Local school boards are important for education stability and efficiency. But recently the Austin Independent School District board has negatively affected students and families by redistricting school zoning, the closure of 10 schools, a general lack of transparency, and fraudulent educators.
Recently AISD created a “consolidation plan” to close 10 schools and redistrict school zoning to save close to $25 million, which will result in an increase in classroom sizes and takeaway from individual learning, negatively impacting student learning.
The reason why the plan is in place is because of the almost $20 million budget deficit. The reason why we have a deficit is because so much funding goes to payroll and not school costs and funding.
Local school boards have so much power to control what happens in classrooms or schools and often don’t know the repercussions it has on students, teachers, and families. Personally, I don’t trust my school board to have a positive impact on my education because of the possible negative effects this consolidation plan has on younger children. Imagine what else they could do that impacts our education system?
The consolidation plan says it aims to increase classroom sizes and the number of children in seats, which takes away from individualized instruction and learning. Studies show that increased classroom sizes take away from 1-on-1 learning and negatively affects student focus.
In Texas there are transparency laws regarding local elections and post-campaign finance reports. AISD has had lack of transparency regarding the consolidation plan; they unveiled a scoring system for campuses and initially stated it was not a closure list, only to propose closing schools not solely based on those scores.
Recently it was found out that a large-scale criminal enterprise was uncovered where four individuals were charged with running a scheme that provided fraudulent teacher certifications to hundreds of people across Texas.
