Photo by Kelli Weldon

No land purchase until district identifies school programming

Plans for a new high school in South Austin slowed to a halt in May 2013 when voters rejected an Austin ISD bond proposition that would have included funds for a land and feasibility study for the school.

In 2008, voters approved $32 million in bond funds for a land purchase for the proposed school site. In 2013 AISD held community meetings about academic programming for the potential school. Parents and teachers showed up, comments were collected and submitted to the district, and since then, there has been silence, said Carolyn Merritt, a parent who served on the South High School planning committee.

"Here we are in 2014, and there is no movement on the purchase of that land, and until we purchase that land, you cannot build a high school," Merritt said. "There's a lot of frustration and concern."

Paul Turner, executive director of facilities for AISD, said there is a renewed interest in talking about the project. South high school land showed up as a topic on the March 17 board of trustees executive session agenda. Turner explained real estate discussions are an exception to the Open Meetings Act.

As AISD begins holding community meetings in March and April to gain input on developing its facility master plan, or FMP, it is shining a spotlight on how the district determines facilities needs, funds school construction and maintains its buildings—all factors in the discussion about the need for a south high school in the first place.

South Austin awaits relief

Strategies to help address overcrowded and under-enrolled schools will be a focus as part of the FMP process and are part of the FMP guiding principles the board approved in 2013. South Austin needs another high school to provide relief for Bowie, Austin and Akins high schools, which are over capacity, said Robert Schneider, the AISD trustee for District 7 in Southwest Austin.

"Absent funding, you don't really have a way to get to a good relief strategy for any of the high schools," he said.

Turner said the potential school's academic program must be decided before a land purchase is made.

"The next step in the process is to decide whether this is going to be a comprehensive high school or a specialty high school of some kind," he said.

That has been the "next step" for about a year. Schneider said the lack of progress on the south high school is frustrating.

"I don't think there's any effort by the administration at all right now to actually do something about this, and as I've said before, it's a really unforgivable failure on their part," Schneider said.

Overcrowding

Akins has about 2,500 students and 40 portable classrooms on its campus, Principal Daniel Girard said. He said he doesn't mind the portables, but another high school in the area could provide relief.

"There is a need," he said. "In the southeast area especially and the south central area, I believe that there is a lot of anticipated growth, which would perhaps warrant the need for more facility availability for kids."

Girard said AISD should be realistic and perhaps reconsider school boundaries.

"I think all options need to be considered, just as a constituent. By examining the boundaries [AISD] may be able to satisfy the issue around overcrowding," he said.

Overcrowding and the south high school were among concerns residents cited to the League of Women Voters, which works with AISD to hold community conversations about relevant issues, said Nancy Oelklaus, the league's vice president and Education Working Group chairwoman.

District 6 and 7 residents can share input on overcrowding and why voters opposed bonds that might have alleviated overcrowding at a March 29 community conversation at the Travis High School Institute of Hospitality and Culinary Arts, 1211 E. Oltorf St.

"We looked at the voting pattern and discovered that these two districts overwhelmingly rejected all of the bonds. ... We wanted to understand why," Oelklaus said.

Merritt said there are more program options at AISD schools in north Austin.

"I think that one of the messages South Austin was sending to the district when the bonds were voted down was that we are tired of being ignored," she said.

Land and academic programming

The community consensus is for a comprehensive high school with career and technology; science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM; band and fine arts; and athletics programs, Merritt said. Residents said regardless of programming, AISD needs to buy the land so it has the space for a comprehensive high school, Merritt said.

Construction is not cheap, Schneider said.

"It's going to be awhile before [the district] asks for another $120 million to build a school," he said. "The last timeline I saw in terms of the actual development and building the school was even if they got money for the engineering studies in the 2013 bond, it was going to be the 2019–20 or the 2020–21 school year before you'd be looking at even opening the school."

Merritt was a member of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee from 2004–12.

"Land prices in the 2004 bond had jumped exorbitantly, and that was why we fought so hard to get the land purchase into the 2008 bond, specifically saying you need to buy it now because it's either going to disappear, or it's going to be prohibitively expensive," Merritt said.

Merritt said the high school should provide relief for both Bowie and Akins.

"I think that South Austin is unified in that we want something easily accessible for all of south Austin," she said.