Austin’s public school district (AISD) plans to close Pease Elementary and use the building as a ‘social justice center,’ but parents have other ideas.
The district formally proposed the idea on Friday in an updated version of its ‘school changes scenarios,’ though district officials already had hinted at the plan at public meetings in September.
“The Pease Elementary School site will be repurposed to support AISD media and archives, as well as a social justice center,” says the plan, which the school board will vote to approve on Nov. 18.
The document does not explain how the proposed “justice center” would function or what its purposes would be. However, a top district official at a board meeting in September said that the center would teach students to “read texts through a political and economic and societal lens.”
Associate Superintendent of Academics and Social and Emotional Learning Elisabeth Goodnow added that the social justice center would build on AISD’s existing ethnic studies course, noting that this kind of “deep study in a multi-cultural perspective” eventually could help inform the development of a required high school course.
In addition to the social justice center, AISD plans to provide new cultural proficiency training for more than 6,000 teachers, counselors, campus staff, and district staff, district officials said at a board meeting Sept. 9.
Investments in this kind of programming would not be possible without operational savings from school closures, district officials said. “Under-enrolled schools constrain dollars available for programming,” said AISD Chief of Business and Operations Nicole Conley Johnson. “All of these do take money and investments,” said Goodnow.
The ‘School Changes 2.0’ document explains that the new staff training program would “ensure all students—regardless of race, gender, language, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and other human differences—will be led, taught and supported by culturally proficient teachers, staff and administration.”
Other reinvestments will go toward districtwide special education resources, academics, and expanded school hours at all campuses. In all, these programs are expected to cost more than $20 million.
The district says it will be cheaper to operate Pease as an archive and social justice center than as a school, and by closing and repurposing Pease, it will save $640,000 in reallocated bond funds and $926,000 annually in operations and maintenance costs. “The annual facility cost is greatly reduced, as maintaining a school with students requires more frequent repairs, more consistently,” says the new closure plan.
Parents Doubtful
A number of Pease parents told Honest Austin that they think turning Pease into a social justice center and media archive is not a financially prudent decision, or not a good use of the downtown property.
“I am broken-hearted and frustrated that in essence they want to use this wonderful historic school as an office building instead of for the direct education of children,” said Megan Peck, the mother of a Pease kindergartener. “Furthermore, as an archivist by trade, I can tell you that retrofitting that building into one suitable for archives would be incredibly expensive.”
Jenna Cooper, another Pease parent, said she didn’t disagree with the idea of facilitating more social justice conversations for district faculty, staff, and students, but didn’t think that it should come “at the expense of a diverse school.”
Cooper, who is also an archivist, said, “I believe making Pease an archives and social justice center (instead of a living campus serving all AISD kids equitably in the Capital Corridor) is a historic mistake.”
Stephanie Clayton, the mother of a 4th grader, said, “If AISD is struggling to stay afloat and keep schools open, I think the last thing they should be thinking of doing is adding in more administrative overhead… If Pease stays a school, then there are at least students in seats bringing in money to help offset costs.”
Under the state’s school finance system, a base level of state funding is allocated on a per-student basis to school districts, in addition to funds raised through local property tax levies.
Melissa Hargis, whose son is in the 1st grade, commented, “I’ve seen the proposal to turn Pease into an archives and social justice center. I’m unclear why those require a downtown location and why having those downtown is more important than maintaining the Pease school community.”
“There is some irony to the fact that the destruction of the Pease Elementary community would lead to the creation of a social justice center when our diverse community is a model for what the district says it is looking for,” she added.
4th-grade parent Rob Clayton echoed a similar perspective, pointing to the benefit of bringing kids together from different parts of the city: “I do believe we should have more schools like Pease, not fewer.”
Pat Garrett, the father of another Pease 4th grader, questioned whether the operating an archive or justice center at Pease rather than a school would really save the district much money. “The idea of turning such an important historical landmark into something other than a school is outlandish and borderline offensive,” he said.
PTA Offers Alternative
Over the weekend a group of parent leaders wrote to the AISD board and Superintendent Paul Cruz offering an alternative plan for the campus. They call for expanding Pease’s capacity to accommodate more than 500 students and adding a new “civic engagement curriculum” at the school that would take advantage of the school’s proximity to courthouses, museums, the Capitol, City Hall, and other sites.
The letter is signed by Pease PTA President Kristine Garana, Friends of Pease President Michael Wiggin, and two other Pease parents.
The PTA letter includes a sketch by a parent architect proposing a new extension adjoining the existing historic Pease building, which would expand capacity from 293 students to more than 520. The architect estimated that renovations plus an expansion could cost about $31 million.
AISD has cited the small size of Pease as a reason for shutting it down. Current enrollment of 223 is well below the model size of 522 students that AISD says it is aiming for in “fully modernized” schools.
But a number of Pease parents told Honest Austin that they were happy with the size of the school and insisted that this provided advantages. “When we toured Pease, we fell in love,” said Stephanie Clayton. “We loved how the principal knew every child.”
“We considered charter schools and even private school but we knew we found the perfect small school community when we toured Pease,” said Buff Strickland, another Pease parent.
Monika Bustamente, the mother of three children at Pease, said that she chose the school because she thought the small class sizes would help one of her twins who was delayed socially and had slow auditory processing. “We thought the small Pease class size and ability to get to campus quickly might help that child adjust more easily… That child has thrived at Pease, and I know it is in no small part due to the small, interactive, caring community there, and the helpful accommodations we have experienced.”
Convenience for Commuters
Pease is a bit different from most other AISD schools in that it serves not one geographic attendance area but rather accepts students from all over the city. Because of its proximity to the downtown, it is a convenient choice for commuter parents, and it is also the only remaining public school in downtown Austin.
“I consider Pease to be the downtown school of downtown working parents,” said parent Amber McDaniel, speaking at a Sept. 23 board meeting.
Lisa Fisher, the mother of a 1st grader, said, “I work for the State of Texas and am able to pick up my child if there is anything she needs within a matter of minutes. That is crucial, as I am a single parent and her father lives out of town… This is truly an ‘urban’ school.”
Melissa Hargis, the mother of another 1st grader, said, “I am a long-time state worker and my husband works for a nonprofit. My office is in walking distance of Pease and my husband is just a block away. We knew for as long as we had planned a family that we wanted our children to attend Pease Elementary.”
Under the new AISD plan, Pease will close at the end of the current school year. When this happens, students could end up scattered to assigned schools elsewhere in the city, an idea that vexes many parents.
The earlier version of the school changes scenarios spoke of a “relocation” en masse of the Pease school to Zavala Elementary in East Austin, but the new version is less definite. It says, “The district will continue to work with the Pease community to determine how and where they might be able to relocate together.”
Pease parents have proposed ideas for sharing programming resources with Zavala Elementary as a ‘sister campus,’ but they resist the idea of a full merger of the two schools.
Commuter parents are unsure about what comes next. “I honestly don’t know what my family will do if Pease closes,” said Melissa Hargis. Megan Peck said, “On my current commute pattern, I can be involved in most school activities. Attending a school east of 35 would make that all more difficult.”
Reasons for Closing Schools
AISD officials have long said that the district needs to consolidate campuses because declining enrollment is pressuring district finances. Districtwide enrollment has been declining since 2011, though enrollment trends are uneven throughout the district, such that some schools are overcrowded while others are under-enrolled.
This year, enrollment numbers came in higher than planners had forecast. The district also received a substantial boost in funding from the state legislature, which enabled it to offer an historic $48 million in raises to teachers and staff, the largest pay raise in the district’s history.
Even so, AISD has pressed ahead with plans to close schools. At issue is not just money but also differing visions as to what constitutes an ideal learning environment. AISD planners have been pushing a vision for larger, consolidated schools that provide more services than the existing, smaller schools that cater to the needs of individual neighborhoods.
Parents, on the other hand, say they don’t want larger, “modern” schools, but are happy with the existing neighborhood schools, which they say are not as outdated as district officials have said. They also point to $1 billion bond that voters in 2017 approved to make improvements at the schools.
Lisa Fisher, a former teacher and Pease parent, says her child has benefited from small class sizes at Pease and doesn’t want to send her to a bigger school. “I once taught in a ‘modernized 21st century learning environment’ and had to fight for kids to get what they needed,” she commented.
While parents are generally satisfied with the small class sizes at Pease, PTA leaders have recognized the need to boost enrollment (Pease’s current capacity is 293, enrollment is 223). They proposed that the district could do so in part by adding Pre-K classes.
“We propose changing the Pease model to [Pre-K] through 5th grade and marketing it to state employees which are a large part of the City commuters,” the parent leaders said in their letter dated Nov. 3.
“AISD has real budgetary concerns, and we believe a pro-growth model, rather than a scarcity model, addresses these budget issues. Cuts cannot happen forever – there needs to be passion and vision that brings and retains students into AISD, and builds and strengthens communities.”
By some accounts, Pease is the oldest continuously operating elementary school in Texas. Stephanie Clayton says the history of the school was a big draw when she first toured the school. “We loved how under the oak trees, the limestone walls have little and big hollows carved out by decades and decades of little hands grinding potions and mixing mudpies,” she said. “It was always a favorite recess activity for both our children.”
Cory Wilson-Barrera, a Pease parent who works at a hotel downtown, says she’s devastated by the thought of Pease closing and she worries about what it might mean for the future of Austin: “I wonder about a downtown that is effectively becoming a child-free zone and what the long-term consequences could be as we see Austin as more of a ‘play zone’ for visitors and the wealthy than an actual living, breathing city.”
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