Chapter 10 — Barrington Elementary community meeting

**Date in the room:** Wednesday, October 22, 2025, morning. Hard stop 9:30; about 35 minutes of floor after prepared questions (`00:45:16`). **Source:** `meetings/clean/20251023-Barrington-Elementary-School-Community-Meeting--October-22-2025.txt` **Recording:** Captions write Bington / Bearington / Baldridge / Waldridge / Woolridge; Guerrero Thompson / Gro / Guo / Guedto.

This is a campus meeting, not a board meeting. **No trustee is named as present. No trustee speaks.**

**RESULT:** There is no vote tonight. “we’ll have a final vote on the plan on November 20th” (`00:45:16`). Staff cannot even lock the Wooldridge swing-space (Dobie vs. Barrington as swing) “until the board takes a vote” (`00:27:40`).

Who is in the room

**Campus / community**

**District staff who speak**

**Board:** none on the record. Segura: “we are going to keep local control so that our trustees who you all elected are the ones that are guiding how we educate our students” (`00:33:06`) — trustees as the people the TAP is designed to *keep*, not as people at the table.

Opening (`00:00:01`–`00:18:04`)

Welcome; Ally agenda: norms, introductions, proposed plan, comment cards (open through October 28), floor, next steps. Revised plan October 31.

Segura (`00:04:32`): “how harmful, how disruptive.” Goal: strong neighborhood schools “no matter where you live.” “we do not have the resources to continue on in the way that we have been and still ensure that all of our students, especially those that look like me… get what they need” (`00:05:20`). He “will not bring a plan forward that doesn’t distribute that change across the entire school district” (`00:06:24`). Same five-driver package: feeders (one ES to ≤2 MS, one MS to ≤2 HS); 20,000+ empty seats; wall-to-wall dual language off 50/50 (17, 21, 24, 44%); TAP / STAR letter grades; transfer policies.

**Barrington:** majority of students to **Guerrero Thompson** (TEA wants reassignment to a higher-performing school); remainder to **Wooldridge**, which “will also get support. It’ll be a modernized school” (`00:11:10`–`00:12:33`). “We cannot miss the date. If we do or if our plan isn’t accepted, the state can take interventions up to installing a board of managers which means your trustees, superintendent, the majority of leadership changes” (`00:13:00`). If there is no November vote, enrollment, staffing, principal hiring slip; he will not change in the spring (`00:14:17`).

Steinport: effect August 2026. North of Walnut Creek → Guerrero Thompson; hatched → Wooldridge. School-finder by address. Transfers: return to zone or apply; families who feel they are Barrington can move with the community (`00:15:07`–`00:16:33`).

Ally on TAP (`00:18:04`): three consecutive UAs on STAR. Close + reassign → TAP follows majority → **Guerrero Thompson**. Principal of the combined school appointed **December**. TEA “highly effective” staffing; people who don’t meet criteria “probably not going to be able to be selected to work at that school,” but AISD will find another home. Hiring freeze January; typical 5–600 external teacher recruit paused (`00:19:48`–`00:21:13`). All staff, not just teachers. Consolidation frees about **$25 million**; “reinvest over half of that money into those schools” — lower student-teacher ratios, extra counselors, coaches (`00:22:05`). 24 TAP schools districtwide.

Prepared questions (`00:22:47`–`00:45:16`)

**Sally R.:** Why close Barrington (space to build in place) instead of Wooldridge (must swing to Dobie Pre-K)? Segura: no single data point; TAP + empty seats + modernized buildings. Wooldridge as receiver may not break the chain. F-F-F: need a C by year five or TEA “install a board of managers, which is take out our trustees or close the school” (`00:25:29`–`00:26:07`). Swing space: current plan Dobie; maybe Barrington as swing if this closes — “less expensive… by millions of dollars” — cannot decide until a vote (`00:27:19`–`00:28:39`).

**Abby B.:** Don’t let TEA pressure a hasty decision; genuine two-way engagement. Ally: 14,000-response spring survey; transportation was a priority. Segura: not hasty, **urgent**. If they only did TAP, or only consolidations, the map would look different. Sister districts being taken over “wish they would have made difficult decisions years ago” (`00:31:05`–`00:33:24`). Steinport: QR form, themes two or three times a week.

**Parent follow-up** (`00:34:57`): “I don’t think you can both say it’s urgent and you’re moving quickly and you’re listening to us… charter schools in our neighborhoods trying to get students out… you’re closing our school and that’s exactly what TEA wants.” Segura: 3UA limits options; TEA in August set November 21 TAP submission; “there are things that are firm”; 116 schools / 70,000 students “too thin” (`00:35:29`–`00:39:17`). Ally: long-range plan / 2022 bond — two years of small-group work, >80% of investment in Title I parts of town (`00:39:17`).

**Pride / parkland back to the city (Sarah F.).** Steinport: Barrington joint-use park was condemned to build; unused sites go to the **Public Facilities Corporation** — “some of our board members and some community members”; sell, lease, or repurpose (Pease / United Way) (`00:41:05`–`00:43:23`). Segura: transition planning with principals and staff the rest of this year and spring.

Timeline slide: phase 1 since April; now phase 3; board added a workshop; November 6 discussion of the revised plan; **November 20 vote** (`00:44:31`).

Floor (`00:45:48`–end, file continues through ~`01:24`)

**Life skills** (`00:46:07`): Guerrero Thompson does not have the program. Cherry Lee: services continue; most likely life-skills teachers move to Guerrero Thompson; February email; spring ARD; August visit (`00:46:33`).

**Why us (D-F-F) not Wooldridge (F-F-F)?** (`00:48:45`) Segura talks UA combinations; Ally: to the state D and F are both unacceptable. Wooldridge also has a TAP. Barrington TAP goes to Guerrero Thompson; Barrington students assigned to Wooldridge enter *Wooldridge’s* TAP. Why not TAP-in-place at Barrington? Multiple goals at once; Wooldridge smaller, further along in construction; “one will be a reassignment, one will be a restart” (`00:52:07`–`00:53:33`). Restart = leadership/staff through a hiring process, TEA-approved.

**Teacher, 10 years** (`00:53:41`): third year as superintendent, “I never seen you” except a month ago. “we are struggling emotionally. Uh cuz we have to leave our kids behind, our families, and our jobs… we want to feel that human side from you.” Segura: TEA agreed order “almost done”; 20+ TAPs; 12 schools in this moment after Burnet, Webb, Dobie; he will come talk to staff (`00:55:55`–`00:58:27`).

**Why not a Dobie/Webb restart here?** (`00:58:59`) Scores moving 45 → 55 → 59; “to the state that’s still an F, an F and an F.” Cannot afford twelve restarts. “we are going to commit to lowering student teacher I mean uh counselor uh to student ratios. We’re going to lower student teacher ratios. We’re going to add instructional coaches” (`01:00:45`). Floor staffing so 180-student campuses still have a program. 1882 = not AISD staff; community does not want that. “nothing will be final until the board votes” (`01:05:07`) — but TEA has to accept the TAP.

Ally, wrapping the D/F question (`01:05:31`): **4,800 seats** in the cluster, **3,000** students who reside, **1,800 empty**. Barrington TAP = close or restart; Wooldridge TAP = close or restart; Guerrero Thompson is A/B, so TEA wants the majority there. If Barrington had been further along in construction, “it could have possibly gone the other way.”

**Parent since 2018** (`01:07:01`): “me and my children cried about it.” Commitment that teachers will be placed? Segura (`01:09:48`):

> “that is a commitment of mine and our board has made that clear to me… Whether it’s compensation of the last three years, whether it’s improving climate and culture, **whether it’s preserving planning time**, like I I am the son of a teacher who taught here for over 40 years.”

700-teacher layoff “a complete lie.” Freeze outside hiring until April; surveys; ~700 hires a year. Delay the vote and principal hiring slips from December.

**Strike?** (`01:13:57`) Spanish-language parent, interpreted: is a strike the way to get “the board of trustees to take our side”; not fair to use Barrington as Wooldridge swing space; teenagers in the street. Segura will not speak to a strike. If using Barrington as swing “ends up saving $4 million… those are resources that we don’t have that we would be wasting in portables” (`01:17:15`). Timeline reminder: November 20 vote; no firm answers on some items until then (`01:24:26`).

Promises (this night)

What was never said

**Recapture. Inflation. Allotment. Class size as a cut.** 20,000 empty seats, $25 million, TEA board of managers, and November 21 TAP upload are the numbers.

Board vs. staff

Communications, operations, superintendent, SPED. Trustees exist in the script as (a) the locally elected body TEA would replace, and (b) PFC board members for leftover land. Nobody from the dais is in this cafeteria. No vote.

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