A long-awaited list of which Austin ISD campuses will close for the 2026-2027 school year will be released to parents at 5:30 p.m. on Friday.
In an Instagram video, Superintendent Matias Segura said the late-in-the-week announcement is “very very intentional.”
“I know 5:30 p.m. on Friday isn’t the best time to receive information like this,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we created space to engage with our principals and have these conversations one on one, so that they can then have a conversation with their staff, at their campus, at the end of the day on Friday.”
Segura said the district will post the new plan on the district’s website and social media channels as well as send letters to individual families. The announcement will be posted with an interactive “What’s my school?” tool that parents can use to figure out how their campus will be affected, as well as instructions for how to give feedback.
What the district is calling its school consolidation plan has been in the works since at least May. The plan also will detail the district’s new attendance boundaries, transfer policies and how programming will change at each school.
The plan is meant to address the district’s $19.7 million budget shortfall and balance out enrollment across the district’s campuses. Some schools in Austin ISD are severely overenrolled, some are underenrolled, and overall there are far fewer students than the district has capacity for.
Austin ISD officials said they will only close schools where there are more seats than students, but that doesn't mean overenrolled schools won’t be affected. The district is redrawing attendance boundaries and changing its transfer policy so overenrolled schools have breathing room.
Programs at any campus could be cut, changed or moved to a different school. The campus-wide dual language program, for example, will be moved to schools closer to where more emergent bilingual students live, according to the district. Students will still have access to the program, but they may have to switch schools.
Austin ISD is also grappling with how to improve student outcomes at more than a dozen of its campuses after they received in August a third consecutive failing grade from the Texas Education Agency. Burnet, Dobie and Webb middle schools are already on improvement plans after receiving four consecutive “F” grades from the state. If any school gets a failing grade from the state five years in a row, the entire district could be taken over by the state.
Segura said state accountability ratings are being considered in the school consolidation process, but said the district can’t simply close failing schools to resolve the issue. Any school that requires an improvement plan from the state will bring that requirement with them if the majority of students are transferred to a new school, according to the district.
Segura urged families to “spend time with the plan” after its release and give feedback. He said Austin ISD will use community feedback to refine the plan over the next five weeks before the board of trustees votes on it on Nov. 20.
