On Oct. 9, under the sweltering 5 o’clock cloudless sky, about 100 Austin ISD parents and students clustered at the edge of the I-35 service road where AISD houses their headquarters, hoisting signs reading “I love Maplewood” and “Save Becker.” Inside the building, the AISD Board of Trustees prepared to gather at the dais. A passing CapMetro bus honked in support to a wave of cheers.
Multiple posters endorsed the parent-created LetsGetItRightAISD.com, a petition website against the district consolidation plan that the district released on Oct. 3, which proposes to close 13 schools and rezone thousands of students to a new neighborhood school.
The redrawn district is meant to fill empty schools, better serve students learning English, allow elementary and middle schools to more cleanly feed into middle and high, and save desperately needed money. The plan also means to save AISD from a takeover by the TEA, due to 33 schools receiving unacceptable STAAR-based accountability scores in August…