AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 When Austin ISD families were walking the halls of Bailey Middle School, it wasn\u2019t the school tour they expected. Their children weren\u2019t scheduled to attend Bailey until approximately two weeks before the start of the school year, when Austin ISD decided to shut down\u00a0Paredes Middle School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m scared of overcrowding and the teachers getting overwhelmed. What\u2019s going to happen as the year goes on?\u201d Christina Lopez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was one of the many questions that echoed through the Bailey Middle School cafeteria days before the new school year. Parents asked about drop-off times, bell schedules, classes offered and a free lunch program at a school that isn’t automatically qualified for one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do have to apply for it,\u201d a principal said to a parent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Closing Paredes Middle School hasn\u2019t been easy for parents, who felt blindsided by the last-minute decision. But district leaders say it was necessary to fend off a Texas Education Agency (TEA) takeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paredes was expected to receive another F rating from the TEA. The school eventually did receive its fourth failing rating after the campus closed.<\/p>\n
Despite the unexpected adjustment, parents praised the efforts teachers and principals were making to ease the transition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of questions that they did a good job of covering. I\u2019m sure there are going to be more questions as the first month of school is happening,\u201d Lopez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bailey is one of the two schools Paredes families can now attend, with the other being Mendez Middle School. There was confusion when parents received multiple emails stating their child was assigned to both campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district should\u2019ve worked this all out before they made this decision,\u201d Elena Torres-Ponce, a Paredes mother, said. \u201cThis tells me this wasn\u2019t well thought through.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Torres-Ponce said the campus closure should\u2019ve happened last school year to give families options.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to know by December because applications need to be put in for private school, charter school, and then we found out this way,\u201d\u00a0Torres-Ponce said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Families transferring to Mendez Middle School said they struggled to find uniforms in two weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Concerns about the neighborhood bus routes turning into bus hubs had Austin ISD adjusting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe criteria, the maximum will be three miles to the next nearest hub, and many of them are students who are able to go themselves,\u201d Kris Hafezizadeh, Austin ISD director of transportation, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The district brought back middle school neighborhood routes, but families are still feeling overwhelmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen so many of our schools close. It\u2019s like we don\u2019t fit in if we don\u2019t fit in,\u201d Torres-Ponce said. \u201cWe get spread out across the city.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 When Austin ISD families were walking the halls of Bailey Middle School, it wasn\u2019t the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[836,2160,132,134,133,102,163,138,6294,223,82,27,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-413372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-dallas","tag-education","tag-el-paso","tag-jose-arredondo","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413372","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=413372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}