Martin Middle School Community Meeting: October 21, 2025

001for being here. We welcome you to Martin Middle School. I am the proud principal, Miss Edna Gortinez, here at uh Martin. It is my second year. I want to introduce also my assistant principal, Mr. Ymo Tabasco. And we also have some uh distinguished guests from our district who are going to start this conversation um for our community. Okay. Good morning and thank you everyone for joining us. Before we dive into the agenda, I wanted to introduce Miss Dea Pascal. She is our director of strategic planning and organizational effectiveness and she's going to lead us in an inclusive welcome. >> Thank you so much. Um I love having a microphone in the morning when you have the baritone of just waking up and then it gets to hum through the crowd on the microphone. So, thank

002you so much for this joy that was unexpected. So, my name is Staca Pascal as Ally said and before we begin this meeting, I really want to take a moment to level set us and level set us into why we're here. And so, I invite you to take out your phone. We all travel with it. It's probably already in your hand. And in your phone, I invite you to find the picture of the person that has centered your why for being here today. So find the picture of that person. There's somebody that has centered you being here today. Now for me, it's this lovely young man right here. He's the class of 2025 graduate from Navaro High School. And he, thank you. He is my why. So I invite you to find the picture of

003your why and find someone close by and share with them why is this person your why. Make sure you introduce yourself as well. So we'll take about two minutes, find someone close by, share your why. Happy holiday. That's why We almost conducted All right, you've got about 30 more seconds. 30 more seconds. >> All right, I invite you to find a comma. and then a nice pause >> because we could go on and on talking about the heart of our why. They bring smiles to our faces. They warm our hearts. They push us to do hard things. And so as we sit in this meeting, I just want to reconnect us to our why and how we work together to ensure that all of our kiddos have the things that they need and deserve. So

004I thank you so much for engaging with each other. And I'm going to pass the mic to Ally. Thank you so much, Staca. So this is our agenda. We're going to start out. We did our warm welcome. Um we're going to do we're going to review our norms and the purpose of the meeting. Um, we're going to provide an overview of some of the campus specific proposed changes in the consolidation and boundary change plan. And then we took from the comment card, the digital comment card, we took the questions from there and put them on the slides and we're going to address those questions first. Um, and then we'll kind of we can definitely do a back and forth. If there's follow-up questions or questions that y'all came with, we want to make sure we

005get to those and then we'll talk about next steps. Um, but first the meeting norms. Um, we ask that, and these might be familiar to you if you participated in the community conversations that we had virtually. There's another one coming up on the 27th and on the 8th in person at Delko. Um, but we want to build the future together. So, we're going to acknowledge challenges while also focusing on ideas that make our district stronger, more equitable, and sustainable for years to come. Um, we're going to honor time. So each speaker, we're going to try to keep it to about a minute um for a remark so that and same thing goes for our responders um so that we can try to get through everyone's questions. Um honor each other, speak to one another, not

006at one another. Um respect is non-negotiable. So we are going to ask that there's no interruptions, personal texts, and if possible, no side conversations. We want to honor the process. So this meeting format allows for thoughtful responses. Please allow our leaders to respond without interruption. Um, but we, like I said, if there are follow-up questions, we're happy to have a back and forth. Um, because we want everyone to leave with a shared understanding. Um, honor intent and impact. We may disagree on ideas, but we assume positive intent and focus on the shared goals. Strong, equitable schools for all students. Honor space and voice. If you've spoken once that we we ask that you allow others to share before we would call on you again. We want to stay solution oriented, focusing on ideas, solutions, and

007understanding, not blame or frustration. And we want to embrace transparency and empathy. These are difficult conversations, but we're going to meet them with compassion, clarity, and honesty. Oops. And those are those are the norms in Spanish for our Spanish speakers. And our purpose of the meeting. So, we want to, like I said, we want to make sure that we respond to some of the questions that were submitted via the comment card. That comment card is open through um the 28th. So, I know that's next Tuesday. There are QR codes at the front and over here on the bookshelves. Um, if you haven't gotten a chance to submit a comment card, you can do so more than once. You can comment on more than one school or idea. So, please feel free to continue using that.

008Um, we want to gain a shared understanding of what are the actual proposed changes and what is the district rationale behind them. Um, and then gain insights from y'all that will inform potential refinements to the draft plan. So, we will have a kind of marked up revised version of the plan that we will share October 31st. Um, that is when it will be posted to the board and shared out with the community so that the board can then discuss those revisions at their November 6th board information session. And the planned vote is, as a reminder, is November 20th. So, with that, um, I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to one of our panelists, um, Christine Seamort. Before I do that, I'm going to just have our panelists go ahead and introduce themselves

009down the line, starting with our superintendent. >> Hello everyone. Good morning. Uh my name is Matias Sigur. I'm the superintendent for Austin ISD. Uh happy to be here this morning to have a conversation um answer any questions that you have and um you know be as responsive as we can and the team and I will be for you. >> Thank you. Good morning. My name is Ibec Gardanas and I have the honor of serving multilingual education and early learning. It's a pleasure to be with you here today. >> Good morning. I am Rachel French. I'm director of planning for the district and the project manager for the consolidations process. >> Good morning everyone. Christine Steampport, operations officer. >> Good morning. Jennifer Baker. I'm the executive director of special education. Um I'm gonna stand up a

010little bit and use the screen. So thank you all. Um so when we started this effort, it's really we have we are really looking at the future. And I know our superintendent. He wants for this school district is every family should have access to an excellent neighborhood school, one that is vibrant and well resourced. And we've talked about what wellresourced means. And um this is one step for us as a school district to become um a bit more well resourced throughout this process. Um so I want to kind of get right into it as our proposal. Um, as you know, uh, part of this draft conso school consolidation process, um, this would mean that Martin is proposed to close and so those students of Martin would then be reszoned depending on where you live and

011I can show up a boundary map very soon after and it would be students would be reassigned at Keeling, Lively and Marshall Middle School based on the address for the 2627 school year. And so we have a school finder. it's a little bit more helpful. It's an interactive map where you can type in your address physically and you can see your feeder pattern. You can see your elementary, your middle, and your high. Um, I also want to talk about Marshall Middle School a little bit because this was a school that was an assigned campus before. We had to create a boundary for Marshall Middle School. So, that's something new that really for middle schools took a new section. So, that's something that we just um recently added in. So, I wanted to point that out.

012So, what does this mean for my school? Martin Middle School will temporarily close and students, like I said, would be res reassigned to those three schools, Keeling, Lively, and Marshall based on their address. And, um, I know you're like, what does this mean? Um, our board and our administration has really wanted to see what um, Martin Middle School could be in the future. And Superintendent Sigura can talk a little bit more about that and what that could be in the future. Um, it could be another campus. Austin ISD has never had a K8 uh a K8 model school and so that's something that could be in the future and that's something that our board and the administration will be exploring and so there will be engagement about that for the future and uh more a

013little bit more about the plan if you live in that boundary. Uh again those three schools but um we have a lot of questions about transfers too or what happens if you are reszoned. So if you are a transfer student you can return to your zone school or apply to transfer to another campus. So there's still the options within Austin ISD. So I wanted to make sure that that was well known of what could happen if right the school was prepared to close and then what the choices are. So um here is the map. So as you can see here, this is Martin's boundary here. And so because of that and the new boundaries for this m this part in red here, this would be reszoneed to Keeling. And then this part, like I said,

014prior, we've always had Marshall, but it never had a true boundary. It was really just a an assigned school. We had about eight or nine elementaryaries that were assigned there. So this was a part of that process. we had to get Marshall's boundary in. So, we folded that into this process and was able to give them a boundary. Um, and then we have here if uh if you live within these areas, then these would be zoned to lively. So, kind of just wanted to showcase what that what that looked like. Okay. And I am going to pass it to Ally to talk a little bit about what this would mean for the turnaround plan. So, one of the things we wanted to share with y'all is that as you have heard before, prior to the

015consolidation plan releasing, we shared that Martin would need to have what's called a turnaround plan, and that was due to the three years of consecutive unacceptable ratings that the school had received um from the state. Um, and so that turnaround plan, we want to make sure that you all understand kind of how that works. So, according to the TEA's rules, if you if you are choosing to close a school and reassign students as part of your turnaround plan strategy, which is what's proposed for Martin, um the turnaround plan follows wherever the majority of students are reassigned. And so, in our plan, if you remember that last slide, the biggest school was Keeling. And that's because the majority of Martin students will be being reassigned to Keeling. And so that means that as we develop this

016turnaround plan, if we move forward with this proposal and our board approves, we would then be creating a joint turnaround plan that would be a turnaround plan for the Keeling Martin um combined school. Um the appointed principal would then have the authority to hire teachers and staff that meet the turnaround plan staffing criteria employitizing employees from the two school communities. So, one of the things we've developed, our talent strategy department has developed some guidelines for how we would staff schools in these various scenarios where there's a consolidation that has a turnaround plan involved or a consolidation that doesn't have a turnaround plan involved. Um but one of the things that we have outlined is that whenever we look at what percentage of the students are going from one school to another, we want to aim

017to try and make sure that the staff kind of mirrors that same level. So say you have 70% and I don't know these numbers off the top of my head but say you had 70% Keeling students and 30% Martin then we would attempt to hire so that the staff also kind of reflects that balance so that there's the same kind of percentage is more or less um reflected. It's not going to be perfect math obviously but that's kind of the goal. um current staff who are not hired at the turnaround plan campus. So in this instance it would be um Healing Martin would be invited to attend internal um match fairs. Um those will be in February and March to find a new position within the district. Our goal is to make sure that every

018staff person that wants to stay with Austin ISD has a place to land. Um and then the school the combined school any turnaround any school that has a turnaround plan. So that would be Martin and Kealing but also all the others. Um part of this consolidation plan is that we would um free up dollars from these consolidations and reinvest a large amount of those into the turnaround plan schools. Um we're looking at about an $800,000 investment of extra support for those schools. Um we have kind of a proposal within that those staffing guidelines of what that could look like, but it will really be customized to each school. But it can be things like extra counselors, extra assistant principles, um instructional coaches or content interventionists to support instruction, um parent support. So, they're going to

019have that kind of bucket of money to figure out how do we best invest to meet the needs of this new combined school community that's also working on a turnaround plan. Thank you. So, next we we had a few questions from the comment card. So, we're going to first start by going through those questions. And of course, if you have follow-up questions to these questions, feel free to raise your hand. We do have a second mic we can pass around. Um, but if you'll go to the next slide. Um, the first question we had was um, what promises can we get that Martin campus will be able to reopen in the future and with input from the community? And this is from Eric R. That's supposed to be in Spanish below. I apologize. I'm not

020sure how that happened. So, um, first off, I just want to acknowledge that this is a, um, a very harmful moment in this part of the community. Uh, this, it's not lost on me. That is a challenging conversation. So, again, I very much appreciate you all being here. You know, we are desperately trying to address, you know, historical issues that we've had in our system for well over a hundred years. Uh, this plan is complex. It's multi-layered. There are so many things that impact one another and ultimately what we're trying to do is to address a couple things, right? We want to align feeder patterns and this is all going to tie back to their question, but I want you to know these things. We want to align feeder patterns in East Austin for over

021144 years. For 144 years, we have not had aligned feeder patterns. We have middle schools that go to three and four and five high schools. In other parts of town, that doesn't happen. You have one middle school go to one high school. You can think about how community is kept intact. You can think about how programming can be aligned when you have that type of um of succession planning and sequencing in our system. We don't have that in East Sawson. The other thing this plan attempts to do is to address uh our response to the turnaround plans required by the Texas education agency. So the 2023 24 25 accountability uh kind of changed how we have to respond uh to to ensure that we keep the ability locally to determine how we educate our students.

022And so Martin Middle School is one of the schools that is required to um submit a turnaround plan to the Texas Education Agency. And so this plan accounts for that. I want y'all to know we didn't arrive at this plan thinking about that first. we went through the work and then layered in our ultimate response to to TEA. The other thing that it has to address is consolidations. We are running a deficit budget. Uh we cannot be at a moment where we are not able to fund the things that we have to fund in order to support um our students no matter where they are. Uh and right now we're just not on a pathway to do that. So we have to make some difficult decisions. The other thing we wanted to do is wanted

023to stabilize programming. We have programming across this city that is not uh positioned to be successful for decibly our wall-to-wall dual language programs. Our emerging bilingual student population in those programs are 14% 21% 22% and 44%. Uh a healthy program is 50% in time and in the number of students that are emerging bilingual non-emergent bilingual. When you think about how the city's changed, if we don't move and and create access for those emerging bilingual students, these programs will not be sustainable for years to come. And we know how important they are to our system. And I would say lastly, our transfer policies. We have transfer policies in Austin ISD that have been doing real harm honestly to our school system. Uh there are procedurally things that we do internally that need to be controlled better.

024there are things that we need to really understand and this plan will also incorporate those. So the reason I want to bring it back to to Martin Middle School and why uh certainty around what the future would will be is because yes this plan considers a turnaround plan that has the majority of students going to keen. We expect that that will be able to break the accountability chain. Then reducing that weight right from our system and in the timeline in the time that that move occurs, we will engage with community and we will build out what the future for Martin will be. Uh Christine mentioned uh you know prek through 8. That's not a done deal, right? We only put that on our screen because we've heard from different community members. We've heard from uh

025different stakeholders in the past that going to an ECA model is something that we should explore. We collectively will propose something that aligns with our community, aligns with the needs of the system and ultimately brings back something new to Martin. Uh the challenge that I that I have is that there's some certainty that our community wants and I understand that but we cannot give that certainty as to what it will be until we go through that process. But through this feedback loop here engaging with you all, you know what I'm trying to do is to figure out what language can I use in the plan that allows our trustees to have confidence that there will be a school here in the future and in this timeline. Um, you know, and that will allow us to

026figure out is it programming, is it a different number of grade levels, uh, is it something totally different. Um, so the EC8 or preK8 is an idea. It's not bait. We have plenty of time to go through that. Um, I will be honest with you, this process is not typically a year. Um, it is usually about two years. Um, if we're efficient and we're diligent because you have to figure out, well, what do we want? You know, what's the programming going to be like? You have to hire the principal. They have to hire their staff. And all of this has to done with enough runway to actually launch the school year successfully. And at the same time, we'll need to work with our general contracting partners to figure out what adjustments, if any, maybe not,

027need to be considered in the bond improvement package in order to to kind of facilitate this new programming. But I want you to know that the bo I would say the board and I are committed to ensuring that there is a AISD public education um campus like on this site. Uh but I have to break the accountability chain. I just have to break it. Um if not, the risk is too great. Uh and this is one solution that works um globally. Uh so that's the timeline. Um I I know that some folks would like for us to go faster, but we just don't that's just not possible given the complexity of of building up new a new school. >> All right, next question. >> Thank you, Matias. Yeah. >> Um next question. Um what feeder

028pattern will Martin be part of when it's repurposed? That's Stacy S's question. Well, yeah. So, when I first read this, it was I can't we can't answer yet when it's reopened because we need to work with you all and what the identity of that campus might be, right? As the superintendent just alluded to, and sorry, I was pulling up the map just to confirm. Now, when it comes to the feeder pattern of the schools that are being reassigned that students are being reassigned to, um the students that currently live south of the river that are being reassigned to Lively would feed into Travis High School. Um Keeling, those students um would be reassigned to East Side. Um and then the Marshall students um would feed into LBJ. um for the there's those schools do have

029small splits, but I believe that that is the the new boundaries. Now, Martin is one of those that currently I'll feed into I think five high schools. And so, if you look at it'll really be based on your specific address um because all of that is being just much it'll be much cleaner. So, it's much easier to kind of look at the new boundaries versus kind of the existing Martin boundary when it comes to the feeder pattern. Oh, whoops. Next question. Um, why are you proposing, and this is not exactly to Martin, but in the area, why are you proposing taking two modernized schools from this community? According to the proposal, buses would not serve Go Valley and Sanchez. Can neighborhood students qualify for transportation to Sanchez and Go Valley? And before you respond to

030that, Matis, I just want to make sure that everyone's on the same page. So in this in this O2 area, Sanchez Elementary is now being proposed to be a campuswide dual language school. And so that means it won't have an attendance zone. Um and then Go Valley is being proposed to be a campuswide Montasauri program. Again, those two schools wouldn't have attendance zones. Um but we would want students who currently attend those schools to opt into those programs. So I'll let you take that. >> So um Ally said it well. The one thing I would say is whenever we were doing the work, we looked at geographic areas. And the one thing we know is that historically whenever it came to closures, consolidations or any significant boundary changes, the burden of that weight in the

031system was carried by East Austin. That's just the honest truth. And so when you think about, you know, Sanchez, Zavala, Go Valley, Martin, kind of all the schools in the area and you look at the number of seats that we have, we have too many. there aren't enough students that live in the area, live in the area, not attendant, but live in the area. So, we had to get to a solution that allowed schools not to close, right? Introduce district-wide programming and at the same time preserve uh the historic schools within uh this area. And so that's why you see a wall-to-wall program going to Sanchez that does also break an accountability chain. Um which again trying to address multiple things with each of these solutions. Um Go Valley receiving Monasuri and again this is

032all a draft plan. We're taking feedback but that would also be a district-wide facility. And then Sanchez being the neighborhood school uh allows us to not have to close another school. Just to be really clear that's what that allows us to do. Um I do want to point out that there's been a feed lots of feedback about could we provide access to um via transportation to Sanchez. Uh and the answer is yes we can. Um we have been taking feedback from our community and this feedback I promise you every one of these comment cards everything that we hear we are taking it back. We're testing it. But what I want to be honest with you about is if I if we look at this for Sanchez because we want to provide access to our margin

033beling families. We want them to stay at Sanchez. we desperately do. We also need to consider, you know, what are we going to do at Pickle, what are we going to do at ODM, and what are we going to do at Wooten, right? Because there's also wall-to-wall language programs. And so I want to be consistent. Uh so we are considering that. Um I think we're very very close. Obviously, because of version control, we're not going to kind of say yes to some things before we can say yes to a broad set of things that we receive through feedback. But yes, we can look at providing transportation. We have the ability to do that. We are the system. But I cannot say broadly that um we can provide it to every student going through some type

034of transition. Uh but for Sanchez certainly hopefully that was helpful. >> Next question. Um what happens to the bond funds allocated to Martin? That's from Raul L. >> Yeah. Do you want to go? >> Hi everybody. Um so right now our bond funds we are just on pause right now. We need to make sure we understand what's happening and we kind of need to look at our tra trajectory. So, we've got all of our construction on pause. Um, and to allude to what Superintendent Sagura said earlier, we need to understand the identity and the future of this campus um to continue that construction. So, um that's where we are right now with uh the construction for that. um for the bond funds that is something that we are looking at right when when we have

035a finalized plan that we want bond dollars to go with students that is the goal so we will look at all of our projects as a whole because it's not just Martin it's many of our schools in the same community we have a bond project at every single Austin ISD school so while that we can't give a certain answer right now our goal is to follow with the school community all of those students and then also So, we'll see what the Martin um construction will continue and look like and those that'll be an iterative process and we'll keep everyone informed of what that looks like. I just want to make sure that was clear. So, but that the pro the funding will stay with Martin. It's just a matter of what that's going to look

036like based on that community process of deciding what Martin will be. >> Yeah. So, so this this is a unique situation because um we are planning on having a school back at Martin. Uh there are other schools that are going through a consolidation or a significant change and there is not likely to be a school at that location. So, every school and every scenario is slightly different, but I wanted to make that kind of differentiation and make that comment specifically to Mark. That's what makes this one unique. >> Thank you. Okay, so that was the last of the questions that we had prepared. So we have scheduled this for 90 minutes I think. What time do we have 10 after? So I think we have about 50 minutes still to go. So that at this

037point we can open it up to any questions that y'all have and then we can just kind of go over the last um next steps. So anybody have any questions? >> I'm gonna have you speak into the mic. >> Thank you. Hi, my name is Tamara. I'm a parent in the neighborhood. Um, I know that you said it takes maybe two years to recraft and start a K through eight program and I just have to point out the irony here that we're like dismantling the whole school district right now in less than a year. So, I just want you to really elaborate more on why this school couldn't next year turn into a K through eight. >> Yeah. So, um, I'm not the only person that has the authority. It takes the agency to approve

038our our plan. Um, and so what I'll tell you is, you know, in order for us to start with um a school in the 206 uh 27 school year, that plan would have to be submitted to the agency and the commissioner would have to approve of that plan uh well before the school year started, which means that we would have to hire the principal for the ECA probably in January. We I know but the plan has to be approved and and the plan has to be approved because the way that schools work is um the agency um every school has a CDM >> acronyms >> uh that acronym I don't know that's a do you know what CDM >> it's a campus designation it's it's a unique code to every it's a unique identifier to

039every single school in the state of Texas um and that is the thing that accountability gets tied to that's the thing that the PES coding for students gets tied to all of it gets tied to that one specific name that specific code. Whenever you go through um a tap and the the the accountability chain gets tied to another campus, the agency is kind of working in tying that accountability chain to that CDN. Whenever you submit for a new school, the commissioner has to approve it. Uh it it is not some that is >> correct. So, but you have to he they do it's not like a simple request. We have to have a period of engagement. We have to make sure that um we have the programming the curriculum is aligned to the TICS. I

040mean all the things have to be built and submitted. And what I'll tell you is unfortunately being here in the center of the state of Texas, everybody is hyper aware of what we're going through. And if I were to go and submit a plan, I would almost guarantee that the response back would be we know that this is something you want to do is given all that you're taking on. Remember, we're still in the tea agreed order for special education. We are going through this process now. Uh I I don't I'm can almost guarantee that he would not approve it. Um what he will approve is a thoughtful plan that has community input uh in the appropriate timeline. And just to be honest, that's the time limit I think is is really is possible. >>

041Matias, I think it might also help because something that I think I've understood about how TEA works is that they they want us to get students right now in the best learning environment possible. And to them, that is getting them into a school that's, you know, that's got good outcomes in terms of the star. That's and so I think that that's the other thing that that he doesn't want us to wait and restart and hope that that you know is going to serve our kids better. He wants to see us get them in the best environments as soon as possible. >> Yeah. And and if we were to do that, that wouldn't negate having to still make the move. Um and because you we have, as we said earlier, three unacceptable ratings. And so if

042you take a year um in most years that you start up a new school, you're still figuring things out. It's really really difficult to get it right in the first year. And so you end up putting um you know significant amount of risk introduced into the system because now you're in year four probably going to have um not the accountability rating you would want. Uh and then once you start year five that's when the commissioner has the ability to um really turn over the superintendent and his solid board of managers. So we really we really need to clear the um the accountability risk. Uh that that is something we absolutely have to do. And I get it's not something that um we thought we would have to do in these timelines. The compression of the

04323 24 25 accountability has really set that. Um and and I I apologize, but I want to make sure that we all recognize this is a real risk. There will be school districts in the next week, week and a half that get letters from the agency that they are going to be taken over. Like this is real. It's happening across our state. It's not going away. Um and we got to keep local control. >> You were you were first. Do you want to go? Okay, you'll be next. >> Um, if they deny one of the turnaround plans, how does that trigger all of the other well-crafted part of this plan? What's the timeline there? >> Yeah, so um so a couple things. Uh the timeline is what you submit our turnaround plans and we're going

044to submit ours on the 21st of November. The board is going to vote on November 20th. So we submit the next day. uh the agency has up to 45 days to review and accept or decline. Uh after the 45 days, if let's say they decline, then we would have to submit back a new plan and then we would have 15 days. At that point, if a plan wasn't accepted, then the commissioner could actually move towards installing a board of managers and u turning over the superintendent, which is, you know, that's where you kind of lose control. Um so I wanted to kind of give everybody that that timeline. That's how it works. Which is why it's really important that whatever we submit gets acceptable. Uh I said that in the spring of last year. I'll

045continue to say it. Um I am not going to submit something that I don't have a high probability of confidence that will be accepted. Um because of our relationship with the agency through the special education order uh the deputy commissioners and others who are in charge of much of this work and are doing the reviews we've been able to pose different scenarios to them and say hey you know we are doing something comprehensive and I think they appreciate that but because it's comprehensive there's nuance to it and say well there's a we don't give them exact schools we won't say you know we won't name school but we'll say this school with this student population is moving in this sequence we have the tap going here um historically this school has had this rating. You

046know, how would you respond to that? Uh we've gone through those meetings with the agency for the better part of three or four months just getting feedback on different scenarios we could consider and then about two and a half weeks ago by way of region 13 uh and the agency we sat down and said, >> can you explain what region 13 is? So region 13 is um it is a it's a an extension of the state um through the Texas education agency and they're really like a service center. They are effectively helping school districts in a region. Our region is region 13 which travels from Austin effectively east and they provide resources to help school districts navigate the agency. So that's kind of they're like a like annexes of the tix education agency. That's a

047good way to I'm sorry. >> like a consultant but they're you know so that's how it's structured. So we met with them and we shared with them our plan for the three UAS and I use UAS which is unaccount unacceptable accountability. I don't like using Fs. Um I don't like using you know all the things it just three UAS um but there's three UAS which trigger a tap and we have two UAS um and there are many of those total we have 24. So we have to submit 24 taps to the agency on the 21st. Um so we sat with them uh about two weeks ago and we walked them through this is our plan for because now that this plan had been released we can share with them hey this is what how we're

048going to tackle this tap this tap this tap this tap all the way through all 24 of them. We got feedback um on how to refine the plan things to consider but there was nothing in that meeting that made me feel as though what we would be submitting would be um declined. Uh but to if something were to change, let's say we got feedback, I told the agency, I would love to get this feedback within a week or two. Like you can wait 45 days, but you know, you know, we're trying to do hard work here, like give me a week, tell me as quickly as possible, and then let me understand what adjustments we need to make. Um, so if there was a uh a decline, though I wouldn't expect it. I would think

049it'd have to do with proportionality of students, you know, in movement, maybe, you know, there's a some where they've said, well, 51% of students go here, then that's where the tap gets assigned. We don't have anything that close, but maybe there's a concern around something like that. We would come back, we make adjustments, but that's how it would work. Uh, and I and I will just say, um, we do not want to be in a place where you submit a plan that, you know, will get rejected. Uh, they know what they want to see. We know, they know that we know what they want to see and if we submitted something that wasn't in alignment, um, it would be viewed a certain way. That's for sure. >> Mr. Matias, I have a lot of questions

050for you. I'm going to start in my language because I'm a Spanish speaker and I see I'm the minority here. Okay. Okay, Matias. Um, Mr. Matias, you had mentioned you've said we a lot and as you say we >> as as we say we um I don't see a lot. >> This one's off. >> Okay. >> I don't I don't have anything on me. No, it's back there. Um I don't see that we in our community. Um and when I my community. Um, we are not in agreement, but we're outside. We're not in here with with you all. And I just want to know what you're going to do about that. >> So, um, I'll just I can talk about >> what we're reporting. >> Okay. Okay. Um, so we are wanting to engage. We

051we have we will be present. We'll continue to be present. Our trustees have that expectation. they themselves engage. So if there is a place that we need to go um to to get feedback from our community that we're not currently going to, please let us know. But we have asked to partner with our school to have this space. If there are spaces that we need to have moving forward, I'm happy to have it. If we need to go have um you know a meeting at a restaurant, I'm happy to do that as well. I I I hope that you know we will show up. Um I also want to communicate this is a large plan. lots of communities are being impacted and so uh I I know that oftentimes not everybody can be everywhere at

052once, but if there's a place that you believe we should go to get feedback, please let us know. We felt as though working with Martin Middle School and bringing families in the community into Martin would be a good starting point. Um but happy to make adjustments if we need to move forward. What's Foreign Um, sorry, this is not the first time I've asked this, but um, I am going to ask again directly. Um, as a parent, I feel like it would be hard to get involved. Um, I I am a parent of three students, two that have already graduated and I still have a student. So, as a parent, if I don't feel welcome, if I don't feel respected, it's going to be really hard to show up. um I I don't feel like I

053will be listened to and um I'm sure that you're tired of of my my asking of this, but as a district, you have to work on on empathy for every person that is working here so that we all feel like we're we're welcome. Okay. Um, and I know I can't generalize with everyone. Um, I know that there are many kind and and and personnel and there are those that are just as convicted as we are to work with parents and students. Um, but I just I do think that we're missing support um and the values and and the respect that we deserve. >> So, um, first off, I'm I'm very sorry that you feel this way. That's not what I would want any family, any parent, any guardian in Austin IC to feel ever. Um,

054you know, I I have been trying very hard for the last two and a half years to build a trustbased culture, a culture that understands who we are as a city and leans into all of us, right? whether you know you have parents that work multiple jobs, whether your lived experience is different than than mine, it doesn't matter. Like we should be there for our families. Um, now I want to also acknowledge that it hasn't always been the case. You know, in years past, it's been um it hasn't been a trustbased culture. To get there requires a having great principles. It requires making sure that we have direct lines of communication. It requires feedback loops so that we're constantly engaging and also uh resources to support um what some schools can't have that other schools

055do have. And we acknowledge that that is an area of improvement. Um but I want you to know that is what you're describing um is is hard for me to hear because that's the last thing I want in this school system is for any parent to feel disrespected. Um there's a lot of work to do. It's a large system. We've been here for 144 years, but we're working on it. Uh you know, I I hope that you found at least some improvement as we stabilized the last couple years. It takes time, but we're happy to to make adjustments and refine as we move forward. But I agree with you, we're not there yet. Um and it it's a large system with over 70,000 students. You know, it takes time, but I I agree with you.

056It is an area that we need to focus on before for I padres. for Riverside High School. Does the river Um, one one of the reasons that Sorry. Um, so one of the reasons that this is important and that I think so many parents aren't here, but they're they're fighting on the outside is because they feel they're opposed to this, um, and I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but it really is a disadvantage sending, um, my my my children to other schools. Um, and maybe it's because now they will have to take the bus because of the zone changes and they'll be less than a mile from a school. But do you know what it's like to live and walk on Riverside? These are the projects to go from Riverside to Old Torf. They're going

057to have to go past homeless. There's so many traffic accidents. Um, and I don't know if I'll be able to get them a ride, but I don't think they'll qualify for the bus. And I do have a car, but I also have to work and so I can't take them to school every day. And that really concerns me. >> Um, I can speak on this a little bit. So, I'm I'm not sure exactly where you live, but our Riverside boundary and if you can go back to it, Ally, um if if we would always give a bus, especially if you're if it your student would be zoned to Travis and they would have to cross I35, that would be a hazardous route. And so, we that's just our policy. We would always give any student

058that's considered a hazardous route or if there's, you know, transient populations. And so, that's something that we would always provide any student in in that type of scenario. Thank you. This changes I know what she said, but you are Okay. Um, so you you well, first off, um, because your students already at East Side Early College High School, they will be able to continue through East Side Early College High School. Uh, one of the things that we acknowledge is that we need to have clearer um, transfer uh, and transition plan language in our plan. And so you're going to see that as we develop a new draft as we finalize the draft. Uh I also want to acknowledge the disruption that it causes because you were you know your student was receiving transportation uh and

059now if they're transferring it may look different and this is the type of feedback that we need to understand so that we can make adjustments. We do not want to make it more difficult than it has to be on families as we move through the transition. We are taking input to make adjustments so the transition can be done. uh in a in a healthy most loving way possible, but I also know it's going to be a disruption. Um so that feedback is helpful. We are making adjustments to our our um transfer policies, our transition transportation uh standard operating procedures because I want to make sure that we acknowledge that there is movement and we do whatever we can to create as few disruptions as possible. Um so that is feedback that we're taking back and

060we are trying to address it as best we can. Well, thank you for this opportunity. Um, I do I'm really concerned about like the teachers. Um, I understand the budget deficit and I understand the state accountability, but I kind of want to focus on like locally. I do agree that superintendent, school districts are kind of coerced into making this decisions to maintain like local control. Um, yeah, I'm concerned about the teachers. It's really demoralizing that construction has stopped and um the the teacher or the principal at the next school has the authority, but based off of what? Do they have the right to return here? Um I guess that's my question for now. Um so I I want everybody because there's been some people that have said things on Facebook or whatever that we're going

061to, you know, release 700 teachers like that. To be clear, that is not happening. We've never said that. We would never agree. We would never even propose that. There have also been people that have said, "Well, Matias is looking at one year, two year, three-year contracts." That never even entered my mind until someone posted it on Facebook. So, that is not how we think. That is not who we are. Um, I desperately wanted to share with our community and to our staff more importantly that we had built out a transition plan for our staff that was thoughtful but also recognize that each scenario is different. If you have a turnaround plan, there are requirements that are not of the district but of the state that we have to meet and many of our educators have

062these designations and we'll be able to facilitate that and place them and ensure that they have um a home in Austin ISD. We have programmatic moves. You know, an example of this would be um Becker to Sanchos. Well, you know, again, we want to have our students feel like it's their home. It's their school. So, you want familiar faces. So that is a different type of staffing plan. We have a process for that. We also have processes for turnaround plans where the school that is the receiving school um has not historically struggled with accountability. And this is one of those instances that is a little bit more challenging because from the state's perspective, if that school has had an A and A an A or B and B, a B, let them keep doing their

063thing. Give them the um uh responsibility of hiring. But we have the responsibility of hiring. So, it's important that we work with those principles uh not only in the transition, and I've met with all the principles that are going through the transition, and I've said to them over and over again, we protect staff. We protect staff, we protect staff. Um, we are freezing outside hires. We're not hiring anybody external to Austin ISD until we are very far down this process. Um, and I'm also want to be really clear like we are releasing surveys to understand what our educators want. There are some educators who've told me, even principles have told me, Matias, I've been here for 15 years, but I live up north. I'd like to actually find a school closer to to North Austin.

064Like, all those things are helpful. We're working through them. I do not want a single educator um in this district to think that they are not centered as as part of this work. They very much are. Um I it's an expectation of mine, our trustee, certainly of me. Um there are details to be worked out, but and we're actually going to be refining and updating our plans. Um, but that is how we plan to do this. We hire between 550 and 700 teachers every year, right? So, people ask, "Well, the math doesn't work out. Math doesn't work out." It actually does work out. Um, just look at our numbers. It doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get to be at your campus. Now, we're going to the campus that receiving most of the students. We're going

065to work through that. That's our desire, but you're right. There'll be some adjustments. Whatever adjustment occurs, we're going to be doing it very very thoughtfully. Um, I just I I need to be really clear. That is not something we've ever said. it is not true and if anybody says it, please please tell them that's not who we are. Um, if the state came in, if anybody else came in, all that goes out the window. Um, so I I just want to be really really clear because I that that's frustrating to hear that because that's never something we've ever said. >> I don't know if that was helpful. Sorry. >> And I just want to show folks so if you're familiar with our consolidation web page, it's just austinisc.orgconolidate. There's several um extra areas you can

066explore over here, but if you click the resources one on the side, it brings up all of these resources we have. This is where you can find that staffing guideline that I talked about. Um it's in English and Spanish. It's been shared directly with all Austin ITD staff. Um and it just explains kind of those different scenarios. This is the timeline that Matias was talking about how we're going to freeze hiring and try to find a place for all of our people before we even think about recruiting externally. Um, and then it talks about the different types of consolidations and then there's corresponding kind of guidelines for each of those. So, I just wanted y'all to see where you can find that. >> Oh, right. And thank you. This is I want to introduce you,

067Brandy, and you can do it. >> Hi, I'm Brandy. I'm the talent strategy officer for the district. >> And she wanted me to share that um her team has been going around. So to every school that would be affected by a consolidation that's proposed at this point um her team has been going around and talking going through this guide these guidelines with them under letting them understand what their options will be talking about that interest survey that they'll be doing um so that they get the support that they need. >> All right. Um I'm going to go here and then next to you and then to you. >> Hello. So, um I'm just looking at the TAP plan. So, you're moving students from um a school with a F rating to two schools with a

068D rating and you're also approaching like the max enrollment from what I understand. So like what are your plans to help the new schools like um uh control for this extra stress because it's like the max enrollment and so all the stresses with that. >> Yeah, great question. So um so I want to be so so we are track so great question. Um so we are tracking uh all the percentages um you know that the Texas education agency builds the turnaround plans based off assignment right so we have to assume u based on where the students live that this percent will go to this school right in this case it'll be keing for the majority um but we also know that you know we also understand your transfer rates we also understand transfer rates of

069all the other schools we we have an understanding of what the final capacities the final utilizations will be at these campuses. But you're absolutely right. You know, one example is General Marshall. General Marshall has a D this year, but we also know kind of this is the third year in in a startup of a six, seven, and eight. And we just talked about that when you start up a new school, it's very very difficult to get accountability kind of where the state expects that quickly. So, yes, they have a D, but they've been working. We understand what Jordan, Dr. Principson's doing over there, uh that this this campus is stabilizing, is moving in the right direction. And so we have extreme confidence that though it's a D now um it is moving in the right

070direction but we are going to provide additional resources. Our plan is so much more detailed than what the state requires. So the TAP plan is very kind of distilled down. It's like you got to do these things these things these things. Our plan is much more detailed, much more nuanced. And the last thing I'll add is I want our families to know that just because you're a D school or whatever letter grade doesn't mean that you're less than. Like just I just be really really clear about that because I've had people tell me, "Well, Matias, their school is a D." And I'm like, "Well, they were a B last year and we just spent two years arguing around why the accountability system doesn't work and then now you're using that to argue against me why

071this move shouldn't happen." Like there are great things happening in all of our schools, including Martin. The reality is that I still have to navigate this state, you know, accountability system. And so we are going to provide additional resources not not just at the tap schools but also at the schools that are receiving the majority of students or large percentages of students. I will say however if there is a some split um you know I can think of the middle school that where the small percent is going to a school uh in that case you probably wouldn't see the same level of adjustment from a resource perspective because it's a minority in a population. Um so that's how we're going to tackle it. Uh but we also will be providing additional resources which is also

072somewhat laid out in the staffing plan. Thank you. Uh hello everybody. My name is Mrs. Sa. I'm a bilingual social worker here at Martin School. I have spent 14 years before I went to Nevada. Um so I went to Nevada for a year and a half and came back to Martin. So I've been working with families for so many years. I have seen transformation, gentrification. I have seen demolishes apartments on Riverside. I have seen parents struggling to keep their students and marching. I have seen Mexican-Americans moving from this area um telling their homes, you know. So, I have leave with families and marching with principles with assistant principles working with Dr. Garcia back in the day, assistant principles of middle school, a very ethical and hardworking man. Um so I have experienced many things. Parents

073are pivotal and decision making and school transformation. For me, not having the representation of parents in this meeting, know as many as we need it as partners are said. One of the things that uh the parents said about it, you know, where are the representation and your answer uh was that please give the feedback. we're going to do tell us where we need to go. So I thinking you know when you do a presentation we do data you know we bring reports we base our outcomes on ba uh on data that we have we map we strategize but why we don't strategize to go where the parents are do we have an office that will say can you please do a mapping and tell me where Martin families live and we can go where they

074are It's difficult for families, Mr. Matias, to come to do some meetings when they have to work daily. It was back in the day, it's hard to bring parents. But these rooms, this library, if there were cameras and they can talk, they will see we have 30 to 40 parents in meetings. And I know that many parents are not coming. You can put many excuses, you know, immigrations, you know, but but it's not that we all have to have the passion and dedication and love to what we do to bring those parents, you know, because they sometimes don't know what is happen in their schools and you know, they might not speak the language. They might not be able to maybe they work in the evening, they cannot have the virtual meetings. So you know

075compassion and love for the families that have a students here I have worked with with teachers a lot of teachers I think Moses and Mr. Cortez are the one they have been longer and Martin you know teachers are very dedicated used to come at 6:30 7:00 in the morning teachers will come and come to my office we we uh do a lot of talking about what we can do but and then another thing I was thinking Mr. Matias, do we have in the district a measuring tool to see the performance of how we are doing with our families? How do we do that? Do we just have people to do this, do this, that, but do we measure that? So, I really encourage the district with the bottom of my heart and the love that

076I have, you know, that I have for families, you know, employment retention, it's it's people as well. Parents come and they want to see Mr. Ramos has been forever. Oh, Mr. Ramos is my my, you know, my son. So, Mr. Garcia, I was the PH teacher for so many years. So, you know, this is because the success academic success of a students depends a lot for the parents. Parents are important in the education of the children because you come and I tell parents you don't need to speak English for your student to succeed. They need discipline. They need dedication. We have after school programs. It's a lot of things. But if they are not involved and they are not coming and they don't know, Mr. Matias, it's not something that they going to be uh

077have priority on that. So, do we measure how we welcome the parents? Do we measure the parent involvement in vision school? Are we going to be mapping where they live? Back in the days with Dr. Garcia will walk in those building that were demolished and we went where the parents were. You know, we bring hot dogs when somebody one time one of the apartments broke the second floor uh where they walk. Parents were crying because they will buy food and they say, "Miss Arera, I had $200 of food in that refrigerator. Now I don't have access to to my um to my apartment." So, we have to do the walk where they are, not to bring them over here. But just a suggestion, Mr. Matias, and thank you for everything you do. and transformation is

078pivotal and it's important but we also need to have the input of our families for they are what they're going to be impacted. Thank you. >> Thank you missa. And I just want to share so we do have other opportunities coming up for these conversations. Um, I'll have to check the calendar, but Martin will have every campus that's going through these turnarounds will have coffee with the principal, their campus advisory council, and I'm happy to work with your parent support here to figure out if there are other spaces that we need to be in um that can reach more more families and get them involved in this process. Additionally, when the whatever package is ultimately voted on, um we are going to be standing up a team that's going to help support the transitions. And

079that's bringing the school communities together, bringing stakeholders from both school communities to organize things like you've said, like block walks to make sure that folks know, for example, folks around Sanchez that they know, hey, Sanchez is still your school. You can we want you to go to this school. um and making sure that we do mailers so families understand where their new school assignment is. So, we'll have teams stood up to kind of do that work that you're talking about. And as far as tracking, our parent support teams do track um their attendance at the different events that they hold. They do surveys to see if families are finding the opportunities beneficial. Um, and so I will work more closely with your PS to see what we can do to make sure we get more

080parents involved in this kind of decision-making process at Martin. >> Uh, just very quickly, um, we have an opportunity right now to move forward with everything that we're doing. Um, these incredible parents and community members here, um, should be the starting line for the conversation about what needs to happen in a year or whatever it may be. So, can I ask that we immediately begin the conversations right now and form a group that is Martin? because as a alumni of Martin Middle School and as a longtime member of this community and the community as a whole, I support our public schools, but it is so important that we remember the fact that these teachers that have put their heart and soul into everything that they do here. Um, as was mentioned that there needs to

081be a right to return because they have laid the groundwork for a lot of things that have happened here positive and as you point out these letter grades that are placed on our schools, these scarlet letters are really don't really show the great things that are happening here. So, let this be day one of the planning strategy for our school here, our Martin Middle School, our AISD Martin Middle School. So, okay, I appreci appreciate that comment. Um, and and we're and I that's exactly what we want to happen. I I think what I'm challenged with just honestly is we're in the in between phase right now. We are just like in between. Uh we have, you know, principles that are going through transitions and they're ready to engage. They they want to begin planning, you

082know, uh what's, you know, what happens in 26 27 uh as we um move through these consolidations or TAP plans. So everybody's ready to go, but this is still a draft plan and we're still getting feedback. Uh, and so I'm I'm cautious. Like I I can commit to you that's what we're going to do. I'm cautious about doing anything before the vote that is too concrete only because the criticism that I'll get is Matias, you the board the board hasn't even voted yet. Why are you doing this? You know, I just I mean Gab, you know it. I mean, you see it. You sometimes you've said it. I'm a seasoning, but but that's that's kind of what's happening right now. So, I I I want to start planning. We want to put the folks together,

083begin to get this work done. You know, I hope our our community knows that, you know, once we execute a plan and we get something done, I will get it done. Uh we're about to cross our fingers be out of the TA agreed order before too long. This is something two years ago we thought was going to destroy AISD. Um so, I just want you to know like we can do difficult things. We can do them together. I plan to do it with community, not to community. We're just at a very difficult moment right now with all the things that we're navigating. But yes, absolutely. Bringing community together to plan what the next um kind of vision of Martin Middle School uh is is a priority for us. And I'll tell you, as a part

084of our trustees, you know, that that's some of the feedback I've gotten directly from them as well. >> I know. >> So, we have time for one or two more questions and then I have a message from some parents who couldn't be here that we're going to read at the very end. Sorry, I have a apologize if this question like general question is not appropriate for this forum, but um with AISD enrollment already approaching like really low levels, how do you expect parents to um engage with the school and school district if like the threat of having their whole community like the schools are it's now a possibility that it can be just yanked away like closing the schools and um having to integrate their students into a whole new community. Um at >> Yeah.

085So, so what I would say is um so we're losing. So right now um we've been on decline for a little while. It's it's kind of began to balance out and level out. And then what happened? The federal administration stren uh you know began to add more constraints around immigration. So, we're seeing losses and no new immigrant families coming in and those that were here are leaving. So, I just want to be really clear like this. These are things that are happening outside of of us and I'm having we are having to respond. But I will also tell you that I cannot right now pay for the resources needed so that every student who's been historically underserved gets what they need to be successful. Period. I mean, why I would argue why have for the

086last 20 years families left the neighborhood and chosen to go to Oh Henry or chosen to go to the middle school as opposed to Martin? Like I would argue that if we actually have the ability to pay for the resources and ensure that it's equitable and we have aligned feeder patterns like elsewhere, then East Austin in my mind would strengthen opposed to weaken and families who are at charters will come back. I mean because there are lots of students in these charters who have chosen to go to a different school district, a different school. Why did they do that? Well, it's because there were decisions that were made five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago that put us in difficult position. But we cannot ask families to come back unless we are investing

087in our schools, moving accountability because that right, wrong, or indifferent when it comes down to it at that dinner table when you're comparing two schools, people will use that letter grade. It is a started letter, but it's they will use it because I mean they don't know what we know. We're like we're in the middle of it, but a lot of families just go down to a letter grade. I understand that. So, we have to do two things. We have to create the systems to be responsive to the environment we're in. We have to allocate resources to strengthen our schools so that no matter where we are, we're educating our way. And then when the STAR summitive assessment is done, we perform. But we're not training our system to perform to be responsive only to

088that test. We're responding to educate our students in a way that aligns with our values, which means we got to keep our board in place, which means we got to keep our team in place. And then we take that assessment and we're successful. And if you do that, you have strong schools, strong neighborhood schools that are well resourced, you will draw students back. There's no doubt. Um there will be disruption. I acknowledge that. I'm trying to account for it so that families don't leave. Um and I don't want people to think that it's been yanked away. You know, like these are things that, you know, are outside some of our controls and I don't have lots of options. I just don't. If I did, I would explore them. I just honestly don't. Um, so we're

089trying to find solutions that address multiple things and position us up, position us for success for the next, you know, 50 years. Um, yes, year one and two are important. Uh, but 50 is really what we're we're trying to get to, >> right? This will be our last question. >> Um, first I'm Rebecca. I work with AISD and student support services. Um and I I want to say first I appreciate the passion today um that has come during this meeting. We I think a lot of us in this room get very passionate when we speak from time to time uh especially concerning these things. And so I appreciate the passion that has come through your voice today to see that you are angry as well. Right. I'm just going to say angry because that that's

090how we feel, right? Um I attended Johnston and Porter which are now closed and um with the multiple proposals going on I support a grant a supervisor grant that we have from DOE for Martin Allison and Go Valley of which would all be no more grant right if things continue to get approved with the way that they are because Allison would leave the vertical team and the grants for the vertical team go valley would be repurposed and Martin right looking at our options with Martin. So, one for me on a grant level that's man that's $2.5 million. It's a 5-year grant that we are at risk of losing because our campuses would no longer serve the narrative of the grant. That's a whole another separate issue with a lot of other things going on and

091I don't expect a response to that. Just throwing that out there since we're all taking notes on things that are going on on our campuses as these changes are happening, right? Um, in addition to that, uh, I think about how we're going to continue to support enrollment at East Side, right? because watching Johnston and going through Johnston closing and then watching what's happening as we divide to support a lot of things and I see the good in where y'all are coming from and the decisions you're having to make. I do um but I also think man how are we going to support enrollment at East Side, right? How are we going to support East Side now? Um because we have a a memory hall there, Johnson does. It's cute. Um the other part of that

092is our grant works with wraparound services, right? My experience is clearly not at the district level transformation uh experience level. I'm I'm experienced with campus level transformation right in the classrooms in at the small table in the groups right so I'm thinking like many of us and I've heard voice today those those schools receiving our students you know having been a teacher with multiple learning levels in one classroom and we're talking about some students on grade level because we are making progress and we're on trajectory to get out of D right now I've got some babies that are three grade levels below and we are in a deficit and we don't have more staff yet right we're not there yet. So, how can we continue to support and how do we be a part of

093that? Those of us who are experienced with that or want to continue to support the student so that they feel supported and our teachers. We don't want to lose the amazing teachers at our schools receiving these students who do it from their heart as well. Right? So to me it's are we growing the MTSS department because we all know that MTSS is a huge part of not only what's mandated but what works and how are we going to continue to support that piece of the transition. Um and then the wraparound services that we have contracts with with our service providers that we know are are happening at these campuses. We supervise Allison Go Valley Martin specifically to know how many families are getting rental assistance and support services through CIS and Austin Voices and TRIO.

094Do those contracts continue to get renewed and somehow continue to be provided? Because although we're going to provide, you know, Daisy's Children Transportation, people still need rental assistance, right? And they still need the food pantries, Ryder Bites does amazing work at Allison for that community. if Allison moves to a vertical. I know this is a different subject, but I'm just thinking those things. >> Yeah. So, so this is um I appreciate the question because one of the things that I've uh asked our trustees and our community to consider is how important the November timeline is. You know, we need to be thinking about transition. We need to be thinking about all the things you brought up, whether it's grants have to be negotiated, whether resources have to be deployed. The worst thing we can do

095honestly is to delay a vote that has our future like stability of the organization like in it. Um one month you know I think I've heard committee Matias why don't you delay till December. Well when you think about enrollment the enrollment process starts in November. You think about you know hiring of principles. We said there we're going to hire principles in December. This vote doesn't take place in December. Now I'm hiring principles in January. the enrollment system and the enrollment process is know all of December, all of January, all of February into March. If I lose one of those months now I have three months. I've lost 25% of the time needed to actually make the improvements. Y'all know how frustrating a rolling can be. It's not because we make it hard. It's because we

096have to get partners to actually do the coding to improve the system. That takes time. And what I don't want to do is to fail on execution. Like I want to get to a place where we can take a vote, understand that there's an urgency around it because of the environment we're in, and then spend time planning, planning, planning, planning, the grants, student movement, staff movement, the resources I need to deploy to make sure that transitions occur in a in a very thoughtful way, whether it's transportation or otherwise. Like, if we lose time in the spring semester, then we will start the 2627 school year and be out of position to be successful. That's just the honest truth. And I I I will not support that. We either take it on or or you know

097or that we don't and then you know who knows what happens. But I I just want you to know because we you remember sixth grade got taken out of Martin in April. Think about how long that took to recover. We didn't even recover from it. I would argue that some of the elementary schools in the area who were impacted adversely from an accountability perspective struggled because they had the sixth grade at those campuses. But we did that in the late spring. We were scrambling like crazy to try to get that to work and it never ultimately took root. You cannot do that to people. You cannot do it and I'm not going to do it. So, um I'm committed to not making those decisions in the spring. The one thing we cannot take away is

098time for families to plan. Uh so your questions around grant, yes, if we know what we're doing, then we can have those conversations. We can work with Michelle Wallace and OID. We can figure out if there's opportunity to renegotiate those contracts. Um, I would argue and I'd make a strong argument that students are students and that, you know, just because we change the feeder pattern or, you know, we can figure out what that looks like. I will tell you that you'll see me be supportive of any decision that keeps resources deployed where they originally intended. Um, school specific. Uh, I I don't that's that's what they were intended for. Um, feeder pattern, that's us like we do that. Um, so I just want you to know that that's what I keep hearing and I you

099know I think your point's an important one and I wanted to make sure that everybody understood why November is important. Um, we will we will fail or I won't we won't say I'll fail. I will say on the execution side we will do harm more harm if we don't have appropriate time to plan and transition. Who it was you know Gib we're talking right here about getting the Martin community to talk about beginning a plan for a new school. Well, you lose a whole month or you're not going to start until after the vote takes place, honestly. And then you're in the holiday break. So, you're probably starting January. I just want to be really really clear like time it does it seems like it's really far away, but we start planning for the school

100year for next year already. Like that's happening now. >> Thank you so much. I do have uh some remarks from a parent that they wanted me to read, but I'm going to real quick just as a reminder. Don't know why this is zoomed out, but um so this is our timeline. I've mentioned already we're in this phase right now of having we have the digital participation. You have the QR code on the back of your seats. Um so plenty of time to still get that in by the 28th. We also have the meetings coming up. If you go to austinisd.org/conolidate, /consolidate, you'll see the remaining um community meetings that are happening both districtwide as well as all of the schools that are also having conversations like these. So, if you go to one, bring someone

101next time um so we can get more folks involved. Um November 6 is that date that I shared that the board will be discussing the revised version of this plan and that will go public on October 31st. Um, and then that November 20th is the vote and it's cut off on the screen for some reason, but the consolidations wouldn't take effect. We just wanted to make sure it was really clear until next school year. We would have that vote in November, but this as Matias was saying or superintendent, we want this whole rest of this school year to plan so that we can have a successful launch of the next school year. Um, and this is that QR code to the comment card, the website, the resources that I shared where you'll find that staffing

102guide. Um, and there's also what we call a story map that is kind of a visualization of kind of all of the proposals across the district. Um, and kind of how we reach those decisions. So, lots of resources austinisd.org/conolidate where you can find all of this. Um, and with that, I'm going to go ahead and just read the remarks that this parent shared with me. Um, so it's addressed to you, Mr. Sigura. Um, to the principal and the school community. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss this with respect and open heart. Mr. Sigura, we know your experience comes from the field of civil engineering, an area that seeks to build strong, safe, and lasting structures, and that is valuable. But today, we want to remind you that education is the foundation of

103all buildings, even those that you have helped build yourself. We remember some words that you mentioned at one point. Many changes can weaken structures or cause them to collapse. We have taken your words to heart. Education is a structure. Without education, there are no engineers, no architects, no leaders or strong communities. A society without education collapses, no matter how solid its buildings are. We understand that the district faces financial challenges and structural challenges. But when we talk about closing or consolidating schools, we're deciding more than the fate of a building. We're deciding the future of children, families, and an entire community. We take up another phrase you mentioned. We must integrate as a community to create a strong education system. As an integrated community, we know that a school is not just a set of

104walls. It is the heart of a neighborhood, the place where children feel safe, where parents find support, and where families grow together. Closing a school is like breaking a bond that took years to build. And even with technical arguments, the human damage can be measured in numbers. Structures can be rebuilt, budgets can be adjusted, but a generation that loses access to a closed quality education doesn't recover so easily. Therefore, we ask that before making decisions that produce a collapse within Austin ISD, we look beyond the plans and numbers. May the voices of students, teachers, and families who live within these schools every day be heard. May it be remembered that an educated community can build any structure, but a structure without the participation of the entire community and without education remains empty, soulless, and without

105purpose. Education is not an expense. It is an investment. It is the greatest, strongest, and most lasting construction society can leave behind. Education is non-negotiable. We educate ourselves to learn how to negotiate. We educate new generations so they can resolve conflicts, find arguments, and improve the world without destroying it. Thank you for listening to us and for your willingness to be here with us. We hope this conversation is not just about buildings, but about people, dreams, and futures, because that is where progress is truly measured. Um >> no I appreciate uh closing with that um that letter. What I what I will tell you is um yes my background years and years ago was engineering and then it became finance and then it became you know operations. Uh then it became, you know, really a

106focus on how to support large systems, large public education systems to allocate the resources to where they're needed most. Like that's end of the day, if you go back generations, that's been the challenge. How come black and brown students have not been resourced in the same way um or been resourced to meet the needs uh decades ago that they are now? Like why did that happen? I mean in and what decisions were made at that point. So, uh, yes, my background is non-traditional, um, but I am a systems person and I want people to know that over the last two and a half years, we've done an incredible amount of work that this community, all communities in Austin should be very proud of. Whether it's navigating the TA grade order, whether it's implementing MTSS, multi-ter

107system of support, so for the first time, we have an understanding of where all of our students are, whether it's us, you know, getting to an aligned curriculum. You know, I want to be really honest. We had, you know, 15 16 different curriculum being run within all of our schools. What do you think that hurts? It it hurts the students who have high mobility rates. When you go from one school where you're one scope in sequence, you go to another school, a different scope in sequence, and the staff is trying to figure out where they're coming from and what they need. It it's just it's a system that was designed to produce the outcomes we have. And the outcomes we have are that schools in certain parts of town have been underresourced. And because of

108that, over years have gotten to a point where it's been difficult for them to break the accountability chain. This is not a band-aid solution. It has to be something comprehensive because we're at a moment where only a comprehensive change will work. Um, I intended to bring things together that allow us to address as I talked about transfers and consolid and budgets and program stability and aligned feeder patterns. We would have never ever taken on feeder patterns unless it was all tied together. Think about that. In 20 years, when you look back, I would argue that one of the most profound things that this planet will have done will have lined feeder patterns. I mean, why is it that when you go to Anderson High School, you know, all the students that are at MKAN are

109wearing Trojan hats and you come to Martin, you go to, you know, Mendees, you go to schools like there's four or five high schools, you break up community, that's just not we can't do that. We can't do it. So, um, I just want you to know that I appreciate you. Uh, we are at a time where there's immense disruption. I'm trying to be responsive to all the risks that we're navigating. Keeping local control is absolutely a priority of mine. You know, being responsible for educating our our students is something I take like I give my life to it. I mean, I really do. Um, and we're going to take this input. We're going to refine. We're going to improve. Uh, and we'll take the next step together. So, I appreciate all of y'all. Uh, you

110know, these these meetings matter. Uh, we take the feedback. We'll adjust. Um, and I appreciate all of y'all spending time with me this morning. So, thank you.