Chapter 2 — Joint subcommittee meeting (after-school, parks, child care, mental health)
**Date in the room:** Monday, April 1, 2024. Called at **11:52 a.m.** Adjourned **1:28 p.m.** **Type:** Joint subcommittee (Austin ISD, City of Austin, Travis County). Not a regular AISD voting meeting. **Runtime:** last caption stamp `[01:36:44]`. **Source:** `meetings/clean/20250822-april-1-2024-joint-subcommittee-meeting-1080p.txt` **Place:** AISD board auditorium; broadcast Spectrum 22 / AT&T 99.
Caption errors: Arthy Singh presiding; Bridget Shea (Shay); Allison Alter (Alison Nalter); Trustee Zapata (Sabata) on Zoom; Matias Segura present later as “Matias.” Eclipse day: “Happy eclipse to everyone.”
No public comment. Two votes: minutes, then adjourn.
Who is in the room
**Elected (named)**
- Arthy Singh, AISD Board President — presiding.
- Allison Alter, Austin City Council, District 10.
- Bridget Shea, Travis County Commissioner, Precinct 2.
- Ryan Alter, Austin City Council, District 5.
- Trustee Zapata, AISD District 2, on Zoom. Leaves before the summer-youth item.
**Staff / presenters**
- Jeremy Martell, director, AISD Third Base after-school program.
- Kimberly McNeely, Austin Parks and Recreation.
- Child-care working-group members speaking to Prop 2 / tax exemption (city and county).
- Twyla Williams and Dr. Kimberly Wilson (captions) — AISD mental-health presentation.
- Superintendent Matias Segura present; named during the mental-health overview as the superintendent who invested with the board in student and staff wellness (`[01:07:21]`–`[01:07:29]`).
**Public:** none. “We do not have any public comment today, so we will just move right in” (`[00:01:14]`–`[00:01:19]`).
Opening and minutes (`[00:00:09]`–`[00:01:50]`)
Singh: “Welcome to AISD. Great to see so many familiar faces.” Meeting of the joint subcommittee to order at 11:52 a.m. Elected officials state name and position.
Minutes of January 22: motion Bridget Shea, second Allison Alter. Hands up. “The motion passes unanimously.”
Third Base after school (`[00:01:50]`–`[00:20:36]`)
Thirty minutes set aside. Travis County after-school report deferred to the June meeting. Written materials in the binders.
Martell: AISD after-school program more than 25 years old. Pre-this-year peak: seven elementary locations. After the pandemic: about 100 students at five campuses. District commitment to revitalize and expand to all elementary campuses in three phases:
- Phase 1, 2023–24 (current): **24 locations**.
- Phase 2, 2024–25: **16 more**.
- Phase 3, 2025–26: **38 locations**.
Tuition: “we are the cheapest program provider in our district. Currently it’s $275 per month” (`[00:04:13]`–`[00:04:19]`). Ratio 1:18. Staff about $20.67/hour, part-time. Wait list about 325. Lee Elementary: 100+ enrolled with ~60 on the wait list — “simply we” cannot add more because of space (`[00:06:36]`–`[00:06:43]`). Andrews, ODM, Winn added. Prime Time / ACE at Title I. Lee wait as a share of enrollment: 20–23%. Even campuses with three programs still have wait lists (Blandon named). “Austin is considered a childcare desert” (`[00:18:35]`–`[00:18:37]`).
Singh: after-school “especially critical… as we’re thinking about the impact of high quality programs on student outcomes um and with the state not really having a very positive um funding public education funding outlook to say the least” (`[00:19:48]`–`[00:20:04]`). She wants the **unmet need citywide**, not just one program’s wait list — “is it 10,000 students? Is it 5,000?” — including families who never sign up.
No vote. Expansion is a staff commitment already in phases.
Parks and Recreation after school and summer (`[00:20:36]`–`[00:58:34]`)
Kimberly McNeely: city rec after-school about $140/week, city-supplemented (about $70 if families qualify). Summer about $560/week. Fifteen rec centers; about 600 enrolled against 720 capacity. About 1,400 on financial aid. Meals: ~90,000. TILT and Roving Leaders. Twenty-one green school parks. Wait lists from certain schools to certain rec centers because of space.
This is city programming, not AISD buses or AISD class size. No vote.
Child-care tax exemption (`[00:58:34]`–`[01:05:06]`)
Working group: after Prop 2, “we will have both county and city tax exemptions for child care agencies.” Operators still apply at TCAD; “TCAD’s using the same exemption for the city and the county.” Home-based care is the harder case. If the exemption hits the landlord, the tenant should see “equivalent savings… in the form of a rent” reduction.
This is property-tax mechanics for child-care businesses, not AISD recapture or the district tax rate.
Mental health (`[01:05:06]`–`~[01:18:13]`)
Twyla Williams: school counselors are not only academic counselors; they stay with the student from tier one relationships through higher need.
Dr. Kimberly Wilson: AISD mental-health initiative through Superintendent Matias and the board — “invest in student and staff well-being and mental wellness.” Multi-tiered system: professional learning, mental-health first aid, train staff over three to five years for early indicators “before it gets to the point where there’s a crisis.” Counselor role “was created for academic outcomes”; trauma work is to get students back into the classroom.
School-based mental-health centers: “we have 31 licensed mental health professionals” and centers “designed to be on every campus.” Later: “I am proud to say that we have about 94 school mental health centers” (`[01:18:11]`–`[01:18:13]`). Anderson portable is used as a site example in the Q&A stretch.
No special-education agreed-order update in this meeting. No TAP.
Summer youth and future items (`~[01:18:13]`–`[01:36:44]`)
Paid summer youth: about 400 positions, $13/hour, seven weeks. Zapata is already gone from Zoom.
Future-item talk: climate preparedness. Then a warning about the **May 4 TCAD election** — “an opportunity for people who don’t like taxes to run for election and try and really upset the whole system… a potential very serious financial threat to public schools should that happen. And the election is May 4th and virtually no one knows about” (`[01:34:30]`–`[01:34:46]`). School-revenue risk is named as appraisal politics, not recapture by name.
Travis County submitted a written report on what it funds for school and summer programming (last page of the packet). Singh asks city members whether the incoming city manager could introduce himself; hire timing mid-June, next JSC June 10 at Travis County. “We’re actually on time, so that’s a miracle.”
Adjourn: motion Shea, second Allison Alter. “The meeting is ajourned… at 1:28 p.m. Happy eclipse to everyone.” Last stamp `[01:36:44]`.
What was not discussed
| Topic | In this meeting? |
| Recapture / Robin Hood | No |
| Inflation | No |
| Basic allotment | No |
| Class size | No |
| Librarian cuts | No |
| Planning time | No |
| TEA takeover / TAP | No |
| Enrollment | After-school and rec enrollment/wait lists, not ADA or campus utilization |
| Buses | No as student transport |
| Charters | No |
| Vouchers | No |
| Fund balance | No |
| Dual language | Bilingual MACC camp only, in passing |
| Special ed | No as the TEA order; counselors and campus MH centers instead |
| Utilization | No |
| Moratorium | No |
Public-education **funding outlook** is named once by Singh (`[00:19:58]`). TCAD election is named as a school-revenue threat. Neither is recapture, Robin Hood, or the basic allotment.
Result
- Minutes of January 22: **unanimous**, Shea / Allison Alter.
- Adjourn: Shea / Allison Alter, **1:28 p.m.**
- No other motions. No budget vote. No closure vote.
Board and campus life
Singh asks for unmet after-school need as a citywide number and ties it to student outcomes and a bleak state funding outlook. She does not name a campus her own child attends. Zapata is on Zoom and leaves before summer youth. Segura is in the room as superintendent of a wellness initiative, not as a presenter on campuses. Martell is the person who knows Lee’s wait list and the 1:18 ratio. The elected table is still city/county/board, not a PTA night.