With Changes Coming, AISD Revisits Facilities Plan

The Austin ISD Board of Trustees on Monday night (Aug. 12) got its first glimpse of an update to the district's Facilities Master Plan, which outlines future needs for campuses, auditoriums, stadiums, and other buildings over a 25-year timeline. This is the first revisiting of the FMP since 2017's $1.05 billion school bond program was approved by voters, and reflects both projects completed already from that bond package and further needs that the bond dollars will not address.

Mendez Middle School (Photo by Jana Birchum)

The 431 pages of draft FMP recommendations will likely be given final approval in October, alongside the scenarios emerging from the district's complex "school changes" process – which could ultimately lead to the closure of schools, the redrawing of attendance zones, and the redistribution of some academic programs. Those draft scenarios will be coming before the trustees Sept. 9, but the expected expression of concerns and complaints by worried parents and school communities has already begun.

While the "school changes" process has been slowed down a bit from its original timeline, AISD Operations Officer Matias Segura, who is leading both efforts, said it's a good thing to undertake the massive overhauls simultaneously. Both initiatives seek to achieve overlapping goals such as improving "equity and access" to better-aligned programming tracks for students to follow from elementary through high school, among others.

As such, it's possible some of the approved "school changes" might solve some of the district's facilities problems, or vice versa. One example involves the district's Wilhelmina Delco Center near U.S. Highway 183 and Highway 290 in East Austin. Currently the arena serves as a gymnasium space for a variety of district competitions and performances, but the draft FMP recommends closing or repurposing the facility – which could include making it available to host programs being relocated under "school changes" scenarios.

Larger projects, such as the construction of new athletics and fine arts spaces – or even opening new school campuses, a more complex question in a continued era of shrinking enrollment – would require a new bond package once the mammoth 2017 bond program is in its home stretch. "We are beginning to have some discussions about when an appropriate next bond might be," Segura told the board, "but previously we had considered 2022 as a target date."