Chapter 25 — Board information session, November 6, 2025

**Source:** `meetings/clean/20251110-Austin-ISD-Board-of-Trustees-Information-Session--November-62025.txt` **Captions:** YouTube auto-captions. Names scramble (Segura / Sigura / Sagura; Quintana / Kintana; Bedichek / Betachch; Barrington / Bington; Widen / Wedane). Quoted as heard. **Clock:** Called to order **[00:00:26]** Thursday, November 6, 2025 at **6:05 p.m.** Recess to executive session **[00:01:36]** at 6:06 p.m. Reconvene **[00:02:15]** at 6:47 p.m. Last timestamp **[06:20:52]**. Adjournment is captioned “10:05 a.m.”; the clock on the file is a six-hour-plus night. **Room:** President Lynn Boswell. Trustee Quintana on Zoom. Information session: no consolidation vote tonight. November 20 is named as the vote night. TAP filings due to TEA November 21.

This night is the first board session after the superintendent paused part of the consolidation package, placed staff on leave, and split what will be voted November 20 (TAPs + programmatic moves) from what will wait (boundary / balance-enrollment consolidations). Public comment fills the first hour-plus. Staff then walks TAP and remaining closures. The dais previews November 20 items, including bilingual policy, a Gibson dual-language audit, the TEA special-education agreed-order quarterly, and Lone Star Governance scorecard Goal 1 (third-grade literacy). The only vote is to accept the monitoring report.

Call and executive session — [00:00:16]–[00:02:15]

Boswell opens under Chapter 551. Quorum at central office. Broadcast on cable 22 / AT&T 99. Public comment files are not ready; by law comment must sit at the top, so the board recesses to executive session first (Texas Government Code 551.074, .072, .073, .087, .076, .0821, .071). Open session reconvenes at 6:47 p.m. when the voice file is ready.

Public comment rules — [00:02:15]–[00:04:03]

Boswell: this is an information session; speakers may comment on any topic. Up to 60 speakers. One minute each. No substitutions. Staff by position or abbreviated last name. **11 in person, 49 recorded.** Texas law limits trustee questions to clarification through administration.

In-person speakers — [00:04:13]–[00:21:17]

**Stacy Woodburn Henry, Becker [00:04:13].** Process integrity. Quotes a September 18 Zoom: Dr. French told Becker families the board’s influence was “no.” Says a staff member was overheard complaining about Becker in the hallway. Teachers who helped with advocacy were told to stay anonymous. October 31 “areas of exploration” tracker omitted Becker comment-card topics. FOIA delayed. Integrity investigation; both named people “on leave.” Asks whether Becker “was given a fair chance.” Boswell reminds the room not to name staff by last name.

**Delicia McLean, Becker parent [00:05:42].** “Big things — big for who?” Plan now closes 10 schools. “Our most vulnerable students continue to be marginalized, shuffled from school to school.” Wall-to-wall dual-language campuses closed “for a mere 2.99% increase in DL access for EB students.” Closure used for utilization, budget deficit, inequity, TAP. Gibson report and TEA Senate Bill 560 strategic plan called for growing bilingual teachers. Teach Austin launched 2024, then cut. “The boldest move… is not to divide.”

**Joe Arriaga, Becker [00:07:50].** “530 comment cards all for one row in a small paragraph.” Asks for a fifth wall-to-wall dual-language program in South Central Austin. “At least give us real numbers.”

**Selena Martinez, Becker [00:09:20].** Dual-language policy heading toward 50-50 emergent / non-emergent bilingual should go through community and the multilingual education advisory committee. Says a “back door conversation” told families nothing could change, which “swayed people to give up.” Urges a fifth DL school in South Central. “Becker is the only school of the four wall-to-wall campuses that is being broken up.”

**Munavara (UT Austin student) [00:10:26].** If schools up for consolidation are performing well, why close them? “Closing community schools only to sell them to private interests.” “It’s not consolidation. It’s school closure.”

**Steve Swanson [00:12:04].** Cites Education Code 11.02, 11.051, 11.254. If followed in 2008, Johnston High would not have been closed and renamed Eastside Memorial. “Integrity demands we ensure TEA serves AISD, not controls us. Do not be afraid of TEA.” Handout offered.

**Adam Sparks, Maplewood [00:13:46].** Relief, “whiplash,” guilt. Two weeks from a vote; still unclear Govalle vs. Zavala; fear Blackshear appears “at the very last second.” Asks the board to vote November 20 only on what is required — the turnaround plans — and, if pausing a year, use the year: mandatory pre-K in underused buildings; Austin Ed Fund challenge for $5 million in Title I interventionists. Asks the superintendent to “clarify what the heck went on a couple of days ago.”

**Anita Sigler, librarian, Pickle Elementary [00:15:20].** Against converting Pickle to wall-to-wall; that would send ESL students and Pickle’s TAP to Hart, “an F campus… taken on a turnaround plan of another F campus.” Merge Ridgetop into Pickle’s current dual-language model; keep Title I. “Please slow down this change and look at our students, not just the numbers.”

**Mary Alice Ruiz, Sanchez [00:16:37].** Thanks trustees for keeping Sanchez students’ “hopes and dreams alive.” Asks that first- and second-grade English/ESL students, not only third and fourth, finish elementary at Sanchez, and that ESL teachers stay. “I never dreamed that education reform would be so challenging.”

**Cheryl Bradley [00:18:19].** Thanks Segura and chiefs for October 28 East Side Social Action Coalition meeting at Greater Calvary. Then: “If there is a question in the integrity of the process then you need to stop.” Mistrust from 1971 still being fought. “If the process… for three schools is an integrity process for all of them.”

**Bertha Rendon Delgado [00:19:57].** Former housing commissioner; alumni of Martin and Metz (closed); 46-year East Austin native. “The plan is racially, economically, and geographically segregated, and it calls for lawsuit.” Sixth school closed in Districts 1 and 2 over decades. Postpone the vote; do not close more schools; resignation and class-action if the board continues.

Recorded comments — [00:21:28]–[01:11:28]

Forty-nine one-minute files, overlapping and sometimes cut at the buzzer. The same campuses speak in loops.

**Becker / Barton Hills / Zilker / Galindo.** Ben Prince: keep Becker as dual language; if not, zone Barton Hills to Zilker (walkable). Laura Hampton thanks Boswell and Segura for flexibility and a promised amendment. Ellen Price: process has made 17 years in the district feel impossible; 86% of Becker cannot “feasibly and logistically drive to Sanchez”; I-35 treated as a natural boundary except for Becker. Nikki: neighborhood school, “there isn’t money that couldn’t come from somewhere else.” Catelyn Zuniga: Boswell drove Zilker, Galindo, Becker; staff visited Zilker capacity; fears over-enrollment if 10/3 boundaries return plus Becker all-in-one transfers. Doa, Zilker East, person of color: boundary change “takes the most accessible neighborhood in Zilker… and displaces us with the wealthiest… Barton Hills / Becker zone.” “Please don’t cluster the wealthy neighborhoods… at Zilker and send the rest of us to a TAP school in the name of equity.” Unnamed DL speaker: Gibson said existing campuses are “uniquely capable”; keep Becker as the South Central hub; “don’t dismantle what works.” Andrea Schneider and Brett Close: Barton Hills to Zilker, not Galindo; within two miles vs. two-plus. Barbara Passmore, Becker Green Classroom board (founded 1989): garden hosted trustees, superintendent, Alice Waters; inspired garden-to-café; “has not been taken into account.” Greg Hayes: 100-signature petition to combine Becker zone with Zilker as originally proposed. Vicki Duesk, Green Classroom president: closing Becker closes the garden. Bianca Gonzalez Conrad: six-plus years at Becker; if closing “the heart of the neighborhood,” account for what Barton Hills loses. Aisha Dero: keep Becker; if not, Zilker not Galindo; walkable schools. Sai Salazar: fourth-grader would not graduate with classmates. Unnamed Barton Hills: “listen to the students at recess… imagine no such signs of life.”

**Ridgetop / Riley / Pickle.** Sarah Spitz: future Pre-K-4 at Ridgetop; make Riley excellent or rezone to Lee / Brentwood. Pim Mayo: Segura at Ridgetop today; questions about keeping a DL track, Pickle Title I, bilingual certification vs. exceptions. Lane Ralph: plan sold as budget crisis, then three schools funded off the list — “where did the funds come from?” Are wall-to-wall moves tied to receiving-school TAPs? Elizabeth Michael: overheard talk of wall-to-wall middle school; no kindergarten parent she knows will go to Pickle. Natalie Betts: some pieces delayed a full year after a weeks-long “refinement”; if time exists, give it to all schools or delay only weeks. Elizabeth Orur: “Ridgetop parents feel lied to”; sold a grander feeder-pattern plan, then the rest was pushed off; “hope that the trustees consider voting no.” Michelle Herd: 1917 Ridgetop deed reverter — if decommissioned, AISD “cannot sell or monetize”; may lose the asset. Unnamed: taking both nearest neighborhood schools; transportation for some dual-language students, not all; I-35 particulate matter; asks public confirmation staff read the science before sending children to Sanchez. Maria Gomez, ~20 years at Pickle: “save this school as the other… three that you saved.” Lauren, Ridgetop: put bilingual teachers in “something shiny” (Wooten or Harris); “pay attention to the Riley shell.” Adam Hockenberry: Riley is the only non-TAP restart; wants it treated as a good school, not a TAP restart. Kelly Cruz, zoned Ridgetop now Riley: small incoming enrollment; choice of Lee or Brentwood; fear Riley under-enrolls and closes.

**Zilker East / South Lamar.** Multiple thanks to Boswell for driving the railroad. Shishi Zhang: keep dual language in South Central; Joslin and Odom five minutes apart, none left in the area. Spencer: rezoning to Galindo breaks AISD’s own natural-boundary principle. Emily Pitzick: rezoned to C-rated Galindo; already applying to private school; former Houston ISD teacher; “you cannot solve a budget crisis by pushing more families out.” Ashley Connell: four-year-old talks about “when she goes to Zilker”; other street kids grandfathered, her daughters not. Jamie Thompson: remove Zilker from the Dawson–Galindo–Becker TAP/DL proposal; restore the near-final assignment of Becker zone to Galindo and Zilker East back to Zilker.

**Joslin.** Kristen Davis, fourth-grade DL: thanks district for Oct. 31 draft allowing current fourth graders to finish at Joslin, citywide buses, FLIP room for special education.

**Garza Independence High.** Erikica Bowden: AISD “isn’t calling it a closure, but that’s what it will be.” Small, relational campus for students who don’t fit the traditional mold; idea rolled out without students, families, or staff. Nancy Mossman: merging Garza with Martin mixes 11th/12th graders with sixth graders. Ruben Gandu, first Garza student accepted to UT Austin: “I know AISD isn’t calling this a closure, but… that’s what it is.” Unnamed Garza parent: north-Austin students, no transportation; middle-school add-on unexplained.

**Zavala.** Unnamed: “We were told that there would only be small boundary changes”; Zavala “suddenly on the chopping block”; turning it into a citywide Montessori “would erase the very heart of this East Austin Latino community.” Veronica Hernandez: three generations at Zavala; Montessori would close it as a neighborhood school; “the Montessori program has… proven not to meet expectations at its current campus. Why would we continue to bring a failing program to a school that’s not failing?”

**High school zoning.** Shelby O’Donnell, Southwest Austin: rezoning from Austin High to Crockett; lower rating, split peer groups, property values.

**Process / academics / staff voice.** Sharon Bain: what lessons from GRA draft engagement will apply to academic vision? Unnamed: “stifling of voices”; get headquarters in order before big changes; TAP campuses should be the focus. Marilyn Faulkner: 7,000-plus comment cards; after the “breach to fidelity,” must comments be resubmitted? Meg Halpin: close 10 next summer, three more the year after; her Pre-K wall-to-wall child would be in a third school by first grade. Washington Gardner Selby, 60-year resident: preserve every neighborhood school; “maybe first making all central administration virtual.” Patrick Rosenthal: “School closures will never be the way”; academic framework, TAP resources, enrollment goals “built around excellence and hope, not austerity.” Victoria Rios, Rosedale: 435-unit OHT development on former school site; ~800 vehicles on neighborhood streets.

Recorded files run until Boswell thanks speakers **[01:11:28]**.

Clarification after comment — [01:11:33]–[01:18:49]

**Hunter [01:11:37].** She keeps hearing employees may not speak. “I drop off at Garza every morning. They’re talking to me.” She has visited “all of my schools” in this consolidation. Segura: “that is not any directive I’ve given at any point.” Staff meetings with Brandy Hosek on transition. Comment cards from staff and community. Hunter offers DMs without names; she has a Pickle staff invitation tomorrow.

**A trustee (comment cards) [01:14:17].** Segura: comments need not be resubmitted. He has reviewed them. Volume is not one-to-one with responses: “several dozen… all the exact same comments,” one response. He does “not manipulate any comments.”

**Singh [01:16:30].** Ridgetop deed. Segura: AISD has ~130–136 properties, many transferred “well over a hundred years ago,” many with restrictions. “That is not a starting point for any comprehensive work.” More in executive session.

**A trustee (likely Kaufman) [01:17:31].** Commends Segura for referring to every community with respect. “It is hard to listen and hear comments talking about failing schools… when I know from every school I visited that each one [has] things going on regardless of what the letter grade is.” Community members “who probably have never visited that school talking disparagingly about our educators.”

Hunter and this trustee talk like people who have been inside campuses this cycle. The deed and comment-card answers are process/legal.

Lone Star Governance time — [01:19:05]

Boswell, under the TEA agreed order: August–October three-month average board time on Lone Star Governance student outcomes and special-education monitoring **56%**; October **36%**; **200 minutes** in executive session in October.

Superintendent: pause, leave, what still votes November 20 — [01:19:45]–[01:35:14]

Segura: the objective is “excellent neighborhood school” access; that is “not the case” now. Pressures named: federal immigration policy; “the state’s inability to fully fund public education”; “evershifting accountability”; declining enrollment; “increasing cost of… living in Austin.” **Recapture is not named. Inflation is not named. Basic allotment is not named.**

Process “is everything.” Over recent days, things “made known to me” caused him to pause: he could not confirm that community voice on **boundary changes / balance enrollment consolidations** had been “fully… vetted.” TAP work (school leadership + academics) and programmatic changes (multilingual + academics) he judged “sound” for a November 20 recommendation. He modified the milestone schedule. “This had nothing to do with… any community, any advocacy… the magnitude of emails.” Investigation initiated; **staff placed on leave**. Work “is not canceled.” Feeder-pattern alignment “will be done.” He wants board input before setting a new date.

Consolidations still expected November 20 **[01:28:40]:** Barrington, Becker, Dawson, Oak Springs (still working with Blackshear after “a great meeting last night”), Ridgetop to Riley, Sunset Valley / Cunningham / Boone, Rodriguez / Houston “area of exploration,” Winn Montessori (Monday conversation; trustee feedback from last work session). Many “tied to turnaround plans… required… no later than November 21st.”

Programmatic slides: reduced splits after comment. Govalle still exploration. Bedichek: was four receiving middle schools, now three; Covington still majority and receives the TAP. Martin breakdown by attendance boundary. He heard “loud and clear” the desire to rebuild programming at Martin and Bedichek, without locking a program before community work.

Secondary program reassignments **do not require a board vote [01:32:51]**. International High School: “significant decline” tied to federal immigration; reposition at Navarro Early College; “will not continue on in the same way.” Alternative Learning Center and **Garza**: came up in a work session; “hasn’t been a lot of engagement”; ALC to Mendez was short-term; he apologizes for “the disruption.”

He offers a pause. Boswell: about an hour total for this block; 15 minutes used; 15 on TAPs then 30 questions.

TAP development briefing — [01:36:11]–[03:01:58]

**Joshua John, governance [01:36:27].** Timeline: Aug. 13, 2024 and 2025 ratings released; Aug. 14 TEA “to the administrator addressed.” Campus intervention teams. Sept. 8 TAP workbook. Sept. 11–30 community and staff meetings at TAP campuses. Success-criteria revisions through Oct. 13. Qualtrics survey Oct. 16. Oct. 31 TEA submission-principles feedback. Community survey on version two open through next Monday.

Partners: Region 13; TEA’s Dr. Coleman — “today she confirmed that we’re on the right track.” Curriculum partners; commissioner-approved technical partners for restarts; grant technical partners.

**Dr. Latanya Emerson [01:40:23].** Restarts (ACE): Linder, Wooldridge, Paredes, Pecan Springs. Reassign: Barrington, Bedichek, Dawson, Oak Springs, Martin, Sanchez, Winn Montessori, Widen. Two 2UA reassigns “by way of program moves”: Wooten, Pickle. School improvement (intensive curriculum): TA Brown, Govalle, Hart, Houston, Jordan, Norman, Sims, Overton, Padron, Sadler Means, Eastside. Strategy selection: serve students; nearby capacity; empty seats; modernization; nearby ratings; TIA teachers and turnaround leaders; campuswide dual-language moves.

Stakeholder list: superintendent community meetings, CACs, principal coffees, staff meetings, surveys, printed TAP copies, school-improvement page, mental-health support.

Grants: LASSO; Sadler Means and Paredes; restart school-action at Linder, Pecan Springs, Wooldridge, Paredes; reassign Barrington; ADSY calendar (175 days plus optional half days); TEA resource designation (181 days; 1882-level funding “in perpetuity” if in good standing).

Implementation: comprehensive needs assessments. Root-cause trends: instructional leadership capacity; instructional management; staffing “stemming from vacancies, certifications, **waivers for class size ratios [01:46:14]**,” student supports. Lighthouse model for all TAP campuses; ILT capacity; HQIM.

**This is the night’s only class-size hit:** waivers as a staffing problem inside TAP needs assessments. Not a motion. Not a debate.

Trustees then ask TAP questions. Foster **[01:57:54]** proposes a workshop before the 20th; posting needs three business days (post by the 14th); calendars point to Thursday or Friday of the following week. That workshop does not happen — Segura’s Nov. 13 video is the substitute (Chapter 26). Foster also asks about stipend language vs. instructional coaches covering classes; retire-rehire cost offsets since the pandemic. Boswell wants 1882 contingency language written into TAP documents **[02:59:51]** “regardless”; “the more options we give ourselves the better because the timeline is short.” Information reports end **[03:01:58]**. Preview of November 20 voting items begins.

Agenda preview for November 20 — [03:01:58]–

**Item 6 academics.** A trustee thanks administration for 6.2 college/career/military readiness for students “in most need.”

**Item 8 business/finance [03:03:14].** A trustee (Boswell or Kaufman): commitment to regular updates on savings promised when the budget was adopted; budget amendments are not enough; agenda request for an in-depth update on “keeping the promises we made… to find the savings that had not yet been realized.” Closest this night comes to last-round savings. No recapture figure. No inflation figure.

**Item 9 facilities / 10 talent.** No questions.

**Item 11 policy [03:04:15].** Some policies “related to the closure and consolidation process,” first time in public agenda. Singh on **11.3 bilingual education**: policy committee already met. Dr. Maxwell and multilingual staff. Crossed-out one-way vs. two-way definitions; 50-50 ratio language. A teacher worried campuses without enough English speakers cannot recruit to 50-50. Staff: one-way/two-way is classroom makeup; proposed language is “up to 50% non-emergent… at least 50% emergent” for two-way; large-EB campuses stay one-way. Singh will send comments offline; wants annual data with the policy.

Hunter later asks how many two-way dual-language programs exist. Kaufman thanks staff.

Gibson bilingual/ESL audit — [03:31:20]–[03:52:39]

Will Hardaway, Mina Rasmussen, Gleb Ferman of Gibson, virtual. Recorded presentation was in BoardDocs.

A trustee: which programs serve emergent bilingual students well, and how do we know? Gibson: the audit was not structured campus-by-campus that way. Trustee presses wall-to-wall specifically. Gibson finding **[03:34:40]:** wall-to-wall campuses “by and large have fewer emergent bilingual students than district averages. They have more white students, fewer Hispanic students, fewer African-American students, fewer economically disadvantaged students.” Recommendation: redesign dual language; “position our wall-to-wall campuses in a way that better aligns with serving emerging bilingual students.”

Foster: he missed the video link; how do current consolidation plans “articulate” the recommendations? Maxwell: consolidation centers EB access; policy tonight; “true 50-50 model”; research says two-way is most effective but not always feasible; bilingual-certified teacher scarcity is the staffing constraint. Foster lists remaining recs: EB prioritization, family engagement, reporting to MAC. Maxwell: conversations with Gibson started immediately.

Staffing is “the singular issue brought to us by staff members around their difficulties implementing an effective dual language program” **[03:52:19]**. ESL-certified partner acceptable if certified.

TEA agreed-order quarterly (special education) — [03:53:13]–[05:16:48]

Boswell almost starts Goal 1; staff redirects to the TEA agreed-order update first.

Dr. Cherry Lee and Christa Ethridge (interim executive director; 23 years AISD; AISD parent). Strategic plan from the Stetson third-party audit after the TEA agreed order. Draft to TEA April 2024; finalized June 2024; quarterly updates since. Five goals, **142 actionable strategies**. **66 of 142 completed (~47%); almost 50% in progress.** Lee: “the focus is always on students and families.” Work since September 2023 was “stabilizing special education services.”

Trustee questions stay on the agreed-order work, then tie it to consolidation.

**Hunter [04:35:28]** has been inside the work: she went to a transition mini-fair at LBJ; her child receives special education; her husband is blind from birth, works the state Talking Book program, has read at Maplewood. “Engagement is not information sharing.” A Facebook parent said the same. “There are parents that still don’t know we’re going to be closing schools.” From swearing-in to now: “a herculean task.”

**Boswell [04:41:01]** hears less “desperation” from families than before; transition services “were famously bad.” Lee: it “hinges on trained teachers.”

**De Urioste [04:42:48]** frames consolidation as a “stress test” of the foundational work. Lee **[04:44:56]:** looking at the proposed 10 consolidating schools, “about **850 students** receiving special education services that would be moving to a new campus.” Deeper disaggregation for centralized placements. Wall-to-wall dual-language campuses would offer a full continuum (ECSE, life skills); middle and high already have full continuum so no centralized placements there. Bilingual SPS / SCORE / ECSE / life-skills cannot be at every campus — those may remain centralized. **Planning time [04:47:52]** with district and campus staff for those specialized students. ERP to map addresses to service minutes for staffing; staffing still depends on who enrolls and who takes a wall-to-wall transfer.

This is the 850 figure on this night: special-ed students in the 10-school package, not the Nov. 20 ARD-count debate. Hunter is in the schools (LBJ fair, Maplewood, her own child). De Urioste is testing whether the TEA-order machinery will survive the moves.

Scorecard Goal 1 — third-grade literacy — [05:16:48]–[06:20:34]

Lone Star Governance checklist read into the record. Goal: percent of third graders at Meets or above on STAAR reading (English or Spanish) from **47% (June 2024) to 59% (June 2029)**. GPM: second-grade MAP “recommended for intervention” from 30% to 29%. Segura: on track. STAAR change 2022–23 (passages, extended constructed response) explains the dip then climb. Growth “consistent across every student group.” Kaufman: connect third-grade progress through high school. Boswell: if they have to adjust targets because they passed them, “that would be a beautiful thing.”

**Motion [06:20:15]:** Vice President Whitley Chu moves to accept the monitoring report; Singh seconds. “All in favor… Motion passes by all in the dais.” **[06:20:38]** Whitley Chu moves to adjourn. Caption: “the meeting is [ad]journed at 10:05 a.m.”

What this night does and does not say

**Trustees — in the schools, or TEA/process/legal?** Mixed, leaning process. Hunter: Garza drop-off, campus visits, Pickle invitation, Doby restart as lived harm. A trustee: “every school I visited.” Boswell’s Zilker drive is thanked from the floor, not narrated by her on the dais this night. Singh: Ridgetop deed, TEA success criteria, policy text. Kaufman: savings-promise tracking, Gibson articulation. Segura’s frame is integrity of process, TEA timeline November 21, staff on leave. The vote tonight is a monitoring-report acceptance, not a school.

Public comment already treats November 20 as the real night and asks for a TAP-only vote, a pause, numbers, and a fifth South Central dual-language campus. The superintendent’s answer is: TAPs and program moves still go; boundaries wait; investigation open.

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