by Roseana Auten If you live within the Austin Independent School District (AISD), a bond
election is in your future. It may come as soon as December, or it may not come
until early next year, but AISD trustees will most certainly be coming to the
voters soon – asking them to authorize somewhere around a third of a billion
dollars in bonds. If voters do approve a bond package, it would be only the
third time in over 25 years that they’ve done so. Any debate over the bonds
will likely go beyond questions of whether taxpayers will pay for them and into
questions of the entire city’s future.
After a year of work and study, a 19-member, board-appointed, citizens’ bond
advisory committee issued a report in June, in which some $370 million in
school needs are outlined. Committee chair Mel Waxler said the report does not
constitute a recommendation for a dollar figure on the bond package, but merely
pinpoints costs associated with needs the group identified.
That $370 million is helpfully stratified into “Tier 1” (must-do), “Tier 2”
(should-do), and “Other” (someday-do) categories, and accordingly, the greatest
weight has been given to the $332.7 million in Tier 1 expenses (see graph). Of
the $332.7 million, nearly $124 million is recommended for renovating existing
facilities, $101 million goes toward new schools (or “relief schools,” as
they’re termed in the report), and $22.6 million would go toward classroom
additions. Another $85.1 million is proposed for security enhancements,
technology, district facilities, and land acquisition.
But only the AISD Board of Trustees can total up a tab for the taxpayers and
set a bond election. At press time, the second of three work sessions and a
public hearing on the bond proposal was scheduled for September 6, at 6pm at
the Carruth Administration Building, 1111 W. Sixth Street.
The dollar figures, the proposed renovations, and the possible locations of
new schools – which are typically points of contention in any school bond issue
– serve as a backdrop for some of the biggest questions surrounding the future
of Austin. Namely, will the district’s strategy to relieve overcrowded schools
simply promote more growth and sprawl in Southwest Austin? And at the same
time, is AISD willing to save older and smaller schools in the city’s core, or
the “hole” of the suburban Austin doughnut?
Of the six new elementary
schools proposed by the bond committee, three are slated for Southwest Austin
(a zone that represents nearly one-third of AISD’s 230.7 square miles). Another
would be built in South Central Austin, one in the southeast area, and one in
North Central/Northeast Austin. Also added would be two middle schools – one
southwest, one south – as well as another high school on the south side of
town. This, the committee decided (though some members did so with reluctance),
is what the future demands.
How does AISD project its student population growth in the first
place? District planners know, for example, that AISD has been gaining
1,500-2,000 students per year over the last several years. Last year,
enrollment topped out at 73,342 by the end of the first six weeks; the six
weeks’ enrollment for this year is expected at 74,885. (The six week yardstick
is important because school districts report the number to the State of Texas
to receive their funding.) Projections obtained from AISD indicate that by
1998-99, growth will slow a little bit to 900-1,000 new students per year. For
the 2004-05 school year, enrollment is projected at 85,399.
The new growth seems to be coming from the youngest members of the new
generation – the elementary grades. The older, empty-nested generations tend to
turn over core city neighborhoods to new, starter generations, and underused
schools become needed again. But at the same time, economic good times spark
mobility – when they get more money, people buy a house and move. New families
move into the dwellings the old families vacate. But mostly, new suburban
housing development, so attractive to many, simply rushes populations beyond
the schools’ target enrollments. Although this situation exists in several
areas of the district, the southwest area is the most celebrated example.
AISD Director of Planning Dan Robertson says that the present overcrowding at
southwest schools such as Bailey and Covington middle schools, and Patton and
Kiker elementaries – which serve subdivisions such as Circle C, Maple Run,
Shady Hollow, and others – is the main impetus to build new schools there. He’s
aware of the perception that such a proposal will just promote even more
growth. But he says that AISD hasn’t properly accommodated the population that
now exists, never mind future populations. He offers a quick run-down of the
enrollment of the nine elementary schools in the area. All have far exceeded
their target levels (Patton and Kiker both have over 1,000 students, when they
were really built for 650-750) – proof that new schools are needed for relief.
“We’re behind, we’re not leading anything,” he says.
But he concedes that the present situation isn’t the only thing factoring into
the district’s plans. AISD is, in fact, planning for students who aren’t there
yet. Only the numbers are in debate, not the fact that the kids will be there
some day.
Dennis Harner, an independent school district demographer hired by the bond
advisory committee to evaluate Robertson’s projections, says that AISD’s view
of future growth is essentially correct. In no area of town are numbers of
school-age children going to drop; all are going to experience a rise in that
young population.
“I didn’t find any situation where the district is cooking the numbers,” he
says, “and I’ve found it before in other school districts.” If anything, Harner
says, “they’ve underestimated what’s happening on the southwest side.” After
looking at the heavy concentration of single-family building permits granted by
the City of Austin between 1990 and 1994, Harner projected numbers for the
southwest that are higher than those Robertson came up with. By the year 2000,
Harner believes, Southwest Austin will have 1,532 more students; Robertson
projects 899.
Bailey Middle School, constructed above the Edwards Aquifer under the 1991
Comprehensive Watershed Ordinance, nearly wasn’t built at all. Believing that
the numbers they were given weren’t reliable, a 1989 citizens’ bond advisory
committee was disinclined to build a middle school that far south. But bond
funds for construction were approved in 1990. Bailey opened in 1993, with
portable buildings on its brand-new campus. Originally built for 850-950
students, Bailey’s enrollment was 1,616 students as of last week. It was, in
other words, obsolete from the start.
The current bond committee’s
emphasis on locating of “relief” schools in environmentally sensitive areas in
the southwest – which, in turn, tends to support suburban sprawl away from
Austin’s core, prompted a decision by bond committee member Max Woodfin not to
sign off on the committee report. (Fellow committee member Gavino Fernandez
joined Woodfin in dissent. A few others “very nearly” declined to sign the
report, or signed reluctantly.)
Woodfin has expressed a lack of confidence in the high growth projections for
the southwest. Moreover, he says, AISD “should not reward people for
contributing to the degradation of the environment” by building schools over
the recharge and contributing zones of the aquifer. Placing schools in
far-flung corners of the southwest region would also exacerbate the racial and
economic segregation that already thrives here, Woodfin says. In his view,
Bowie High School on Slaughter Lane should be the outer limit for high school
construction. Bailey, located on Lost Oasis Hollow and Covington, on Convict
Hill, should comprise the border for middle schools. “I think the district must
be willing to take the heat and adopt a policy of not contributing to urban
sprawl,” Woodfin says.
Another member of the committee, Kent Butler, Ph.D, said that he
“enthusiastically” signed off on the report, because he believes the plan
offers solutions for equity and equalization of resources among AISD’s 90-plus
campuses. He positions himself as not opposed to growth, and recognizes that
overcrowding in Southwest Austin schools should be relieved. If the schools are
small and compactly built, potential harm to the aquifer can be mitigated,
Butler says.
But while Butler embraces the bond committee’s report, oddly enough, he argues
against promoting urban sprawl. The question, he says, is: Can relief schools
be built to respond to growth in such a way that they don’t reinvigorate
costly, low-density sprawl? As an urban planner (he’s a professor of community
and regional planning at the University of Texas), he’s concerned about the
financial tolls that future growth may have on the rest of Austin.
“I have serious questions about the cost-effectiveness of providing a full
pallet of urban services, if we are to continue to grow at low or medium
densities out to the west, given the significantly higher costs of providing
those services,” Butler said. “We can’t be blind to the cost of that.” As long
as the impact on existing neighborhoods is minimized, promoting urban
“in-filling,” either by building new schools or renovating old ones, “is far
more cost-effective,” he says.
The bond issue doesn’t have
to be a zero-sum game, committee member Melissa Knippa maintains. “We can do
something for everybody.” Knippa, who is also on the AISD Board of Trustees,
was first inspired to run for office after she worked to pass an $80 million
bond issue in 1990. Knippa represents Southwest Austin. As she drives around in
her district, she says, she notices more and more signs for new subdivisions.
She readily admits that she is beginning to panic. She wants the bond election
to be held as soon as possible, which, according to AISD officicials, would be
this December, about 90 days away.
“The fact is, the lots are there,” Knippa says. “They’re plotted,
approved, ready to build on, money on the table. I guarantee you they’ll be
built on in the next five years.” Despite her anxiety about the rapid
development, she’s not opposed to growth – far from it. Commercial development
in particular helps offset the property tax burden on homeowners, she says.
This does not mean, Knippa maintains, that inner-city, small schools will get
short shrift in a bond issue. (Again, the bond committee identified almost $124
million in renovations – more than it would spend on new schools.) She says
she’s emphatic about wanting to totally renovate Austin’s smaller, older
schools, and not just do cosmetic changes and emergency maintenance that were
part of the 1990 bond issue. A conscious decision was made at that time, she
says, to keep those schools viable and help promote in-fill and refill from the
surrounding neighborhoods. “I’ve been part of that from the beginning,” Knippa
says.
The next several weeks of work sessions and public comment will prove whether
AISD residents share Knippa’s vision of an expedient, equitable issue of school
bonds – or whether the pie is just a whole lot smaller than that. n
This article appears in September 8 • 1995 and September 8 • 1995 (Cover).