AUSTIN (KXAN) — Early in the morning in east Austin, Charline Brewster gets her four children ready for the day and walks them to school from her apartment at Booker T. Washington Terraces.
The sun is barely up as Brewster and dozens of other families walk the lighted pathway that cuts through Booker T. and spills onto the sidewalk in front of Oak Springs Elementary School.
The walk takes less than five minutes — a relief, and a treasured luxury, for Brewster and many other parents at the subsidized apartment complex who don’t have access to reliable transportation.
“You walk them in and it’s like I am giving them to a family member,” Brewster said about Oak Springs faculty.
It is not a coincidence that it’s so easy for families to get to and from the school. Oak Springs was built in 1958 specifically to serve the students who live in the Booker T. Washington Housing Community.
But the joy and convenience of the long-time neighborhood school is at risk. Oak Springs is one of the 13 schools Austin Independent School District leaders want to close next school year.
The district hopes closing the schools and redrawing the district’s boundaries will reduce its nearly $20 million budget shortfall and ensure the long-term health of the school system.
But as news of the proposed closure has spread through the apartment complex, the plan has raised questions and anxiety from parents.
“Just last year, they were offering the kids a new school so now it’s like they are taking the school away from the kids,” Brewster said.
A ‘new’ school, declining enrollment
As beloved as Oak Springs Elementary is by the community it serves, the campus has, for years, been under-enrolled. Just 215 students attended last school year, according to the Texas Education Agency the lowest in the last decade. The campus is only at 56% capacity, according to Austin ISD.
Oak Springs is also one of 12 schools that will require a turnaround plan for academics because of three consecutive F ratings it earned from the state, another situation parents only learned they were in this year.
“Instead of knowing where we needed to focus, where we need to improve our students, everything was held back and then just kind of presented to us without real options, a realistic option,” Oak Springs parent Isabel Torres said.
But the major concern for Oak Springs families is transportation. Many of the parents at Booker T. Washington Terraces say they don’t have any. If the school closes, the students would be rezoned to Blackshear Elementary. That school is 1.1 miles away from Booker T. Washington Terraces, which is close enough that the district is not legally required to bus its elementary-aged students to the campus.
“If there are any emergencies at the school, it’s a better commute. We can run down there. Even sometimes there have been teachers who will come to your home if you don’t have a phone,” Brewster said.
Crista Calk also lives in the Booker T. Washington complex. She has a son in the school’s Pre-K3 program and planned to enroll her youngest child in the school next year.
“A lot of us don’t have transportation to move to the other schools like Blackshear where they are wanting to transfer everyone from Oak Springs. I don’t have the ability to walk 30 minutes,” Calk said.
For its part, the district said the changes would mean “schools would be able to offer resources, staffing and programs more effectively and consistently to all students.”
Austin ISD School Board Trustee Candace Hunter, whose district covers Oak Springs, told KXAN she is not commenting on the district’s draft plan at this stage because it is still in development.
$3.5 million spent, construction stopped
Parents are not just upset about potentially losing the community they built. They are also wondering what happens to the new facility they were promised through the 2022 bond, which voters approved. Construction on the new building has completely stopped since the district proposed closing Oak Springs.
“The kids were promised that new building. They were part of the process,” Hilary, an Oak Springs parent, said. “I think it’s just messed up for the kids because they have been looking forward to it.”
Bond records show that as of July, the district had already spent more than $3.5 million on a new modernized campus for Oak Springs and “committed” more than $45 million through contracts and purchase orders.
“We have not canceled the project, and we have not canceled any contracts. We are pausing to protect the funds while a determination is made concerning consolidations,” an Austin ISD spokesperson told KXAN.
The district told us it has not spent the $45 million and added that the funds being committed does not mean it will be spent.
“It’s just grossly mismanaged,” Torres said. “For our little people, this is life-changing. You are separating children from what they know. You are separating parents from the support they are accustomed to. It leaves us very vulnerable.”
The district has been holding conversations with Superintendent Matias Segura at each school set to close under the draft consolidation plan. Oak Springs is set to have their meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 5.
The district will hold an east Austin question and answer session on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at Greater Calvary Bible Church on Berkman Drive.
You can find all of our coverage on the Austin ISD Draft Consolidation plan here.
Digital Data Reporter Christopher Adams and Photojournalist Todd Bailey contributed to this report.
Credit: Source link
