{"id":227732,"date":"2026-03-30T23:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/227732\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:59:06","slug":"austin-isd-decides-to-close-blackshear-elementary-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/227732\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin ISD decides to close Blackshear Elementary School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blackshear Elementary, the oldest operating elementary school in Austin<\/a>, is set to close. Students and staff will merge with Oak Springs Elementary in January 2028, Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura announced Monday.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes four months after the district\u2019s board of trustees voted<\/a> to close 10 other elementary and middle schools in an effort to help the district address its budget deficit that ballooned<\/a> from $20 million in November to a projected $49 million at the end of February.<\/p>\n

Austin ISD\u2019s school consolidation plan<\/a> included closing Oak Springs Elementary before the 2026-27 school year and relocating the students to Blackshear. <\/p>\n

The decision raised questions from parents and staff at both schools as Oak Springs Elementary was previously set to undergo a $47.6 million renovation with money from a voter-approved 2022 bond<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an email to parents, Segura said he made the decision to continue construction at Oak Springs and make the school the \u201cpermanent home for our combined school community.” Students from both schools will relocate from Blackshear to the modernized Oak Springs facility in January 2028. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to honoring the original vision and hard work of the Oak Springs community while also building the high-quality Fine Arts spaces needed to grow the wonderful program nurtured by Blackshear,\u201d Segura said Monday in an email to parents. \u201cBy merging these two legacies, we are creating a state-of-the-art home where every student has the room and the resources to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Segura also said the district will pursue a historic designation of Blackshear\u2019s building and will \u201cfind creative ways to incorporate treasured aspects of Blackshear into the new building\u2019s design.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a developing story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blackshear Elementary, the oldest operating elementary school in Austin, is set to close. Students and staff will merge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[432,18534,31888,132,134,1685,133,88095,55548,88096,88097,2924,88098],"class_list":{"0":"post-227732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-aisd","9":"tag-aisd-budget-deficit","10":"tag-aisd-school-closings","11":"tag-austin","12":"tag-austin-headlines","13":"tag-austin-isd","14":"tag-austin-news","15":"tag-austin-school-closings","16":"tag-black-austin","17":"tag-blackshear","18":"tag-blackshear-elementary-school","19":"tag-east-austin","20":"tag-historic-east-austin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}