The Austin ISD board of trustees met April 1 to discuss necessary steps in finding a partner for Eastside Memorial High School, which could face closure or a Texas Education Agency takeover in 2013–14 as a result of board actions late last year.
The board plans to take action April 22 on an updated version of its current draft contingency plan in the event of the school's closure—a precautionary step Superintendent Meria Carstarphen explained is needed and will give AISD more time to work with the TEA commissioner to try to find a different solution.
At its Dec. 17 meeting, the board adopted a motion to end the district's contract with IDEA Public Schools at the end of the 2012–13 school year and to prevent IDEA's planned expansion into EMHS.
"We should have already had a plan in place, but we didn't," trustee Cheryl Bradley said at the April 1 meeting. "We need to make sure that there's something in place that tells us what will happen to children at all grade levels. Parents should know exactly what the first day of school entails and the whole nine yards."
The board plans to send out a request for proposal, or RFP, to educational entities that could partner with EMHS. Trustees discussed the potential membership composition and a selection process for the RFP Evaluation Committee.
Committee guidelines
In April, the RFP Evaluation Committee will be responsible for scoring the proposals that come in from potential educational partners for the EMHS campus. The district must also work to develop a plan for the vertical team, which comprises a high school and the middle and elementary schools that feed into it.
Jayme Mathias, the trustee for the geographic district in which EMHS is located, suggested the committee include the following:
Non-scoring members to guide proceedings
Co-chairs: AISD's chief financial officer and AISD's director of contract and procurement services
Voting members
- Two parents representing EMHS
- Two parents representing the vertical team
- One educator representing EMHS
- One educator representing the vertical team
- One representative from the Office of Schools
- One representative from the Office of Academics
- One representative from Education Austin
- One administrator from EMHS
- One administrator from the vertical team
Participants must sign an ethics and nondisclosure agreement and cannot have any relationship with a potential partner for the school, according to AISD documents.
Trustee Gina Hinojosa suggested the representatives from EMHS and the vertical teams could be chosen by a lottery rather than appointed by principals.
"We don't want any allegations of a fixed system," she said. "There are so many teachers who want to be part of this."
The board decided to require a lottery for the vertical team representatives but left it up to EMHS to choose its representative.
If the RFP process does not yield a partner agreeable to the TEA commissioner, a majority of the board, and the community, EMHS could close or be turned over to alternative management. The district must come up with a contingency plan in case the commissioner orders the closure of the EMHS campus, according to board documents. If the commissioner orders alternative management for the campus, then the TEA, not AISD, would solicit and select the provider.
In the 2008–09 school year, the TEA allowed AISD to repurpose the Academically Unacceptable Johnston High School, and it became EMHS. The board's approval of a contract with IDEA in 2011 linked that partnership to the school's reconstitution plan, which was put in place because of multiple years of low ratings from the TEA.
The board was required to conclude its discussion April 1 to ensure it can meet the timeline of creating and notifying selected RFP Evaluation Committee members in time for the committee's first meeting April 9.
Next steps for Allan Elementary School
The board also discussed what to do with the Allan Elementary School campus.
Earlier this year, board members reached a consensus that it would not renegotiate an agreement with IDEA or lease Allan Elementary School to IDEA Public Schools, but at the board's March 18 meeting, 16 attendees raised the issue of leasing the Allan Elementary School building to IDEA.
Board President Vincent Torres said April 1 that while the decision was split, trustees seemed to be in agreement about not leasing the school to IDEA. Trustee Ann Teich said she opposed leasing the school to IDEA, while trustees Bradley, Hinojosa, Tamala Barksdale and Lori Moya all said they were not against it.
"I do not have a problem with leasing the school to IDEA for one year at all, because it gives the children and the families an opportunity to know what they're going to do for next year," Bradley said.
Student enrollment at IDEA Allan is approximately 540. If the district loses those students, it could lose $3.7 million in revenue and attendance dollars next year as a result, Carstarphen said.
"I'm not saying that you shouldn't consider [leasing to IDEA]; I'm just saying that keeping our families and students in AISD is a far better value proposition than leasing," Carstarphen said.
Bradley said extending the lease to IDEA could bring some of those families back into AISD.
The board did not take any action during the work session. As the meeting drew to a close just before midnight, Mathias referenced the apparent pattern of scheduling EMHS-related agenda items at such a late hour.
"We've been here 5 hours and 15 minutes," he said. "If we could move these ... conversations earlier in the night, we'd have more mental energy, we'd feel less rushed and the community I'm sure would really appreciate it."
Carstarphen replied board members sit on the calendar committee and can make such changes to the schedule.
