AUSTIN (KXAN) — Palm Elementary School in south Austin may close as part of the Austin Independent School District’s (AISD) school consolidation and boundary change plan. Some parents said the potential closure is leading them to look at schools outside of the district.
The draft plan proposes closing 13 schools and redrawing boundaries with a goal to boost enrollment and resources for students and staff district wide. It also comes as AISD faces a nearly $20 million budget shortfall.
In late October, AISD Superintendent Matias Segura met with parents and families at Palm Elementary as part of the district’s planned school consolidation workshops.
“If we do not own it, if we do not move the system, then at some point in the future this district could look very, very different. We’re not going to let that happen,” Segura said at Palm Elementary on Oct. 27.
The district reports it saw a 14.5% decrease in enrollment over the past ten years. Segura told families one of the key factors comes down to the cost of living in the city.
“Our enrollment has declined in the last so many years and it’s not that our proportion of the students has changed, it’s that there are families that cannot afford to live in Austin. They just can’t and so they’re moving out,” Segura said.
If the consolidation plan is approved, students at Palm Elementary would merge with Perez Elementary, about 2.5 miles away.
“The reality of it all is that there are simply not enough students that live here now that used to live here,” Segura explained to Palm families. “If we took all the students in this area and assumed that every one of them came to Palm, we would still not get close to filling up the school.”
AISD’s most recent data from Palm Elementary shows 328 students were enrolled as of April 2025. The 2023-24 demographics report shows 90.5% of Palm students are economically disadvantaged, 52.1% are English language learners, and 73.8% of students are at risk.
In 2019, AISD was in talks to close Palm Elementary and several other schools in an effort to tackle systemic inequality among students. With over a hundred more students enrolled at the time compared to 2025, district leaders had planed to combine Palm Elementary with Perez Elementary. The plan was met with pushback from parents, but district leaders ultimately voted to close four schools. Palm was spared.
Six years later, Palm Elementary parents told KXAN the threat of a closure has them looking outside of AISD for next school year.
Parent Nestor Dominguez has two students enrolled in the district, one at Palm and the other at Bedichek Middle, who also attended Palm last year. Bedichek is one of the two middle schools that may close as part of the consolidation plan.
Dominguez grew up in the neighborhood near the schools and said the talk of closures “hits home.”
“Now I got to figure out where I’m going to take my youngest to school and my oldest to school and I don’t even know where they’re going to school,” Dominguez said.
When asked where he’s looking next, Dominguez said he’s seriously considering a charter school, “With the charter schools that are able to combine both of my kids into one school, if I can take my child to sixth grade, seventh grade, and my little one can still go to third and fourth in the same school, why not?”
Judy Garcia, who has a grandchild enrolled at Palm, agreed that a charter school may be in her family’s future.
“My baby is going to be in the middle school and we are looking at charter schools because of the middle schools,” she said. “Bedichek is one he would’ve gone to but they’re closing that one, so here we go again looking for a different school.”
“I get that we have a budget, but our kids also have a place here that we want them to stay,” Garcia added. “It a good community and I love the teachers.”
AISD released an updated draft plan on Oct. 31 to address concerns over how siblings would be enrolled.
As KXAN previously reported, the original draft plan allowed students to remain at their current school until they finish the grade levels offered at that campus, even if their neighborhood is rezoned. The updated plan clarifies siblings of students who remain at their current school will also be able to enroll at the same campus.
AISD’s consolidation workshops are set to continue until November 5. Segura will answer questions at Ridgetop Elementary School at 8 a.m. and Oak Springs Elementary School at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
The final vote on the draft plan by AISD trustees is set for Nov. 20.
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