I went to the AISD meeting at Lamar last night about moving Dobie MS to Lamar.
They gave 3 options: let a charter school run Dobie, close Dobie for good and redraw attendance boundaries, or move them all to Lamar. Really, only #3 is on the table.
A few things:
1. Lamar is over enrolled by 200 kids. AISD can't give a number but they think 400-450 kids will opt to enroll at Lamar. That will put the campus 50% over capacity. Not only will the Dobie kids will be sent to Lamar but they have to offer Lamar to the charter school kids that are zoned to Dobie. That could balloon the total number of kids by another 100-200.
2. The Title 1 funding Dobie gets will not follow them to Lamar. Segura said they will provide money. From where? The deficit is 10s of millions.
3. The plan is to put 2 9-classroom modular buildings next to the tennis courts and track. Segura says they can do a site plan, find a contractor with immediate availability, get permitting, do site work, install the buildings, do sewer, water, electric, get inspections, and get a certificate of occupancy within the 3 month timeframe. That's comical to say the least. There are kids sitting on the floor in class at Lamar today because they don't have enough desks. Do you think an ISD that can't deliver 100 desks to school in the first 8 months of school can delivery a huge construction project in 3 months? Get the fuck out of here.
4. Murchison is under enrolled by over 200 kids and has plenty of room for modular buildings. The unspoken elephant in the room on why Murchison wasn't on the table are two fold: 1. Murchison parents would never accommodate Dobie kids and move their kids to private schools. 2. Burnet MS and Webb MS are in the same situation next year and will have to close. They are saving the A/B schools with capacity for the larger middle school closures coming next year.
5. There is zero plan to improve the outcome of the Dobie kids. Their teacher-student ratio is 14:1. At Lamar it's 36:1. It is expected to be over 40:1 even with additional teachers. There are no ESL services at Lamar. 50%+ of the Dobie kids are ESL. Basically, the goal is to take the failing kids and have their performance get lost in an A/B school. Who cares if it drops Lamar to a C or D. That's still passing. No support for these kids is going to happen.
TLDR: The whole situation is fucked. They are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If you are an A/B rated school in AISD, you will be absorbing one to two F rated schools in the next few years. It's a death spiral I don't know if AISD can get out of.