Austin ISD board considers bond election outcomes, community engagement in facility master plan guidance

Community engagement, district boundaries and transfer policies are among the issues the Austin ISD board of trustees on June 12 directed its administration to investigate as part of its development of guiding principles for a facility master plan, or FMP, which includes planning for bond funds from the May 11 election.

"I think it's important that we do a deep dive into all the factors as to why some of the propositions didn't pass, because some of the obvious things may not really be the issues that we want to just focus on. There may be some underlying issues those may fester and be worse by the time you actually solve the obvious ones," board President Vincent Torres said.

Voters on May 11 approved AISD bond propositions 1 and 3, which will provide about $489.7 million for district facilities improvements. AISD must plan for those projects as well as what to do about overcrowding relief and other changes in propositions 2 and 4, which failed. In April, the board adopted a resolution regarding how it will use bond funds, appoint an oversight committee and address issues related to future facility master planning. By approving that resolution, the board committed the district to developing the FMP by June 30, 2014.

As a key component of the FMP process, the district must work to ensure the FMP includes remedies for underenrolled schools to optimize the way AISD uses its buildings, since those facilities may provide opportunities to relieve overcrowded schools that need immediate attention.

Trustee Lori Moya said one of her takeaways from the bond election was that voters want the district to "fill up schools" before building new ones. She and other trustees noted there is a trend of students leaving AISD to go to other districts, and she said her two priorities for the FMP are investigating adjusting district boundaries, possibly making changes to the district's transfer policy and adding programs to underenrolled schools such as fine arts or science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.

"If there is programming that we could bring to campuses that would encourage folks to stay and encourage folks to come...then I think we would address the issue that we've had over time, and that is folks are leaving," Moya said.

The district must keep community engagement and budgetary affects in mind, trustee Robert Schneider said.

"We need to try to plan to make sure that we're saving the district money and maximizing the way we're doing things so that we can put money into programs, money into kids, versus money into buildings over the long run," he said.