AISD votes to use millions on projects

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The question the public came out to help answer Monday night at the Austin Independent School District public hearing: How should the district spend millions of its bond money on local schools?

Despite several parents showing up against the move to spend about $400,000 on retro-fitting two schools that will soon house an in-district charter program, the Austin school board voted in favor of spending that and a total of about around $16 million on a wide range of necessary repairs, and to address overcrowding.

The board decided that just over $10.7 million would go to 34 schools in the district to cover costs for necessary repairs like roof replacements, a new elevator, and plumbing and electrical issues.

About $5.4 million would go towards the Annual Academic and Facilities Recommendations, which include moving and reassigning students because of overcrowding problems in North Austin, and interior improvements to several high schools.

But, the item that sparked controversy, was the $430,040 that would be spent to retro-fit Allan Elementary and Eastside Memorial so they can be better suited for the IDEA in-district charter program that will soon be operating there.

"The 2008 program never mentioned funding or retrofitting an in-district Charter school. Never mentioned that. That money shouldn't be used for funding IDEA," said Vincent Tovar, parent at Govalle Elementary and representative for 'Pride of the East Side.'

"Let's make sure all the sinks work, let's make sure all the stalls in the bathrooms have doors, let's make sure we have soap. These are all things you will find lacking on the east side," he said.

A handful of parents spoke at the public hearing Monday night.

"Consider that we are a public school," said Cynthia Valdez with LULAC, "And that we do not want our money going towards privatizing education at AISD."

In all, about $19 million was left over from the 2008 bond election.

"We have been really fortunate that construction projects, and bids on construction projects in the past have been favorable," said Erin Moore, spokesperson for AISD.

Another use for the money would be to get Dobie Middle School ready to be a prekindergarten center and Webb Middle School a pre-K-through-eighth-grade campus.

Those were the plans recently approved with the Facilities Master Plan.

Some other items on the list include:

• improvements to several high schools for alternative education learning support centers
• providing space to Lanier and Travis high schools for a charter to run a program that can help students graduate
• adding more pre-k room to Reilly Elementary

The public hearing portion of Monday night's hearing will begin about 20 minutes into the meeting.