On Oct. 9, under the sweltering 5 o\u2019clock cloudless sky, about 100 Austin ISD parents and students clustered at the edge of the I-35 service road where AISD houses their headquarters, hoisting signs reading \u201cI love Maplewood\u201d and \u201cSave Becker.\u201d Inside the building, the AISD Board of Trustees prepared to gather at the dais. A passing CapMetro bus honked in support to a wave of cheers.<\/p>\n
Multiple posters endorsed the parent-created LetsGetItRightAISD.com<\/a>, a petition website against the district consolidation plan<\/a> that the district released on Oct. 3, which proposes to close 13 schools<\/a> and rezone thousands of students<\/a> to a new neighborhood school.<\/p>\n The redrawn district is meant to fill empty schools, better serve students learning English, allow elementary and middle schools to more cleanly feed into middle and high, and save desperately needed money. The plan also means to save AISD from a takeover by the TEA, due to 33 schools receiving unacceptable STAAR-based accountability scores in August.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a farm. This is a garden, and things are not growing equitably,\u201d Trustee Fernando Lucas de Urioste said during the Oct. 9 board meeting. \u201cWe have to have the entire farm producing, and we don\u2019t have enough water for the way we\u2019re doing it now.\u201d<\/p>\n A kid wearing noise-blocking headphones hit a sizable drum to the beat of the group\u2019s chants: Save our schools! \u201cThis is a very, very bad idea,\u201d wrote one child in a letter read aloud to the protesters by his mother.<\/p>\n The Oct. 9 meeting presented the only planned opportunity the board of trustees had to discuss the consolidations. Parents filed into the room from the protest, some taking a seat on the floor. During public comment, several pointed out that the disruptive closures are more likely to tank students\u2019 standardized testing scores than improve them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe draft consolidation plan \u2026 pours gasoline on this fire. Closures routinely cause a first-year drop in performance, and that\u2019s well documented,\u201d one parent emphasized.\u00a0<\/p>\n Parents pointed out several issues with the proposal. One of the foremost: Five schools would become non-zoned dual language or Montessori campuses \u2013 how does the district plan to keep these \u201cspecial\u201d schools open to the local kids who attend them now, rather than just transfer families who can afford to drive across town every day? The district doesn\u2019t plan to provide bus transportation next year for students who stay at their current schools, which would take that choice away from students whose parents work early.<\/p>\n Moreover, \u201cIs the plan assuming that people are widgets, and they will move wherever you put them, and we won\u2019t lose any enrollment?\u201d Trustee Kathryn Whitley Chu asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEnrollment is already declining,\u201d Superintendent Matias Segura replied. \u201cWe\u2019re desperately trying to come up with plans that keep students in AISD. But \u2026 something has to give.\u201d<\/p>\n Board President Lynn Boswell asked for data from other districts who have undergone similar consolidations: Will this actually work, and create schools that can and will succeed under the TEA\u2019s standardized test-based accountability system? \u201cWe are playing a very high-stakes game,\u201d Boswell said.<\/p>\n