The heartbreak and confusion came flooding out Monday night at a meeting between Austin ISD leaders and the Dobie Middle School community. Over a hundred students, parents, teachers, and staff filled Dobie’s cafeteria to lament district plans that could close the school on East Rundberg Lane that has served families for 51 years.
Superintendent Matias Segura told the audience that drastic action had to be taken after years of poor performance at Dobie to keep the state of Texas from taking over Austin’s local school system. He asked the community to choose from three options: closing Dobie permanently; closing it for at least two years, then reopening it; or bringing in a charter school to take over management of the school.
Abel Lopez, a Dobie graduate who has lived in the Rundberg area for over 30 years, brought his 5-year-old daughter to the meeting. As the first person to comment on the options, he made clear that the community understands the economic and racial inequity which is driving the decision it’s being forced to make.
“This is personal to everybody,” Lopez told Segura. “My daughter might not be able to go to the school that she’s supposed to go to, based on being part of a community that is underserved. And so when it comes to giving us these options right here, it just sounds like we have to settle, as opposed to doing what is the best thing for this community.”
Dobie Middle School’s student population is 81% Hispanic, 11% African American, 3% Asian, and 3% white. Roughly nine in 10 students are economically disadvantaged. One in five are in special education programs. Three out of four are English language learners, and a number of them begin school each year with no English whatsoever, school employees told us.
Before Lopez’s comment, Segura detailed why Dobie is at risk. He told the audience that the state of Texas grades schools the same way that it grades students, with its State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test, the STAAR. If any school in a district gets a D or F rating for five years in a row, the state can take over the entire school district, replacing its elected leaders, firing teachers, and closing schools. Segura said AISD recently learned that school grades are about to be released which will show Dobie is at high risk of scoring its fifth consecutive year of F ratings, creating the possibility of a district takeover like the one currently unfolding in Houston.
That is not a risk that AISD is willing to take, Segura said. He spoke at length about the three options the district has come up with to avoid it. The first is for AISD to bring in a charter school to take control of Dobie. Segura noted that the charter school chosen would have to be approved by the Texas Education Agency. The school’s management would not have to employ district teachers or staff. Its operation of Dobie would not have to reflect Austin’s values.
The second option is to close Dobie permanently, redraw school boundaries, and begin sending Dobie’s students to other schools, beginning in August. Segura pointed out that state law would require the students to go to schools that are currently receiving A or B ratings. The closest middle schools with those ratings are Lamar and Murchison middle schools, between 6 and 8 miles away, a one-hour bus commute.
“I was bused, and I know what it’s like to be displaced from a school and a community that you grew up with.” – Dobie teaching assistant Elizabeth Davis
The third option is to temporarily close Dobie, then “reimagine” and reopen it. There was a caveat here as well: State law requires districts that close and reopen schools to change them significantly. Segura said that a re-envisioned Dobie could follow a K-8 model, or have a different curriculum, or serve the entire district. He estimated that a temporary closure of Dobie would have to last at least two years to allow the community and the district enough time to come up with a new plan for the school.
Segura finished by emphasizing that the district has made no decision. He urged community members to fill out a survey stating which of the three options they prefer. He said the district will announce the chosen option at its next board of trustees meeting on April 23.
Then Segura turned over the mic. For the next three hours, he stood listening as students, parents, and school employees poured out their dismay. Most refused to consider any of the three options, instead asking Segura to keep Dobie open. They said the school was beginning to turn around. They praised newly hired principal Roxanne Walker and the school’s teachers and counselors. They celebrated the school’s theatre, sports, mariachi, and band programs.
“We have put blood, sweat, tears, and money into everything that we do here at Dobie,” Roshawn Brown, a Dobie seventh-grader, said. “We as a campus have some of the best fine arts. And as my friends are placed in these A and B schools, I question, how are the fine arts going to be? Is there going to be mariachi? Is there going to be sports? Is there going to be theatre there? – because Dobie has one of the best theatre programs ever.”
A succession of speakers condemned the state’s accountability system, which forces newly arrived Spanish-speaking students to take the STAAR test in English, driving down ratings for schools like Dobie. They asked what will happen to the money allocated to improve the school by Austin ISD’s 2022 bond package. They worried that the 10 or more charter schools near Dobie will wind up absorbing many of its students. They lamented that neighborhood kids who remain in public school will be forced to spend hours each day on buses, separated from their friends and community.
The audience mostly ignored the idea of permanently closing Dobie or handing it over to a charter school. The third option, a temporary closure, did get consideration from several speakers. But they also acknowledged the pain that a temporary closure would bring to students.
“This is tough. This hurts,” Dobie teaching assistant Elizabeth Davis said through tears. “My pain is not just for myself, it’s for our students, because I was bused, and I know what it’s like to be displaced from a school and a community that you grew up with, where you had this family, this connectedness, to be sent to the other side of town, where people are just trying to figure out who are you and why are you here. This is what’s going to happen to our babies.”
This article appears in April 18 • 2025.
