The Austin Independent School District (AISD) plans to discontinue the 6th grade at Martin and Mendez middle schools and offer it instead at 10 feeder elementary schools.
Mendez, which is in the Dove Springs area, and Martin, which is off East Cesar Chavez, have about 500 students each. Both schools earned poor marks on standardized tests in recent years and Mendez faces the prospect of an imminent state takeover.
“Both Martin and Mendez have had academic struggles over the course of the years,” said Anthony Mays, Chief of Schools, on a Facebook Live discussion with AISD’s Chief of Communications and Community Engagement, Jason Sanford.
Mays predicted that removing the sixth grade from the struggling Mendez and Martin middle schools will allow them to concentrate better on the 7th and 8th graders. He also expects 6th grade students to fare better at the elementary campuses, where academic performance has improved in recent years relative to the middle schools.
Starting in the next school year, fifth graders at the five feeder elementary schools of Martin Middle School—Allison, Govalle, Ortega, Sánchez, Zavala—will continue their schooling at their elementary school. Likewise, the students at the five feeder schools of Mendez—Houston, Langford, Perez, Rodriguez, and Widén—will stay on for the sixth grade.
Graduating fifth graders will also be given the choice of attending an alternative middle school or magnet program (if accepted).
According to Mays, another potential benefit for the district is better retention of students that it’s losing to charter schools. “We lose approximately 60% of the students that are moving from fifth grade to sixth grade within the Mendez and Martin vertical team,” he said.
“That’s a huge problem for us. Of course, we know we have declining enrollment and so if we have an opportunity to do something about it we want to be able to do it.”
Only 18% of students at Mendez Middle School tested at or above grade level on the 2019 STAAR test, compared to 50% statewide. That earned the school an “F” in the A-F rating system kept by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
Standardized testing was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, and campus-level data on the testing in 2021 is not yet available.
Similarly, at Martin Middle School, only 25% of students tested at grade level or above in 2019, compared to 50% statewide. That resulted in an “F” score from TEA.
