Chapter 12 — Palm Elementary community meeting

**Date in the room:** Monday, October 27, 2025, afternoon (after school). About 90 minutes (`00:01:50`). **Source:** `meetings/clean/20251028-Palm-Elementary-School-Community-Meeting--October-27-2025.txt` **Spanish track exists** (`20251028-ESPAÑOL-…`) — same night, not assigned as a separate chapter unless different; trustees are not introduced there as present.

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

**RESULT:** There is no vote tonight. “the board vote will not occur till November 20th” (`00:15:47`). Segura: he is “not looking at a delay” (`00:18:24`).

Who is in the room

**Campus / community**

**District staff who speak**

**Board:** none on the record. “Your trustees get to determine the direction… They are local locally elected” (`00:11:38`) — again, the people TEA would replace.

Opening (`00:00:01`–`00:16:15`)

Coleman: inconvenient time, best they could get the team. Ally: norms, comment-card questions first, revised plan **this Friday**, final to the board November 20.

Segura (`00:05:09`): “I just want to apologize that we’re having to go through that… never something I ever thought I would have to do.” Students “who look like me… here at Palm haven’t gotten what they’ve needed.” Board and he aligned: every student gets what they need. Same package: feeders (East has 4–5 high schools); cost of education up, state “hasn’t helped in the way that I believe that they should have,” Title II/III/IV, three years of compensation; dual language (other Central Texas districts walking away; “Not us, not our board”); TAP / letter grades / local control; transfer inequities (Eastside Early College vertical → Austin High).

**Palm:** not enough live-in students to fill the building even if every child in the area came (`00:13:15`). Plan: Palm **wholly into Pettus (Bettis / Bettz / Parees in captions)**. Keep community together. More staffing flexibility than TAP or program-move campuses. Staff who want to stay in AISD “will have a home.” Implementation 2026–27; rest of this year and next semester for transition (`00:14:31`–`00:15:47`).

Prepared questions and Blazier fight (`00:16:15`–`00:32:24`)

**Ricardo A.:** vital community; delay? Segura: they have looked; not enough live-in. Delay would grow deficit, transition, TAP risk. Will not change in spring (Méndez/Martin sixth grade, April 2023). “we take a vote together in November. We have time to plan” (`00:18:20`).

**Langford in Palm portables if the building is vacant?** Would look at putting Langford *in the building* to cut portable-city cost; not committed (`00:19:00`).

**Combine Langford and Palm? Why Pettus not Blazier?** Map: Pettus sits *between* Palm and Langford; merging Palm–Langford would skip Pettus or break a boundary through the park. Langford relatively full; only a small percent of Palm would fit. Blazier is on the southern edge of AISD (down to Creedmoor); cannot consume Blazier’s own site (`00:20:31`–`00:23:11`). Steinport: cluster 5,600 seats vs. 3,900 students. Blazier cannot hold all of Palm. 10-year projections; 2029 on the map (`00:27:08`).

**Staff who lives one block from Blazier** (`00:24:57`): kids on her street → Palm; next blocks → Blazier. Why not Saxon Place / McKinney Heights to Palm? Goodnight Ranch / Slaughter will burst Blazier in five years.

**Parents:** you’re making Palm families *pass Palm* (maybe with Langford inside) to go to Pettus; flood took houses; if boundaries had been fixed years ago they wouldn’t be here; “most of our parents walk” (`00:27:40`–`00:29:59`).

Segura: a couple of streets is dozens, not the hundreds needed; “wonky” little boundaries are how they got into this; will look, will not promise (`00:29:08`–`00:31:37`). Steinport: first regular boundary-review approach; every two or three years going forward (`00:32:01`).

Transportation, transfers, librarians (`00:32:24`–`00:45:00`)

William Cannon: >2 miles or hazardous → bus. “yes, you will get a bus” (`00:33:03`). Kyle transfer mom: Friday draft will auto-approve transfers with the Palm cohort to Pettus (`00:33:21`).

**How does this benefit kids vs. budget?** Teacher load “over 20.” Segura: state max **22**; he will not say last year exceeded it. Then the identity list:

> “We have decided to protect certain things. **We’ve decided to keep librarians in our schools**, right? That’s something that’s above and beyond what the state has. We’ve decided to have **nurses**. That’s something above and beyond what the state requires. We’ve decided to be able to procure our own um uh curriculum. We could have a different curriculum and save $6 to 8 million, but I promise you that curriculum is not going to align with our values.” (`00:37:17`)

Federal lost “$16 million 11 million overnight”; cut ~$100 million in two years; stay away from the classroom; healthy fund balance.

Closing 13 and enrollment: some neighborhoods already choose charters; he cannot resource 116 schools; families cannot afford Austin (`00:38:05`).

**Walking families, disabilities, special transit, 5 a.m. jobs, no bus to Pettus yet.** Routes are not built until the vote. William Cannon = hazardous. Board can change early-open. SPED transportation is federal/state, “Period” (`00:39:46`–`00:42:37`). Friday packet: transition framework (PTAs, legacy).

Ethridge: Pettus has a full SPED continuum; separate Friday SPED document; staffing from SPED by need, not talent-strategy headcount (`00:43:01`).

**Langford is a hole in the ground; before the flood Palm+Langford fit here; sell Langford.** Debate continues in the second hour (art teacher Anne Mason, more maps, bond). TAP is light at Palm — this campus is framed as *under-enrollment / edges of the district*, not a 3UA inheritance the way Martin/Barrington/Widen/Dawson are.

Promises (this night)

What was never said

**Recapture. Inflation. Allotment. Class size as a policy change** (22 is the existing cap a parent is already bumping into).

Board vs. staff

Principal, communications, superintendent, operations, SPED. Trustees are “your trustees” who would lose local control and who would later vote — not people answering Blazier-boundary questions in this cafeteria. No vote.

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