AISD Ends T-STEM Partnership at Mendez Middle School

Austin ISD's Mendez Middle School (Photo by Jana Birchum)

The operators of Austin ISD's first in-district charter school have run out of time to boost performance at Mendez Middle School, three years after taking the reins at the Southeast Austin campus.

In 2018, the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (T-STEM) coalition was tasked with turning around a school that had fallen short of the state's accountability standards for five consecutive years. Rather than closing Mendez – a school beloved by generations of its Dove Springs neighbors and former students – AISD brought in T-STEM under the Texas Partner­ships program created by 2017's Senate Bill 1882, which lets a district convert a poorly performing school into an in-district charter with the help of an approved entity.

Concerns of charters infringing on public education aside, the move bought time for Mendez. Schools that undergo this transition get a two-year grace period to improve, during which time the campus doesn't receive a rating from the Texas Education Agency. Two more rated years are allocated to receive a passing score. If a school doesn't meet that benchmark, TEA can choose between a forced closure or replacing the district's board of trustees. Although the pandemic bought the school more time – no Texas schools received ratings in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years – because Mendez already got an F in its first rated year (2018-19), if it gets lower than a C in its second assessed year (2022-23), TEA could step in.

As Chief Schools Officer Anthony Mays laid out in a Dec. 2 information session, the AISD Board of Trustees has three options: find a new partner, initiate an AISD takeover of Mendez, or close the school to avoid a TEA takeover. During that meeting, Super­in­ten­dent Stephanie Elizalde said the board would avoid state takeover at all costs: "We have implications for an entire school district based on one school ... I don't want to get that close to that line." Elizalde said that although the board would move to close the school before it got anywhere near a TEA takeover, the district owes it to the community to take extra steps to avoid closure as well.

On Nov. 19, AISD notified the coalition that the district would opt out of the final year of its SB 1882 agreement, effective June 30. "We acknowledge AISD is within their contractual rights to end the partnership, but are disappointed upcoming performance data will not be factored into this decision, as T-STEM projections indicate we are on track to earn at least a C rating using TEA's Ratings Pro­jector Model," T-STEM's David Sim­mons told the Chronicle.

He said the pandemic was hugely problematic; the coalition's model is based on hands-on, project-based learning, and the postponement of standardized testing meant T-STEM had less data to use to evaluate results. Although Elizalde acknowledged during the meeting that it would be possible for T-STEM to achieve a C or better rating, she won't take the chance – especially because other trending data, besides standardized testing results, points in the wrong direction.

Trustees will vote on next steps at their Dec. 16 meeting. While a district takeover is on the table, that would represent an additional strain on AISD's dwindling resources. If the board chooses to find a new SB 1882 partner, that process would begin over the winter holidays, and AISD media relations specialist Eddie Villa said the district would hope to have the new partner announced by the end of March.

Mendez Middle School has been part of Dove Springs resident Robert Kibbie's life for more than 30 years. He attended the school as a student in the late 1980s, has had two children go there, and has spent more than three years as president of the school's PTA. He described saving the school as essential to the preservation of his community. "Dove Springs, we have a lot of pride, and that's our school. ... It just means the world to us." Apparently, the board is listening. During the Dec. 2 meeting, Trustee Yasmin Wagner said: "The entire time I've been on the board it's always been, 'Next year we'll get it right.' I'm not content to wait any longer. ... We have to make sure we're doing right by Mendez."