Palm Elementary School Community Meeting: October 27, 2025

001Good afternoon. I'm Vic, one of your interpreters. I'm going to make a quick announcement in Spanish for those that may need or want interpretation into Spanish. There's anyone that needs interpretation devices. They're over to the left. And while they're doing that, we're going to go ahead and get started. I know we have some parents that needed to drop their students off, so we're probably going to have people that dwindle in, and that will be fine. Uh, welcome. My name is Roa Coleman. I'm the principal here at Palm. I'm proud. proud principal here at Palm. Thank you all so much for being here. Um, I do realize that it's immediately after school and it wasn't the most convenient time, but it was the best time that we could find to be able to have the team

002here. So, we'd like to welcome you. Um, just a few quick reminders as we before we get started. We do have child care in the gym. Coach Anderson and Miss Gomez, our PE team are in the gym. They have games set up. They have movies. They have snacks. So, if you'd like for your child to go to child care, that is an option for you. Also, facilities to the right. We do have restrooms um for everyone. They're open. So you if you need to take care of any of your needs or anything, you can go right over there to the restrooms. And um we're going to go ahead and get started. I'd like to again welcome you. Thank you. And to Superintendent Matias and your team, thank you so much for being here. Thank you

003for coming to listen to answer our questions. Um we do have about 90 minutes for this meeting. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Miss Ally and she will facilitate the rest of the meeting. Thank you so much, Principal Coleman. Hello everyone. My name is Ally Gillarduchi. I am the senior executive director of communications and community engagement. I just want to review our agenda. So, we just had our welcome. We're going to go over some meeting norms and the purpose of this meeting so we're all on the same page. We'll introduce some of the folks that we have here to help answer questions along with our superintendent. Um, we want to provide an overview. probably everyone's relatively familiar with what is in the current recommended plan, but we just want to

004make sure that it's really clear to everyone here what we're recommending and kind of the rationale why. If y'all have questions about why this was the recommendation, we'll be having that conversation. Um, then we also want to be able to respond to some of the questions that were submitted in the comment card. So, we pulled out questions that y'all your community submitted in advance to the comment card and we're going to start by addressing those before we get into a bigger conversation. Um, and then we'll talk about next steps and that will be it. Um, going over the meeting norms. We, and I know this is pretty small font, but we are here to build the future together. We want to acknowledge the challenges of the situation that we're in while focusing on ideas and

005solutions that make our district stronger, more equitable, and sustainable for years to come. Um, we want to honor time. So, we're going to try to ask that if you're speaking that you try to limit your comments to a minute. And we're going to try to keep our responses brief enough so that there's space for everyone. Um, we want to honor the process, um, which just means following along with the agenda, um, so that we can get to hear from everybody. Um, honor, intent, and impact. We may disagree on ideas, but we want to assume positive intent and focus on our shared goal, which is having strong, equitable schools for all students. Um, we're going to honor space and voice. That means if you do speak once, we're going to ask that we let everyone else

006that's interested in speaking speak before we have you speak a second time. Um, we want to try to stay solution oriented. So, focusing on ideas, solution, understanding as opposed to blame or frustration. And lastly, we are here um to embrace um and demonstrate empathy. We know these are difficult conversations um but we're going to meet them with compassion, clarity, and honesty. And that's our commitment to y'all. Um so the purpose of today's meeting, um much much like what we said in the agenda is that we want to make sure that we respond to some of those frequently asked questions that you already let us know that were on your mind when you first saw the draft plan. Um, we want to gain a shared understanding of what is proposed and why. Um, and then we

007as a leadership team want to gain insights into any of your thoughts and ideas that could inform potential refinements to the plan, things that we can incorporate. Um, we are going to have a revised version of the plan this Friday. Um, and that's going to be directly reflective of the things that we heard in the comment cards that we are able to incorporate. Um, and the final draft is in it will be going before the board November 20th. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to our superintendent to give an introduction. >> Yeah, thank you, Ally. Um, I very much appreciate all of y'all um coming out this afternoon and having a conversation. Uh, as Ally said, this is a draft plan. We are refining it. It's really, really important that we get

008input from our community uh as we take the next step. And I I want to also acknowledge just how disruptive this is. Uh it's not lost on me that these types of changes are very challenging to move through as a community. It's it's hard. It's sad. Um I just want to apologize that we're having to go through that at this moment. It's never something I ever thought I would have to do uh as a superintendent. It's not something um I ever wanted to do. The reality is that in Austin ISD, we have some schools that get what they need and we have strong neighborhood schools in certain parts of Austin. But the reality is that we do not have strong schools everywhere. And it's also true that for the last 144 years, as we have

009grown to be who we are, decision after decision after decision has been made. And we're at a point where students who look like me, students that look like me, the students here at Palm haven't gotten what they've needed to be successful. That's just the honest truth. The board and I are very much aligned in that every student should get what they need. Period. And every student has a different need. Now to do that, we have to think about how we work, what resources we have, and be honest about what's changed. And we have to do all of it in this moment when public education, as we see it, is being challenged at every corner along the way. And so our goal is to have strong, vibrant, loving neighborhood schools so that every student has access

010to them. Right? And what do we mean by thriving or loving? Well, we want students to, you know, love learning, not just be good about taking a test. We want students to feel comfortable in their own skin. We want students to view being bilingual or having or being bicultural, multicultural as a superpower. And to do that, we have to think about the resources that we have as a school district. And so this plan that we have addresses all of it in a very complex multi-layered strategy. Right? The first thing that it attempts to do is to align feeder patterns. And when I talk about aligning feeder patterns, I want our elementary school students to go to no more than one or two middle schools. Keep community together, keep families together, and then have middle schools

011go to no more than one or two high schools. Right now in Austin, we have middle schools that go to four and five high schools. Can you guess where those schools are? They're in East Austin. We also have lots of schools that go 100% into the middle school or high school, and you can guess where those schools are. So, this plan aims to realign feeder patterns throughout the city of Austin. Lots of boundary changes, but ultimately we want to keep community together. We want to align programming and if we do it, we believe that we'll be in a better position long term. Two, the cost of education has gone up year over year for the last many, many years. The state hasn't helped in the way that I believe that they should have. Changes at

012the federal level have impacted title two, title three, and title four funds. We have to pay our educators to give them a chance to be able to live in this community. We've made investments the last three years in a row in compensation and we're going to continue to do that. But as we do that, it puts stress on our system, right? Because everything costs money. So to become more efficient, we have to think about where we have misalignments in our school system. And to do that, we have to think about consolidations, boundary changes, and this plan considers that. Three, program alignment. Dual language is something that we believe in in Austin. There are school districts around Central Texas who are moving away from it. Not us, not our board, not our administration. We are leaning

013into it. But to do it well, you have to ensure that the program is focused on the students that it was intended for, emergent bilingual students. And right now, we have programs that are not balanced. In order to balance them, we need to move them where our students are, our emergent bilingual students. And this plan does that. The other thing that we have to consider is that we are in an accountability system at the state level that's bigger than our school district. I will never ever ever say that these letters that are given to our schools represent who our schools are. Right? The state does that. They're the ones that assign Fs and D's and C's and A's and B's on a single assessment. take on a single day in most cases. And the reality

014of all of all of it is that I have to ensure that we as a system move through that and break these accountability chains. And we'll talk more about that in a moment. But if we don't if we don't address these real risks that come with accountability, we potentially lose the ability of educating our students the way that we believe locally. Your trustees get to determine the direction that we go in as a school district. They are local locally elected. And so for us, this plan also has to consider the accountability risk that exists in Austin ISD. If we do not own it, if we do not move the system, then at some point in the future, this district could look very, very different. And we're not going to let that happen. I won't let

015that happen. So this plan includes it. The other thing that this plan includes are transfer policy changes in Austin. There have been many policies that have been in place for decades that have moved students from one part of the city to another part of the city, right? Or that the control of the transfer has been at the school level, not at the district level. That creates inequities. Why is it that you have so many students that are choosing to leave the East Austin a east side early college high school vertical and go to Austin High? Right. So, this plan is considering all of it. It is a lot. Um, and we will have those conversations with you. Uh and we need to move forward as a school system because one of the things that we

016cannot do is not acknowledge this real risk that exists as a school system and kick the can down the road. Because the one thing I cannot take away from our staff or our families is time to plan. I am someone that will give you that time. I'm someone that will make a hard decision, but I'm not going to be more disruptive than I have to be. Um, and so let's talk about what this means for Palm. So, Palm Elementary School, uh, I know Palm Mill, you have an incredible principal and, uh, Miss Coleman wrote has been, she's incredible. Y'all have done incredible things. Y'all have, uh, performed year-over-year. Uh the reality of it all is that there are simply not enough students that live here now that used to live here. And so if we

017took all the students in this area and assumed that every one of them came to Palm, we would still not get close to filling up the school. And so when we think about how as a system we get to become uh more balanced and provide the resources, we can't have huge inefficiencies. And so the plan includes Palm Elementary School going wholly into Pettas Elementary School. If you can go back to that slide real quick. Uh the reason that's important is because any time that we can keep community together, we're going to do it right. We don't want to break up Palm Elementary School. We don't want to send the school to multiple schools. We want to keep the school and the community together. This allows us to do that. The other thing I want to

018point out um and we'll talk about more about this in a little bit is uh staffing. I want our community and staff to know that any transition, any disruption is something that is very centered at our work. Um I have committed over and over again that those who want to be in Austin will have a home. I've I've been clear about it. there's been like some messages out there about Matias is going to do this. That is not true. That is not true at all. Uh so as we move forward because of what we're talking about in this specific plan, there's actually a lot more flexibility than you might have in other plans per let's say a school that was going through a turnaround plan or a school that was going through a programmatic move.

019So we'll have those conversations with staff. Um, but I want our our community to know that I recognize that the only reason I exist is to support our educators in the classroom. That's it. Now, um, this plan, as we'll talk about here, uh, includes, um, this beginning in the next school year, which means that we'll spend the rest of this semester and all of next semester planning, preparing, working between both school communities to develop a healthy, thoughtful transition. uh and then we'll um implement the board vote will not occur till November 20th. Um but we were wanting to hear from you all today, have a conversation and talk about what things you know we need to consider as we move forward. You want to go through some of the questions? >> Yeah. >> Okay. So,

020we have a few of the questions that were submitted in advance that we're going to go through. Um, starting with this one from Ricardo A. This school is a vital part of our community and shutting it down would disrupt students, break important relationships with teachers, and create longer, more difficult commutes. Has the district explored other options, and can it delay the decision to close schools? >> Yeah. So, we have looked at lots of options um over the last uh many months, but even years prior as part of the long range plan. And the reality is that we just don't have the students that live here. Uh and so in order to stabilize the community, we need to create a big enough area to fill up a school and to have all of our resources supporting

021those students. Could we delay? Um we could. Uh I am not going to propose that. And here's the reason. We are facing a budget deficit. We are facing transition moves. We're facing accountability risks. All these things cost resources. They do. They really, really do. And so, if we're going to do all of it together, the strategy and the approach should be to do it all together at once so that we as a system are taking the steps in unison. any one of these getting pulled out um you know just means that that risk over the next year uh will increase because I will not propose a plan change in the spring semester because of what we talked about. If you do something in the spring, it's harder for our staff to to be supported. Our

022families don't get the information they need to prepare for the school year. It creates lots of confusion. We've seen that happen. Mendes and Martin had sixth grade pulled out in 2023. That was done in April. The school district scrambled. Our families scrambled and we had about a month and a half, two months to try to get it together and it never really worked because I have to implement the plan and I do not want to fail or to to do something that is not in alignment with you all's expectations. And so my uh strategy and my approach is we take a vote together in November. We have time to plan. If there is a delay, it is in a out year. Uh and at that point, you know, all the other things that we're trying

023to avoid risk-wise would actually grow. Um so that is why uh we're not looking at a delay at this point or at least I am not. >> Um the next question is multi multiple commenters brought this one up. So, if Palm closes, would Langford continue to reside in its current location in the portables or will Langford Yeah. will Langford students continue to attend classes in the portables located at Palm while Palm's building is vacant? >> Yeah. So, um right now this is one of those transition questions that we will refine. Um, but I can tell you that if Palm uh were to close in the 26 27 school year and the building was vacant, we would look to see if there was an opportunity to reduce the costs of actually keeping Langford in the portable

024city, right? Because that's also a cost. So, anytime we collectively can drive down our costs, I'd like to explore it. And it's always good to have kids in buildings opposed to portables. So, I can't say for certain that it's going to be all of this or all of that as far as in Langford or in Palm or in the portables, but I can say that we would be looking to figure out um a an interim kind of uh swing space solution that drives costs down because it it would be I would I would think uh a disservice to our students in the portables if they're right outside a school building. Uh but again that will go through and we'll work through that with the community as part of the transition plan. >> The next question

025was from Reanetta A. Have you considered combining Langford and Palm? Um and then what is the thought process behind Palm being reassigned to Bettz and not Blazier >> and why did the district choose to close Palm instead of changing the boundaries of Blazer and Palm? Those are multiple people ask that. >> Interesting. So can you go to the map real quick? So we have looked at um Palm into Lenford. One of the things that I want our families and staff to know is that Bettis is actually in between, right? So whenever you look at boundaries, you really want to have them continuous. And so like when you can see right here, this is Pettis, right? >> This is Palm and this is Lenford. So, in order to connect the two, we would have to create

026this really kind of weird shape through the park or we would have to create a broken attendance boundary. Uh, which is not something we would want to do. Uh, and it would also include significant um I would say logistics challenges when it comes to transportation. The preferred approach is always going to be to take two adjacent attendance boundaries and merge them, which is what we're proposing here. We did look at it. Um I will also say that uh Langford is um full relatively full and so we would not be able to relocate all of Palm. And one of the things that we really felt strongly is that we wanted the community to stay together. So, um, that is, you know, I think one of the tradeoffs where we could explore that further, but I want

027our community to know that it's likely to be a really small percent of the existing students at Palm that actually would fit into Langford. Um, the other question was >> also >> Blazier. So Blazer's to the south and what makes these schools challenging is that they're on the edge of AISD's attendance boundary and Palm is not too far from Blazier. Blazier is just to the south and so it's you cannot easily you cannot change the attendance boundary of Blazier because the closest area is actually the area that includes the school and so we never want to be in a situation where the school is not in the attendance boundary that supports it. Right? Right. So, look at see where Blazer is. >> So, Blazer's here. I'm sorry. I'll walk to that one. Blazier's here, right?

028Just to the south. And but Blazier goes all the way down to Creedmore. And so, if Palm was to just move over just six or seven streets, it would begin to be inside the attendance B. It would begin to consume what is Blazer. And we can't do that, right? You the school needs to be in the attendance boundary. So this is a function of just the locations decisions that were made years and years and years ago. Um there's not an easy solution because we're bound on the east side with you know really Del Valley and outside the area. So anything else you want to add to that Christine? >> Yes, thank you. Um Christine Steampport, operations officer for Austin ISD. And I just wanted to add to what you said, Superintendent Sigura. When we look

029at schools and we look at boundaries, we start with where our students live and we want to make sure that right we're having those neighborhood schools. But when we looked in this cluster of an area and we do this all over with our boundaries in the process, we have about 5600 seats between about six to seven schools, but we only have 3,900 students. So that's where we start looking at where our schools are situated as he was just kind of mentioning. and also how how much occupancy capacity do we have in that school that's comfortable and that's a healthy what we call a healthy utilization. And so that's kind of where we really started from that place of looking at our locations where our schools are and looking where our students live and then looking

030at how many seats we have available in those areas. So >> Oh yes. And I think that there was a question about Blazier fitting all of Palm. It's just not possible. Um it's a very Yeah. Uh, and it's a that area is is being developed more, but the the projections are still at a high utilization. >> The Good Night Ranch development that has thousands of single family homes, as I know you all are aware of, is just putting all that pressure in that area um to increase the I know you you have a Ally, any questions? You want us We can >> I think >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Yeah, if you have a follow-up, I can bring you the mic. >> Yeah. So I live in the community as well as work here at

031Palm and I'm literally one block away from Blazier. So the kids in the next blocks go to Blazer. The kids on my street go to Palm. My question is I've seen y'all reszone the other areas kind of wonky. So I don't understand the justification that we can't send Blazier kids to Palm when you know I live on a street a couple of blocks that are Palm. Right next door is Blazer. Why can't we get the kids that are north of Blazier, which is Saxon Place, plus east of Blazer, which is Mckini Heights, and send them over to Palm? Because Slaughter Lane is still being developed with homes and neighborhoods. So, in five years, you're going to have Blazia that's already full. It's going to be busting at the seams. And what are you going to

032do then? In five years, you're going to make another school. >> So, the So, um, so we looked at that. The challenge is how many school so remember you're the school as a whole is less than 50% filled right so the question becomes how would that even come close to filling up the students would it come close to actually um getting us to where we would have a healthy stable utilization um my understanding and based when I was going through the work you'd have to go pretty far into Blazier's attendance boundary to make up the difference Um, I can't I'm guess I know the I'm very familiar with this area. I'm trying to think through which streets I can't speak off hand. I can provide that data, but when we looked at it, it was

033a pretty significant number because a lot of that area, especially to the north of Blazer, as you all know, it's you have the park area. It's a big area, but there's lots of park space, open space there, too. So, you have to go pretty far down into that area before you get to pick up enough students that would fill up. So, if it's a couple streets, perhaps that's dozens, but I don't know that it's hundreds and hundreds, which is really what we need to be thinking about to actually fill up Palm, but we're happy to to to look at that and to provide more feedback. But that's the the approach that we took and why. >> And I also wanted to touch to a little bit of your comment earlier about projections. We are looking

034at 10 years projections with birth rate, census data, developers, all of that with the city. Um, and so this is projected 10 years out. We always like to really hone in on five, but this has projections as well. And if you look at the bottom of that boundary map, you'll see those projections specifically for 2029, which gives us a good average after maybe there's some grandfathering policies that students are able to do to kind of give you that showcase of what it would look like and how that school could be utilized. >> Um, I'm going to go back and forth between because I want to make sure we get to the questions that were presented. Is this kind of related to Isl? >> Yeah. Well, I hope it's related to Blazer. I'm in the wrong

035meeting. >> So, no one is arguing that Palm is not close to Bettis. What we're saying is you're saying that we can't pull some of those kids because it would be pulling some of the kids that are in that attendance boundary. Correct. From from from Blazer. You said we can't pull kids from Blazer because then we're going into Blazers the the kids are close to Right. Well, we you don't want to have the palm boundary go so far south that it's actually around Blazer proper. >> But what you do want is for the parents here to pass Palm to go to Pettis. And we don't see how that's fair. You see what I'm saying? You're you're telling like and and when you think about it like Langford might come into this building because you could

036imagine them being over there with this vacant building, but then you want parents who live right here to pass this school where Langford might be in next year for them to drive past their what was originally their home school to go to Pettis now when we could just get some of those Pettis kid those Blazer kids to come here. But because no one for some reason doesn't want to mess with Blazer because of the numbers set boundaries whatever it is. I I I have no it's that's not true. I I I we will look at all solutions and refine. It was never about not wanting to do something. It's just >> what what large enough area actually creates a healthy student population for the next 10 years that would support us. >> And and to

037us, I mean, as a as a community here, we've all talked about it is bringing us some of Blazer because Blazer has exploded. That's why you built that other school. And meanwhile, we were just dwindling down, especially when we had the flood that took all those houses and took those families. So, if we would have gotten some of those families in the beginning, if those boundaries would have been changed a long time ago, we wouldn't be in this situation. And there's no reason why we can't get those kids to come here. It's easier for those Blazer kids to come down the street for it than for these beds. I mean, these palm parents to go all the way to bed is most of our parents walk. Okay. So, I mean that I don't understand. And

038I don't and when I sit here and hear you say, "Oh, these are closed." We understand that. That's not hard for anyone here to understand. What we don't understand is why you can't get Blazer kids to come here. >> They also don't have >> correct. So, I mean, I So, we're happy to to continue to to refine. I mean, I I think um the one question uh that I just want to be really clear about is how many students we actually need to pull in order to make that work. And I just that because that's the question, right? Because a couple streets in my experience is doesn't solve the problem, right? It is a huge area that typically is needed to and it's not just who lives there, it's how many actually go to that

039school. So we look at live-in, we look at projections, but we and so we could look at that. We we have the analysis. I'm not prepared to share kind of how far down you have to go. Um and as far as wonky boundaries, I'm not sure who I think that was you, ma'am. Um like we're trying to get away from that. That's one of the thing. That's why we're in some of these messes that we're in now because for the last 144 years, a road would get expanded or this school would get added and then we would create this little boundary and we'd want to protect this thing. And so that's kind of how we got to where we are. I do not want to just do what others have done if it doesn't make

040sense for our community. Now, if we say here, okay, let's if Langford had a room, right? Let's say they had a room and we could make it work. You would see me wanting to figure out a way to make it work. That's what I'm trying to hear from you all is Matias. This is we understand the environment we're in. It sounds like there's consensus around that. I am trying to figure out how I can make an adjustment work to support community need acknowledge this pain that we're in and the stress that we're in and we're happy to look at that. I mean, we we are happy to look at that. I just don't want to set the expectation that we can all of a sudden just go down blazer a couple streets and then it's

041going to solve this the problem. That may not be the case. And so I just that's that's maybe my counterposition. not >> and and I appreciate your comment about the boundaries because we've heard that from other schools. Nobody changes the boundary. There's no regular review process. The a city of Austin has changed drastically, but then there's been we build a new school, but we don't look at the boundaries and try to balance that way. And so, I think this is our first approach, right? We don't want to get in this situation that we've been in for years, honestly decades. Um, we want to have a regular review boundary process to where we're doing this every two to three years. That's what other districts do near us. I mean, Liberty Hill, they're growing and Leander and

042they have usually something every year just because they're expanding so much, but we have to do the same thing so we don't get into the same problem that we have now. So, I appreciate your comment. >> I'm going to take the next question from the comment card and then I saw you had your hand up, so I'll go to you after that. Um, so the next question was, "Tffic William Cannon is a concern. Can you explain if transportation will be provided for students who are reszoned? >> So our transportation policy would be the same. So if you live more than 2 miles from the school where you are zoned to attend, then you would have transportation or if the route is deemed hazardous that if it's walkable or bikable, we would also provide a bus

043um for that student. >> Okay. Sorry, I'm gonna ask a question for a parent. So what is the answer to that? >> So yes, you will get a bus. You will get a bus. >> So uh I'm a transfer mother from Kyle. Um how would that work for our kids? I know a lot of our kids are don't belong to Austin, but we did the proper transfer. How would that work for them? >> Yeah. So, >> so that's one of the things that we're addressing as part of this update um in our plan to be really really clear because we want our families who've transferred into the school, if they choose to go with the school, they can go with the school. Um and so that's that's one of the things that wasn't clear in

044the initial draft and honestly it wasn't clear because there were just so many scenarios that we had to work through to make sure we we addressed it correctly. So, in the new version, we're going to have a whole document that's set aside for transfer policies and standard operating procedures. And what you're going to see in that is students who transfer into a school will be kept by way of the superintendent and board adoption of the policy with the cohort of the school. So, if if your student goes to Palm now and the entire cohort of students goes to Betz, you would have the ability to go to to beta transfer automatically approved. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Um, so, so that's what we're doing to try to limit any of these kind of, you

045know, these things that are not consistent with our values. We want that for you. We want that. >> Okay. And my next question is reiterate again if I'm I'm going to say it and correct me if I'm wrong. Why can't we transfer I mean, why can't we combine Langford and Palm? >> So, I'm sorry. >> Okay. It wouldn't fit. Okay. So well yeah Palm going to when you say combined I was trying to figure out you talking about here or there because L Palm cannot fit in Langford being rebuilt >> because Palm I mean because Langford has the amount of students they have right correct. Yeah >> but Pettis has the same amount of students and you're fitting our kids over it's going to be the same amount of students. So help me understand that.

046>> So each school has a different capacity. So not all schools have the same size fit the same number of students. Um and just look at this school and Blazer right? They're very very different. Um, Blazer is much larger. So when we think about what it takes to fill up, we think about, well, how many students are there now and then how many students can fit safely and support the academic programming. And what we know is that Bettz has space when you think about it from that perspective. Um, I don't recall like the capacity of each school, but every school does have a different capacity. >> Okay. I have another question, but I will ask that way you can move on. >> Okay. Yeah. And I'll be here. Well, I I also want to know

047like I feel like our teachers are overflowing with students. I I remember I there used to be less amount of students. Our teachers have like over 20 students in their class sometimes. What I just want to know how this is going to benefit our kids. You keep talking about budget and budget and budget. It's going to benefit you guys, but how is it going to benefit our kids? >> So, when you say so, the the one thing I will say is um by state requirements, right? It's 22 students is the maximum we can have for in an elementary classroom. So 22. >> Okay. Some of yours last year had more than 22. >> No, no, I'm I'm giving you I want to give you like kind of concept because there's a you made you said

048a comment around budget concerns us like the one of the things you run into is we don't have educators in our classrooms the way we need to have them. We have vacancies, right? We have to provide the resources for your students, the curriculum, instructional coaches, content interventionists, all those things to make sure that your student is on grade level and getting what they need in alignment with our values. So, so, so I guess the word I'm saying is budget is a huge part of this, but it's not the reason we make decisions. Everything is in service to the classroom. That's the reason we exist. But if I don't have the funds to actually support our educators and your students, then everybody, all of our students, all of our schools are not going to be successful.

049That's just the honest truth. And right now, I mean, we've we've been the federal government made changes. We lost $16 million 11 million overnight, right? That's huge. The cost of education has gone up. We're running about a, you know, four, well, we cut a hund00 million last in the last two years in our budget and we're trying to find more funds wherever we can and trying to stay away from the classroom. We have decided to protect certain things. We've decided to keep librarians in our schools, right? That's something that's above and beyond what the state has. We've decided to have nurses. That's something above and beyond what the state requires. We've decided to be able to procure our own um uh curriculum. We could have a different curriculum and save $6 to8 million, but I

050promise you that curriculum is not going to align with our values. And so I just want to be really clear like everything is tied to resources. It's not that I I am thinking about it only from a finance perspective, but the reality of it all is if we cannot have a healthy fund balance, if we cannot pay our educators, the risk from the agency and for our ability to support our teacher, I mean support our students is is real. Um, so that's how they're connected. So, I just want you to know it's all >> the next question is actually really connected to this, so you might want to stay on that track, but it says, "How will closing 13 schools impact enrollment and overall resources for the district?" >> Yeah. So, um, one of the

051things that we hear from time to time is, uh, if you go through a school consolidation process, you're going to lose students, right? Um, one of the other things that I I've seen is that we have schools right now who've historically been underserved. Uh, and they're not um the choice for many of the students in the neighborhood. So, you can think about where that is. Where do we have areas in Austin where there are lots of students, but they're not selecting our schools? Well, why is that? A lot of it comes down to because there are families that feel as though the charter school or the school next door is the better option or the school across town. So I want to desperately get to a place where all of our schools are high performing,

052right? Not only how we see see it, but our state sees it, but we actually have the resources to do it. And I can't do that with 116 schools and a budget that has been going in the wrong direction. Uh and the other thing that puts additional pressure on it is enrollment. I mean, our enrollment has declined in the last many years. And it's not that our proportion of all the students has changed. It's that there are families who cannot afford to live in Austin. They just they can't. And so they're moving out. And we've seen that over the last 10 years. And that is directly how we get like funding from the state. So all these things have gotten us to a point where we have to think about okay if we're going to

053do something well and have strong neighborhood schools we have to acknowledge that we may have to have fewer of them to do it well. That's just the honest truth. >> Thanks. We have a question right here. >> Yeah. I want to get back to the transportation talk. Yeah. >> So we live within walking distance. All of our children come here. There's several uh families in the community here at Palm uh who have disabilities who utilize special transit services. So, we've checked and there is no school bus for our students to get to Parees and I am at work at 5 a.m. My wife works on the other end of Austin. So, we would have to be dropping our students off at like 6:00 6:30 in the morning just so we can my wife can get

054to work on time or I would totally have to find another job or means of work to accommodate dropping them off. What is the resolution for that? >> Yeah. So, the first thing I would say is there wouldn't be a bus just yet because this plan hasn't like they're they're not connected yet. So, our transportation system would not have created a bus route until they merge together and become one attendance boundary. Uh, as Christine said, if you're over two miles, you will automatically get a bus. And if there's any hazardous route, and William Cannon, I would argue, is a hazardous route. So, anything beyond I mean, right, I mean, I live on William Cannon. I grew up off William Cannon. I know it well. Uh, so so that that will address itself. We can be

055clear and in the policy changes in the plan kind of show you what it will look like. um we didn't clearly articulate it in the first draft because it's part of our policy already but we so we couldn't show it in that way but we will we'll make it very very clear. The other thing is this is what is helpful if we understand that this community needs a different level of support early in the morning at any of the receiving schools like we the district with board support can make those changes. We have families all across the city that we have 20,000 students that use our buses. We have some schools that open up really really early with programming where they have partners in place. We have students that come and some just rest in

056the morning because their families are working two and three jobs. Like we understand that, but I need to know like what needs to change in the combined or the new school to support you. That that is what this is is going to be about once we get past these votes is transition planning, transition planning, transitions planning. The last thing I want is for any one of our families to feel like they have to do something different to support their student. Like that's our job. I have to change. Um, so that's how we're going to tackle it. And one of the documents that you're going to see in our next upload this Friday is our framework for transition. So you'll see all the things that we're considering as we get through this work. How do you

057bring PTAs together? How do you you know, what's the um the approach that we're going to use to honor the legacy of the um the school that's being vacated. All of those things will be in there. Uh and also programming. If there's programming that's not there now that needs to be there, we will address it. The last thing is special education transportation. Um we provide transportation for any student that receives special education services. Period. Right? That's a period. So um if that were the case, you can feel confident that we would provide that transportation. It is a separate system. It's not tied to board policy. It's actually tied to um state and federal um policy. So that would not be a concern. We would get that one taken care of if that was a a

058question. And the next question that was presubmitted, actually this came up with multiple commenters, is about special education. Um, and I might call Christa up here to help out with this one. Um, but it says, "Our students receiving special education services are excelling and seeing a improvement here at Palm. What considerations are being given for students receiving special education services through this transition to happen? >> Thank you. Hi, my name is Christa Ethridge. I'm the interim executive director of special ed. Um and we certainly want to continue to see our students um to improve and excel. Um good news is that Bettas offers a very offers a very robust special education program. Um they offer a full continuum of supports and services. So um we're not anticipating that there will be any disruption to services

059and that that will continue to um flow as it is now. >> Yeah. Yeah, the one thing I would say is in the plan that you'll see on this Friday, we also have a separate document that is specifically to spe students receiving special education services and what our students can expect as we transition, you know, when the AR would take place if there's not a service at that school. In some cases, maybe there's life skills at the school that the student is at but not at the receiving school. Like what's our plan there? So, we're going to be very very intentional. Um we're thinking through all the different elements but the support for special education and the um resources allocated come out of special education department. They do not come out of talent and strategy

060because we place based on need not based on the number of students if that makes any any sense. So that's why it's kind of important that we talk about both them a little bit separately when it comes to staffing. But that's how we're going to tackle it. There'll be more detail on the plan. >> So I want to go back to Langford. Um, I was passing by and Langford is just a hole in the ground. There's there's no building right now. And you were saying that Langford and Palm together here wouldn't have capacity. But before the floods, P Langford has like, I think, 450 kids. We have like 3 something. Together, they could fit here. We used to have more than that before the floods took our students away. So, um, I don't understand like

061why that wouldn't work. there's no school there. You get rid of the portables, you keep this school, put some resources into it, sell that property over there, and we have a robust school here, and the parents are still in their community, right? >> So, so we'd be doing the opposite to Langford, right? >> So, >> yeah. Well, it's actually not quite that long. Um but the one of the things I would say is um bond allocations, the projects, like all of those things. Uh you know, modernized facilities, that is something the district and I am we're committed to progressing. Um I'm certainly happy to add more detail as to kind of how that plays into it. Um I I I don't want to kind of just say that we would do that um without kind

062of more intentional. >> Yeah. the >> well so the way that the bond dollars work and I want to be really really clear uh bond dollars um can can be reauthorized by board vote right so if there are projects that are tied to Palm Elementary School there are a couple things that can be done first is we determine what hasn't been spent right because I I will tell everybody if our students are in a building we want to make sure that water's running and that AC is cooling like that's important I've had people tell me Matias how could you improve the 2022 bond program if you knew this was going to happen. We didn't know. In 23, the state, we thought the state would offer support. In 2025, they did, but only minimally. And throughout

063this entire time, we want our kids to feel safe, supported, and have the buildings operating. And our staff as well. So, um, what we do is take the remaining amount and say, okay, how much is left? Uh, we would work with our, um, communities community bond oversight committee with a framework and say, our preference is for the dollars to follow the students. That's always going to be our preference. Um if the students are going to bet then we would have to understand well what is happening at betas with their money and can this supplement can it be added because does it be something different in some cases not in this case necessarily but in some cases the school that is receiving is a modernized facility so you wouldn't need to spend any money well then

064the question becomes can you move it to the middle school where the students will be in a couple years or you can move it to the high school like we really want to make sure that the money stays in the vertical in the feeder so that our students experience that investment in their academic journey. That's how we would tackle it. It's a function of the board. The board takes the vote. Um I would just give a recommendation, but that's how it would occur. >> The next question we have online is from TA V. >> That's actually who's raising their hand right now. So I'll go ahead and do you want to just ask your question? Hi, I'm Tanya Vasquez and I have a fifth grade um graater in at Palm. And so I'm glad that

065question came up because it's kind of alongside the other question that I have. But according to your rubric, we were graded a three. So just seeing that three, how did we get bumped into a school that's going to be closed? And let's say the school is closed, what happens after that? Uh will you sell palm? And if you do, how much will the district get? >> Yeah. So, um, the rubric, uh, as I communicated, um, throughout the process was never going to be a school closure list. It never was. The top 10 that we we said that over and over again. What it was meant to communicate is where we had misalignments in our system, where we had overenrollment, underenrollment. There are schools on the top on that list that are consolidating, but there are

066also many others that aren't because you have to think about the impact of all the schools around it. So, um, that's why there wasn't a bumping. It wasn't like that was a list and somehow Palm got bumped. It was looking region by region in our school system, understanding the kind of overall goals of the plan, what made sense based on the fact that we have lots of empty seats in this part of Austin. And we have to make a decision regarding um real estate. At no point along this journey uh did we ever, you know, make a conscious decision and say, "Oh, we're going to close this school because the land is more valuable or less value." That wasn't part of this process. Uh what we do is we go through a process and we

067um identify what is community benefit. Um our trustees in 2019 voted on an agenda item that said uh housing is a is a community teacher housing is a community benefit. community space is a is a benefit uh and other things. And so what we're going to do is to bring that full circle, kind of reintroduce it to the board and say this is the process that we're likely to go through. It's not going to happen without all of y'all's input. Like we're not going to go and do something without getting input from our community. I will say it has to be balanced because there have been some communities that say, "Well, I just want it to be an open park, like totally open." Well, I mean that's fine, but there are also kind of this

068the real kind of opportunities that exist. If we could do like a capitalized ground lease and do housing, right? Bring families back into the area. That would be a benefit. So, we're going to go through a process. I always take the lead from our community. Sometimes the community wants to go quicker um and sometimes community wants to go slower. Uh when we closed Peas Elementary School, the community said we want to ensure that students are in the building. So, we worked with United Way. We did a contract. Now it's an early childhood center for Anita Koi. The conversation was around housing. So what do we do? We work with our public facilities corporation which is tied to our board. And now we have over 600 units being constructed like as we speak. So we have

069the ability to do it together. But I'm going to take y'all's lead. Uh but at no point did um value or what it could or couldn't be came up in the decision-m process. >> I'm going to go ahead and read the question that you had, Miss Vosquez, also just because I think it's an important one. But the question was, will the school board consider pausing the closure of Palm Elementary to allow the community time to collaborate and explore solutions that could increase enrollment and better serve our students? And so, I know that our superintendent has kind of shared his position on on the reasons why we don't feel it is in the best interest to slow down. But I also just want to make sure that everyone kind of understands the way this plan works

070is that the administration makes a recommendation, which is the we have this draft plan. There's going to be a revised version of it Friday. um we present that to the board and then the board has to make a determination. They might ask us to make some other adjustments. They might ask us to continue listening or refine in other areas. Um but that so this really is a question for our board but I think Matias has kind of described where we stand in terms of kind of the why about why we feel that we need to act with a little bit of urgency. >> Did you want to add anything to that? No, I I would just say um we can spend lots of resources trying to increase enrollment, but if the kids do not live

071in the attendance boundary, you're going to spend lots of time and energy and we will see maybe we won't see the gains that that we would hope to see. We have this in other parts of the city. I've been working on this for quite some time. We really need to think about how do we support the whole school district. Um, and so I would tell our board that, you know, if you slow it down, then you're going to wait one more year or two more years and then potentially be back here in a couple years. I would argue that the great work that's been happening here, the things that y'all have been doing have attracted families, but we're still less than 50% full, right? Because the families just don't live here. And a lot of

072it had to do with the flood in 2013. I understand that. But that is outside of our control. I I have no control over that. So, I'm trying to do the best that we can with the limited opportunities that we have in front of us with the real risk of that state kind of above us. >> We have a question here in Spanish. According to your drafts, we uh realize that you're going to be closing Wedane. That's school that's real near to to us. We understand that one of the reasons you want to close down Palm is because of the lack of students. Have you considered having some students from Wed move to Palm? >> Yeah. Um so we haven't uh looked at um moving large numbers of students from Wedane to Palm because of

073the boundary kind of um issue that I talked about like having schools cross schools. Uh but we can look at that. What I will say just to be clear, Wedane is in a different situation. uh Wedane um elementary school has multiple years, three in fact, of not um making accountability. And what I mean by not making accountability, there is a series of D's or Fs that now have required us AISD to develop a plan that the state has to approve and they have so to do that there are certain things that have to be true. where the students go to has to be a higher performing school and and certainly Palmwood would would qualify. Two, uh that the systems in place um at the school have to meet the plan and what that may include

074is certain teachers um being required to have certain number of years of experience. It could mean um very kind of clearly articulated and defined um kind of uh processes throughout the school year. So it's going to be much tighter. Uh and what we have to do is wherever the majority of students go is where that turnaround plan exists. Right now is going to go to the north to Houston which is being modernized and to the south to Wedane I mean to Rodriguez. Uh, so we've thought through that. Again, not all of them are the same, but that is why Wedane is is structured that way. Now, I'm happy to look and see if there's an opportunity, but I don't know that we could make it to where all the students because of what I just

075described, but I'm happy to I mean, that's a response that we can certainly provide. >> Okay, I have a question back here and then I called on this woman there and there and then I'll get up to the front again. >> Hi, my name is Anne Mason. I'm the art teacher here at Palm. I've been here for 25 years and I noticed that nobody's addressed the flood issue. Onion Creek is going to flood again because of all the construction in Kyle, but Eastern Park area. What are you going to do if all of our students are at Bettas and our parents here can't get across onion Creek to get their kids when it floods again? That was an issue in 2015. We couldn't even bust our kids out of Palm to get away from the

076creek. So that is going to happen again. What what are we going to do? >> Yeah. So um so I'm very familiar with the flooding in 2013 2015 kind of the the sequence of events that occurred uh at that time. Um and that's you know that that's a valid concern. I'm sorry that's that's a valid concern. Uh so for us you know when we think about transition planning because if if Palm goes to a different location that would still be true of Bettis, right? families still want to get to their students at Bettis. So to us, it's bigger than than just, you know, any one school. It's how do we as a school district support our families in a emergency response situation where Onion Creek is rising at a at a very quick rate, which

077it did in 2015, 2013. Um, and so we went through that before. Um, we have plans in place. Um, I can I don't have them I can't speak to them at the moment. Uh, it's been a little kind of while since I revisited them. Uh but as part of the transition planning, you know, that we would do together, that's one of the things that I would make sure is clearly articulated, communicated, and shared with our families. Um and so that's I mean that's the honest truth. That's exactly what we would do. >> Next back here. >> No, because Sure. No. >> My two children almost I had to will take my children. >> So um no that's so what I would say is we can't make the plan unless we make the plan with you

078all together. That's the honest truth. I'm not going to give you something that you haven't had a chance to weigh in on like your lived experiences to help me understand what this community needs in order to be responsive. And the honest truth is we haven't taken a vote. Like there are lots of communities that want to plan and and we want to do things together, but we haven't gotten to a point where, you know, we can just go um because of just where we are in the process. What I can say is, you know, based on um kind of all the adjustments and all the things that have occurred within the um Onion Creek wershed, which I'm very familiar with again as well, uh I I don't um I don't want to I want to

079acknowledge the kind of the trauma that that that occurred in in that space in that moment and do everything we can to communicate our response plan, but there's nothing that I'm going to say that's going to get anybody to think that it couldn't happen again, right? And so I want to be really clear like I think what this community is looking for is if this happens again a what are you going to do right or what what how are you going to respond and how is it going to be different than what occurred in 2013 2015 before many of us are here I cannot and I will never say that I can guarantee that it's not going to flood again that's not mean that's not possible um but that's the reason why so no we

080won't I can add more detail to it I can provide a response to the questions but as far as the detailed plan of how it's going to work with this community accessing betettas. I don't want to set an expectation that it'll be fully fleshed out and final before the 21st vote. What I would expect to have happen is this is the element of the plan that's going to be considered. This is the timeline that we're going to work with community to deliver it. This is how it's going to be submitted to the superintendent and the board for approval. But all of that work requires you all at the table and right now we're not even close to a vote. So that's how it would work. Um and so I I apologize, but that's that's the

081the way it'll show up later. But it'll be done in the spring semester or shortly after the it would be done well before the school year starts. >> Okay. Yeah. I'm going to ask folks that we go in order that because we've had people that have been waiting patiently and then I'll come back up to y'all. Okay. >> Okay. >> Hi, I'm Karen Hunt and I've been here for 35 years and we were here when there was a thousand and we had 12 portables. The portables already there so you can just bring everybody over anyway. Is Langford going to be built? >> Yes. >> When it when do you propose that that's going to be built? >> Because originally it was supposed to be built. It was going to be two and a half years.

082And since they haven't started, when do you propose that it'll be built? >> They've started. >> They have. >> Oh yeah. >> We've been by there and there doesn't look like there's a whole lot going on. So when you say started >> so a hole in the ground I mean so just to be understand how I mean there's a lot that occurs before >> you start to see structural steel go up >> um so they they have started they they are moving through the process I I don't want anybody to think there's it's an active construction site >> okay but my other question you were talking about keeping the community together and keeping all palm together and moving to PZ then why are some kids at PDZ then going to be separated and some going

083to Langford and some going to Houston that their community will not be held together. >> Thank you for that question. And you can see if you look at Langford's boundary as well, it's what we've been calling feathering, but it's to right shift up and balance our balance our enrollment in our schools to where it's more utilized in a right way. You'll see some small feathering or or shifts up within their boundary as well. It's very small, but you'll see that on the map. >> Yeah. So, when we talk about communities going together, if there's a big disruption, and I would argue a school closure is a big disruption, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep the school together, right? The feathering that Christine's talking about or the adjustments boundary by boundary across the

084entire sta city, there's hundreds and hundreds of those occurring, like minor adjustments. I I don't want um we we can't keep every community together or else we would never have a boundary change, right? That's just the honest truth. So, uh that's why you're going to see some adjustments like that. We are making refinements. In the last two and a half weeks since we or three weeks since we've released the draft, we've been making lots of changes, making adjustments to acknowledge that, hey, we probably didn't have to do it quite that way. You know, we can probably fit them in even though it doesn't quite meet our goal. And that's okay. And we're making those changes. uh if that's if we hear from the Bettis community that that's something that that is a concern or a

085strain, we will make the adjustment if it doesn't create another consider another change downstream like adding a split at a middle school or adding a split at a high school which which does happen if every one of these changes has an impact downstream. So that that's why >> we have a question back here. >> Yeah. So um I'm actually I'm actually hit on two fronts with this one. I have a child that goes to Palm and then my son goes to bed. So they're both getting closed, right? That's your proposed plan. You spoke on alignment earlier and so my question is this. If you drive and nobody wants to move here, if you drive three minutes down the road down Thaxton, there's brand new houses and apartments popping up all over the place. So why

086isn't the realignment done with Blazer, who's probably overpop populated since they have an intermediate school already, done to adjust what enrollment would be happening here at Palm. and you grew up on William Cannon. So the south 78745 and 44 would be familiar to you. Yet a historical schools like Palm and Bedric are your choice to close. >> So the first thing I would say is um I don't take closures lightly by any means and we had a conversation here about boundary changes from Palm to Blazer and some of the challenges we have just because of where Blazier is. It is so far north in its attendance boundary and Palm is so far south in its attendance boundary where to capture the number of students that we would need, you quickly get into a space where

087Palm's boundary would actually include Blazier Elementary School. Now, again, I'm going to go look at it and see what opportunity exists, but we're 50% full here. So, you'd have to pick up hundreds and hundreds of kids to get back to a balanced, you know, school that that can be supported for for years to come. That's so we're going to look at that and we have looked at it but you know I will commit to looking at it again as far as betich goes I know betichek well um this is one of those ones that's really really tough because there's an excess of middle school seats in south Austin between covington Mendes Pettes O'Henry Lively and Betachch um Betachch also just right wrong or indifferent from the state's perspective has three Fs they have they have

088an accountability Historically, they have accountability chain that has to be broken. If we do not break that accountability chain, there is a real state intervention risk, meaning the state comes in, right? You know what that means? They take over the board. There's it's that level of thing. It's happening right now in Fort Worth. I'm not going to let that happen. We are committed to having a presence and reinvisioning what BetCh is. Betch's been around for a long time. It's an important part of that community. I recognize that in the plan we talk about restarting betichek um you know but I can't do that uh without some type of change because right now the pressure is just you have too many seats and you have the accountability risk and so I'm I'm really sorry that that's

089happening. It's never my intention to impact a family and to this type this degree. I know it's happening. We're trying to figure out what we can do to support that transition. We know most of the students are going to go to Covington. Some will go to Pareas and some will go to Lively. Go ahead. >> yeah. So, so that so that's the one of the things that we look at is um where where are they where are they headed and then what changes have occurred to date, right? And what I will tell you is the state of Texas has to accept our plans. Um as you probably know that we went through a change at Poretta recently. uh this school year is different than last school year and so um the turnaround plan and given

090its proximity so Prett is is kind of similar to way Palm is where it's on the southeast corner of the school district so there's nothing to the east which means that you'd have to make all those students only go in one direction the reason Betachch because we looked at that the reason Betachch does work is because I can have multiple schools absorb the number of students if you go the other way then you only have u Mendes to the north and uh Betachch to the west and it doesn't work like it's too much. And so the only reason that Betachch is the school is because it happens to be surrounded by other schools that have capacity. So so you have to like that all of this comes into play. Um I I know it's not

091the answer you wanted to hear, but that's that's the honest truth, right? If I go the other way, it doesn't work the same. It doesn't work. >> Next, we have a person right here. Was there anyone else? If you want to raise your hand, I can call on you next. >> Hi, I'm Judy. Uh, my baby's in the fifth grade. I just want to know, have you counted how many kids you're going to lose by closing this? Like mine is in the fifth grade. Half of his kids class is not even going to a public school. We're all going to a charter school. They have siblings. They are going to go to that charter school because they don't want to go to Perez. Have y'all thought about that? >> So, um, we've thought about a

092lot of these things that as well. the the question becomes so is doing nothing like we we've been working like you all been doing great work here. I mean y'all been y'all been doing great work. So why has a why are we not there from an overall utilization perspective? So I don't want to sit here and say that that if we put all the resources and everything in place that it's somehow going to grow when we haven't seen that and there aren't students that live here. So, let me let me let me I just want to talk about that point because I want to get to a point where all of our schools have the resources needed to support their students. Period. Whether you're at PCON springs, you know, if you're at, you know, Blackshere,

093wherever you are. And right now, my my position is if we have those resources and we have incredible teachers and the student and the culture and climate continue to move in the direction that they have, we will attract students back. I always want families to do what's best for their students. I do believe that Austin ICT is the best option, but I also understand that there's going to be transitions and families going to be make a different decision. I hope not to make them, but I can't quantify what that is. I can't say that it's this percent or this percent. What I can tell you is that other school districts have gone through consolidations in the state of Texas and they've seen, you know, fairly minimal changes in in enrollment. Um, you know, again, because

094I've heard someone say, "Well, everybody's going to go." Well, I I I you know, I don't I don't know how to respond to that. question. >> Why does it take y'all if a school is an F, why does it take y'all three years before y'all do something about it? >> So, when you say y'all, you're talking about the AISD, right? So, um what I would first say is, you know, disruption matters. It has a huge impact on this system. Now, you talk about 3Fs being 23, 24, and 25. Well, the 23 accountability well so this version of the administration and the board came together in the end of that year, right? And so you think about what have we done? We've done a lot. A, we went from about 72% uh teacher um uh retention

095rate to 88%. We had uh 92% 88% um staffing rates. Now we're at 97 and a half percent. The first year I came in, we hired over 20 principles. Now we hired, you know, five. And so when you went through superintendent after superintendent after superintendent and then that turned over the executive team, that turned over the principles, that turned over the teachers, like you're going to have that type of impact. So I agree with you. We should have done more earlier. There's no doubt. But I don't want anybody to leave here thinking that we haven't moved the system in the last two and a half years, right? We have instructional coaches where we didn't have them before. Content interventions that are coming into system now. We have an aligned curriculum for the first time. Instead

096of having, you know, 15 different curriculum and then having students with high mobility rates go to one school and have one experience, go another school, have a different experience. We don't have that. That hurts our black and brown kids, right? It just does. And so where we are now with we're seeing improvements in early literacy, early numeracy. We've seen every metric that we measure moving in the right direction. So yes, I I wish we would have decisions before me I can't speak to. Um, we need to own the moment, make difficult decisions, support our babies, and and move forward together. Uh, I promise you I will be responsive. I promise you I will do what's required no matter how hard it is. This is hard. Um, but I I can't speak to why something did

097or didn't happen years ago. What I can tell you is we were not set up for that type of success. Um, but I think we are now moving forward. >> Okay. I have see a few people who have spoken already. Is there anyone if you could raise your hand if you haven't gotten a chance to speak and you would like to >> raise your hand? >> Did you have your hand up? >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Anyone else that hasn't spoken? Just going to give one more call. >> Okay. Then I'll come back to you and I know that you said you wanted to speak and then back to you. >> So, I mean, I'm just going to be hard-headed. It's it's hard. I'm not getting the the answer that I want about Blazer besides

098getting into Blazer being back, you know, Blazier being part of taking some of their kids. I don't you you know you say they're a good school. I mean we know they're a good school. Everybody knows they're a good school. Those parents know they're a good school. >> I think all of our I mean I love >> No, I know. I mean we know our school's good. I don't have to say that. But what I'm saying is I I wish you would go over there and fight for us to say we're going to have to cut >> your boundary. It's gonna back up to you'll probably be right here, but you're gonna go to to Palm and Palm's a great school and because you're talking about disruption and and bringing down disruption, but if you would

099if you could give us some of those kids, give us 400 kids, we'll take them. If you gave us those kids to come over here, then we don't have to go to Bettis and Bettis doesn't have to split up. Keep Bettis where they are because right now you're moving some kids to Houston from Bettis, right? >> No. No. >> So, Wedane is going to Houston and Rodriguez. That's what I think you heard. >> So, then they could stay there. So no one has to they don't have to move around and it would leave less disruption. I don't understand I don't understand why is this such a big deal to cut them. How many kids do they have at at Blazer? >> They have over,200 kids. Why why can't they just someone go in there? Why

100can't you go in there and say look as a community like you're telling us here as a community we're making this plan. Nobody in this community I think asked for Palmer to be closed and go to bed. So that was not a community decision. But why can't you go over there and say this is going to make sense. We are teaching exactly what they are teaching over there. We don't have three years of FS over here. Bring some of those kids over here so that we could stay here in this area. It just seems so simple to to go on to say other things of um you know this is what we need to do. This is the best. You haven't I feel like you're just selling it. You haven't even said this is what

101could happen at the end. But but we know I don't under you have to make it clear. I don't I the salesman talk of th this is going to be good. I we sat down and we thought about this, we thought about that, but have you I mean, have you talked to us really? You know, those questions I I mean, we put in a lot of questions and there was like seven that came up. You know, give us the answer. Tell us really is it going to be the end of the world if we go into Blazers neighborhood. Is it going to be the end of the world? Is it going to be hard for those parents just to come over here to drive wow three more minutes than for parents who like our parent

102over here who lives right around the street down the street and walks every day that won't be able to do that with his child anymore. How is that okay for us, you know, and not okay for them? >> Yeah. Well, um I'm not trying to be a salesman. I'm trying to communicate the urgency around us doing something so that we're not here talking about why we have these pressures a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. Like I to me um I I want to really communicate like these are real risks that we're managing budget risk keeping staff and so it's it's not that I'm trying to sell. I'm just trying to communicate the urgency around this. We have to do something differently than what we've been doing for the last

103many decades. I have no problem. I you I I will make hard decisions. I will go in. I will assess. I will look at opportunities and I will talk to the communities and I will be straight up with them about what I think is best. I will tell you that when it comes to some of the things that we identified as um kind of goals or maybe strategies that we wanted to explore as part of this, we you know that creates challenges when you get to kind of these really really tight spots, right? So I I have no problem going and looking at that again. I just be really honest about what that may introduce. One of the things we talk about is splitting vertical teams. I I know that Blazer goes to is assigned

104to Pareetas. You know, these schools over here are assigned to different ele. So, we have to recognize what does that look like? How does a high school feeding get p get split? These are the things that that we talked about in in aligning feeder patterns. If it's going to create a conflict there, I got to talk to our trustees, talk to the community like, hey, this is something we could do, but all these other things are going to be not compromised, but they're kind of in exchange for it. And so, that's just what that's the honest truth. like I have no problem. We were going to look at it. I'll I will assess again. Um the other thing that we run into is total number of seats in an area. So let's say that we

105go ahead and pull students from Blazer. We're still going to have the same number of seats over the total number of available seats in the area, right? Because we didn't get rid of we didn't take anything out. We just moved them around. And so someone mentioned prek not being there. Yeah. So UPH house has the the prek students that go to Blazier. um you know and they made those decisions years ago. So you know if we did something different and then prek moved back in then does blazer does you up house close like so that those are the things that I want to be really honest about that I have to make sure we tackle no I I we did explore it I am committed to going back I will have a difficult conversation I

106know that community I I I will I will do what's required to support the whole there's no doubt I I and so I I want you to know like >> they get that guarantee like if I'm a parent because 1200 kids for us and that's true. Here we are getting and it just seems like nothing. It's like except for the district go and they just their boundaries. My daughter had to move from going down this way to take her kids to going down And there was no it was done. It was said and done and I don't understand why I can't. >> So So one of the things that dripping does is they created a process where they reevaluate every couple years. We don't do that. We're going to do that because I don't want

107to be here in five years, six years. This is too painful. It's brutal. Right? When communities get set in their boundaries because they feel like they're never going to change and we have to set the expectation. families move, developments grow. You know, floods happen, right? You have to expect that every so many years we're going to revisit it. That expectation I want to set as long as I'm here, I'm going to do it. Um, but I'm happy to have that conversation, but that's why Dripping Springs is able to do it because they've set the expectation with the community. And most of the schools are newer. We are an old school district. We're 144 years old. Dripping Springs is barely 80, barely 70. I mean, so all the things I mean, we're like, it's in our

108bones that we're trying to address. Um, so, so that's newer school districts tend to have that process and procedure already in place. Old mature school districts don't do it so great. >> Okay. So, we have about seven minutes left and we do have a hard stop because we have a community meeting after this, a virtual one actually. Um, but I know that I called on you um you in the black shirt and then this gentleman had his hand up and that will be the the time that we have. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Mine's a staffing question. So, at our last meeting with talent strategy, >> talent strategy, >> they they said if like 40% of the students go to a new campus, 40% of the staff should go to that campus. So, I'm wondering

109if 100% of Palm students are going to Bettis, should 100% of us just get moved over there? Is that how it's going to work? >> Yeah. So, um, one of the things I would say is if it's a larger population, it's going to be a larger group of teachers for sure. Matias, I want to just clarify. It's not what percentage of your school is going. It's what percentage you make up of the school. So, what what percentage of Pettz's new enrollment does Palm make up? So, if you're 50% of theirs or if you're 60% of your 40 um I think we could probably get it for you in a moment. >> We have it in the sheet. Yeah. >> So, it's like >> So, if it's 50% then about 50% roughly. >> No, no, not

110it's 50% of the total staff because they're different student different school populations. So you take if if we combine the schools and it's 5050 right well 50% of the total new population is is palm then I would expect 50% of the teaching allocations at betas to be represented by palm faces right >> so if if it's a if it's a 100% of a school and the the new school is much bigger we have some of those where the receiving school is like 500 and the school coming in is 150 right so in that case it's closer to like you know 20 22% something like Now, that's just a rule of thumb, like you know, our our our principles, we've talked to them, we've had conversations, they know we want familiar faces. We want our community

111to know that we are being really intentional and our staff to feel supported. So, that's where we would go. But that's kind of a rule of thumb of how we're trying to tackle it, just to make sure we don't ever shy off or get too deviate too far from our values. Like, let's say that we didn't do that and all of a sudden that principal started hiring a whole bunch of people that weren't Palm staff. That would be a non-starter for me. 50% of >> 50% of the staff at Bettis would be Palm staff. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Not 50 because I mean the math it's it could work both ways. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I think this Well, >> yeah. So, I mean that's that's there there's going to be you know like there

112we are going through a staffing plan for each transition period. Um, you know, it's not always going to be like clear 50, you know, precise. Um, but every time students go, right, they don't come in perfectly neat 22 size blocks, but we're going to have to add staff, right? And and the rule should be, and it is going to be that any new allocation needs to be drawn from the staff here first. Period. Period. That's also true of custodial staff. It's also true of food service staff. I mean, everybody, right? Those are all faces and and supports for our students. That's how we operate. Yeah, 100%. >> Yeah. Well, special areas. So, essential areas. Okay. >> Yeah. So, essential areas is going to be um very similar depending. So, let's say that the larger student

113population now um kind of releases another allocation for PE, right? Which could easily happen. In that case, that's what would happen. It would be the P. I mean, that's how we would do it. When it comes to front office staff, um I'd have to, you know, that one's a little bit more difficult because most elementary schools have the same allocations no matter how big or small the school is. Uh so if there was a vacancy, we'd obviously want to pull here for sure. Um we also have um areas where the new students would actually allocate their assistant principal. Well, of course, you would want that person to be the assistant principal of the previous school. So, we're being very intentional. Um we also are being, you know, it's important that our principles are talking to

114each other. We set the stage for it. we have these expectations and we we execute the plan. What I don't want to do is to ever create an environment where families or staff outside of the receiving school are considered before the receiving school. Like that's not going to happen. >> Okay. And this is going to be our last question and then I'm going to go over the timeline one more time. >> All right. So you're talking projections and census and everything, right? You're closing palm down. Blazers already busting at the seams. What are they going to do in 10 years from now when Slaughter Lane blows up on population with all the new families moving in? You're still going to need this school to remain open to offset the influx of the new families coming

115in. This school will be a va v vital entity for this neighborhood and the growing neighborhood coming. >> Yeah. So um so south of Slaughter Lane, Goodn Night Ranch expansion, I mean there are thousands of homes as you as you mentioned going up, right? Uh you think about kind of the way Aikens and Pareas are or are kind of situated there. Uh there is a plan for investment in years to come like way down the road for another elementary school way down south because geographic proximity matters. like you we never want to be in a position where we're busing kids across town, right? And and we will make adjustments when it's adjacent schools, but once you begin to move too far and all of a sudden you're saying, "Hey, to make this work, I got

116to put kids in a bus for 30 minutes to go south, like that, that is not what I want to support. I don't believe our trustees want to support that." Um, so we do look at projections. Right now, our plans do consider these moves. Um, you know, I'm happy to go back and and explore it and and make adjustments, but yes, it it does consider that expansion of the Goodn Night Ranch in Southeast Austin. Uh, and also kind of what happens to Casey Elementary School, what happens to like all the schools including Casser because there's going to be movement like all the way around in that area. Blazier does have a large area. Um, and what if you could go back in time that I mean, not that you could, but Blazer should have been

117located much farther south. That's just the honest truth. Um, you know, I wasn't here. that was a long time ago, but that's what's created this like conject like conject like stress in the system in this one geographic area. >> Okay, thank you so much everyone. I'm just going to as a reminder go over the timeline. Um so we're in phase three of this process. Um we do have up came out this is a new um opportunity that was added. So there well we actually tonight have our district-wide consolidation meeting. It's virtual, so you can um get on the Zoom um with us at 5:30 if you would like. Um but then we also to on Wednesday night, our board has added a board workshop and that's where we're going to talk to the board about

118this draft plan. We're going to talk about some of the ideas that have come from the community um to see the feasibility of some of those. Um, and then that draft plan, um, the revisions to the draft plan are going to be go live this Friday, and that will be discussed at next Thursday's board meeting, November 6th. Um, and then the final version we're going to be asking our board to vote on will be the November 20th. So, I just wanted to remind everyone of those dates. Um, just wanted to say thank you to everybody um, for all of your feedback. And I hope that I know that not every answer was the answer that was that was what you were looking for, but I hope you did hear that we will be looking at

119and exploring the ideas that you have shared. We have been doing so and cataloging all of those comment cards. There's still time. Thank you. There's still time to um submit the comment cards through tomorrow. So, if there's any new ideas that you thought of, go ahead and get them in there um by the end of day tomorrow. Did you want to say any last words? >> No, just um thank you for the time this evening. Um, I know it's it's it's it's a bit big disruption. Um, I'm sorry that we're going through this. I am committed to doing it as thoughtfully as we possibly can given what we're faced with here. Um, so thank you for the time. Like we will refine, we will update. I'm committed. I will go and and do what I

120need to do. And I I hope that um you stay with us in this process because your input absolutely will inform our final plan and also um transition. So, thank you and I appreciate all of y'all.