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And our secondary is a hot mess.
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Lynn Boswell attended my neighborhood association meeting today. Someone asked her how they plan to prevent a TEA takeover, and after explaining the current criteria that can trigger it, she offered that charters were under consideration for Dobie, Webb, and the other failing middle school (Mendez?) because it would buy them two years. I'm reading into her tone somewhat, but I got the feeling this was a more likely outcome for those schools than not. As for the "paused" boundary redraw and closure plan, someone else put her on the spot about when that vote would happen. She had her talking points about community collaboration and thoughtful consideration, but then she said it was possible the vote would happen in the spring. That would be after the private schools go through their admissions process, so AISD would be handcuffing affected families to AISD without other options for 2026-27, which probably means the district will absolutely do this to try to stave off excess attrition in the first year. She noted that the more kids the district loses, the higher the recapture obligation.
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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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I haven't made it in here yet, but it's a cool looking space. And I've had many Classic City Lagers at various places around town.
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Downtown Athens can be fun, but there’s definitely a different mix than West Campus. It’s like they have the drag across from campus (Broad St.) with 6th Street (Clayton St.) directly behind it. It will be crowded everywhere all weekend. If you want to grab dinner in that general downtown area, Last Resort and Chucks are good options, but you should get on the list by 4:30 if you want a shot at getting seated by 8:30. Same for some restaurants in the Five Points area.
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Cap33 started following Texas vs. ou - 2:30pm on ABC , Road Trip - Athens (UGA) , Week 9 - Vandy at Texas. and 1 other
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I'm not a data person, and I certainly wouldn't say I understand it fully. My basic understanding is that they modeled potential savings (staff, facilities costs) and new costs (transportation, avg. daily attendance loss, etc.) using data from AISD, TEA, and TASB. They project that, using AISD-favorable (i.e. conservative) estimates, closing BW costs over $400K in year 1, with another $150K each year thereafter. Of course, AISD will sell the land in a hot minute, so the year-over-year costs aren't real. Is it their best argument? No. I think they went down that rabbit trail after they recognized that the rubric was bullshit. For example, BW got dinged for the age of the building even though someone from AISD facilities showed up to the BWNA meeting saying that, not only is the building in really good shape, but the bond money projects (that we voted for because BW was earmarked to get a relatively small amount) were bid and ready to go until Matias put a stop to them. I understand that, from a purely financial standpoint, one could make a good case that BW should be closed. But this isn't a purely financial decision and never has been. If it were, the half-empty and failing schools in areas that continue to lose kids would naturally bubble to the top. Before the stupid plan came out, staff were quoted as saying they were only looking to close schools with empty seats. They also say BW is too crowded. And yet here we are. The point above about how quickly the money goes is infuriating. How did the district not recognize this freight train coming 3-4 years ago? How does Sadler Means, a middle school of 300 kids consistently getting Ds and Fs score a $100M reno that's too far along to stop? Especially when a much better performing all girls' middle school that has a new campus and seems to operate in its own world impervious to the fiscal issues affecting every other school could absorb them? There are just so many questions about the process, and staff have zero interest in doing anything other than getting their plan approved without answering questions or showing their work.
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Yes, it means William is in charge. Reporting has been all over how much he hates Andrew and thinks Charles is a wuss for letting him hang around.
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They are going to shut down transfers except for kids finishing out at their current school and siblings. So kids who are zoned to crappy schools but plan to transfer to better ones will be told to go to the school they're zoned to. Segura glosses over this concern by saying things like, "schools are more than just a rating." A friend who attended the East Austin forum with Matias this week said that he was really leaning into the east versus west thing, I guess thinking that would keep the audience on his side. But then someone shared a different point of view that AISD is now confining kids to the failing schools in East Austin. According to my friend's retelling, Segura had no response to this. I think staff are underestimating how many students they will lose if they follow through with this plan. Hell, even if they reverse course I think for many families the damage is done. The Bryker Woods group shared their findings with the BWNA. They pulled costs data from AISD, TEA, and TASB. To my knowledge, no one from AISD has agreed to have a conversation with them about their conclusions despite their requests.
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No pearl clutching here. If that helps close the funding gap, then have at it. Put ads on buses, too.
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At this point, why not just sell naming rights to the schools?
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AISD staff have done a great job muddying the waters by talking about finances, their data and rubric, and threats of TEA takeover. They shift talking points any time one tries to pin them down on the basis for a specific school landing on the closure list. A friend attended an Austin Neighborhood Council meeting recently, and they heard from AISD staff who told them they need to close "islands of excellence" (their words), so that's why some well-attended and high performing schools, like Bryker Woods and Maplewood (yes, on the east side, but gentrified), are on their list. They explained that the educational balance in West Austin is not the same as East Austin, so they are "committed to looking district wide," and that "the burden of change should not fall on one part of town." (Again, quotes are their words.) So instead of raising the educational balance and addressing their own failures in some East Austin schools, they will happily close a successful West Austin school so they can keep a failing and/or half-empty East Austin school open for reasons that have nothing to do with anything they're willing to say publicly. Then you have the president of the board, Lynn Boswell, boasting that AISD will redevelop Rosedale and Bryker Woods into low income housing. Very little chance of any low income development on those pieces of land. Never mind that housing development isn't the district's job. So in sum, the great cost-savings-avoid-a-TEA-takeover plan is as follows: Disallow transfers and rezone shitty schools so better students can bring up the schools' scores--but do it in a way that punishes a few good schools so we can keep some failing ones open so it feels more equitable. I guess we'll get around to improving education another time. I have 2 1/2 more years of AISD. If I had an elementary school kid, I would get out of here in a heartbeat. I understand the Legislature has made things increasingly difficult, but this whole charade of a process is a complete failure of leadership.
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And that's after they watch the movie version.
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Another note on the recapture issue: If AISD pulls the trigger on this consolidation plan as-is causing more and more families to pull out of AISD, then the recapture obligations rise. Put another way, if you have the same property taxes, but fewer students, that means the wealth-per-student metric ticks up, causing more money to be sent elsewhere. As noted, this is a feature, not a bug. AISD is doing all of this to fend off a state takeover while TEA and the Lege keep moving the goalposts. They not just playing on different levels, they're playing different games.
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Last year, some guy sitting my seats explained that someone was in his seats two rows down, and then shrugged his shoulders. I told him that's not my fucking problem and move. He was younger and had some amount of shame and moved. I thought it was ridiculous at the time and had no idea this stunt is not uncommon. I wish they had spent some remodel money on a way to funnel people straight to the upper deck if that's where their seats are to try to control the hordes in the lower level concourse.
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We went in Gate C about an hour before kickoff, and although crowded, we got to our seats fine. Concessions were already light on bottled water, which is ridiculous. Our friends were about 20 minutes behind us, and they got caught in a huge mob of people trying to push through the end zone sections. All of that was bad, and then Dallas' finest decided to start shoving people around, separating a buddy from his 12-year old son and 80-year old dad. It was a potentially dangerous situation. In typical Cotton Bowl fashion, no one did dick to keep people from crowding around the section entrances five deep. A group of prob 20 or so students was watching the game at the top of Section 13 blocking the entrance because their seats were in the sun and they wanted to be in the shade. Come on. Also, I walked right back in after halftime with no ticket people in sight. This shit happens every year, but I'm just amazed it continues. Didn't use escalators, but new restrooms were great before the game.
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