state\u00a0must\u00a0either shut down the school or take over the entire school system<\/a>.<\/p>\nAustin ISD testing showed student performance at\u00a0Paredes improved in the fall semester of the 2025-26 school year, but dropped in the second semester.\u00a0 District officials previously said some of the diminished academic performance came about because of \u201cdisruptions\u201d at the school. The disruptions were related to the principal of Paredes being placed on leave for several months, according to the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
![\"Austin]()
<\/p>\n
Austin ISD Superintendent\u00a0Matias Segura speaks to a room full of teachers, staff, parents and community members during an information and listening session held at Parades Middle School in Austin as a vote on whether to close the school approaches, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Segura also said staff vacancies played into the closure decision. As of this week, Paredes had 18 staff vacancies, including 14 teaching positions. The school had 39 teachers in the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n
The fact that staff vacancies contributed to the decision to close a campus is concerning, especially considering the district has multiple campuses that require academic turnaround plans, de Urioste said. The plans, mandated by the state at struggling schools, typically require that a campus staff with experienced teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say that we have a hard job, and we can\u2019t get people to apply for it, is really concerning to me,\u201d de Urioste said.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The majority of the 848 students who were projected to attend Paredes\u00a0will be assigned to Bailey Middle School. About 45% of students will move to Mendez.\u00a0A state-mandated academic turnaround plan designed for Paredes also will move to Bailey, bringing enhanced staffing and more focus on math and reading instruction. The Texas Education Agency still needs to sign off on moving the plan to Bailey, Segura has said.<\/p>\n
Trustee Candace Hunter said she feared what would happen if the agency doesn\u2019t accept the change, especially because the district is \u201calready at risk\u201d of a state takeover.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still waiting for Aug. 14,\u201d Hunter said, referring to the date that TEA will release 2026 campus scores. \u201cShould we survive that, we will be back in the mix if we don\u2019t make this move now.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Parades]()
<\/p>\n
Parades Middle School band teacher Nancy Inglish speaks to AISD officials during an information and listening session held at Parades Middle School in Austin as a vote on whether to close the school approaches, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Of the 63 staff members at Paredes, 28 will move to Bailey, 24 will move to Mendez and 11 will move to other schools, according to Austin ISD.\u00a0Nineteen of\u00a0Paredes’ 34 teachers\u00a0will go to Mendez, and\u00a015 will go to Bailey.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Bailey is about six miles southwest of Paredes, and Mendez is six miles northeast. Segura showed trustees\u00a0the finalized attendance boundary split Thursday night. Students who live east of Bluff Springs Road and north of Slaughter Lane will be reassigned to Mendez. All other Paredes students will move to Bailey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Family concern<\/p>\n
During the Thursday meeting, Paredes seventh grader\u00a0Amerae Guerrero begged the district not to close her school. It wasn\u2019t fair to students, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have closed our school because we failed,\u201d Amerae said. \u201cWe can always try again. We tried our hardest with the changes that were made. The district failed us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Ahead of the school board decision, families and staff packed into Paredes\u2019 library on Wednesday to demand more information about why the decision had come so late in the summer.<\/p>\n
Jacob Cervantes, a rising seventh grader, had been looking forward to playing football at Paredes next year. Now that he will be moving to Bailey, those plans feel up in the air.<\/p>\n
![\"Heather]()
<\/p>\n
Heather Trevino and her son Jacob Cervantes speak to AISD Superintendent Matias Segura during an information and listening session held at Parades Middle School in Austin as a vote on whether to close the school approaches, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
He and his mother, Heather Trevino, watched a Tuesday night school board meeting where trustees were briefed on the decision and still didn\u2019t understand why the decision had come so late, she said.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Trevino had been paying attention to the school\u2019s mid-year performance, which had been improving, so the news of a school closure came as a shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath us,\u201d Trevino said. \u201cWe had the impression that we were on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, she worries about arranging transportation for her son, especially since the single mother has other school-aged children and older family members to care for.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Austin ISD administrators plan to call families to help them with enrollment and let them know about transportation options, Segura said on Thursday. The district also plans to direct resources toward Bailey and Mendez to accommodate the influx of students from Paredes. <\/p>\n
Angel Wilson, assistant superintendent of secondary schools, said she can\u2019t yet guarantee that students will be enrolled in all the same courses they previously signed up for at Paredes. Administrators are trying to match courses the best they can, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elena Torres-Ponce speaks to AISD officials during an information and listening session held at Parades Middle School in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-392960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392960","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=392960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}