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Posted
On 4/18/2025 at 9:37 PM, chainsaw said:

Is there a clip of the Board vote on this? The discussions?

The board has not yet voted on this.  Each month, the board has an "info session" where they talk about issues, and a "voting session" two weeks later where they actually vote on the items they discussed at the info session.

Here is the discussion from the "info session":
 

 

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Posted
17 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

They put in a roundabout in our neighborhood at a T intersection that was never a problem.  Two legs had the right of way, the third had a stop sign.  Simple.  Now it's a roundabout with 3 yield signs that is not only too tight for larger trucks but people blow through 2 out of the 3 yields all the time.  Accidents are bound to happen.  Well done, Austin.

Roundabouts are almost always better than the alternative. I find that people who complain about them are usually bad drivers. 

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Posted
14 hours ago, royiv said:

Is AISD ever going to renovate or rebuild McCallum? My niece graduated from there four years ago and that campus was in rough shape.

McCallum was allocated $66,549,000 in the 2022 bond, for a "phase 1" of a phased modernization.   Starting in 2017, Austin ISD has been passing large bond packages, spaced about five years apart.  A phased modernization means that the school is rebuilt over multiple bond projects.  They are projecting 3-4 phases for McCallum, which means passing bonds in 2022, 2027, 2032 and 2037 for a four-phase project.  So McCallum may be modernized between now and 2041 under a four-phase plan.

You can see the complete phased vision for rebuilding the campus here, starting around slide 28:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PkLORj8OH5nCMvL5QNFjl-MhxLAYAhNn/view?usp=sharing

The $66 million in phase one is for repairs, adding a turf football field, demoing part of the exiting building, and adding a new science and CTE wing.

You can read about what they are doing in phase 1 here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16D5893oyI7-7riM6Tu6iHEz7Gz_jLxgn/view?usp=sharing

All of the 2022 bond projects have all of their presentations here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/12dh6O3TYstztC7Wn9tOn_aE4VkNvIgBN

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Posted
On 4/18/2025 at 5:17 PM, jimmyjazz said:

Are there anywhere near 550 kids in the Fine Arts program who aren't already zoned to Lamar?  Both my kids did Fine Arts at Lamar and McCallum and they knew a crap ton of similar students from Highland Park.

Not sure how many are in the fine arts program, but here's the list of who attended Lamar from where in the most recent demographics report:

Kids who lived in the Lamar district that attended Lamar:  807

Others transferred from:

Bedichek: 2
Burnet: 28
Covington: 2
Dobie: 26
Kealing: 54
Martin: 35
Murchison: 48
O. Henry: 35
Out of district: 33
Webb: 26

Total others:  289
 

Posted

In general I'm loathe to prioritize athletic facility upgrades, but McCallum's current football/soccer field is horrible.  Patchy grass, uneven playing surface, holes everywhere.  My son lost half a soccer season and most of a track season after stepping in one of those holes which led to a hard fall and a deep hip bruise.  His coach basically said "yep, happens pretty often".

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Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

In general I'm loathe to prioritize athletic facility upgrades, but McCallum's current football/soccer field is horrible.  Patchy grass, uneven playing surface, holes everywhere.  My son lost half a soccer season and most of a track season after stepping in one of those holes which led to a hard fall and a deep hip bruise.  His coach basically said "yep, happens pretty often".

McCallum and all of the AISD high schools are getting a new turf field with lights.  Baseball and softball are also getting lights but not turf.  Everyone is getting their track brought up to reasonable standards, although not everyone has room for an 8-lane track.  Some are six lanes.  The trustees are voting this month to approve the vendor.  Construction has already started at LBJ and Northeast, and the other schools will follow.  It's probably not going to be ready for the next school year but it should be done by the following school year.

The fields will have power and water so that the schools can set up fans or hydration stations to help keep the kids cool.

I'm not sure if it made the final design, but I know at one point they were considering a sand based product for fill rather than the black rubber tires because it reduces the temps on the field significantly.

There is a space at each field for a small press box.  And I do mean a small one.  They are either going to put that in, or if the budget does now allow, leave space for a small press box in a future bond.

McCallum has some serious issues with drainage that constrained what was possible with their field design, but they did shoehorn it in.

You can see the designs for the fields in the Turf and Fields CAT folder that I linked.

Edited by Texas Jeff
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Posted
8 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:


I think Marshall only has grades 6 and 7 this year. They are opening the school over three years, adding a grade each year. So next year they may be at 600 just because of kids moving up and more 6th graders arriving.

And they don’t have a rating yet, so it provides a loop hole.

Posted

My crazy idea:

Close Northeast HS and move all of the kids to LBJ HS.  LBJ would be almost full and demographics show that it would slightly shrink over the next ten years, but it would be lot more full that it is planned to be.  LBJ's projected enrollment in 2033 is 537, for a school with a capacity of 1947.

Keep the International HS at the Northeast campus and open a new middle school at Northeast.  Move the bond money that was to be spent on Dobie to the new MS at Northeast.  The combo of the International HS and the new MS would benefit from both the $36 million that was to go to Dobie and the $117 million that is being spent at the Northeast campus.  This gives the district room to expand if other middle schools in the area fail, and there are others on the list that could fail in the next few years just like Dobie.

Dobie is 3 miles from the Northeast campus versus 6 miles from the Lamar campus.

It also gives the east side a strong vertical, since Marshall and the new Northeast MS would feed to LBJ.

Put a lot of resources into the new MS to try to get it up to at least a C rating, so that the district is not in the same situation five years from now.

Posted
2 hours ago, Bolero88 said:

Roundabouts are almost always better than the alternative. I find that people who complain about them are usually bad drivers. 

So most Austin drivers?

Posted
2 hours ago, Bolero88 said:

Roundabouts are almost always better than the alternative. I find that people who complain about them are usually bad drivers. 

First roundabout I ever went around was on Tokyo’s Ginza Strip in 1957. 
It was six lanes and packed with little taxicabs, including ours, all trying to outrace each other to their desired exits or lanes. 
There was one traffic cop/observer (wearing a smog mask) standing atop a wooden platform in the center watching the wild & crazy mess - for what purpose I don’t know. Maybe to call for an ambulance if needed.

But at least we learned where all the leftover Kamakazi pilots were employed.

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