{"id":482613,"date":"2026-10-31T19:43:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T19:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/482613\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T19:43:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T19:43:03","slug":"austin-isd-approves-turnaround-plans-weighs-budget-cuts-central-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/482613\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin ISD approves turnaround plans, weighs budget cuts | Central Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin ISD trustees<\/a> approved improvement plans<\/a> for struggling campuses Oct. 29<\/a> and heard early options for cutting at least $60 million from the district’s 2027-28 budget<\/a>, including reductions to turnaround school funding and arts and PE staffing.<\/p>\n

What parents should know<\/p>\n

Trustees approved six turnaround plans, four targeted improvement plans and 16 local improvement plans due to the Texas Education Agency<\/a> by the end of November, district staff said.<\/p>\n

Families can follow progress at these campuses on a public dashboard<\/a> the district launched Sept. 15 to track academic and staffing data at schools with unacceptable state ratings, as previously reported by Community Impact<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Campuses need turnaround plans after two straight unacceptable state ratings; targeted improvement plans after one; and local improvement plans after a “D” that follows an unacceptable rating, per TEA guidance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trustees Arati Singh and Candace Hunter raised concerns that the plans lack parent engagement. Singh said her search of several plans found parents mentioned only in the notice of a meeting. District officials said the TEA’s template has no section for it and agreed before the vote to write parent engagement into the schools’ campus improvement plans.<\/p>\n

“Parents got choice. They’re going to vote with their feet,” Hunter said. “They’re our best partner. We’ve got to invite them in.”<\/p>\n

Budget explained<\/p>\n

Payroll makes up 89.9% of the district’s budget, compared with a national average of 81%-83%, Chief Financial Officer Katrina Montgomery said. Options Superintendent Matias Segura presented include:<\/p>\n

Cutting turnaround school funding, now nearly $20 million, by up to $3 million<\/p>\n

Revisiting stipends, which total more than $20 million<\/p>\n

Expanding last year’s music, art and physical education staffing cuts<\/p>\n

Monetizing the central office building<\/p>\n

No action was taken.<\/p>\n

This year, the district projects a $39 million surplus, up from $19 million budgeted, largely from the $16 million sale of the former Brooke Elementary site<\/a> and better-than-expected property values, Montgomery said. Still, reserves would end the year at 13.77%, below the 15% minimum Singh said board policy requires. Reaching 15% would take about $10 million in additional cuts, Montgomery said.<\/p>\n

What’s next<\/p>\n

Board President Lynn Boswell said trustees will continue the $10 million discussion at the Nov. 5 information session. The next voting meeting is Nov. 12, according to the district’s meeting schedule<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin ISD trustees approved improvement plans for struggling campuses Oct. 29 and heard early options for cutting at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,1685,133,162556,148386,6801,115220,2810,86568],"class_list":["post-482613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-isd","tag-austin-news","tag-boundary-changes","tag-katrina-montgomery","tag-matias-segura","tag-school-budget","tag-texas-education-agency","tag-turnaround-plans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482613","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=482613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}