Chapter 4 — Board of Trustees regular voting meeting (September 25, 2025)
**Date in the room:** Thursday, September 25, 2025. Called at **6:00 p.m.** Executive session about **8:44–10:50 p.m.** Adjourned **10:55 p.m.** **Type:** AISD Board of Trustees regular voting meeting. This is a vote night. Closures are **not** on the agenda. **Runtime:** last caption stamp `[02:50:25]`. **Source:** `meetings/clean/20250927-Austin-ISD-Board-of-Trustees-Regular-Voting-Meeting--September-25-2025.txt` **Place:** AISD central office; Spectrum 22 / AT&T 99; English captions.
Caption errors: Boswell; Whitley Chu (Li Whitley Chu); Kaufman; Foster; Singh; Hunter; Kintana / Quintana; Zapata; deoste / Dior Estee; Segura; recapture; “supportive librarians.”
Who is in the room
**Board:** President Lynn Boswell; Vice President Whitley Chu; Trustees Kaufman, Foster, Singh, Hunter, Kintana, Zapata. Eight on the dais. Secretary named in other nights as Gonzalez; captions here also give deoste / Dior Estee.
**Staff:** Superintendent Segura; CFO Katrina Montgomery in the recapture/fund-balance stretch of the superintendent report.
**Public:** three signed up in person (Steve Swanson, Maria Alice Ruiz, Shannon Kho — Kho a no-show), four recorded messages, one minute each. Testimony is on agenda items, not open topic.
Public testimony (`[00:00:29]`–`~[00:18:00]`)
Steve Swanson, item 10.4 guardrails: “the board will not exclude community voices when making major district-wide decisions.” School planning “experiences reveal the urgent need for authentic community-based planning as provided for in the Texas education code. The current harmful school turnaround planning must stop” (`[00:02:26]`–`[00:02:46]`). TEA general counsel and the Texas Lawyers Creed; handout offered.
Maria Alice Ruiz Sanchez (captions: Maria Alice Ruiz): dyslexia, 45th year of the work. Shannon Kho signed up, does not appear.
Recorded: Leticia Anderson, former trustee, on 14.2 and 7.1. Jessica on TAP timeline. Helen Miller on Austin State Hospital ILA.
Superintendent report (`[00:18:00]`–`~[00:24:41]`)
Segura: TAP timeline toward November 21 upload; October 3 consolidation materials to be posted. Financial solvency and payroll and cash on hand. “The cash that we have the income of revenue from our t tax revenue and then the cash outlays by way of recapture or other expenditures really is tenuous and anytime that we eat into our fund balance it introduces risk” (`[00:22:03]`–`[00:22:16]`). If they do not act as costs rise, “future decisions even more disruptive.” If they do not do it “in a way that meets our values… someone else most notably the state could do it” (`[00:22:39]`–`[00:22:47]`). Families need spring-semester planning time for 2026–27; course selection starts in November; “this timeline is adequate” and also “very constrained.”
What they are protecting: “we as an organization in collaboration with the board have said we are going to protect planning time. We are going to protect um and and ensure that uh our focus on librarians supportive librarians is maintained. We are going to also ensure that um we compensate staff to the best of our abilities” (`[00:24:01]`–`[00:24:18]`). Those commitments are why other decisions have to be hard.
STAAR 3–8 gaps (eco-dis meets ~23% vs. ~72% in the paired figure) sit on a slide as the academic case. Roadmap from the spring; milestones still being hit.
Consent and UT ILAs
Consent agenda **8–0** (all on the dais) (`[01:18:05]`).
Items 15.1–15.4, UT interlocal agreements: **6–0**, Kaufman and Foster abstain (`[01:19:21]`–`[01:19:28]`). Same pattern on related ILA votes: six in favor, two abstentions, Kaufman and Foster.
Scorecard item 10.3 (`[01:32:33]`–`[02:22:04]`)
Lone Star Governance: 3–5 goals. Split motions.
First: reduce goals to three — third-grade literacy, third-grade numeracy, CCMR — dropping algebra and the seal-of-biliteracy-style extra goal. Motion Vice President Whitley Chu, second Hunter. “The motion carries um by eight no six to two. Six to two. So we now have three goals” (`[01:52:51]`–`[01:53:02]`). Kaufman and Boswell are the opposed pair on this cut (confirmed in the later constraint debate where they want more, not less, on the card).
Second part: constraints. Chu first moves to cut to two (underserved / special-ed evals as constraint 1, and constraint 5 F ratings). Discussion: dual language (constraint 3) has “a lot of support.” Kaufman: school closures “impact outcomes in really negative ways and in the biggest negative ways for our students who need the most” (`[01:51:02]`–`[01:51:12]`). He does not want LSG used so rigidly that the board loses time to talk about things the community already said were important.
Boswell, arguing to keep early learning as well as dual language: families “get to choose us or choose anything else under the sun. You know, people now get to choose charters. They’re going to have next year vouchers for private school, for homeschool. Um, we are in this moment in part because people are choosing other things” (`[02:17:38]`–`[02:17:53]`).
End state of 10.3: **goals = 3** (literacy, numeracy, CCMR), **6–2**. Constraints **keep 1** (underserved / SPED evals / discipline), **3** (dual language), **5** (F ratings); strike caregiver and early-learning constraints, **6–2** (Kaufman and Boswell opposed). Guardrails item 10.5: a motion to cut to one is withdrawn; **all three guardrails kept**.
Tax rate 16.1 and historic-landmark exemption
Whitley Chu: “I move that the property tax rate be adopted at a tax rate of… 92 cents and 5200s of a cent per” $100. “The adopted tax rate of.9252 will fund the 2025 2026 budget” with M&O **$0.8022** and I&S **$0.123**. Decrease of 2.53¢ from last year (`[02:30:18]`–`[02:31:09]`). **Unanimous** on the rate (`[02:32:03]`).
Historic-landmark exemption: about 470 homes in the clarifying question. Passes **7–1**, Foster no (`[02:35:05]`–`[02:35:08]`).
Other votes
10.4 monitoring calendar, 10.6 handbook, 16.3 budget calendar as amended: unanimous, all on the dais.
Transfer appeals NG and QT: board affirms the denials.
Executive session, then reconvene. Adjourn motion Vice President Whitley Chu. “The meeting is adjourned at 10:55 p.m.” Last stamp `[02:50:25]`.
What was not discussed
| Topic | In this meeting? |
| Recapture | Yes, in passing: cash outlay versus fund balance (`[00:22:08]`) |
| Robin Hood | Not by that name |
| Inflation | No |
| Basic allotment | No |
| Class size | No |
| Librarian cuts | Opposite: “supportive librarians is maintained” |
| Planning time | Yes — “we are going to protect planning time” |
| TEA takeover | Implied: “someone else most notably the state could do it.” No takeover vote |
| TAP | Yes — timeline to Nov 21; constraint 5 F ratings; Swanson on turnaround planning |
| Enrollment | STAR gaps; course-selection calendar |
| Buses | No |
| Charters | Yes — Boswell, family choice |
| Vouchers | Yes — Boswell, “next year vouchers for private school, for homeschool” (`[02:17:46]`) |
| Fund balance | Yes — eating into it “introduces risk”; 15% unassigned |
| Dual language | Yes — kept as constraint 3 |
| Special ed | Yes — constraint 1, evals; Ruiz on dyslexia |
| Utilization | No as 85% |
| Moratorium | No |
Result
- Consent: **8–0**.
- UT ILAs 15.1–15.4: **6–0–2** (Kaufman, Foster abstain).
- Scorecard 10.3 goals cut to three: **6–2**.
- Scorecard constraints keep 1, 3, 5, drop caregiver and early learning: **6–2** (Kaufman, Boswell opposed).
- Guardrails 10.5: all three kept (cut-to-one withdrawn).
- Tax rate $0.9252: **unanimous**.
- Historic-landmark exemption: **7–1**, Foster no.
- 10.4, 10.6, 16.3: unanimous.
- Transfer appeals NG, QT: denials affirmed.
- No consolidation vote. No TAP vote.
Board and campus life
Kaufman argues from closure-research and from “a bunch of meetings” the community already held; he is the trustee trying to keep more goals on the card so the board still talks about F schools and early learning. Boswell names charters and vouchers as the choice market the district is in. Segura names planning time and librarians as protected values, not as campus visits. Maria Alice Ruiz is the person who has been in dyslexia work 45 years. No trustee on this night says which elementary their child attends.