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Posted

Austin ISD is about to go through a consolidation and closure process.  I thought I would start a new topic to help focus discussion for those affected.

Until now, the process has been discussing goals and such in a generic sense.  Today, it gets specific with a plan to close certain schools and consolidate others.  This will be debated and revised from now until about Thanksgiving, when the board is scheduled to vote on the  final plan.

Here's a starting spot to learn about the consolidation effort:

https://www.austinisd.org/consolidate

The initial proposal is scheduled to be released today.

Posted

You know with this cand-ass Friday after-hours info drop that it's going to be good.  I'm just ready to see what version of busing rezoning they come up with, so parents can start making plans for next year.  I don't think there is anything they can do that won't result in a 25% or more reduction in enrollment.  It's all putting lipstick on a pig at this point, as anything short of school finance reform won't materially change a damn thing.   

Posted

I only have one kid at Austin High now (Thank God) but one of my neighbors has two kids at Casis and is pissed as supposedly they will be recommending their kids go to Mathews instead (we are in pemberton). Going to be a-lot of noise around whatever changes are made. 

Posted
I only have one kid at Austin High now (Thank God) but one of my neighbors has two kids at Casis and is pissed as supposedly they will be recommending their kids go to Mathews instead (we are in pemberton). Going to be a-lot of noise around whatever changes are made. 

Kids in my neighborhood in North Austin have 1 mile to the elementary school, 6 miles to the nearest high school, and 8 miles to the nearest middle school.
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)

So, in true AISD fashion, they set their working GIS data for the attendance zone options to public. If you know what to search for, you can find them.

I don't know if these are what were considered or if one of these options was chosen.  However, the last modified date is pretty recent.

Option 3 is the nuclear option.  Half of Northwest Hills will drive past Anderson to go to Navarro along with all of Allandale and most of Crestview.  It looks like LBJ, Northeast, and Eastside all get the axe. 

Current:  https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=185958ef39cb4c15a016b9231ba17b8c

Option 1: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=57e9c5655b4645859b3bd01c51f62e41

Option 2: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=85c7eab9962d4056a5540d5e5a5d79cb

Option 3: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=fe1cda4a5af24afabefc0369689d040a

EDIT: these maps are of the verticals.  If you click on a boundary polygon, the pop up will tell you which elementary and middle schools will track to the high school in that option scenario.

Edited by CooterBrown
Posted
50 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

I only have one kid at Austin High now (Thank God) but one of my neighbors has two kids at Casis and is pissed as supposedly they will be recommending their kids go to Mathews instead (we are in pemberton). Going to be a-lot of noise around whatever changes are made. 

The horror. That Mathews area...damn...the hard streets of Clarksville.

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Posted
47 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

I only have one kid at Austin High now (Thank God) but one of my neighbors has two kids at Casis and is pissed as supposedly they will be recommending their kids go to Mathews instead (we are in pemberton). Going to be a-lot of noise around whatever changes are made. 

That's because Bryker Woods will be on the closure list -- even though it's full, high-performing, and IB credentialed. Oh, and it sits smack in the middle of a shit ton of upzoning the City has done to increase density along 35th/38th street. But as noted in the other thread, the list isn't about facts or reason. And the superintendent is a straight up liar about their "process." This will be purely political.

The rumor we've heard is that Pemberton will get to stay at Casis, and AISD will ship BW students south through Pemberton and Old Enfield to Mathews. As pissed as your neighbor will be about getting rezoned to Mathews, I promise it pales in comparison to my neighbors' rage about their school closing and then not rezoned to the closer elementary school with the capacity to absorb the Bryker Woods kids.

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

 

Posted (edited)

Here is a spreadsheet I made from the map data above.  It lists the schools in each vertical. 

I fear Option 3 is the choice. It gets rid of the historical east-west divide because the new boundaries mostly extend from far west austin to far east austin.  Also, the percentage of disadvantaged students is the most consistent between high schools.

 

 

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Edited by CooterBrown
Posted (edited)
23 minutes ago, Cap33 said:

That's because Bryker Woods will be on the closure list -- even though it's full, high-performing, and IB credentialed. Oh, and it sits smack in the middle of a shit ton of upzoning the City has done to increase density along 35th/38th street. But as noted in the other thread, the list isn't about facts or reason. And the superintendent is a straight up liar about their "process." This will be purely political.

The rumor we've heard is that Pemberton will get to stay at Casis, and AISD will ship BW students south through Pemberton and Old Enfield to Mathews. As pissed as your neighbor will be about getting rezoned to Mathews, I promise it pales in comparison to my neighbors' rage about their school closing and then not rezoned to the closer elementary school with the capacity to absorb the Bryker Woods kids.

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Well, Casis is already pretty close to capacity, and Mathews is not far away from capacity either, but without the room for portables.  I have friends whose kids are at Bryker Woods and they are furious - they were at Pease so this is their second rodeo, but BW is actually a few hundred students below their historical highs (even 5-6 years ago pre-COVID), but AISD decided that portables don't count, which was done to fuck over Bryker Woods and a few other schools.  And you're right, they are high performing, and the only IB Credentialed elementary in town.  Shipping them to Matthews is going to piss off a lot of people if they close BW. And BW parents have a lot of money and will probably send their kids to private schools/St. Andrews just across the creek so AISD will be losing students (and funding).

We've been hearing they really want to shut down Lee and Ridgetop (and if the state comes in, Ridgetop's dual-lingual stuff is gone) as well.

 

Edited by atomheartbevo
Posted

What's really pissing people off is why weren't the failing/near-failing schools closed last school year?  Why are they talking about closing A schools, even the only IB-credentialed elementary (Bryker Woods) if they have failing schools like Dobie, Webb and Burnet that could shit-can the whole district and let Greg Abbott's people take over?

All this consolidation doesn't mean shit if the state comes in and takes over.

We have friends whose kids are at LASA or aiming for LASA, who were patting themselves on the back at fighting against Dobie/etc. students going there.  LASA along with other such programs are fucking gone if the state comes in and I'm going to laugh my ass off at them taking a stand to keep a bunch of kids out, only to watch the state dismantle LASA for being a liberal arts program.

One of our friends at Lee thinks AISD leadership gave up fighting off the state takeover and decided to try and close a bunch of schools with desirable properties to be sold off to developers that they know or who contributed to them in some way.

Just so we are clear, Dobie, Webb and Burnet, one of them will fail again, and the state will come in and take over.

Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

AISD decided that portables don't count, which was done to fuck over Bryker Woods and a few other schools.

Bingo. I wish someone would say why. Spoiler: gotta have a sacrificial lamb in West Austin. (Trustee Lynn Boswell effectively said so to the neighborhood association.)

And two of those three maps linked above carve Bryker Woods out of Austin High to go to McCallum. So thanks, AISD. You really put the screws to little ol' neighborhood for whatever reason.

Edit: And yes, selling that property would generate a nice chunk of one-time cash. They are stupid enough to do it.

Edited by Cap33
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Posted
3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

What's really pissing people off is why weren't the failing/near-failing schools closed last school year? 

They covered this a few meeting ago.

You can't close a failing school because that improvement plan then follows those kids to their new school and their cumulative score still counts towards that original failing score.

However, you can move higher performing kids to a failing school to raise the grades at that school.

Once they said that, then you knew the better performing kids were being sacrificed. 

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Posted

Our neighborhood in the southwest is also getting fucked. If this goes down this way, I would expect the number of kids enrolled AISD to drop even below what was discussed above. I think we have to leave as the quality of our kids education will drop in a big way. I guess we will see what else they spring on us with transfers et al. 

Posted
45 minutes ago, Deej said:

The horror. That Mathews area...damn...the hard streets of Clarksville.

It’s more going from school you can walk/ride bike to vs one you now have to commute to. Not a crime worry. 

Posted
44 minutes ago, Cap33 said:

That's because Bryker Woods will be on the closure list -- even though it's full, high-performing, and IB credentialed. Oh, and it sits smack in the middle of a shit ton of upzoning the City has done to increase density along 35th/38th street. But as noted in the other thread, the list isn't about facts or reason. And the superintendent is a straight up liar about their "process." This will be purely political.

The rumor we've heard is that Pemberton will get to stay at Casis, and AISD will ship BW students south through Pemberton and Old Enfield to Mathews. As pissed as your neighbor will be about getting rezoned to Mathews, I promise it pales in comparison to my neighbors' rage about their school closing and then not rezoned to the closer elementary school with the capacity to absorb the Bryker Woods kids.

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

 

Only dog I have in fight now is trying to get Austin High below 5A cut off so we can play some teams we have shot at beating vs being killed by Drip, Westlake & LT every fucking year. Considering aisd counts attendance three different ways I have zero confidence this will ever happen. 

Also I don’t think Boswell does jack shit for our area (just my opinion from interactions with her over years). 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, drt said:

Our neighborhood in the southwest is also getting fucked. If this goes down this way, I would expect the number of kids enrolled AISD to drop even below what was discussed above. I think we have to leave as the quality of our kids education will drop in a big way. I guess we will see what else they spring on us with transfers et al. 

Yeah, if those maps are correct and option 3 is chosen, there are no "good" high schools left. 

Posted
4 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

It’s more going from school you can walk/ride bike to vs one you now have to commute to. Not a crime worry. 

If you live in Pemberton, just have the servants take them. 

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Posted
Just now, Deej said:

If you live in Pemberton, just have the servants take them. 

I just hope Mathews is prepared for the army of livery and Range Rovers (although Rivians are on the upswing)

Posted

It's pretty wild with how much is extracted from Austin taxpayers for "education" that they're closing schools to sell the land to developers. Just straight up in the looting phase of the Administration 

Posted

Dude the looting has been going on for years. Just look at the recapture numbers.  This is just scraping the bones. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

Also I don’t think Boswell does jack shit for our area (just my opinion from interactions with her over years). 

Agree. She's more interested in virtue signaling than taking care of the people she said she would represent.

Posted

We are going from being in the vertical for Austin high to Crockett in all 3 of the proposed maps. Welp, nice knowing you Austin.

Posted
1 minute ago, drt said:

We are going from being in the vertical for Austin high to Crockett in all 3 of the proposed maps. Welp, nice knowing you Austin.

Just put in transfer. At this point AHS is almost as many transfers as zoned kids. It’s nuts. 

Posted
Just put in transfer. At this point AHS is almost as many transfers as zoned kids. It’s nuts. 

Transfers are gonna be eliminated as part of this process. They have to force as many kids as possible to go to their zoned schools.
Posted
41 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Once they said that, then you knew the better performing kids were being sacrificed. 

Isn’t that generally how public school is though?  The bulk of the resources go to the low performers?

Posted
27 minutes ago, drt said:

Dude the looting has been going on for years. Just look at the recapture numbers.  This is just scraping the bones. 

Don't have a dog in the fight as someone who doesn't live in Austin, but it's hard not to be sympathetic for you who do. Seriously Austin (Austin ISD) is straight up being robbed blind.

Posted
19 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:


Transfers are gonna be eliminated as part of this process. They have to force as many kids as possible to go to their zoned schools.

wow. If that is case then that will move AHS to 5A by default. There are ~700+ transfers in currently and only ~1400 zoned

Posted

If the universe were fair, LBJ would be merged back into Reagan and we would resume our rightful position at the top of Texas high school football. 

Posted
1 hour ago, CooterBrown said:

So, in true AISD fashion, they set their working GIS data for the attendance zone options to public. If you know what to search for, you can find them.

I don't know if these are what were considered or if one of these options was chosen.  However, the last modified date is pretty recent.

Option 3 is the nuclear option.  Half of Northwest Hills will drive past Anderson to go to Navarro along with all of Allandale and most of Crestview.  It looks like LBJ, Northeast, and Eastside all get the axe. 

Current:  https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=185958ef39cb4c15a016b9231ba17b8c

Option 1: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=57e9c5655b4645859b3bd01c51f62e41

Option 2: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=85c7eab9962d4056a5540d5e5a5d79cb

Option 3: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=fe1cda4a5af24afabefc0369689d040a

EDIT: these maps are of the verticals.  If you click on a boundary polygon, the pop up will tell you which elementary and middle schools will track to the high school in that option scenario.

You weren't joking.  Option 3 is panic inducing.  Maybe that is just being floated to make either Option 1 or 2 more palatable.  

Posted
20 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

wow. If that is case then that will move AHS to 5A by default. There are ~700+ transfers in currently and only ~1400 zoned

Based on our record, the Austin High football players would probably appreciate that. 

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