It’s budget season for Austin ISD and the district is deep in the red, currently facing a staggering $181 million budget deficit that ballooned earlier this year. At a briefing held Thursday morning detailing the draft budget, Superintendent Matias Segura and district officials proposed cutting 215 full-time campus positions.
Across the district’s elementary schools, 85 positions would be cut, Segura said. Across middle schools, 51 positions. Across high schools, 79 positions. He also clarified that some of the positions being cut are already vacant. As of May 5, there are 449 vacancies and 261 non-certified teachers in AISD (when the state now requires teachers to be certified) across its elementary, middle, and high schools, according to the district’s data.
At the campus level, on top of the positions, the district also proposed cutting one of two planning periods for middle and high school teachers of non-core subjects next school year, to teach seven rather than six class periods out of eight per day. The following school year, all teachers would have reduced planning time, except for all elementary and core-subject secondary teachers at campuses with unacceptable ratings.
On the evening of May 7, students, families, and staff filled the seats at the AISD board meeting to protest the proposed campus-level cuts. Matthew Gordon, an English teacher at Bowie High School, told trustees that teaching seven periods is “simply unsustainable.”
“The schedule halves my grading time, meaning I would need to increase my unpaid labor time before and after contract hours to almost half of my current daily contract hours,” Gordon said, adding that the quality of essay feedback that he gives students would reduce or turnaround time would increase.
“We can only handle so much before we break.”
Eric Ramos, treasurer of Education Austin
Multiple fine arts teachers told trustees that their class sizes are typically larger and serve more special education students than core classes, and yet their planning time and stipends are under consideration to be cut.
For elementary schools, second to fifth grade class sizes will be larger under the budget proposal, increasing by two students per teacher. Campuses with turnaround plans and unacceptable ratings would not be affected by staffing and planning time changes the first year, with planning time changes going into effect for non-core teachers the following year.
Segura said to allocate staff per campus, the district uses a formula based on the number of students attending, weighted by the number of English-learner and special education students. “If the weighting ends up being closer to 600 [students], we allocate [about] 70 staff. What we’re saying now is, ‘We need you to operate at 68 staff,’” Segura explained.
Eric Ramos, treasurer of Education Austin and a history teacher at Martin Middle School, told the Chronicle that it continues to feel like the burden is being placed on campus-level staff. “And we can only handle so much before we break,” Ramos said. “I feel like we’re getting really close to that breaking point to where people just say, ‘I’m gonna go work somewhere else.’”
Students will also notice the effect of less planning time and larger class sizes on teachers, Ramos added. “At the end of the day, when you’re giving more work for less pay, the students notice when the teachers are stressed … and it just affects the overall morale of the school. It affects how you perform in the class.”
Beyond class sizes and planning time, stipends for special education and bilingual education educators and specialists working in the district will now be granted based on a tiered system, dependent on their level of direct interaction with students.
Zeb White, a speech pathologist within the district, pointed out that the district has only recently been released from state oversight due to the district’s mismanagement of special education services.
“A pay cut for [special education] staff pushes out experienced providers and leads to turnover, delayed evaluations and services, and increases reliance on more expensive outside contractors,” White continued. “We’ve seen that before, and it cost the district tens of millions of dollars to fix.”
The district also proposed cuts to technology used within the district, such as moving away from one device allotted per student and from the software Blend to Google Classroom.
During the board meeting, members of Education Austin, AISD employees’ labor union, hoisted signs with their demands: “Protect campus-based support staff. Retain stipends for [special education] and bilingual campus staff. Maintain the 6-of-8 schedule for secondary teachers.”
Trasell Underwood, vice president of Education Austin, said the union has met with the district as recently as May 11, resulting in conversations that have led to wins in this iteration of the budget, such as the district’s commitment to maintaining one librarian per campus and some stipends. Classified employees, such as transportation, custodial, and food service staff, will be largely unaffected by the budget cuts, Underwood added.
Nonetheless, Education Austin still asks the district to “look inward” at Central Office and administrative line items before making cuts to staffing and planning time at the campus level.
“We’re looking at all of these associate and assistant superintendent positions, and we call into question some of the new hires,” Underwood continued. “We’re wanting them to look at cell phone and travel stipends. … Those are not campus-level stipends. Those are stipends that are baked into administration’s pay.”
Trustee Kathryn Whitley Chu also voiced her opposition to campus-level cuts. “It feels like watering down the formula for my babysitter. It is unacceptable,” she told her fellow trustees. “This will result in much poorer working conditions for those who hold the line.”
Segura has also pointed to the over $715.5 million AISD will pay in recapture back to the state in 2026, just under half of their total adopted budget of $1.7 billion. Moreover, the billions of bond dollars approved by voters in 2022 must be used for upgrading school campuses only, and cannot be used to balance the budget.
The district plans to present a recommended budget May 21. AISD trustees will vote to adopt the budget on June 18, ahead of the state’s June 30 deadline. Segura reminded trustees that if the district fails to meet that deadline, AISD could face takeover by the Texas Education Agency.
“If we didn’t [adopt a budget], certainly state oversight would occur very quickly,” Segura said. “There is no option for me to not bring forward a responsible budget that allows us to maintain payroll, protect the things that we can and that we value, and position us for a vibrant future Austin ISD.”
This article appears in May 15 • 2026.
