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Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Parents, staff voice concern over potential for Lamar Middle to take on students facing Dobie closure
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A meeting at Lamar Middle School on Monday evening was packed with parents, students and staff voicing concern over a potential shake-up looming in the near future. Dobie Middle School is at risk of closure as the Austin Independent School District superintendent and Board of Trustees consider options on how to deal with poor student performance at the school, and Lamar Middle School could be directly impacted. AISD leaders said the entire district is at risk of being taken over by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) because of low performance levels at Dobie. AISD Assistant Superintendent Angel Wilson sent a memo to teachers earlier this month notifying them of the possible TEA 'takeover' and options AISD has to avoid a takeover. MORE DETAILS: Northeast Austin middle school may close after school year The Dobie Middle School page on AISD's website outlines the district's options in a list of 'Dobie Turnaround Plan FAQs.' The district must choose one of the following: Restart the school for the 2025–26 school year in partnership with a charter school approved by the Texas Education Agency. This would be similar to what has happened at Mendez Middle School with Third Future Schools. The charter school would have the authority to hire all campus staff, including teachers and the principal, and we could not guarantee positions for current staff. Permanently close Dobie at the end of the 2024-25 school year and reassign Dobie students to another Austin ISD middle school for the 2025-26 school year. Temporarily close Dobie at the end of the 2024-25 school year and develop a plan to reimagine the school. Current Dobie students would be reassigned to another Austin ISD middle school for the 2025-26 school year and a new school would open at the Dobie campus at a future date. The Lamar Middle School Parent Teacher Association said two of those three options could result in hundreds of Dobie students being transferred to Lamar, which parents and staff worry could strain Lamar. Several guardians whose children attend Lamar Middle School emailed KXAN stating they were not informed of the potential change until last week. They said AISD sent an email about the possible transfer on Thursday evening. The district scheduled a meeting at Lamar for Monday evening ahead of the school board's regular meeting this coming Thursday, where Superintendent Matias Segura explained the options and answered questions. 'This is moving too fast. Families were informed with less than a week's notice—over a holiday weekend—about decisions that could fundamentally reshape Lamar and Dobie Middle Schools,' Lamar Middle School PTA President Edward Bradfield said in an email. 'We're not just talking about schedules or budgets. We're talking about trust. About the future of our children.' The AISD board was set to discuss and potentially take action on the Dobie MS Turnaround Plan at its meeting this Thursday, but the meeting agenda online states the public hearing and approval of the plan was rescheduled to Monday, April 28, at 6 p.m. The item is still on this week's meeting agenda, but it is for discussion only. The Turnaround Plan must receive board approval before submission to TEA, which is required by April 30, 2025. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Underperforming Austin middle school receives federal grant. Will it save AISD from state control?
Author's note: A previous version of this story stated that TEA might take control over Dobie Middle School. This has been corrected to reflect that the TEA could take control over the Austin ISD board of trustees. AUSTIN (KXAN) — Poor student performance at Dobie Middle School could open Austin ISD up to a 'takeover' by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), unless the school 'does not significantly improve student success … by the end of next school year,' according to a memo sent to teachers on Thursday. 'This means that they could replace our current locally elected board of trustees with a TEA-appointed board of managers and potentially hire a superintendent of their choice,' wrote AISD Assistant Superintendent Angel Wilson in the email. 'This is not a risk the district is willing to take.' KXAN reached out to the TEA for a statement about the school. This article will be updated if a statement is received. AISD, in its 'Dobie Turnaround Plan FAQ', said that state law would prompt the TEA to take control if a school fails to meet standards for five years in a row. The last rating the school received was for its 2018-2019 year — an F grade. A Texas 15th Court of Appeals judge ruled Thursday that the TEA could release its grades for the 2023-2024 year, which would include a more recent rating of Dobie Middle. 'If ratings had been released, our calculations show Dobie would have received an 'F,'' AISD wrote. 'School ratings will not be calculated until the end of the 2024-25 school year. While there have been meaningful improvements at Dobie, the results of mid-year student assessments indicate that Dobie will not receive a rating of 'C' or better.' The district said its board of trustees will discuss its plan for Dobie during its April 24 meeting. That plan will be submitted to the TEA on April 30. Wilson outlined three 'incredibly difficult options,' which she said were under consideration by AISD: Restart Dobie Middle for the 2025–2026 school year, working with a TEA-approved charter school that holds 'authority to hire all campus staff'; Close the school permanently at the end of the school year; or Close the school temporarily at the end of the school year, and make 'a plan to reimagine the school'. If the district closes the Northeast Austin school, it would reassign students to other schools in the district. The middle schools nearest to Dobie are Webb Middle School (3.3 miles from Dobie) and Burnet Middle School (4.1 miles). In the FAQ, AISD said it lost out on a state grant last year, which it believed 'would allow Dobie to make the necessary gains to avoid the threat of TEA takeover.' 'Unfortunately, the grant was very competitive and we were not awarded the funds necessary to pay for the additional investments we planned to make at Dobie,' AISD said. 'At that time, we also believed that we would have two years to get Dobie where it needs to be to avoid a TEA takeover of the district. More recent conversations with TEA have made it clear that we do not have as much time as we believe is necessary to make the significant gains TEA requires.' Leaders with AISD, Austin City Council and Travis County met at the school Friday morning to hold a press conference announcing a U.S. Department of Education 'Promise Neighborhoods' grant for the St. John and Rundberg communities. Public school advocacy groups Save Texas Schools and Austin Voices for Education and Youth said that the grant will provide over $1 million over two years for planning, in a joint press release Thursday. 'Promise Neighborhood is based on the idea that all of the things that influence the success of kids in a neighborhood are connected,' said Austin Voices Executive Director Allen Weeks in the release. 'Sometimes we put all of the pressure on the schools, but it really takes all of the partners in a community, including health, workforce, housing, early childhood and more.' The grant typically provides up to $30 million for implementing the plan; however, it is unclear if the Trump Administration's stated plan to dissolve the Department of Education would impede those funds. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
