Closing Eastside Memorial High School is among the possibilities following the Austin ISD board of trustees' vote Dec. 17 to cancel the district's contract with IDEA Public Schools, board President Vincent Torres said at a Jan. 29 board meeting. He said the board will try to prevent that and plans to meet during the coming weeks to discuss its options for the IDEA Allan charter school community; EMHS, the high school IDEA Allan feeds into; and other elementary and middle schools feeding into EMHS.

At its Dec. 17 meeting, the board adopted a motion to end the IDEA contract at the end of the 2012–13 school year and delay the program's expansion into EMHS. As part of the motion, the board directed Superintendent Meria Carstarphen to work with the board and affected communities to formulate and implement a plan.

Community members representing both IDEA Allan and Eastside Memorial High School met in the cafeteria of Reagan High School to hear the board's update on the termination of the district's contract with IDEA Public Schools.

"One of my objectives in having the meeting tonight is to notify this community that the action of the board in December means a potential closure of Johnston High School, which as we now know is Eastside Memorial, or having that school be turned over to an outside entity not run by AISD and not under this board's control," Torres explained. "That's a very real possibility."

Torres cautioned that the board also is running out of time.

Carstarphen explained that State Education Commissioner Michael Williams has said AISD must have a plan for implementation in place by the end of the 2012–13 school year.

In the 2008–09 school year, the Texas Education Agency allowed AISD to repurpose the Academically Unacceptable Johnston school, and it became EMHS. The board's approval of the IDEA contract in 2011 linked that partnership to the reconstitution plan for the school, Carstarphen said. If the commissioner determines that the campus has not fully implemented the reconstitution plan, or if students fail to demonstrate progress in areas in which the district was supposed to improve, there are only a few options. One of those options is repurposing, but since AISD already repurposed the campus once, it cannot do so again.

"Now that we've used that part of the statutory authority our options become far more limited," she said.

The commissioner's remaining choices include closing the school or turning the campus over to alternative management such as a nonprofit or a district within the region that is not AISD, she said.

Carstarphen asked the board for guidance on next steps.

"If we don't take some actions now to develop an implementation plan, we, the board, are going to have a lot of other folks to answer to," Torres said.

Trustee Gina Hinojosa asked Carstarphen to develop and propose a timeline for the board to consider. In the meantime, trustee Jayme Mathias said the board should seek as much community engagement as possible to ensure local families are involved and informed throughout the process.

Carstarphen said the district has already notified IDEA Allan parents about the transfer process and deadlines, and the board has been discussing options for the families affected by the decision. The board has talked about many options, she said, including keeping EMHS under AISD control, keeping the Allan campus closed or partnering with a national entity.

"[Keeping EMHS open] is not good enough," Mathias said, adding the school should not only be kept open, but improved. "We need to make Eastside Memorial an excellent option."