closed at the end of the 2025-26 school year in an effort to save the district $21 million.
AISD’s enrollment has been on the decline over the last decade, since hitting an all-time high in 2011 with 86,124 students. Last October, it had dropped to under 70,000, straining the district’s finances. AISD officials have cut their operating budget and are relying on property sales to balance the budget. Trustees have raised concerns about having a one-time influx to balance the budget, since that could fail or create a gap for future years.
Jamie Miller, AISD’s interim operations officer, said the district is confident that it will hit its target of $60 million for this year. She said while district officials are constantly reviewing their options to monetize buildings, they are not contemplating selling more properties at the moment.
Repurposing buildings for the community
Becker, Ridgetop and Widén elementaries will be repurposed with feedback from the community taken into account. District officials said they hope to find community or nonprofit partners that align with district values by the fall.
AISD has previously breathed new life into closed schools. Pease Elementary, which closed in 2019, was turned into a child care center. The Anita Ferrales Coy Facility in East Austin is being developed into affordable housing, in part to keep teachers in the city.
The properties from Barrington Elementary and Winn Montessori are serving as “swing spaces,” temporary sites for nearby schools that are going through renovations. Miller said officials are holding meetings with the communities of these schools at the end of this month to make sure they don’t miss out on opportunities with potential partners in the near future.
“While we still need to use those buildings for the better part of two years, we’ve had potential partners and interest and things coming forward,” Miller said. “So we wanted to go ahead as soon as possible and get out to our communities and find out what’s important to our communities, what potential use is so that we can have that information ready and start the process sooner.”
Blackshear Elementary, which is also set to close halfway through the 2027-28 school year, will host students from Oak Springs Elementary when school starts in August. Students will then move to Oak Springs once the district finishes building a new campus.
Miller said the district is pursuing historic designation for the building and has no intentions of selling it. She said they will be looking for a way to monetize the property with community input and while still owning the building.
The district will hold meetings to hear community feedback on July 28 for Winn Montessori and July 29 for Barrington Elementary. A second meeting for each school will be held in August.
A meeting scheduled this week for the Blackshear community was postponed until the fall. Miller said it was “a little bit insensitive” to start meetings while Oak Springs and Blackshear are merging as a new school.
Correction: A previous version of this story listed the incorrect budget year for AISD’s efforts to raise $60 million from school properties that are sold or leased. The correct date is the 2026-2027 budget year. The spelling of Bedichek Middle School has also been corrected.