Bryker Woods Elementary School Community Meeting: October 30, 2025

001All right. Good morning everyone. Hello. I love all the green. Thanks for showing up everyone. Thank you to our families, our staff, our neighbors, and Superintendent Segura for being here today. Um your presence speaks to the strength of this community and the deep care we share for our school and for our children's learning. As an authorized IB World School, we believe in inquiry, reflection, and principled action. We encourage our students to ask thoughtful questions, to consider multiple perspectives, and to stand up for what they believe is right, even when the conversations are complex. Today's meeting gives our community an opportunity to do the same, to listen, to engage, and to share our experiences as part of an open, honest dialogue about the future of our school. Today we have 90 minutes set aside for this

002meeting. Um I will now turn it over to Ali Geraduchi um to review the agenda and meeting norms, if that has not happened. Okay. Good morning, everyone. And before I get started, I just want to make a quick announcement about the availability of interpretation. Good morning. I'm Vic. I'm one of your interpreters today. So, I'm going to make a quick announcement in Spanish in case there's anybody that would be interested in having interpretation into Spanish. Thank you so much. And if we don't have anyone in person, we are, just so everyone knows, recording this in English and Spanish. So, when we do get to Q&A, we want to make sure everyone's speaking into the mic so that everything is captured, okay? Um if we can go to the next slide, or do you have the

003clicker, Rachel? Sorry. Or do I have the clicker? I have the clicker. So sorry. There we go. Um so, we are, like I said, I'm going to go over the meeting norms and purpose. Um we'll intro- go ahead and introduce who we have here um to answer any questions that y'all might have. Um and then from there, you know, we had planned to do an overview of kind of what's on the table um from that initial October 3rd proposal, as well as a new option that was discussed for the first time last night at the board meeting. Um so, we can kind of talk through the that alternative and what the the tradeoffs might be if we were to consider that direction. Um and then we um we have pulled some questions from the comment

004card that came up frequently, and so we've prepared those. Um but I know that we're going to have a facilitator that's going to kind of go over questions. So, we can either kind of go back and forth, or if you already have questions, we're really flexible on how we manage that. Um so, for our meeting norms, I just want to remind everyone what we're here to do is to build the future together. We want to acknowledge the challenges of our current situation, while focusing on ideas and solutions that make our district stronger, more equitable, and sustainable for years to come. Um we want to try and honor time. So, we're hoping that when we do get to the Q&A, if people can make an effort to kind of re- keep their um questions around a

005minute, that we can make maximum time for as many speakers as possible. And we will try to do the same with our responses. Um but we're not that great at it. So, if you need to remind us, um we're going to try to honor the process. So, just um sticking with the agenda um to stay on track. Um we want to honor intent and impact. So, we know that there may be things that we are not going to agree on, but we hope that we can all um go with the assumption that everyone is here for the same reason, is that we have a shared goal of having strong, equitable schools for all of our students. Um we want to honor space and voice. So, we do ask if you do speak one time, we'd

006like to make sure that we make sure that anyone else who hasn't spoken gets that opportunity before we go back to the same person. Um we'd like to try and stay solution-oriented, so focusing on ideas, solution, and understanding. And we are here um to embrace transparency and empathy. We recognize how difficult these conversations are. Um and we want to meet them with compassion, clarity, and honesty. So, if there's any time where maybe we answer a question of yours and maybe you don't feel like we fully answered what you were asking, it's okay to kind of ask for follow-up to make sure we get that clarity for y'all. All right. And did Oh, sorry. Did you want us to go through the scenarios real quick, or how do you want to Um 5 10 minutes and

007we can do that. I know what we can go over the prepared questions. Okay, perfect. So, then we're going to go ahead and go through run through what is proposed, and I'm going to let our um before we Oops. I'm sorry. I meant to I didn't go over the purpose, but essentially, we want to make sure that we are responding to all the questions that were submitted via comment card, as well as any follow-up questions y'all may have. Um our aim is just to get a gain gained shared understanding of what are the proposed changes and the rationale behind them, as well as this new option that we're talking about, or any other ideas that you want us to discuss. Um and then really our goal is to gain insights that could inform potential refinements

008to the draft before the November 20th board vote. Um and so, I'm going to turn it over to our superintendent to kind of give some opening remarks around the why before we briefly go over the scenarios on the table and then get to the Q&A. Thank you, Ali. Um just uh thank you to the Becker Woods community for um kind of showing up the way that you do. Uh this is precisely what we want in Austin ISD. We want families and communities that advocate for their school. Uh I can tell you in my experience here, living here, growing up here, being a product of Austin ISD, I've been in places where community or families don't show up. Uh and and that that's hard. And so, what it demonstrates is just your love for public education,

009your love for your schools and your students. And uh if you're here, I'm going to be here. I will always be here to engage with you, learn, improve, refine. I also want to acknowledge this is a really tough spot. Um I I want to acknowledge the pain, the disruption that this has caused in your families' lives, in your students' lives. It's not lost on me. Um you know, we are one large community. Uh there are lots of things happening in Austin ISD. Uh so, I just wanted you to know that that it's hard. Um it really is hard. And just appreciate y'all showing up and and having this conversation with me. So, how we got here, uh I think it's worth having a conversation, a brief conversation, cuz I I know I want you to

010know kind of all the things that kind of played into what we're trying to do as an organization. Since I've come on board, one of the things that I've realized is that this organization, AISD, has gotten to where we are where we're not providing what we need to every student within Austin ISD, the over 70,000 students, because of a series of decisions that have been made over the last 144 years. I mean, that's the honest truth. Uh and when we think about where we want to go as an organization and and kind of my role at this moment, it's really about how do we address the things that are in our bones that have led to inequities in our school system. How do we break practices um that move students away from AISD opposed to

011into Austin ISD? And for us as a school district, what I tell people is we have to make sure that every student gets what they need, period. And the honest truth is, right now, I don't have the ability to do it. I just don't. Um we are an inch deep and a mile wide when it comes to resources. I'm not going to get into the history. Y'all know it. Y'all Y'all know the pressures that we have, either at the federal level or at the state level, the lack of funding, um the disruptions that we've experienced over the last couple years. I mean, these are things that we are having to navigate and make real-time decisions on, and it's impacting lives in this in our community. And so, as you move forward, we I I talk

012about strong neighborhood schools, and I want to be really clear, like Becker Woods is a strong neighborhood school. There's no doubt. Um and when we talk about strong neighborhood schools, you see it when you walk the the classrooms. I mean, it's not about students that can pass a test. It's about students who love learning. That's That's what we want. We want students who feel comfortable in their own skin. We want students who view being bilingual as a as a superpower. Like, these are the things we want for our students. We want them to advocate for themselves. There's There's attitudes that we want. And if we do it our way, we can protect how we do it. So, at this moment, as we think about trying to get to a place where we do have strong

013neighborhood schools throughout Austin ISD, we know right now that that doesn't exist. There are parts of Austin that simply don't have the resources because we as a district for decades have failed to provide them. And so, this plan attempts to address much of this all at once. And that's where the complexity comes in. So, I'm going to just kind of lay out a couple things because I I I want you to know where we were coming from when this plan developed. First and foremost, you know, we really wanted to consider and get to a place where we had aligned feeder patterns in Austin ISD. Uh there's a reason why you can go to Merkeson and see students that have a Trojan hat on for Anderson, or go to O. Henry and see students that have

014a maroon shirt on for Austin High. That's what you want. Keep community together, have them move through the feeder pattern, you know, programs align, friends stay together. That does not happen in everywhere in Austin ISD. We have middle schools that go to four and five high schools. Think about the disruption that creates in our community. So, that was one of the things we tried to accomplish with this comprehensive plan. The second thing we wanted to address was this reality that our transfer policies, the way that they've been built out and kind of continue to uh operate within our system, have led to movement within our organization that is just not um supporting our values and so we're tackling that. Some of it has to do with how we manage internally our operationalizing of the transfer

015policies and some of it's the policies themselves. So we're we're taking and refining those and you'll see those in the plans. The third thing that we're really trying to address was the cost of operating a large system. We have 116 schools in Austin ISD right now and we have a little over 70,000 students. In 1996, we had about 73,000 students and 96 schools. And so as the city has grown, we grew in parts of Austin, Northwest, Southwest, Southeast, you know where those areas are. In other parts of area Austin, there is gentrification, affordability challenges that our families experience and we've seen families move. And I'll tell you because I hear this all the time, well charters have had a role in that, they've taken well I will tell you that our position in the public

016education space has largely remained stable. There are lots of school districts, you know, different entities you know, trying to compete for students but we have been able to kind of hold our position but the total number of students that live in Austin, the birth rates, the housing, all these things have put pressure on us and we just have fewer students. That's just the honest truth. And so we tried to address that through boundary changes and consolidations, right? To where we could get to a place where we had a lower lower number of facilities that we could operate and maintain because that's the same budget that we use for compensation and programming. The other thing that we attempted to do in this plan is to align programs in Austin ISD to ensure they're sustainable. We talk

017about wall-to-wall dual language, you know, and and we in Austin ISD lean into dual dual language. There are school districts all around us who are leaning out of dual language. And so the programs are intended to support emerging bilingual students. That's the focus but we saw year over year a downward trend in those students in those programs. Instead of provide access, we need to move those programs to where they are. And I would say lastly, we had to be mindful of the turnaround plans and the accountability risks that's been shifted into our feet for the last many years. In 2022, we had what seven 13 I think it's 13 B schools that then turn into F schools in 2023. Same students, same teachers. Right, think about that. You have a school who was a B

018in 22 who's now an F the next year. And so when you think about where we are as an organization, we have to address that. We have to be responsive to it because if we're not, then we get to a place where we could potentially lose control of our ability to educate our students our way. And you can see just our sister school district north in North Texas going through it right now. And so this is a complex plan, there are lots in it. I know we're here and we're going to talk about Bryker Woods and how we got to this specific solution in the plan. It is a draft plan, things will refine. This conversation is very helpful. I promise you. So I just wanted to share all that and then hand it over

019because we do have questions but I really want to y'all to create the space to us to have answer the questions. So thank you for the time and I look forward to the dialogue. Thank you so much. Do you want to take this mic? Okay. Thank you Superintendent Segarra. Can I call you Matias or should we go You should only call me Okay, okay. Just wanted to get the lay of the land. Um Thank you guys. This is such a great turnout. This shows just what a strong passionate community that we have. It it honestly brings tears to my eyes to see everyone out there cheering and chanting and singing. Before we get into the questions with Matias, I did you know, we we are finally getting to have a collective voice for the community

020but we also wanted to have a voice for the local businesses that this will impact. So Lindsey Hannah, a community member is going to come up. She's been doing some great work with our local businesses and she's just going to say a few words about about that. Hi. Good morning. Thank you thank you for being here Matias. That's I'm sorry that's really hard for me to just say Matias but I will. Okay. Thank you all for being here. I am wearing a Bryker Woods hat. I've worn a lot of hats at Bryker Woods. I've worn a parent hat for 12 years and next year would be my lucky 13 for my our last our last panther goes in fourth grade this year. But we are all you know, taking different parts on about this this

021issue and one of the things I felt like was really really important to display was just how rooted this school is in the neighborhood and the surrounding business community. I I myself am a small business owner in the community. I live in Bryker Woods and my office is in Rosedale. Also a community that goes to Bryker Woods and so my uh thought is that we really need them to be represented. We will significantly change and impact not just this little pocket of of Austin but beyond if the school ceases to exist. Um the reimagining of it, I can't even think of what it might be. And that you know, these businesses, there's a little kind of group of small counselors that are across the street. They each have individual offices right there. There's a dermatologist

022office, Wells Fargo. I didn't talk to them yet but I will. But I you know, these are this is a list of businesses including Kirby Lane who you heard through from Mason Ayers earlier who came to Bryker Woods as a student. Like every time I talk to one of these businesses, they had just another story that almost like made me cry every time. Like I don't need your stories too. Like I can't collect them all. It's it's hard. It's really really crazy how connected this school is to Austin. And I am just you know, happy to have them as as partners in this and supporters and this list keeps growing every day. This is literally like something that I started two weeks ago and we you know, our resources are thin so I still have

023to work and Halloween's coming. We got to make the costumes. So anyway, I just wanted yeah, the businesses are are you know, here with us. We're partnering with them and they've given us a lot and we also we frequent their you know, we we are their livelihood too. We are parents, we are alumni, you know, all all right within this little little zone. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Okay, so just for some introductions, my name is Melissa Brown. I'm a parent here. I think this is my ninth year at Bryker Woods. I I associate my identity to this school to be honest. So I'm happy to be up here to moderate. I'm here with Rob Henze. He has two children. One is in fourth grade here and one is now at O.

024Henry. And then our to round out our advocacy group, Jennifer Robertson is president of our PTA. She's been fighting hard for us as well and then Teal Pennebaker who just spoke at the rally. She's been a driving force for us as well. So we are here to represent the community and we're going to be asking questions on behalf of the community. We have pulled our neighborhood association, we've pulled internally the parents and we've really tried to aggregate it down to some really clear concise questions that you know, we we just really love to get some answers on. So I'm just going to kick it off with the first kind of high-level question. You just spoke really well on the systemic issues that AISD's been facing. I think the whole community has a ton of empathy

025for you in the position that you're in with the threat of TEA and the turnaround schools. I mean that is just not an easy thing to tackle. And so we support fully your plans around all the the turnaround situations. In terms of closures though, everyone in our community is very confused why Bryker Woods would be on this list. We are high performing. We have a specialty program in the in the IB that has been data proven to only help enrollment for the district going forward. We have land to expand. We are our enrollment is growing. We are a staple. It's a true neighborhood school like you mentioned like I know that you value that and we really are a true neighborhood school that brings a community together. We host church, we host all that. So

026because of all that and knowing the systemic situation that you're facing, why Bryker Woods? So I'll start and then hand over to to Rachel or Dr. French. Um so when we started this process because I'm going to start with the second question. You said high performing. There is no doubt that Bryker Woods is high performing. When we started this process, we wanted to be really clear that we weren't going to use accountability to drive the decision-making process because if we did that, then you'd only be closing DNF schools. Right? And you think about, well what did we as a school district not provide to those schools that led to those outcomes? Right? We as a school district are you know, producing the outcomes because of who we are. And so that's why it didn't drive.

027It wasn't it wasn't you know, this school's an A, this school's a B, this school's a C, we're going to go in that order. It was really based on the process that we developed, pulling the data and for us as an organization when you think about the number of seats we have open in Austin ISD, it's well over 20,000 seats. Right? So much larger than the Moody Theater. That's how many seats we have open. And they're not all, you know, in necessarily available to where you can make simple decisions and just consolidate. It doesn't really work that way. You have lots of areas in Austin where you're 75% utilized or 85% utilized and that difference multiplied by 116 is really what gets you the 25,000, 24,000 plus seats. And so when we look at areas

028of Austin, we look truly at areas. It's not a specific school and say this school has this many seats, they can fit here. What we say is in this part of town, given the geographic area, and I would say in this geographic area, I would use West would be the end of our attendance boundary as a school district, to the south would be the river, uh to the east, you know, not quite all the way to MoPac and Airport, but probably a little bit, you know, shy of that. And then to the north to south of 183. That's kind of the area that we're looking at. And we say, "Okay, collectively between all these schools, we look at how many families that live in that area." Because what we know is that transfers come and

029go. Uh we've seen huge increases in transfer rates and then huge declines in in transfer rates. And so if we build out our plan on transfer rates and a principal leaves or program changes, we see huge fluctuation in enrollment based on kind of the culture and climate of the school, right? You have a great combination here, but I've seen and what we know is that in years past, if something changes, there can be an exodus and because the students don't live in the area, enrollment begins to drop. And so we really focus on where our students live and where our buildings are. Those are kind of fixed. And then we look at an entire area and say based on the available the number of buildings that we have, the capacity of those buildings, we do

030not include portables in those calculations and I'm going to tell you why. The reason we don't include them is because right now we have over 600 of them. Well, we had over 600 of them in 2017, representing 1.3 million square feet. That, when you think about the most expensive space to operate and maintain, it's a portable. It's exposed to the air in really all sides and they're meant to be temporary solutions. In some cases in Austin, they've ended up becoming permanent solutions. We have portable Our newest portable is like 30 years old. Uh we have some that are 70 to 80 years old. And so moving forward, if we kind of use um transfers and the number of transfers plus the available capacity in portables, you're essentially not considering 5, 10, 15 years because these

031portables, the transfer rates, those are things that can vary and change quickly over time. So, the reason Bryker Woods ultimately got on the draft plan was because of the number of available seats and the movement between the schools, recognizing that there are schools that have capacity that are larger. Uh when you think about the age of those schools and what they can essentially absorb, we needed to figure out how to, you know, identify the number of seats to pull out and there's not a lot that Bryker Woods could absorb, but moving the other way, it could be done. And so that was it was an iterative process. We looked at lots of other schools in the area. Um it wasn't that we identified one school and started there. It was truly kind of movement amongst

032the schools. Uh and that's how we arrived at the current draft plan. Um I Is there anything I mean, that's that's precisely how it occurred. Uh we have other areas of town. I will tell you not that it I want you to know that there are other areas of town. I would argue that Sanchez, Zavala, um Govalle, and Ortega are kind of in a similar situation where there are just a surplus of seats, over 2,000 seats that are surplus. And whatever you do with one school impacts the other school and they're different elements. One's historic and so that that is the process we go through. Uh we get feedback, we refine, we adjust, but right now, um the it's really a function of what can be moved where, knowing that we just don't have schools

033that are 40% utilized in the area. We have lots of schools that have 70%, 25 65% and so on and so forth. Um but I I was going to be I don't want to take all the time. >> No, no, it's all good. Thank you so much for that. Um we're we we have six questions. As Melissa mentioned, we've talked to you all through through polling, we've talked to the community around us. We have six questions that we shared with Matias yesterday evening, uh so that everything I'm sure you perhaps didn't have a chance to review them, but it shouldn't be surprising questions. And the first question that I wanted to focus on is is to dig a bit more into your comments around enrollment and capacity. Um we've conducted our own survey of families

034coming into Bryker Woods and have confirmed with the developers building high-density housing nearby, including The Grove, the new housing coming in in Rosedale, the Rosedale school site, and townhomes on Medical Parkway, just around the corner from me in Rosedale, that this will have a huge impact on future enrollment, impact that we haven't see reflected in the data. Additionally, we've heard from families and staff at Casis and Matthews that they do not have adequate capacity to accommodate our students. It seems that future projected growth and limited capacity at other campuses could pose a challenge for meeting coming enrollment needs in this part of Austin. However, the good news is that as recently as 2018-2019, Bryker Woods effectively accommodated a student population of 425 students. From where we sit, growth is coming. We are well-positioned to receive

035that growth. Can you explain where growth from future housing developments and tight enrollment of schools in our area shows up in the plan and the kinds of conversations the district is having around this incoming growth? Yeah. Uh great question. So, uh when we when we work with our demographer, um and and our demographer looks at uh obviously census data um and and there's a lot that goes into that, but we look at projections. One of the things they do do is they go and have conversations with developers with the City of Austin's Department of Development, the DAC, and just talk about what what projects are in queue, what projects are in development. And that does supplement our analysis. The question becomes is what's the going to use a term that probably doesn't sound very welcoming

036or loving, but it's it's kind of student yield is what I would say. Um it is if you have these types of units or these types of um multi-family um mixes, how many students would you expect to see out of those developments? If you have a three-bedroom apartment complex, you're going to see a higher number of students per unit. If you have a whole bunch of studios, you will obviously see something much less. That information is very well documented. We use that, we have it. Um I think right now, uh and we've committed to going back. We've already done it once, but we'll go back again and communicate kind of what we believe what we're seeing as what we've been told the yield is. Um you know, we're happy to to look at it again

037and make adjustments. Uh I think the projections I mean, I'll hand it over to Dr. French as far as the number from that specific development. I've heard The Grove, I've heard a couple others. I guess my question is have you spoke We've spoken to the developers. Have you spoken to those developers as a part of this process? So, our I the super me as a superintendent have not. Um but the the demographer has. Um now, if there are specific developers, like what we can do is share with you who we've met with, you can share with me who you're meeting with, bring that together. I I I want to make sure we have an accurate understanding of what is going to come. I want to also be clear that there are lots of things that

038people say are coming that don't come, right? And you see that, we see that. So, we just have to be really honest about what data we're going to use in our model, assumption-wise. Um if it's too far out, it's 5 years out, they don't have entitlements, it's not zoned, I mean, that's not something we could really rely on. Uh if it's progress, it's capitalized, you know, and we have the permits to move forward or it's near that, then you can probably count on that. And then we have to agree on to what the yield will be. And that's really a conversation based on uh with the developer. So, uh we're happy to do that. I don't know, Rachel, if you want to add anything to it, but I will commit to that. And I I

039need you all to oversee it. Great. Yeah, just to add and I'm sure many of you have already seen it. Our demographic report on the website does outline the specific units that are included and it also has a chart of specific developments that are not included because there there's just not enough information yet for our demographers to actually put a number on it. Um there is one that what how many would it be if that does come to fruition. And so that is baked in, understood in our proposal. And I will also say that we redo our demographic projections annually. We are also building into this every two or three years, we will be doing a review of our boundaries. And so we're not doing this drastic, painful thing again. It needs to be as

040a district, we need to do our due diligence of making small adjustments as these developments come on board. And we are confident that in the surrounding schools, there will be space for students. And so if developments do come to pass, we will plan ahead for them when they become more real and we can make more um realistic projections. And we might move boundaries in a few years as we need to, but we do have space in the schools in this area to support that influx. Um something our demographer has also kind of shared with us that they're seeing throughout other urban districts and cities that they work with is that often times the birth rate decline is so much that all these new developments don't outweigh it. So, even though you do see a lot

041more units, we're still just there's still just less kids. I I last night at the at the meeting, it was met suggested that the demographer is is on your point making projections, but not that these conversations are actually happening. Can you confirm that what you've done to date are pure projections based on historical data or that you're actually speaking to the people that are building these things? The medical the medical is is gaining feet by the day, right? The Rosedale project is out of the gates. The Grove is is very clearly planned and being built. So, th- those feel like very tangible numbers we can get our hands on if the right conversations are happening and not just focusing on historical projections. Yeah, our partners visited Austin in the spring and they drove the city,

042they met with demographers, they met with developers. I cannot and I will ask them as uh Matthias alluded to like we will confirm which specific demographers they had a conversation with, sorry. Developers. I have no idea what word I said. Um So, we we can confirm that cuz I can't speak to like who did you talk to, but they were boots on the ground for multiple days in the spring driving our city. So, they have done their due diligence as much as they could at the time. But, we will >> we're good. And the fact that Matthias said that he would he would move forward that I trust that. So, all right, let's move on to the data. Um or lack thereof or the integrity around the data. Um our community spent a great deal

043of time getting familiar with the data rubric. We We were consistently confused by the description of our building's capacity which factored in programs and classroom types we don't have like pre-K 3 early childhood classrooms and a maker space. Um they also for by our account miscalculated the count of the um general education classrooms. Um and the quality of the building we uh determined that that was also inaccurate. Um it makes more sense to us uh to understand our building's capacity based on current usage. Again, many of us have experience with this campus serving over 400 students. When my oldest daughter was here, we had 400 students and it was perfectly fine. Could you explain to us where your where our current usage should look different or why programs we don't have should be factored into

044our capacity? Yeah, so I'll start um and then hand it off to Rachel. Uh some of this is tied to um the portable comment that I made earlier. That's just that's the honest truth, right? So, Bryker Woods, uh Barton Hills, there are certain portables that have been placed and have kind of just grown to be part of the school. Um but, they're also in the Barger Creek watershed. Uh there there are lots of things that that kind of keep us from being able to count them as permanent infrastructure for the next 30 40 50 years. Now, um if there was a significant increase in capacity by some of the means, it part of the permanent structure, then that we would be able to count that. But, across the board uh we made a a decision

045years ago to not include portables because we were actively actually trying to reduce the number of portables. What I'll tell you is that throughout the district there are schools that are underutilized to a pretty significant degree and have five or six portables, but they're still filled. And I get arguments that Matthias like that we're using our portables. Well, yes because you have the space. Um but, they're are very very costly. And so, that's one thing. So, I think if you know, we can talk about your current operational capacity as you use portables, how we >> was around data integrity, not around the portables. We I think we understand >> Yeah, okay. So, so data integrity, let's talk about that. Um so, one of the things that that we did is we um identified what was

046the square footage required to to ident to communicate that a space was actually conducive a general education classroom, right? In years past you could have a square a square footage of 400 square feet allocated and then because a principal or someone deemed that a classroom, that was a classroom. Well, the reality is that there are certain configurations and sizes that we want in our school system and even So, what we did is we we said, "Okay, each of these spaces within the permanent building are identified as a classroom. We allocate 22 students um per classroom and then we look at the number of um kind of services that are being provided to students who receive special education services. And then we say, "Okay, based on the student population, this two to teacher ratio in these

047classrooms is going to go down." I think we Is it eight to one or 10 to one? 10 to one. And so, that drives down, right, your utilization because instead of going 22 to one in the classroom, you know, we are wanting to ensure that the students receiving special education services have designated space in the building. So, that end up being a 10 to one. I'd like you to focus on the specific elements of the question including things like classroom miscounts, programs we don't have negatively impacting our score, and putting us in position through a rubric process that set us up to be where we are today. I want to remind everyone what the rubric is and what it isn't. The rubric is data on our permanent buildings, how full they are, how empty they

048are. And we use the exact same methodology for every single school in the district. All our schools use space differently. Some of them are saying, "We can't fit this many kids in our building. Are you crazy?" Others are saying the opposite, same as y'all like we can fit way more kids. And that is true because we operate buildings based on programs. But, for us in this effort we had to look at programs can change and how we use space can change. So, we had to have a standard baseline. And so, for every single school we look we have a floor plan. We looked at which rooms are above 600 square feet that could maybe be a classroom. And we count that. If there are schools that have maker spaces and I at the time was

049told y'all had a maker space in your building, so we did count that. If it's in a portable, we would take that out. And if we did that, sure it would change your score slightly on the rubric. I I that is true. If you didn't have your maker space. So, that is one nuance and the reason we do that is because we are trying to do more maker spaces. The reason we include spaces that maybe y'all don't have is because we want to have them everywhere. So, if we're at a baseline of like what we want in an elementary in Austin ISD to have, that is what we use. So, there's a a certain number of pre-K 3 spaces and a certain number of sped special education spaces that we account for across the board

050because in an ideal world we would have those and they wouldn't be on a portable. And so, there are some campuses that they can only have life skills in a portable because of accessible restrooms, we still counted a classroom in the building to serve that population because that is what really gives us an apples to apples baseline about just the building. So, then what we do and what we worked through after the rubric was actually diving into the reality of the situation. How are spaces really being used? We still don't want to use portables long-term, but we do look at programs. We do look at like, "Okay, what is the reality?" And this comes into play in terms of especially if we're we have schools that are going to receive students. We've had We're making

051boundary adjustments um that you'll see on Friday because when we dive deeper into the actual programs being offered and that we want to still do them, it actually can't fit the same number as the rubric. And we knew that going in. The rubric was meant to be a standard way of looking at things and knowing Yeah, I I understand it's it's very nitty-gritty. I think the punchline that our community sees is that it was a choice to not include portables in your assessment at the parish of a community school like this. That was a choice that you guys made. And And my daughter work is going to school in in a portable right now and she loves it. She says it's so cozy. So, like it's a choice, you know? And And And now we're

052suffering because of it. But, we'll go on. I'd like to focus on Thank you. Obviously, cost and financials are an important part of this process. Um we know that closing campuses comes with real financial costs, especially those of insuring dark buildings and enrollment declined when families choose to leave the district rather than go to their newly reassigned schools. A team of parent data scientists within this community ran the numbers and found that with an assumption of a 20% student attrition rate, closing Bryker Woods would cost the district $470,000 in the first year alone. We've had the chance to put the report in front of two different Texas school finance experts with decades of experience as CFOs and consultants and they found the report to be solid. Cuz Tiana's one of our data scientists. She'll She'll

053go ahead but I'll finish the question. We know that finding efficiencies a pri is a priority for the district right now, but our community is having a hard time understanding how closing Bryker Woods contributes to an effort when it's unclear that it will actually save the district money. Could you reflect on this? And I think my very importantly, could our community see your cost-benefit analysis uh to justify this closure? Yeah, so one of the things that we're doing um and and this is where I I gets difficult because we are looking at the whole. Um I mean, that's that's the honest truth. It's 116 buildings, billion dollar budget. You know, it it is they're not pockets of available seats everywhere that can just be collapsed easily. And so, when we think about building our budget

054um and looking at our total reduction in costs, what we do is understand, okay, if a school gets um consolidated into another school, you're going to have a reduction in administrative costs, right? A principal salary, staff salary. And these are the things that are just honestly part of a cost of running a school. Right? We're 87% of our budget is staff. And so, when you take those those costs to run a school and distribute them over the number of students, then what you quickly find is that the um kind of efficiency of getting to a larger campus coupled with the opportunities, not that that's not happening here, but in other areas of town, you kind of have to get to that critical student population to have a full-time, you know, uh PE or um you

055know, fine arts um person allocated. When you get to really really small small student populations, we don't quite have that. Lots of times local communities supplement, right? We know that happens where the the PTA will will come in and provide the resources and that really helps. That helps us tremendously. So, back to the budget analysis. Um there I recognize that there um is going to be a loss potentially um with the disruption of this campus. But, I mean, that's the honest truth. Um now, as far as campus to campus, you know, we estimate the total cost of a move and in a reduction, you know, it's going to be over a million dollars. So, you that that's that's one of 116. Right? So, we're going to show the details campus by campus. We're looking at

056the whole um you know, we believe right now conservatively it's over $24 million. The one thing that comes up all the time is Matias, you're going to end up spending $800,000 on the turnaround plans or you're going to spend $800,000 on these um plans to ensure that we don't introduce any takeover risk. The problem is we're going to spend those dollars anyway. Right? Like like we have to break that risk, period, if we're going to keep control of our school district. Um the board has asked for additional details. Our CFO is working through them. In the first when the first draft of the document, we kept it pretty high level in summary form, but we are going to show on the 29th and 31st um campus by campus. But we again look at the whole

057uh not each individually. So, but yes, 20% is the assumption um at the basic student allotment, then there's there would be that loss. Our hope is that they don't don't leave, but I understand that that is a like a potential potential of loss. Okay. And and we'd be happy to follow up with you directly to walk through in more detail the assessment that we that Cassandra did and that we had verified by outside sources. >> that's different than the number I heard yesterday. That we talked we'll talk about it later. Okay. Um all right, let's talk about the land that we sit on. I mentioned earlier um you know, we have a ton of land here. We have plenty of room to expand. So, if we're looking at a 50-year vision for AISD, this >>

058be considered like an optimal opportunity to build on. Um so, the question is if you move forward with closing Breaker, what would your plans be for the land? We're quite concerned that a sale isn't doable given deed restrictions and the fact that our school sits in a flood zone. Yeah. Um we also have concerns about the plans for the nearby Rosedale school turning into luxury apartments. Can you explain what your plans are for our land in the event of a closure? Yeah. So, um the luxury apartment piece, do you want to talk about both parts of it because since you mentioned the Rosedale side as well? >> Sure. Okay. Um so, this is something that I I hear a lot. I heard it yesterday multiple times. Matias, why don't you just go sell, you know,

059all the land and and make up the budget deficit? Um that it's it's doesn't work that way. Uh for those of you that that understand transacting a piece of property, especially a public piece of property, you're looking at 18 months at the earliest. Right? By the time you get through entitlements, you find a partner who can capitalize it especially based on highest and best use. Right now with the multi-family pressure that we're seeing in the market, um it's you're not seeing kind of those huge like payouts, right? Um but we go through a process with community. Uh we do not ever start with a real estate value or what we're going to do um at any point in this process. That has never come up at any point. What we talk about is, you know,

060what is our our approach if we move forward and determine that a piece of property is to be repurposed. Um I'll tell you that what we would do is kind of lean into what we've done and then build on it based on community need. Uh so, in 2019 um the board in the last vote that they had identified different elements they want the administration to explore, really focusing on community benefit. Community benefit was identified at that time as teacher housing, workforce housing, community space, open space, uh those sorts of things. And so, uh those obviously with this board's input would kind of derive the overall approach. We as a school district would then work with the community and say, "Okay, what works in this community?" But I will be really honest, there are some communities

061that say, "We want nothing. Just leave it like ground, you know, make it a park." Well, that that's hard because, you know, ideally we'd want to you know, monetize it if we could. Um it doesn't necessarily mean a fee simple transaction, uh but we do take community input, we make adjustments. One of the things I'll tell you is Pease Elementary School uh was a school that um had been closed and we heard from the community, "Keep it active with kids." We heard that over and over and over again. And so, we worked with Congressman Doggett's office, they provided funds, and then we actually were able to ink a deal with United Way, and now it's an early childhood center. Uh in other parts of town, we had um an Anita Coy uh site. Uh we

062worked with our community and it was teacher it was housing, teacher housing. And so, right now we moved that property into the public facilities corporation and now it's 600 units. So, we would go through a process with the Breaker Woods community. We wouldn't our trustees expect it, I expect it, our council expects it. That's what we would do. We would not uh move forward introduce something um without y'all's input. Um as far as shuttering goes, I get that question a lot. Um you know, we would we would not uh we would still activate the site. Um you know, we would go through a process, we would not um we would still secure it, we would still make sure that it's accessible to the community, we would still make sure that it um you know, we

063operate and maintain it, uh but it obviously wouldn't have the same cost because it's not, you know, loaded um and operating as a school. But that's what we would do and we have evidence of us doing it uh and and we would do that here. Chase, do you want to explain Rosedale and how I I don't think they want to talk about Rosedale. Yeah, we're we're good. Yeah. Yeah. W- one thing that I cuz I didn't have the microphone that I I just wanted to say going back to our financials question, would love for you to make a commitment to our community to look at our analysis and and take the time to look at what we've put together and how it can impact cost. But I'd like to move on to a question on

064something you've already mentioned. I'm sorry, go ahead, please. But I was going to say I don't think I've gotten that last analysis. The one that the one from last night. The 20 per you said that it was con- We're happy to share it with you. Absolutely. Yes. Just to be Um I'd like to go to another really important topic that you've already talked about today and and we share your concern about it, which is the threat of TEA takeover. Um we've heard from several trustees that they must vote on this plan because of the TEA TAP plan deadline, but they would like to have more time. We understand that the TEA TAP TIP plans will require some consolidation and school closures, but for the cool schools where that is not the case, especially where it's

065unclear that closing the campus will save the district money, why do we need to consolidate? Please explain why we can't focus on the looming TEA takeover situation and address consolidation and school closure needs at a different time. Yeah, great question. So, um what I will say is um Austin ISD has a bad habit of not making hard decisions. That's the honest truth. Uh going back decades and decades and decades, there's evidence that the district did not take decision make decisions that they probably should have. And so, I do not want to be the superintendent who just continues to delay and delay and not have a hard decision. I mean, whatever decisions are in our district whether it's TEA or special education or downsizing central office, like we're going to do it to protect our overall

066school district. Um now, you know, you're right. The one that the consolidations or the plans that are directly tied to the November 20th um approval are those that are tied to the turnaround plans. I will say, however, that there are lots of things tied to those. An example of that, if you look at the plan, well, there are some turnaround plans that are directly tied to a um program move. And the reason that's done that way is cuz we're trying to address two kind of challenges at the same time. So, though the first this first school has a turnaround risk and the second school doesn't, the second school actually allows us to create a new opportunity where otherwise we'd have to shutter a school. So, um they they could um you could have separate timelines.

067What I do not want to do is to avoid a difficult conversation. Um consolidations, boundary changes, these things are hard. They take they they take lots of energy and resources within our system. Uh for the last four years, I feel like all we've been doing is is is like fighting tooth and nail to keep us moving. The TEA agreed order in 2023, special education, that was the thing that was going to take us over. Uh y'all remember that? It was horrible. We worked really really hard. That cost us money. Then you move from there and try to balance um you know, enrollment and you have to get staff into our schools. At one point we were, you know, 76% um staff. Now we're 97% staff. Attrition rate's going in the right direction. We were 22%

068attrition rates of of staff at title one at title one schools. Now we're less than one and a half, 2%. So, all these things have been taking so much time and energy from our system. And you know, I I the a trustee a couple trustees last night asked about timing uh and they asked me to consider it. I'm hearing that from the community. Uh it is something that we're going to look at. I just don't have an answer can tell you right now that it's this or this. Um but last night it was asked of me to to look into that. But I also don't want to um avoid you know, a real decision um regarding how you know, kind of where we are from a budget perspective. That that's to me is the hard

069talk. >> I think that's understandable and I think from my perspective, because I did speak to TEA cuz I'm curious from their perspective of what's going on in AISD and they said the only interference they will come in on are three things: illegal activity by the district, special education um out of compliance, and um and the turnaround. And so, finances have nothing to do with that. And so, I think our community is saying this feels rushed. We you know, because of the the finances that we've uncovered, because of the data wasn't correct, like we just need more time to to get with you to to to show you that this does not make sense. Yeah, so so um So, the one thing I would say is uh I I can appreciate that comment from the

070agency because of the how they're currently engaged with us now. Um because we have a TEA agreed order or special education, of course, that's the first entry point. Because we're required right now to provide turnaround plans, that would be the second entry point. Um I don't want anybody to leave here and think that financial risk isn't a real risk. Uh failing your first rating or introducing um financial risk is a very quick reason that an agency will intervene. It's one of the reasons that unfortunately Fort Worth is kind of being brought in maybe perhaps quicker than they were. And so I I understand why they said that. We are in conversations with the agency to make sure that everything we produce is in alignment and will be accepted ultimately, but I don't want anybody to

071leave here thinking that that is not a real risk. It maybe it's not the same level because of how we've been able to manage it thus far, but it quickly can shift. Um, and that's what we desperately want to avoid. >> Okay, we can move on. Thank you. Um, last question and then we're going to turn it out to you guys. Um, last night we I think a lot of us watched the uh, the board meeting that you had. Um, there was some discussion around potentially Breaker Woods being a receiver school for other schools that are going to be closed down and need to find a new home. Um, you know, we would welcome them with open arms. And so I I know it's premature. I know it just came up last night at the

072meeting, but we would love to hear your perspective on it and um, and you know, how you could see that playing out. Yeah, so this is um, so you're up there with me. We all stay tonight and watch the board meeting Yes. or the work session on Saturday maybe from 9:00 to 4:00. Um, there's lots of things going on. Uh, so what I want to be honest about is we we look at all of it. Like we we as an idea comes from the community, um, we do test it. We do explore it. Um, we we there have been things that we received that have changed our our draft plan and you're going to see that on the 31st that there are things that we've heard that yeah, we're changing that. Um, we're making lots

073of changes in transfer policies, making changes in some boundaries that we know can be accommodated based on the the modeling or the ideas that we received. Uh, I did hear that um, from from some from a trustee from some trustees um, as a as a consideration. Uh, that's going to require some work. Um, you know, I don't yet understand precisely you know, kind of cuz we have I mean last night kind of ended and then we ended up you know, do some meetings this morning and then here. So we haven't had a chance to kind of regroup. >> Yeah. Um, I want to find solutions that move the system. It was never about any specific school. I really want our community to know that that's not who I am, that's not who we are. It

074was really truly about figuring out how to become more efficient to identify the resources needed to support the entire school system. And unfortunately there are geographic boundaries that kind of limit how far you can look in an area. Um, but yeah, I mean that's if there if there are ideas that you have that y'all test and are and you know, you know are not so abstract, you know, then then we we will do the due due diligence and as we progress that if it begins to to evolve, you better believe I'm going to talk to our trustees about it, but it has to kind of be in alignment with our overall goals, our vision of the of the overall effort. >> Yeah, and I and I I'm so happy to hear that have spoken to

075a lot of the trustees and they have expressed that they are supportive of that type of um, that type of situation. So really really excited to hear that you are open to it and that you're you know, really being thoughtful about what to do with Breaker Woods specifically. Um, so um, with that um, we are going to open it up to um, questions from the audience. Emily, um, Emily is one of our transfer um, moms. So I think Yeah. Hello. Sorry, I think everybody in this room is tired of hearing from me. Uh, and you probably too. I So I I do want to be really clear. Everybody knows I'm a transfer family. Matthias spent time in our community on Tuesday night, right? In the East side. Um, and so I I have to say

076you've clearly been staying up very long nights. You spent the time and so I want to start off saying thank you very much because obviously Yeah. So as an East Austin transfer District 1, hello again. Um, Yeah, so I Again, yeah, I was the first one to speak. Um, So I think today you talked about right in terms of the the transfers specifically for Breaker Woods say that we can't rely necessarily on that, those can come and go. And I I understand that because that plays into what you're trying to fix on the East side in terms of why some families are leaving to go to other schools. I would challenge though that the story here at Breaker Woods for why transfer families are here is a little bit different in terms of why our

077families chose this school versus trying to flee a school from there cuz to be frank, I was looking at the schools all within my area to go to and those seem just as viable. We chose this and a lot of us choose this specifically because of where it's located. Um, there is a there is a huge central core here where people work. Um, you're still going to have transfers out of neighborhood schools regardless and hopefully you'll mitigate that, but I really want to challenge the assertion that in specific to this location from an AIC perspective, you are better served from having a school here where you have employers all around. So there's there's a vast majority. We've pulled all of our all of our transfer families here in terms of where they work and that

078was the main determinant as to why they chose Breaker Woods. So I obviously I always do this. I don't give a question, I give a statement. Um, but I I would like to challenge that in terms of when you're re-looking at this and you're looking at birth rates and density populations etc. And yes, you want to keep people in your area. Breaker Woods transfers are a little bit different than someone fleeing and say I want to gentrify East Austin and move my child to West Austin. That's not exactly what the scenario is as to why the transfer families are here. So I just want to say that. I was sending my stuff alone up here. I'm I'm back. Uh, no, I I you know, I I don't know if that requires a a response. I

079I will say that um, Colleen. Uh, not because I don't think that it is deserving of a response. It's just that it that is an important point. Um, and I don't necessarily disagree. People transfer for different reasons. Um, you know, and to your point you at the East side community that we had conversation, that's one of the things that we as a district have not done well is is kind of managed transfers, but I also recognize that I do not want to sever an opportunity for a student who doesn't have whose family is making a decision to go to a different school for different reasons. Especially if that school for whatever reason has kind of a scarlet letter from the school to from the state, right? Cuz my my job my my job is to

080make sure that all of our schools thrive and the color of your skin doesn't impact the outcomes that you have, right? That that that's my job. And we're moving the system and it's going to get there, but at same time I understand where we are now and getting to where we need to be is going to take some time. I appreciate your comment. It's a very good comment. I I would like to understand more. I am aware of it. I'm curious to see kind of what percent of the transfers are actually tied to that specific component versus just a transfer, but that I appreciate you sharing that. I can look into that. >> Thank you. Um, all right, we're going to take a question from one of our superstar teachers, Colleen Fairbrother, fifth grade. OH,

081Y'ALL STAND. SORRY. HI, UH, MR. Segarra or Matthias, sorry. Um, Sorry, it's so anyways. Okay. Um, I'm Colleen Fairbrother. We met earlier. Um, so like you, um, something we have in common, I went through AISD. Um, my mom taught at AISD for a while. Um, and then uh, Doss Marcus and Anderson, go Trojans. Um, sister, brother went there. My dad went to Anderson. So like we rolled deep. So I say this, I'm not someone that usually speaks up and out loud. It's very just not my thing. I the opportunity um, that IBP provides for our kids is so vital and I think there's some misinformation respectfully that's been out there about it. I myself was an IB student thing. Um, what it does for our kids, um, I've taught at Oak Springs and I've taught

082here at Breaker Woods. Um, it teaches our kids how to think. And so when I was at Anderson, I literally honestly at the age of 15 learned how to think. We do something called thinking routines, it's from Project Zero. Um, and it just helps organize our kids in their thinking and synthesizing um, to be globally minded citizens. I've taught first through fifth grade. So I am a huge proponent of early intervention in tandem, meaning academic wise and also socially. And this program, it starts at pre-K. Um, if we can have early intervention of cultivating and molding globally minded citizens, I mean the effect on the world that that would have. I mean, I have children talking about perspective. I have children talking about and understanding the ways in which other people live. I mean, the

083things that it could do and from an another perspective, a branding opportunity. Our 371 followers on our Breaker Woods Instagram, it can only go so far, you know what I'm saying? And I I just implore you to realize what a branding opportunity on the district scale if it was more so advertised about IB, us being the only IB PYP campus in the district. Um, I think that would could be really powerful and what a branding opportunity and a moment for our district to honestly make some money. Like to be honest. Um, but the program is just it's so It's just the things it does. And just on a personal note, too, our principal, Alicia Hill, like single-handedly She's going to be so uncomfortable, but No, this is so important. I've been at Breaker Woods since

0842020. She's my third principal. Single-handedly resurrected this campus brick by brick in so many ways. Bringing that program here, revitalizing, making this a campus that people want to go to, work at, and be. And I just really think she deserves Hiding, probably. Um I just and I'll stop talking, but I implore this team to understand the vital nature of the International Baccalaureate program, really, and what it could do if we just magnified it as also a branding opportunity. It just creates wonderful citizens that Because at Breaker Woods, we don't prepare them for the next grade. We prepare our kids for life. That's what we do. So, thank you. If I just could say one thing to build on that, you talked about sharing ideas. We've been sharing ideas since the beginning of the school year,

085and then one of the very first things we shared with you and the trustees and your team was an idea that we worked with Colleen and the teachers, with Alicia on, of really consciously scaling the IB program through an IB center of excellence based right at this school. Um And and the data shows that it does help with enrollment, and the district has an enrollment problem. So, do you have any thoughts on the IB and how it doesn't travel if you guys close the school? Yeah, well Sorry. Uh so, first off, incredible. Uh I got to spend time in your classroom. I was very impressed and a very Even though I only spent like 6 or 7 minutes in that classroom, it was it was pretty it was very impressive. Um thank you for being

086with us as an Austin ISD alumni. I actually have something I want to give you before you leave. Um so, what I'll say about uh IB is that No, we we believe I mean, we understand the value of it. I think that one of the things uh that's been challenging is how to ensure alignment within our system so that students have a continuous educational experience. Right? That's This is kind of goes back to the feeder pattern alignment problem that we're trying to solve as part of this. Because years ago, we actually looked at launching IB at Casis Elementary School. Uh and this was kind of 2019, 2018 time frame, and one of the reasons it didn't make was because, well, there wasn't a feeder school that Casis would feed into or ultimately a high school

087that would ensure program continuity. And and so, it was abandoned at the time. There were lots of other reasons. And then you fast forward, you know, several years, and and now Breaker Woods has been able to kind of launch it successfully. And it really takes like a partnership. The community wants to be able to should be able should want to do it. The staff have to buy in, right? And you have to have the resources to ensure that it's viable. Uh you all were able to do it with very little help, if any, from the school district. I I'm aware of how it came about. Um I I certainly am interested in supporting programs and building them. Uh I do want to make sure that we do not trans strans Sorry. Yeah, strans uh students

088like can and leave them stranded, sorry, in um in a vertical team. So, just just to that point, we we have had real conversations with O. Henry. Um our principals and the past principal has discussed it, and there is very much interest in having a vertical for IB, and they and they're interested in collaborating with us on it. And we'd be interested in in helping any Title 1 schools or anyone that needs that help with enrollment and to create this special program that could really draw kids back into those schools. We would help be a um you know, a feeder or a a school where we would provide that training. Well, and that's the kind of work that we should be doing. So, so, what what you've done and what you all are doing and

089what um others in the school district are doing are what we should be spending our time on. That's just the honest truth. Uh I mean, uh so, well, so, let So, I I don't I mean, I I don't necessarily agree with the that, but uh the challenge is we've been dealing with huge disruption after huge disruption after huge disruption for the last 4 years. I desperately want to get to a place where we're growing, we're stable, we're thriving. I mean, you had three super talk about three super three principals. You had three superintendents in 2 and 1/2 years. Like, that is like catastrophic in many ways. Um and so, I just want you to know like I am desperately trying to get to a place where I can be there with you in building these

090systems up. Right now, the risks that I'm navigating, like honestly, to protect who we are is consuming every almost every moment of every day. Uh and so, I want to get there with you. I I love what you're doing. It's just, you know, creating the time and the space to do it well. I do not want to do anything poorly. That's that's the kind of my big thing. I No, that's I appreciate that. Okay, Dr. Hill. We don't need a continuum in IB and at Oh. I'm so sorry. Uh we don't need a continuum for IB. Uh the primary years program, it prepares our students uh for education like no matter where we go. And did you read the letter that my sweet principal sent you about um the International Baccalaureate program earlier this year?

091It was about a month ago. Oh, no, it was pretty recently. It was about a month ago. Okay, let's get to another question. Um I let Do you want to ask yours? Um First of all, thank you very much for being here. I don't know if you were here in time to hear the kids saying Breaker Woods forever. Um but one of the strength of the school as a parent is that we are safe and loved, and my kids come back better adjusted every day. One of the things I have missed from AISD throughout this process is any talk about the actual children. Every educational expert will tell you that school closure is disruptive and has educational, financial, behavioral consequences that go through college and beyond. I appreciate that in a complex organization like this,

092you can't keep the boat on a steady keel the whole time, but I would very much like to hear from you what conversations you have had about actual children, actual parents, and how you plan to help those children mitigate the enormous damage that closing 13 schools will cause. You sent some counselors after the announcement came out. We have an amazing counselor here, um and that was just an announcement. So, you know, I have two kiddos. We're all doing this because we love our kids. You love your kids. Um I just want to know what the thought is about their psychology, their development, how we protect them. So, uh I'll start and then I hand it off to Stacia. Um she's leading much of this work. So, the like students have to be centered in everything

093that we do. Um right now, because of what we're talking about, we it can very quickly seem as though they're not the center. Um and and I want to acknowledge that. And And there are lots of adult conversations occurring, but when we think about um how harm is introduced into a system and what communities are impacted to a greater degree, we have to think about as a system, what do you families need? What do we need in order to ensure that we mitigate that disruption and that harm as best we can. The one thing that we know is that thoughtful plans that include counseling support, licensed mental health professionals, resource deployment, resources to have our parents communicate with their student, all those things are very, very important, and they can't be done in a relatively

094short window or period of time. And so, that is one of the reasons why whatever we do, um whether there's an adjustment in time or if we vote, like all these things, you're not going to see me make decisions in the spring semester. Like, I'm not going to do it. Um so, the reason that we're doing is we're going to have bridge teams that are built up. Uh we're going to have community voice, principal voice in it. One of the things that I think is frustrating for families right now is that we're in this in-between moment where, you know, if I I've taken steps and say, "Hey, we're going to begin to provide these resources." And they're like, "No, no, no, well, you haven't made a vote yet." And there've been other instances where, you

095know, they're beginning to already talk, and every community's different. So, I'm really trying to follow kind of have the community take the lead. Um I'll have Stacia kind of respond kind of directly for to as far as the elements in the plan and how we're approaching it, cuz that's really under her um purview. But I I want you to know we are very like thoughtful and responsive to it, but I also understand how it doesn't feel like it's there yet. Um and I just wanted to express to you kind of why it it probably doesn't feel that way. Go, Stacia. Good morning. My name is Stacia Paschal, and I serve as the director of strategic planning and organizational effectiveness. And you might be thinking, "Well, what exactly does that mean?" That means that when we

096are thinking about approaching work, how do we have a human-centered design, and how do we put systems in place to ensure that we've got a thermostat on how the people in the system are doing. And so, that is my role. Um I serve with Dr. Lewis on what we call the bridge team. And the work of the bridge team, and if you give me the space, I'd like to kind of walk you through how we are supporting the adults, the students in the system. With the bridge team, we are planning for impact that's happening now and impact that will happen post vote. That looks like providing a toolkit for campus leaders to utilize. That looks like professional learning that's happening monthly with counselors. That also looks like professional learning that's happening monthly with principals. We

097are looking at what are morning meeting lessons that could help facilitate conversations. What are one-pagers that we can send home with caregivers and give to go to student newsletters so parents can have conversations because ideally for us we don't want any student to attach their identity to this process. This is a challenging process. We as adults have developed a bandwidth to deal with a process like this, but our goal is how do we ensure that our students are separated from that? Another way in which we are looking at supporting students is ensuring that our licensed mental health professionals are part of this process as well as counselors and restorative practices. So there is work being done and as uh Matias said, there are different ways in which you'll see it and it really depends on

098the level of involvement in the campus administration and what they deem is appropriate for their campus at that time. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. We're going to have two more questions um and then we're going to out of respect to time we're going to see what Matias wants to do, but Teal, do you want to go ahead? Yeah, so thank you so much for coming. Um I'm worried about kind of the overall decrease in trust around AISD leadership because of this process. It's felt at times like I know that you all are trying, you know, you're limited in resources, you've hosted all these calls, but we often haven't seen any of our concerns reflected in updates to the rubric or updates to the the draft plan that came out. I think there is

099a very real risk that not just students leaving this campus, but they're going to leave all of AISD because of distrust in this overall process. So I know that it sounds like you're open to at least punting a little bit on this so that you can get it right. Could you talk a little bit more about that and make a commitment to really deeply considering not so rashly closing 13 schools and really putting at risk like sending AISD into an even bigger existential crisis. So um you said all 13. I'm there's I'm not going to propose that. I I I I want to be clear that as we were talking about earlier many of these are tied to turnaround plans. Um so that's defined by the state November 21st. We're going to spend all day

100uploading our documents to the agency, which means the vote has to occur on the 20th. So I'll be really clear. We lump everybody together, that's not going to be something I'm going to be able to support. That's just the honest truth. Um because of that that distinction. Um when it comes to trust uh I I hear you. I I I am someone who is trying desperately to build a trust-based culture. I have worked in an organization, this organization in fact, and it was a fear-based culture. I don't know how many people remember what that felt like. I've been here for 7 and 1/2 almost 8 years. I know precisely what that felt like. Um and so I I am I do not want um our system to all of a sudden feel as though you

101know, we are not doing what we can to support them. Uh and me being present, me being transparent and refining and improving the plan is part of building that trust, but there have been lots of have been doing over the last 2 and 1/2 years that lots of families haven't really seen, right? And I think that's part of the challenge. We've been working very very hard for the last 2 and 1/2 3 years and what ultimately happens sometimes is there are 116 schools and each one of them has their own ecosystem. And so before the the thing that I I want to lost my train of thought when you stood up Uh because I was just going to say something so I was like you can say it. >> make sure we get to it.

102Um but anyway, no so so as far as committing to looking at timelines, the board some board members yesterday asked me to do that. I'm going to look at that. Um I am not going to commit at this point what it will or will not be, um but yes, that that is what I'm going to do. Well, because something you said is really important. So you all have been doing all this work for the past 2 and 1/2 years and we don't know about it. So why don't you buy yourself a little bit more time and educate us on what you're doing so that we can really believe in what you're doing because we want to ultimately believe in AISD and trust you all and feel like you're acting with good intentions and do this

103right is what we're trying to say. So Okay. All right, Max. Last but not least, sorry. Like were you going to say something Matias? No? So it's my turn. All right. Bryker Woods forever, folks. Bryker Woods forever. Good morning, Matias. Good morning to the guest from the district, etc. Law enforcement. Good to see you. You are welcome to Bryker Woods anytime. I am Max. I was PTA person for eight years. All the eight years I was here fundraising to fix the bathrooms, to sponsor the IB program, everything. And what I want to say is that I was always so blown out of my mind by community involvement at Bryker Woods. But it goes beyond Bryker Woods. We had line items in our budget for Zavala, $5,000. We went there. We did stuff and everything. And

104this showed me that with community involvement so much is possible. The state of Texas is not going to be there for you. TEA is not going to be there for you. But the community, if you get us involved, as Teal said, 2 3 years you've been doing this, you don't have to do it alone. We can be there with you. We can have a seat at the table and collaborate with you. We got data scientists. We got all sorts of skill sets in this community that can help it. And I'll conclude with saying together so much is possible. But what I've been seeing from my side, when you do a lot of the work on your own and we're on the receiving side we see that you ask us to vote for bonds. We voted

105for the bonds. You asked us last year to vote for a tax increase to address YOUR DEFICIT GAP. THE VERY NEXT YEAR WE'RE closing schools. And we have a larger deficit. So from our community perspective we feel on the receiving end and this could just continue. So the ask I'll conclude with, do you think it's possible not only to maybe postpone decisions, but to get the community involved? Bring us in. People do this for free. THEY WILL SHOW up cuz I'll end with what you started with. We're here cuz we care about the district. We're here cuz we love public education. And this can be a force. Matias, just so you know, that's actually how he talks in real life. So he wasn't yelling at you. He's like that all the time? I usually want

106to give him a microphone cuz he just yells. Say something. Um So I I know we're um You're you're not you're not wrong. I mean I I that's there there are other individuals that that all like just like this all over our school district. And many of them are at schools that don't have you know, the same history that Bryker Woods has. Um You know, and and I do not want to break trust. And yes, I would never ever ask from my own community, the community I grew up in, to do something that I >> hey, this is what we're changing and then 2 days later tell a different community. And so you will see in the draft different changes around transfer policies, sibling transfers we're approving automatically across the district. Rising sixth and ninth

107graders we're approving automatically. You know, students that are transferring into a school can transfer automatically to any of the schools that that school is being re-zoned to. So so we're making lots of changes programmatically. We are making lots of changes in boundaries. So you'll see that, but I I want to really thoughtful about how I release information because if I don't do it in a sequence way, as many of you all know, it could it could send the wrong message or confuse our community and I don't and I don't want to do that. So that's the point I wanted to make is why you haven't seen a change from October 3rd. I have over 7,000 comments. We've been going through them. We've been dealing with it. These These staff have been working so hard. So

108I appreciate your comments, sir. I love the energy. Come to our board meetings and hang out. Keep me awake at night. So thank you. I appreciate it very much. >> So thank thank you. So just to wrap up, I just take have some, you know, follow-up thoughts just to say that you have a goldmine in this community, truly. We are workers. We want to be your ally. We want to be your partner. We want you to think, if I need something, Breaker Woods, let's go. And we will be behind you. I promise you that. And so we just need the chance. We just need the chance. And I feel like I've I've gotten to know you a little bit and I I I really do trust you that you want to do the right thing.

109And and if you give us the chance to be your partner, we will not let you down. We will make this the shining star of AISD. I promise you that. So just give us a chance. Thank you, Matias. Thank you for coming here. Thank you to our community. Thank you to your staff. Thank you. Thank you so much.