AUSTIN, Texas — With Austin ISD facing a $110 million budget deficit, the district has taken all kinds of measures to save money, ranging from making cuts to contracts to a hiring freeze.
Now, school consolidations are on the table. It was proposed as part of a spending audit by Gibson Consulting at an AISD board meeting.
Cristina Nguyen is AISD’s executive director of communications and community engagement.
“We haven’t received state funding increases since 2019. And so right now, we’re just in a really tough place that we have to be having these conversations,” Nguyen said.
Elementary schools with fewer than 500 students and middle schools with fewer than 750 students could be considered. The firm tells board members the district could save more than $43 million if it consolidates campuses, but Nguyen cautions it is not perfect math.
“What our next step is, is going to develop a toolkit with our community to assess which schools may be a good fit for consolidation,” Nguyen said.
Back in 2020, four elementary campuses closed. AISD’s chief equity officer wrote in a report that closures do not help underserved communities.
Lisa Flores is an AISD parent.
“I hope that they don’t come only to the Eastside with their head in their hand and tell us that we have to sacrifice,” Flores said. “People in other sides of town, at other schools and other demographics, are never asked to sacrifice anything.”
While Nguyen says they will be interacting with the community the next couple of months, Flores believes parents should understand sacrifices will be made.
“Hopefully, people are engaged enough and invested enough in their public schools that they understand ahead of time that it’s going to be hard. It’s not going to look the same,” Flores said.
AISD also tells KVUE its goal is to identify any schools impacted in the fall and have the board vote on consolidating in December. If this all goes through, consolidations should happen in the 2026-27 school year.