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Posted
1 hour ago, swraith said:

Based on the data rubric, why do you think Gullet would be closed and merged with Pillow?

My first guess would be that Pillow & Wooten would merge since they're both under enrolled and really close to each other.  If you eliminate transfers, then Gullett & Brentwood fall within the ideal 85-95% capacity range.  It seems like easy fixes for 4 schools.  However, from the Dobie/Lamar meetings months ago, eastside activists were pretty insistent that white schools need to suffer.   Gullett hasn't received any real construction money and is in terrible condition.  Most classrooms are portables. They actually still use the very first portable AISD bought in the early '60s (the Speech portable). That is an extremely valuable piece of property and I would think developers have had discussions with them.  I fear for Lamar also. That has to be some valuable land at Burnet/2222.  Burnet and Dobie MS are right down the road.  If you split the higher performing Lamar students to those campuses, it can lift them out of their F ranking.  If students from the bad schools move, the F rating follows those students.  So, from a ratings perspective, it makes more sense to close a better performing school and disperse those students.

 

 

 

Posted

Lamar's attendance boundary is absolutely massive.  The eastern edge of its boundary map could be changed to release some of its zoned students to any combination of O'Henry, Kealing, Webb, and Martin.  That would bring down Lamar's over capacity issue.  Which is called out on rubric with "School zone is too crowded".  Lamar's cost per student in terms of Building & Operations is high and should be addressed longer term.  I just don't see a scenario where Lamar is closed, particularly given its status as Fine Arts Academy, unless AISD decides to do away completely with the academy concept.

 

I agree that "pain" is going to be distributed but I think that will come by major boundary zone changes, not by closing overcrowded schools on the west side.  Though the Bryker Woods parents seem to be in full force to save their school from perceived threats of closure.   Bryker Woods rubric score is identical to Gullett.  So maybe I'm just not reading the tea leaves correctly. 

Posted
19 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

It seems like many in Austin aren’t aware of the school consolidation plan that will announced Oct 3rd and voted on, on the 9th. A dozen or more elementary and middle schools will close and all attendance boundaries will be redrawn. AISD said in the Zoom call yesterday that every school will be affected and the boundary changes will be severe. They will also most likely eliminate transfers to force kids to attend their home schools.

Thanks for spreading the word, those that are affected need to know about this.

However, one small correction.  The plan is being uploaded in early October, meaning that it will be available online, probably via BoardDocs or on the school consolidation page.  The folks working on the plan will present it to the board at the board info session on Oct 9th.

The board is scheduled to vote on the final plan during their November 20th voting meeting.  So there is some time for tweaks, but I suspect the board has known the basic plan for a while.

You may have more recent info from the Zoom call than Austin ISD has published on their consolidation page.

They have to consolidate schools to remain financially viable.  They have burned through their savings and they are only able to reduce their deficit to where it is for this year by selling school properties for one-time cash.  The district said they have the same enrollment now as they did in the mid-1990s, but they are operating twenty more schools now than they did then.

The latest demographic report shows them losing 10% more of their students over the next ten years, then perhaps flatting out.

There are benefits to consolidation, although it's painful for folks to experience it and it's always unpopular.

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Texas Jeff said:

The latest demographic report shows them losing 10% more of their students over the next ten years, then perhaps flatting out.

One data point they threw out there was that when Minneapolis consolidated their schools, they lost 35% of their students.  Someone from AISD offhandedly mentioned an expectation of 10-15%.

The issue with the Zoom meetings is that 99% of the participants only give a shit about the wall-to-wall dual language schools. I honestly didn't even know that was a thing.  I wanted to just yell that shit won't even exist when TEA takes over so don't worry about it.

Edited by CooterBrown
Posted

Consolidation causes declining enrollment. Declining enrollment turbofucks the recapture formula. Round and round we go.

When considering closing east side schools you also have to map out the nearby charters. If you close a school that’s right next to one, your families will opt for the charter vs a school a lot farther away.

Posted
6 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Bedichek, Martin, Brykerwoods, Wooten, Dawson, Becker, Maplewood, Ridgetop, and Joslin are the first schools on the chopping block to be leaked.

Bryker Woods is an interesting choice.  It is a small school in poor condition but the surrounding schools are mostly full or overcrowded according to the rubric they released.  Perhaps they are serious about limiting transfers to the West Austin elementaries, which might free up enough space to absorb the local population.

Maplewood will probably be merged into Campbell.  One of the trustees has mentioned this idea several times in board meetings.

Fun fact: Bedichek was a filming location for "Dazed and Confused".  IMHO, it looked old and out of date 30 years ago.

Posted

I missed this yesterday.  Nice to hear some alternate voices.  I don't know anything about the Interfaith Alliance.  Is this a fairly sane, mainstream group?

https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-09-17/interfaith-religious-freedom-schools-summit-texas

Quote

A coalition of interfaith groups is pushing back on what they say is a “Christian nationalist” school movement – and it’s starting in Texas.

The first ever Religious Freedom in Public Schools summit met in Dallas this week.

Drawing more than 150 people and numerous religious, civic and community organizations from 22 states, the summit was formed by Washington, D.C.-based non-profit Interfaith Alliance. Vice President Guthrie Grave-Fitzsimmons said it chose Texas for the first meeting because the state has already passed laws allowing chaplains as school counselors, sending public dollars to private and religious schools requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments in every class — which is facing a legal challenge — and allowing districts to set aside prayer time.

"For decades, we've had a consensus in our public schools that they should be open to people of all faiths and none, that the government should not indoctrinate students with one religion in our schools,” Graves-Fitzsimmons said. “And yet that consensus is breaking down because of a concentrated, coordinated push by far-right extremists to push one version of fundamentalist Christianity through our public school.”

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, fuggled said:

I missed this yesterday.  Nice to hear some alternate voices.  I don't know anything about the Interfaith Alliance.  Is this a fairly sane, mainstream group?

https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-09-17/interfaith-religious-freedom-schools-summit-texas

 

The first thing I think of when I hear about them is the work they did following 9/11 in trying to tamp down all the Islamophobia. Just a bunch of God-fearing, spiritual folks trying to keep us from all killing each other over spiritual matters. That's my impression of the group.

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Posted
26 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Add Widen and Barrington to the potential closure list.

They need to close as many as they need to this year and rezone once. Closing a couple and kicking the can down the road 5 years just continues the death spiral.

Then sell off a property each year to help cover the budget shortfall that will still be there even with the closures. Start with Pease Elementary, which the district still owns.

Posted
12 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

They need to close as many as they need to this year and rezone once. Closing a couple and kicking the can down the road 5 years just continues the death spiral.

This summer they were talking about how many seats they would have to remove to get to 80/85/90 percent full.  And how they wanted to do this once.

I suspect, given AISD's history, that the admin will target 85% full and the community will talk them down to 80%.  IMHO, they should be going for 90% full and wait and see what happens with demographics.  They are projected to lose another 10% over the next ten years.

If they end up at 80% full and lose 10%, they'll be back at 72% full in 10 years.  Going for 90% now would leave them around 81% full in 10 years, when they will likely have to do this over again.  Getting to 90% would save a lot of money over 10 years vs 80% or lower.

If the district surprises and adds population, they could rebuild some campuses to add capacity.  They're never getting the land back once they sell.

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Posted
38 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Does any of this really matter when TEA takes over in 1-2 years?

TEA takeover may be inevitable, but I'm in denial and continue to hope it can be avoided.

Posted
44 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Does any of this really matter when TEA takes over in 1-2 years?

You can have Mike Miles.  Apparently he is work $650K/yr + bonuses according to his puppets he appointed.  

Posted
2 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

This summer they were talking about how many seats they would have to remove to get to 80/85/90 percent full.  And how they wanted to do this once.

I suspect, given AISD's history, that the admin will target 85% full and the community will talk them down to 80%.  IMHO, they should be going for 90% full and wait and see what happens with demographics.  They are projected to lose another 10% over the next ten years.

If they end up at 80% full and lose 10%, they'll be back at 72% full in 10 years.  Going for 90% now would leave them around 81% full in 10 years, when they will likely have to do this over again.  Getting to 90% would save a lot of money over 10 years vs 80% or lower.

If the district surprises and adds population, they could rebuild some campuses to add capacity.  They're never getting the land back once they sell.

I think they are underestimating the decline they will see. When they close schools, charters are going to pop up in those neighborhoods and take a significant amount of students. West Austin will get hit by vouchers. Probably most importantly, housing prices will probably start to rise again at some point forcing more families to the burbs to be replaced by people with 0 or 1 kid.

All of that isn’t even factoring in a state takeover that would also kill west Austin schools where parents have options. The district bends over backwards for those parents in many cases and that will stop with a Mike Miles type in charge.

Posted
15 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

West Austin will get hit by vouchers.

Don't the vouchers have an income limit of like $170K?  There aren't too many families with kids with that low of a household income in west Austin.

Posted
4 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Don't the vouchers have an income limit of like $170K?  There aren't too many families with kids with that low of a household income in west Austin.

No.  But only 20% of voucher funding available to families over 500% of poverty level, currently about 160k.

Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

No.  But only 20% of voucher funding available to families over 500% of poverty level, currently about 160k.

Also, that’s the current amount of vouchers. Now that the cat is out of the bag, the number will increase each year, just like the number of charter schools.

I’ll make another post on it later but you are going to see a lot of for profit companies entering the state. You can already turn over management and operations of charters to for profit companies. Depending on your beliefs about economics and education this could be a good or bad thing.

Posted
51 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

not all schools accept vouchers ?

 

4 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Participation is optional.

Have heard the rumors around Fort Worth that the high end legacy type private schools are going to decline, don’t need the $ and don’t want to invite state prying. And FW is heavy private school, lots of money in the city but FWISD is beyond repair. 

Posted
40 minutes ago, bluto said:

 

Have heard the rumors around Fort Worth that the high end legacy type private schools are going to decline, don’t need the $ and don’t want to invite state prying. And FW is heavy private school, lots of money in the city but FWISD is beyond repair. 

Can’t blame them, especially if they have a waiting list regardless. The state is offering up to 30k for special education vouchers. I’m researching it for my company but the system isn’t making a ton of sense.

Sounds like you take then kid and hope the state pays you enough to cover the costs with 30k being the max. Many of our students cost about 50k, so if we charged the parent 20k and the state shorts us, we are screwed. Districts would be thrilled to get some of these kids off their tab though.

Posted
3 hours ago, bluto said:

 

Have heard the rumors around Fort Worth that the high end legacy type private schools are going to decline, don’t need the $ and don’t want to invite state prying. And FW is heavy private school, lots of money in the city but FWISD is beyond repair. 

 

many in houston are taking a pass and increasing tuition 

Posted

r/UTAustin - Why are they getting rid of COE dean?r/UTAustin - Why are they getting rid of COE dean?r/UTAustin - Why are they getting rid of COE dean?

Sorry if this was shared already, but it seems like the Dean of Education is being forced to leave the university because of this. I was a CNS graduate, but regardless this attack on higher education will only hurt the prestige of our university.

Posted
8 minutes ago, txexlonghorn23 said:

r/UTAustin - Why are they getting rid of COE dean?r/UTAustin - Why are they getting rid of COE dean?r/UTAustin - Why are they getting rid of COE dean?

Sorry if this was shared already, but it seems like the Dean of Education is being forced to leave the university because of this. I was a CNS graduate, but regardless this attack on higher education will only hurt the prestige of our university.

As an education major, there is no way I’m reading all that. Maybe one of the hotties can summarize it for me.

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Posted
On 7/1/2025 at 2:47 PM, Mole said:

A little more context in the IU situation: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/07/01/indiana-university-to-discontinue-more-than-100-academic-programs/
 

  Reveal hidden contents

One of the budget bill’s provisions — inserted by the Republican majority as the legislative session reached its final hours — established a minimum average number of graduates that degree programs at Indiana’s public colleges and universities must produce over a three-year period.

If that number falls below 10 students in an associate degree program, 15 students in a BA program, seven students in master’s degree program, and three students in a doctorate degree program, the institution would have to request permission from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to continue offering the program.

Reading between the lines (maybe too much), these are probably smaller, less popular degrees that are probably mostly being shuffled into other programs to boost and consolidate numbers. I know that’s what I’d do in this situation.

“Included among the Ph.D. programs slated for eventual phaseouts were African American and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Art History, Astrophysics, Chemical Physics, Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Astrophysics, French, Japanese, Gender Studies, Italian, Public Policy, and Theatre and Drama.”

They said Astrophysics twice. 

Posted
4 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

“Included among the Ph.D. programs slated for eventual phaseouts were African American and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Art History, Astrophysics, Chemical Physics, Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Astrophysics, French, Japanese, Gender Studies, Italian, Public Policy, and Theatre and Drama.”

They said Astrophysics twice. 

Seems like they REALLY hate Neil deGrasse Tyson ...

Posted

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/23/professors-us-south-leaving

Many professors in the US south, particularly in Florida, South Carolina and Texas, are considering leaving their state because of the impact the political climate is having on education, according to a new survey by the American Association of Professors.

Of those interviewed in the survey, roughly a quarter of respondents said they applied for a job in higher education in another state since the start of 2023.

Heather Houser worked as a professor in the English department, teaching American literature and environmental humanities, at the University of Texas at Austin for 14 years. Like the growing number of professors in the stronghold Republican state, she found the increasing government oversight on higher education alarming. Houser left Texas earlier this year for a new teaching position at The University of Antwerp in Belgium.

“I know a lot of people who’ve been on the job market for several years and they’d be gone by now if not for the factors that make it hard to leave,” Houser said. “It comes with sacrifices, and I still feel so much for my students and colleagues back in Texas. It’s hard to know what they’re enduring.”

The survey received responses from approximately 4,000 faculty members across the south and included other states, such as Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky, in its findings. About 25% of the professors in Texas who responded said they have applied for teaching roles in other states in the last two years, with another 25% saying they intend to start a search.

Last year, salary was the top reason as to why educators across the south were seeking employment elsewhere. In this year’s findings, however, “broad political climate” was the top motivator.

“I had been looking to leave UT Austin and Texas for many years,” Houser said, “part was just a desire for personal change, but much bigger was my concern about higher education and the direction it was going. I was worried that the ability to teach things I cared about like environmental or social justice would become increasingly hard or even discouraged.”

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed a bill in 2023 that banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and initiatives in higher education institutions across the state.

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