UPDATE 11/5: Following community feedback, AISD Superintendent Matias Segura announced an adjustment to the district’s consolidation and boundary change timeline. While the Board of Trustees will still vote on Nov. 20 regarding required turnaround and dual-language program relocations, three campuses — Bryker Woods, Maplewood, and Palm elementary schools — will not be included in the vote. Additionally, any campuses affected by boundary changes separate from TAP’s will be postponed until next year.
On Oct. 9, AISD released its consolidation and district boundary plans, including the closures of 11 elementary schools, two of which previously fed into McCallum: Maplewood and Ridgetop Elementary. At 122% and 178% respectively, these two schools are significantly overenrolled for capacity, a primary reason for their closure. The nine AISD Board of Trustees members will place their votes on Nov. 20 to decide whether the proposed plan will go into effect or be redrafted.
The basis of the consolidation plans include five factors: school closures, boundary changes, transfer policy review, facility repurposing and program realignment. According to the AISD storymap of draft closures and boundary changes, the district lost 10,000 seats in the past 10 years, with over 21,000 seats currently empty, a number projected to increase. With total enrollment predicted at 76% for the 2026-27 school year, AISD aims to hit 85-90% through the consolidation plan for Aug. 2026. Additionally, the district could change boundaries and transfer policies to avoid schools being over 106% full or under 61% full by Aug. 2030.
To consider all campuses and programs, AISD used two measures: a data rubric with schools sorted by ‘total score’ and a contextual analysis complete with the recommended consolidation package. The total score, ranging from one to five, consists of seats filled based on enrollment (utilization), cost per student (building & operations), facility condition assessment, cost per student (educational cost), educational suitability assessment, and support and resource index. The higher the ‘total score,’ the more consideration for boundary changes or school consolidation. McCallum received a total score of 3.7, the fifth highest score of all schools.
Although McCallum is not slated to close on the proposed draft of school closures, the boundaries are changing; students on the western portion of former boundaries will now attend Anderson HS while students on the eastern portion will attend Eastside HS, Northeast HS and Austin HS. Students who currently attend McCallum in grades 9, 10 and 11 can finish out their time, or attend their new zoned school. Under the AISD grandfather clause, students whose boundaries have changed will have to apply for a transfer to McCallum, and will be granted one, with the absence of transportation.
With turnaround plans currently in place for Dobie, Webb and Burnet Middle Schools, the proposed draft consolidation will not affect these three schools, as they are currently on restart plans to improve reading and math STAAR scores by mid-2026, with a contingency plan in place. While several schools on the closures list have consecutively received C’s, D’s and F’s, one school stands out: Maplewood. At B ratings, and recently two A ratings, community members are upset over the closure of a school that has scored higher than others not in danger of closing. Although the ratings remain higher, the factor that sets Maplewood apart is its enrollment rate, which is currently at 122% and predicted to rise, along with the building being too full and in poor condition, according to the data rubric.
Parent Lindsay Grant has a sophomore at McCallum, and an eighth grader at Kealing MS. Moving from Baltimore, Md. to Austin in 2021, Grant and her family sourced neighborhoods that would zone them to highly-rated public schools their children could go to. With the changing of boundary lines, Grant is unsure of where her middle schooler will attend school and has ruled out the new zoned high school, Northeast.
When they moved to Austin initially, Grant said they gathered information from friends they had on local schools, as well as their ratings.
“Through a lot of those discussions, we sort of narrowed down to a couple of different zones, and we were also looking at the school’s ratings,” she said. “If we didn’t already know people who lived here, [the ratings] might have been our only source of information.”
Grant had to consider elementary, middle and high schools for her children when choosing neighborhoods to move to.
“We had to find the right place to live that would allow us to give the kids good schools to go through, and we knew we didn’t want to pursue a private school option,” she said.
Sending her youngest son to Maplewood, Grant recalls a positive experience with having a school close to her house and a community that was within reach.
“I like that it’s a neighborhood school, and it’s close by, so that was where he made his initial friendships,” she said. “Overall the quality of the education was really good and Rowan had a really good experience there.”
As far as her youngest is concerned, Grant and her family have now been considering the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, a public magnet school located in East Austin, a lot more now that the option of sending their son to McCallum is decreasing.
“I think he was going to apply to LASA anyway, but that becomes even more of an appealing option if it’s just between LASA and Northeast, because if you look at the grade that Northeast has, it’s a 2/10 and McCallum has a 9/10,” she said. “I want him to be at a school that’s setting him up for the greatest opportunity for success.”
Grant’s initial reaction to the proposed consolidation plan was frustration, with the changes for her own children.
“It was very frustrating, because we thought we were doing what was best for our family through the long term,” she said.
Similarly, a student who said she had a positive experience at Maplewood Elementary, senior Jojo David, notes the memorable friends and community she was able to have by attending her neighborhood public school.
“I was able to hang out with my friends who lived literally two houses down, or who lived a neighborhood away,” she said. “When I went to a school that was further away, I barely hung out with people, and we had to drive at least 15 minutes to go see them.”
David has taken the time to send emails to the AISD Board of Education, detailing her memorable experiences at Maplewood and how it shaped her to who she is today.
“It changed so much when I went to an elementary school in my neighborhood and it made me feel part of a community and a sense of belonging,” she said. “So when I went to McCallum, my neighborhood school, I was able to reconnect with the people in my community and have those friends that I’m still friends with till this day.”
While David is currently zoned to McCallum, her boundary will be changing with the proposed plan to re-zone her to Eastside ECHS.
“I am zoned for McCallum, and by changing it to Eastside I think it’s segregatory because they changed the boundaries to IH-35 for McCallum, which historically was the barrier between East Austin, the Black and Hispanic communities, and West Austin, the white communities,” she said. “I don’t know if that was the goal, but it’s taking away opportunities from people who deserve them and people who haven’t done anything to warrant this separation from their area, in their community.”
David recalls that in her early elementary school days, a previous consolidation plan had slated Maplewood to close. With support from the community, however, it was spared. She argues that the community that once saved Maplewood can save it again.
“When we were in elementary school and it was voted on, we were really scared of our school getting shut down,” David said. “It’s really just going to be us asking for AISD to take a moment and breathe, take a step back and think critically about what they’re doing to our communities.”
While the Board of Trustees have not taken their final vote on the plan, Vice President Kathryn Whitley Chu, representing District 4 in which McCallum presides in, is prepared to vote no.
Whitley Chu said despite understanding the intentions and pressure leading to this proposal, she will be voting no because of funding at the state level.
“I realize Austin ISD is not alone in facing these pressures. Districts throughout Texas are in the red and face state takeover,” she said. “When so many school districts are in this situation, it is a failure of leadership at the state level.”
Like David and members of the Maplewood community fighting for the existence of their highly-rated school, Whitley Chu does not agree with all of the changes put forward by AISD and believes the community needs more time.
“We should not be closing schools that are in demand and have strong academic results. We should not be closing historic schools that tie our community together,” she said. “And we need to have the patience to allow the community to study the proposal and effectively weigh in.”
The Board of Trustees will take their votes on the consolidation plan on Nov. 21, you can watch here. You can view the proposed consolidation draft boundary changes and school closures here: https://www.austinisd.org/consolidate/resources.