{"id":236,"date":"2025-10-13T13:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T13:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/236\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T13:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T13:43:09","slug":"austin-parents-teachers-voice-concerns-over-closing-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/236\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin parents, teachers voice concerns over closing schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parents, staff and community members took the mic one after another for the first time last week to express how they felt about the Austin Independent School District\u2019s school consolidation plan<\/a>. Some worried about the social and academic continuity of their children, others about layoffs. Many mentioned the possible impact on low-income communities and emerging bilingual students.<\/p>\n

The school board’s meeting Thursday was its first since the district had published the plan, which proposes to close 13 district campuses, redraws school attendance boundaries and makes changes to which schools offer dual language programs.<\/p>\n

Officials say the plan will help them save $25 million amid a $19.7 million budget deficit. It would also help avoid state intervention<\/a> after some schools have gotten low ratings multiple years in a row from the Texas Education Agency.<\/p>\n

Parents told the school board that the plan was not thought through and did not take in community feedback. They brought their own budget estimates and attendance and enrollment numbers. Some said they had generated their own proposals that took into account the needs of their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\"Noel,<\/p>\n

Noel, 6, a Bryker Woods Elementary School student, chants during a protest at the Austin Independent School District building.<\/p>\n

Community members repeated over and over that this plan would make them lose trust in the school district. <\/p>\n

Mary Alice Rousey, who works at Sanchez Elementary, said she has seen the impact closures can have on students. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve already lived through the painful impact of past closures, consolidations and modernizations, disruptions that left deep scars on our families, students and staff,\u201d she said. \u201cPlease, do not reassign our students again. Do not implement these boundary changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After public comments, AISD officials went over the plan, explaining school consolidation and budget decisions. Superintendent Matias Segura said the plan does not consider layoffs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard over and over again that this is a plan that is going to fire staff; that is not the case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the trust has already been lost in some cases. Maplewood Elementary teacher Tracy Dunlap, who’s also a leader with Education Austin, the union that represents AISD employees, said that while staff have been told that they\u2019ll have a job somewhere else, she\u2019s skeptical. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like a layoff without actually calling it a layoff,\u201d she said, adding that she is concerned about classified staff who are not under contract.<\/p>\n

District officials said they examined previous closures to ensure they were learning from past mistakes. However, they also reminded the community that this is just a first draft, that changes could still happen and that they\u2019ll be taking recommendations into account.<\/p>\n

\"Dozens<\/p>\n

Dozens of students, family and community members protest outside AISD headquarters. <\/p>\n

\u201cI stand behind a lot of the decisions we make, but we\u2019re going to miss some things,\u201d said Rachael French, AISD\u2019s director of Planning Services. She said they had received more than 1,700 comments and they will be reading through every one of them. \u201cY\u2019all are able to really highlight in your specific communities how we can refine these boundaries and make even better decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some parents worry they\u2019re not being heard and that the timeframe given by the district is too rushed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy school’s consolidation has a paragraph. It doesn’t address programming. It doesn’t address all of the many cultural issues that have to be addressed,\u201d said parent Adam Sparks. \u201cWe need more time for this. We need a year instead of a month to make these generational decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some parents have put together a website<\/a> to ask the board for more time and to have their concerns all in one place.<\/p>\n

The school board is set to vote on the plan Nov. 20, a day before the district needs to submit a “turnaround” plan to the TEA that would specify how to improve the schools that have gotten low ratings. The district will be hosting several virtual open houses<\/a> for parents starting this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents, staff and community members took the mic one after another for the first time last week to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[432,433,132,134,133,434,270,435],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-aisd","tag-aisd-school-board","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-budget-deficit","tag-closure","tag-school-consolidation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","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=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}