Chapter 9 — Sunset Valley Elementary community meeting

**Date in the room:** Tuesday, October 21, 2025, afternoon. Staff: “Today is actually the first day that Superintendent Sigura has been visiting campuses. Y’all are number two. We were at Martin this morning” (`00:49:32`). **Source:** `meetings/clean/20251022-Sunset-Valley-Elementary-School-Community-Meeting--October-21-2025.txt` **Spanish track:** same night, see `ch09b.md`. Not a second vote.

This is a campus meeting, not a board meeting. **Two trustees are named as present. They do not speak after the welcome.**

**RESULT:** There is no vote tonight. Staff point to a November 20 board vote (`00:49:51`). I don’t have the authority to close a school, Segura says; “Only the board does” (`00:33:12`).

Who is in the room

**Campus / community**

**District staff who speak**

**Board — present, not speaking**

At `00:14:45`:

> “Okay. And before we get into it, I’m going to put some of our trustees on the spot to welcome them and thank them for coming. So, we have our uh board secretary, **Andrew Gonzalez**, and then our um **district 7 trustee, Dr. Kaufman**. So, thank you for being here.”

Applause (`00:15:01`). Those are the only Gonzalez/Kaufman lines in the English file. Public later thanks “officials and trustees” (`01:04:43`, `01:07:06`). They do not take questions.

Opening (`00:00:00`–`00:14:45`)

Varo: thank you for showing up; turns the mic to Christina Gwyn for norms.

Purpose: comment-card questions, shared rationale, insights before “that next deliverable… next week” and “final proposal next month” (`00:03:04`).

Segura (`00:03:49`): this is hard; he is from South Austin. “The board and myself have been very intentional about paying for the things that align with our values” (`00:06:10`). Drivers:

  1. Feeder alignment. Clean at Murchison/Anderson, O. Henry/Austin High, Gorzycki/Bowie. Not in East Austin (`00:05:44`).
  2. Financial strain. Deficit; “One of the things that causes the Texas Education Agency to act in many cases is not accountability. It’s financial solveny” (`00:06:53`). Overburden argument: last 20 years East Austin / Eastern Crescent carried consolidations.
  3. Wall-to-wall dual language moved toward where emerging bilingual students live.
  4. Turnaround / local control. Teacher retention 70% → 88%; principals hired 24 in a year, now 5–6. “Unless we address these turnaround plans… we risk our ability to maintain local control… our trustees, the people that you elected, have the ability to continue to determine how we educate our 70,000 students” (`00:08:41`–`00:08:59`).
  5. Messy transfer policies.

**Proposal:** wall-to-wall dual language moves to **Odom (ODM)** in 78745. Neighborhood students reassigned to **Cunningham and Boone**. Building proposed closed (`00:10:04`–`00:12:37`). Enough seats at Odom for Odom dual-language *and* Sunset Valley dual-language (`00:13:10`). Map: green → Cunningham; pink hatched → Boone (`00:13:55`).

Trustees named (`00:14:45`)

Gonzalez and Kaufman welcomed. Then comment cards. They do not return to the mic.

Prepared questions (`00:15:01`–`00:49:15`)

**Will all of Sunset Valley fit at Odom if Becker families also choose Odom?** Gardinus: seats for both dual-language communities; Sunset Valley prioritized (`00:15:01`). Segura: trustees “have committed to me clearly that anytime that you break up a community uh that’s a disruption” (`00:16:19`). Sunset Valley guaranteed at Odom; Becker→Sanchez is the inverse (`00:17:04`). Version control: he can say it verbally, “I just can’t say yet that it’s um it’s in the plan” (`00:17:24`).

**Transportation for walking emerging-bilingual families to Odom (>2 miles)?** Not in original version; considering for Wooten, Pickle, Sanchez, Odom (`00:17:59`–`00:19:23`). Outside the receiving *and* Sunset Valley boundary: “very nuanced… we don’t have the ability to provide transportation in that instance” (`00:19:34`).

**Feeder after Odom is unzoned?** Mapping dual-language feeders (`00:20:30`).

**Special education / speech since age 2.** Dr. Cherry Lee: OT/PT/speech/dyslexia/behavior/nursing follow the IEP; spring ARDs. ECSE and life skills are not at every elementary (`00:21:35`–`00:24:25`). No plan to reduce SPED teachers, TAs, SLPs (`00:25:03`).

**Why keep Joslin, not Sunset Valley?** Lower building score, dangerous street, this campus has Sunset Valley PD. Segura: regional approach, not a rubric list. Joslin would become unzoned **Mandarin** south, pairing Riley/Doss north. “It didn’t come down to a rubric” (`00:25:48`–`00:29:07`). French: rubric showed imbalances; then regional work.

**When? Class size? Legal maximum?** Steinport: August 2026. “We are not changing any student teacher ratios whatsoever” (`00:29:07`). Pace: **22:1** is the state ratio; AISD typically sees 18, 19, 23; variance exists; “that is not part of the plan” (`00:30:09`). Segura: started communicating February/March; vote in November so families have “time to plan.” Enrollment starts November through March. Will not make a significant change in spring (sixth grade out of Méndez and Martin in April). Wants principals placed in **December**. “I don’t have the authority to close the school or to to change boundaries. Only the board does” (`00:32:53`).

**Land value / sale?** Segura: “the answer is no. not a not a single point in the process did the value of any one of these tracks of land come into play” (`00:34:05`). Pease → United Way early childhood; teacher housing elsewhere. Revenue “not estimating.”

**Boone vs. Cowan / Barton View.** French: in the demographer queue this week; 3,000-plus comments (`00:35:34`–`00:38:08`).

**1882 partnership for the four wall-to-wall campuses?** Segura: not simple extra funding; would need an outside partner; 4:1 supervisor ratio atypical (`00:38:08`).

**Summer upgrades then close?** Steinport: 2022 bond touched every school; TEA school-safety vestibules. Segura: in 2019–21 they did not know the 2023 legislature “was not going to fund schools” or that 2025 HB2 would “not really… move the needle.” Federal Title II/III/IV freeze, “$10 million,” hit dual language (`00:45:16`–`00:46:57`). Community Bond Oversight Committee monthly.

**Pre-K left out of Odom guarantee?** Gardinus: looking at Pre-K; likely a change in the next draft (`00:47:54`). Segura: Pre-K was in the plan; transfer *progression* will be clarified (`00:48:45`). Later, a Pre-K4 parent is told “Yes. protected? Yes” (`01:07:13`).

Floor (`00:49:32`–`01:31:17`)

Timeline recap: online districtwide Monday; East Austin Tuesday; board workshop Wednesday; voting meeting Thursday; updated plan Friday; board discusses November 6; vote November 20 (`00:49:32`).

**Registration delay?** Still starts November; they will protect “options and outs” (`00:51:05`).

**City Council member** (`00:53:08`): Sunset Valley scored best on the area rubric except emptiness. Joslin “looks like a jail”; liquor, marijuana leaf, homeless; this city gives **$20,000/year** to the PTA; Officer Brownlow weekly. Odom parents “didn’t even want the program.” Applause.

Segura: every school has a loving community; “I do not have the ability to resource… 116 of them.” Not enough students in the attendance boundary to fill it; dual language ~24% emerging bilingual, moving the wrong way (`00:55:25`–`00:56:43`). He will not disparage Joslin. “I just hate that we’re here as a school system” (`00:57:29`).

**If administration wants to go to Odom, say so.** Segura: he has met Principal Navarro; “What you want is what I want.” He cannot commit before a board vote (`00:57:59`–`00:59:53`).

**Title I if high-income families move to Odom?** District ~60% eco-dis years ago, now 56/55/54%, “desperately trying to stay over 50%”; down ~2,000 students on immigration. Title I follows students; Odom should exceed the AISD threshold. Federal shift toward block grants. “the only ones that we can really rely on are the um you know the what the state gives us by way of the basic student aotment” (`01:04:13`) — caption for **allotment**, said once, as the remaining reliable state dollar, not as a legislative demand.

**Rumor: another wall-to-wall will spring-transfer to steal Odom seats.** Hardship transfers go to the board; he had not heard a mass spring hack (`01:04:43`). Parent: “thank you to our trustees for being here” (`01:07:06`).

**Instructional gaps / TAP at Odom?** Odom does **not** have a TAP (`01:10:56`). Then the identity line:

> “there’s other school districts around the state of Texas who’ve decided to do it a different way right **we’re protecting librarians we’re protecting planning time** we’re protecting our curriculum People don’t realize there are school districts right now selecting curriculum that I know for a fact would not work with this community, but they’re doing it because they can save $8 million.” (`01:12:29`)

Two UA / three UA trigger TAP. 2023: 30 Fs; 2024: 29; 2025: 23 (`01:13:51`). Modeling “no turnaround in place… I don’t expect that there ever will be one at ODM” (`01:14:21`).

**Emerging bilingual families, some walk, some not safe on AISD buses; dual language vs. immersion; Joslin clarity.** Dual language in 57 of 78 elementaries; board policy at 18 emerging bilingual students. New certification law (K–3 first) will force placement of dual-language-certified teachers where the students are (`01:16:08`–`01:19:21`). Gardinus: dual language = native English + partner language together; immersion = primarily native English speakers (`01:21:00`).

**Safety vs. Joslin; needles; public indecency; Sunset Valley PD 0.3 miles; if closed, parking lot?** Segura: not a parking lot; community + board process; safety is “a very slippery slope”; Principal Chowin at Joslin tells him the community feels safe (`01:24:05`–`01:30:45`).

Over time. Comment cards through October 28. Segura close: born and raised down the road; “Thank you. This is hard for you all… hard for staff also” (`01:31:17`).

Promises (this night)

What was never said

**Recapture / Robin Hood. Inflation. Class size as a fight** (22:1 is mentioned as existing law, not a cut). **Allotment** appears once as “basic student aotment,” the leftover reliable state dollar after Titles freeze — not a motion to raise it.

Board vs. staff

Two trustees sit in the room and are thanked. Staff — Segura, operations, planning, multilingual, SPED — take every question. Gonzalez and Kaufman are scenery for legitimacy, not a deliberating board. No vote.

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