Austin ISD presents draft turnaround plans for multiple campuses, schedules public hearing Nov. 20

District leaders on Oct. 30 outlined draft Turnaround Plans (TAPs) for several Austin Independent School District campuses and scheduled a public hearing and board vote for Nov. 20, with a Nov. 21 submission deadline to the Texas Education Agency (TEA).

Chief of staff Lakisha Drinks told trustees the district is still drafting TAPs and is seeking community feedback. ‘‘The restart strategy typically requires a change in campus staff,’’ Drinks said, describing restart campuses as generally having modernized facilities and staffing needs that make reassignment difficult. She identified Linder and Wooldridge as campuses on trajectories that could support restart with added resources and Paredes Middle School as showing accelerated domain growth that would make it a candidate for similar supports.

The district described Pecan Springs as an outlier requiring ‘‘maximum supports’’ because it had not demonstrated accelerated or steady growth despite a modernized building. District staff said reassignment decisions favored sending students to nearby campuses with acceptable ratings and noted that some campuses are at an intersection of TAP and consolidation work.

Staff described reassignment scenarios campus by campus. For example, Barrington students were described as largely being reassigned to Guerrero Thompson (a campus that has fluctuated between A and B ratings), and Betachek Middle School students would be largely assigned to Covington (a campus currently rated C), with smaller numbers to Mendez and Paredes. Small campuses such as Dawson and Oak Springs were flagged as challenging because small testing populations magnify each student’s effect on accountability measures; district staff said Dawson is being assigned 100% to Galindo and Oak Springs 100% to Blackshear, subject to further community meetings.

The administration emphasized supports for receiving campuses, including strategic staffing and the ‘‘lighthouse’’ and TNTP learning-lab models that provide leadership and teacher coaching, targeted professional learning, increased progress monitoring and instructional rounds. Drinks and Dr. Wilson said district plans include sensitivity analyses for financial impacts, and district staff will provide campus-by-campus financial attachments when updated materials are released.

The district said the Winn Montessori site was complicated because community members want to preserve the Montessori program; restarting the campus under the typical ‘‘restart’’ model would have required staff turnover and newly Montessori-certified, bilingual teachers — staffing the district said it lacks confidence it could secure. For campuses described as 2 UA (two unacceptable accountability designations), staff said they would use less extreme school-improvement models and focus on wraparound services and teacher supports.

Trustees asked multiple questions on family engagement, special education and emergent bilingual services, which the administration said would be clarified in follow-up documents. Drinks said TAPs will remain open to community feedback through the posted survey on the district’s school-improvement website.

Why it matters: TEA labels and turnaround plans can trigger state intervention, staffing changes, or closures; trustees repeatedly pressed for additional data (including sensitivity analyses and campus-level financials) and for clear, ongoing monitoring so the board and public can assess whether TAPs are preventing further accountability declines.

Next steps: A TAP public hearing is scheduled for Nov. 20, the board will vote on the TAPs on Nov. 20, and the district plans to submit board-approved TAPs to TEA by Nov. 21.