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Posted
23 hours ago, swraith said:

So AISD listened to feedback and made a change that was an improvement?

I’m mostly ignorant on the topic overall, but my guess is that the changes they made to the map in SW Austin probably kept a few dozen kids in wealthy families from going private vs what would have happened if they’d gone with the draft map.  
 

 

Posted

WTF is that email that AISD superintendent just sent out?

 

“In the past few days, members of our community have brought forward significant concerns about the integrity of specific individuals leading the process of applying community feedback to the updated plan.”

Posted (edited)
42 minutes ago, swraith said:

WTF is that email that AISD superintendent just sent out?

“In the past few days, members of our community have brought forward significant concerns about the integrity of specific individuals leading the process of applying community feedback to the updated plan.”

Edit: a text from a friend a few minutes ago said she had the feeling that the superintendent was being told some things by people under him, and when he showed up at a couple of the schools, he heard something completely different. But that’s just a feeling she had.

Based on conversations at a kid’s birthday party that turned into a UT watch party on Saturday, some of the board members/advocates were probably playing favorites and clearly protecting some schools at the cost of other schools while pretending to advocate for everybody and telling everybody the same things.  There may or may not have been campaign contributions from certain areas/individuals involved with some board members, or discussion of the future political careers of some board members.  There is video of some of these board members/advocates trying to play both sides when they knew better and knew which schools were going to be affected.

It was a pretty wide range of schools represented at the party, including four of the affected schools (and several of us were going to have our older kids be fucked by the boundary changes), and hearing everybody comparing notes and comparing videos of the advocates was interesting and very enlightening.  Some of those board members are going to find that they may not have a chance at future elections, such as the Austin City Council.  FAFO. 

There’s also some pretty fucking arrogant parents and get a few beers in them and they’ll let you know they wanted some schools to stay open simply because they didn’t want those schools’ kids to show up at their kids’ school.

 

Edited by atomheartbevo
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Posted

If any of that is true, I'm both amazed and unsurprised. But I'm mostly relieved that BW and Maplewood are saved for now. More work to do to keep it that way.

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Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, Cap33 said:

If any of that is true, I'm both amazed and unsurprised. But I'm mostly relieved that BW and Maplewood are saved for now. More work to do to keep it that way.

Having watched videos from several different meetings with different schools between parents and AISD/board members, there was always a whole lot that seemed way off with the whole process. Seeing the same person tell two different schools the same thing when one school was turbo-fucked and the other merely fucked, even though that person already knew the plan was crazy given that it's 2025 and parents are in constant contact with one another both within their own schools and with parents from other schools.  Parents were going to talk to parents from other schools.

I was pretty fucking pissed to find on Friday that my son would have to leave his middle school for another middle school and a completely different high school, even though we had been promised that the verticals wouldn't change.

This whole thing has been so fucking crazy.  I don't know whether the people who were doing all of this were incompetent or were lying through their teeth for some reason.

Edited by atomheartbevo
Posted

Someone found the original deed for the Ridgetop ES property. It states that if the property isn’t used for a public school, ownership reverts back to the previous owners or their heirs.

LOFL if AISD doesn’t even get to profit from the land sale now.

  • Haha 2
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Someone found the original deed for the Ridgetop ES property. It states that if the property isn’t used for a public school, ownership reverts back to the previous owners or their heirs.

LOFL if AISD doesn’t even get to profit from the land sale now.

I wouldn't put it past a developer or two or three to try and still get it out of AISD's hands and into somebody's hands that will sell it to them.  It's that way with all of the schools.

The scary thing is if/when the state takes over, if enough parents bail for private schools or move to one of the nearby ISDs, there will be a lot more consolidation.

Edited by atomheartbevo
Posted

The only thing anyone can know for sure is that whatever Segura is saying isn't the truth.   That he's throwing his own employees under the bus is interesting, to say the least.  

Ultimately, he tried to fuck with a rich-person school that 100% needed to be closed based on the cost per student, and now he's finding out what happens when you try to take toys away from grown-up toddlers with money and influence. 

One interesting aspect is that the last time AISD tried to "fix" these problems, Gina Hinojosa played the race card from the East side and got the can kicked down the road.  Now it's rich white folks on the west side doing the same thing.  The result will be the same; AISD will continue spiraling until it can't be kept alive.  My primary concern with this current kicking of the can is that it will increase the likelihood of a TEA takeover in the next couple of years, and then we're all fucked.

Posted
1 hour ago, Samson's Wig said:

My primary concern with this current kicking of the can is that it will increase the likelihood of a TEA takeover in the next couple of years, and then we're all fucked.

When the TEA takes over, it won't be because of any of the schools being kept open or any boundaries being preserved for another year, it'll be because of already failing schools, and most important of all, the legislature and TEA have set school districts up to fail and have changed criteria to hasten that, because the legislature is sitting on $32 billion that could help a lot of school districts, and because they are all in on wrecking public education.  There's already 5 school districts in line to be taken over.

We can rage about AISD management all we want, but at the end of the day, the state takes $820 million from AISD's budget, and the state wants to take over the largest districts, and they want to do away with a lot of programs because some fucking Christian nutcases want it to happen, and the state refuses to spend the money to bolster education (remember 30-40 years ago when our state leaders cared about education and wanted us to compete with the top states in the nation?)

When the legislators and state leaders and rich Christian nationalists tell you they oppose public education, and they actively work towards that goal, and that they want to create more charter schools in place of public schools, listen to them.

We have the money to fix all of the districts, but the state has decided against that.

Posted
3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

When the TEA takes over, it won't be because of any of the schools being kept open or any boundaries being preserved for another year, it'll be because of already failing schools, and most important of all, the legislature and TEA have set school districts up to fail and have changed criteria to hasten that, because the legislature is sitting on $32 billion that could help a lot of school districts, and because they are all in on wrecking public education.  There's already 5 school districts in line to be taken over.

We can rage about AISD management all we want, but at the end of the day, the state takes $820 million from AISD's budget, and the state wants to take over the largest districts, and they want to do away with a lot of programs because some fucking Christian nutcases want it to happen, and the state refuses to spend the money to bolster education (remember 30-40 years ago when our state leaders cared about education and wanted us to compete with the top states in the nation?)

When the legislators and state leaders and rich Christian nationalists tell you they oppose public education, and they actively work towards that goal, and that they want to create more charter schools in place of public schools, listen to them.

We have the money to fix all of the districts, but the state has decided against that.

I completely agree with all of this, and I'm well aware of it.  But I'm tired of terrible AISD administrators using the state as an excuse for their barrels full of failures.   It's not an either/or situation; they are both awful.  It's the same trap people fall into with partisan political thinking.  Just because one party is worse doesn't excuse the other's foolishness.  They're both awful.  I understand that sometimes you have to hold your nose and go with the lesser of two evils, but that isn't the situation with our failing school districts.  We should demand better from them, even if they're playing against a stacked deck.  

If I complain about AISD more than the state in this thread, well, it's mainly because this is a thread about AISD.  It's also because there isn't much to say about the threat coming from the state that hasn't been said.  It's clear what is happening there, and while I have no idea how to stop a handful of cult-member billionaires from purchasing our state legislature for their own ends, I can look at who we hire to run our school district and know we can do much better.  

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Posted (edited)
53 minutes ago, CleverNickname said:

So the rich kids got special favors. Call me shocked. 

Or maybe keep the better performing/non-TAPS/TIPS schools open in the face of the TEA breathing down Austin's neck over low-performing schools.  Look, if you hate these schools that were taken off the list, don't worry, when the state takes over, a whole fuckload of people are going to bail on AISD for private schools or neighboring districts, along with a lot of really good teachers, and there will be a lot more school closures, excuse me, conversions to charter schools.

And if you think AISD is incompetent but then blindly accept their numbers about what will or will not save money and ignore how they've handle school closures in the past, then I've got a crypto scheme that will make you a lot of money - I just need you to give me $20,000 every few days in Bitcoin, and in 6 months I'll triple or quadruple it, just don't bother to ask me how.

Edited by atomheartbevo
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

It's clear what is happening there, and while I have no idea how to stop a handful of cult-member billionaires from purchasing our state legislature for their own ends, I can look at who we hire to run our school district and know we can do much better.  

Not trying to imitate @Brisketexan and standing on the ledge, but I don't think it matters.  We could improve our scores this year and they'll just move the goalposts like they've done in the past. Unfortunately, AISD is one of the crown jewels they are clearly after.  Well, they want all of the largest districts, but AISD generates a lot of money, and for CR reasons, they really want to stick it to AISD.

I think that this round of consolidation/boundary changes (and there will be future rounds in the next few years) should have focused on the at-risk schools who could take AISD into full state takeover. Even if their grades follow them around to other schools, we needed to at least attempt something.

It fucking sucks, because I've still got a long way to go with my youngest. My oldest isn't even in high school yet, but at least we see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't want to uproot them but given the boundary changes that affect their middle/high schools, AISD appears to be wanting to do that anyways.

Edited by atomheartbevo

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