One Week After Warning of School Consolidations, AISD May Have Its First Target

Dobie Middle School in northeast Austin (photo by David Brendan Hall)

The press conference on April 4 at Dobie Middle School seemed like any other. It was arranged by local nonprofit Austin Voices for Education and Youth to celebrate the award of a million dollar grant for schools on the northeast side of town. The grant, known as a Promise Neighborhood grant and awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, will provide $1 million over the next two years to help kids with health care, food assistance, housing, and early education so they can do better in school.

The press conference took place in Dobie Middle School’s gym. Austin Voices’ executive director, Allen Weeks, acted as emcee. Students filled the bleachers. Elected officials spoke – County Judge Andy Brown, County Commissioner Brigid Shea, City Council Member Chito Vela, AISD Board President Lynn Boswell. Principal Roxanne Walker spoke. The school’s band and dance team performed. There were hugs and laughter when the program ended.

But just below the surface of the celebration lay a perceptible sense of anxiety and bitterness. The night before, Austin ISD had sent an email to Dobie Middle School’s parents, teachers, and staff, informing them that starting this August the school will either be handed over to a charter school organization or closed entirely.

The email, attributed to AISD Assistant Superintendent Angel Wilson, said that if student test scores at Dobie don’t significantly improve by the end of next school year – May 2026 – the state, through the Texas Education Agency, will be able to take over the entire school district, just as it has Houston ISD. “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,” the email stated. “This is not a risk the district is willing to take.”

The email laid out three options: allowing Dobie Middle School to be taken over by a charter school approved by TEA, starting this summer; temporarily closing Dobie for a year to “reimagine” it; or closing the school permanently. According to the email, if the district takes the first option, it won’t be able to guarantee that Dobie’s teachers and staff will keep their jobs. If the district chooses the second or third options, students will be reassigned to other middle schools. Superintendent Matias Segura later told reporters the district will make a decision on Dobie by the end of the month. Between now and then there will be meetings with the community and with Principal Walker. Parents and students will be able to express their thoughts at meetings of the board of trustees tonight (April 10), at a meeting at the school on April 14, and in direct contact with Assistant Superintendent Wilson.

Austin Voices for Education and Youth Executive Director Allen Weeks (photo by Brant Bingamon)

AISD spokespeople had not answered our questions about the likelihood of Dobie’s permanent closure, especially considering that the district is studying the consolidation of small schools like it, as of press time.

The threat to Dobie comes after the school underperformed over the last several years. Texas requires schools to test students in grades three through eight, and at the end of some high school courses, using its yearly test, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. The STAAR results are used to grade students, schools, and entire school districts. If a single school in a district gets a D or F for five years in a row, TEA can take over management of the district.

Dobie received an F from TEA for the first time in 2019. The agency didn’t release school ratings in the four years that followed – first because of the COVID-19 pandemic, then because of lawsuits challenging the legality of the STAAR accountability system. Superintendent Segura told local media in a meeting after the Dobie press conference that the district believed the STAAR results would continue to be delayed, giving AISD time to turn the school’s scores around. But on April 3, a Texas appeals court allowed the ratings to be released. TEA hasn’t yet released them but, according to a post on AISD’s website, the district has data showing that when it does Dobie will receive F’s, putting the local school system at risk of being taken over by the state.

The Chronicle asked Segura about the legitimacy of the STAAR accountability system, which has been criticized at this year’s legislative session by Democratic and Republican legislators. Segura did not condemn STAAR outright but said, “You’re going to see schools across the state that were previously a B, and then all of a sudden they’re an F. You know – same students, same teachers. So why is that?”

At the Dobie press conference hours earlier, Allen Weeks was the only speaker to address what he called the elephant in the room, saying that he was feeling what the audience was feeling. He reminded them, however, that Austin Voices successfully fought to save Webb Middle School and Reagan High School from closure over the last 15 years. He promised to fight to save Dobie too.

“I know we’ve got a system that is broken,” Weeks said. “And Dobie Middle School, along with dozens of other schools around the state, is caught in this game. So we’re going to be working as hard as we can for you as a community. We’re going to stand up for Dobie.”