Breaking Down The Dobie Turnaround Plan

Recently, the Austin Independent School District released their proposed turnaround plans for Dobie Middle School, Webb Middle School, and Burnet Middle School, and big changes are needed in a short amount of time. AISD says at Dobie, seven out of ten students will need to improve their scores in reading, writing and math by December. But what changes are coming for these campuses, and could other schools in AISD face similar shifts in the future? Let’s dive in.

Staffing Changes

First, big staffing changes are expected at all three campuses.

Principals and assistant principals have been replaced, along with staff who teach core subjects like math and English.

On their turnaround website, AISD says a restart requires evaluating and selecting principals based on their “proven track record of student success and promoting a positive campus culture.” The leadership team at Dobie, which included principal Roxanne Walker, assistant principals Chadwick Holloway and Yolanda Lopez, and academic dean Susie Smith, are not returning.

Teachers were also evaluated and had to meet certain restart criteria to reapply to Dobie.

According to the turnaround plan, teachers that could be invited to apply to restart campuses had to have more than three years of experience or have demonstrated student growth in the top 20% district-wide. Many current staff at Dobie were just shy of those designations and were told they would have to seek other jobs within the district.

According to Brandi Hosack, the chief of talent strategy at AISD, 13 core subject teachers were ‘unable to remain at Dobie.’ There were 15 core subject teachers during the last school year.

The turnaround plan also says in order to enrich student life, the school will establish after-school clubs and arts-based activities. So teachers who lead theater or band would, in theory, not be impacted by the restart designations. But teachers who spearhead successful arts programs like theater director Laney Gilbert won’t be returning. Many have left because of staff turnover concerns.

School Day Redux

The school day itself is going to change.

Currently, these schools have four 90-minute periods a day. Now, there will be five periods every day, and they’ll each be 70 minutes. There will also be one extended day of learning. There will also be math and English classes every day, rather than every other day. Students will also have more assessments throughout the year to check on their progress.

These changes are being made in an effort to improve test scores, but what happens to the school if scores don’t increase enough?

As part of a district-managed restart, schools have to have a back-up plan. In this case, it’s a charter school, referred to as an 1882 partnership. Partnering with an approved charter school provides the campus with more state funding, and a two-year exemption from accountability interventions, such as a TEA takeover of the district.

It wouldn’t be the first time an AISD campus has entered into an 1882 partnership with a charter school. Mendez Middle School in Dove Springs has been operated by Third Future Schools since 2022 after failing to meet TEA accountability standards for several years. In that time their test scores have improved. From 2019 to 2023, their score jumped 39 points, taking them from an ‘F’ to a ‘B’. That increase is higher than any other school in the district. But many parents at Mendez don’t like this change because they feel the administration excludes them from their kids’ education.

If student test scores don’t improve enough by December, the district will vote on partnering with a charter school, and the charter school will run the campus in the fall of 2026. That gives students four months to make improvements.

Community Groups

Dobie is often referred to as the heart of the Rundberg community. It hosts food drives and community meetings, spring fairs and pickup soccer games. And the turnaround plan acknowledges the importance of community involvement in improving school outcomes. It calls for partnerships to help ‘enhance’ clubs and activities in order to foster community at Dobie.

But partnerships already in place, like Austin Voices For Education And Youth, a nonprofit that helps students and families access resources at Dobie, are losing space. The group, which works out of portables in the back of Dobie, are losing some of those portables to AISD. Other programs like the ACE afterschool program may also be changing. Spaces in the schools might be reassigned under the restart plans, and some teachers who ran programs like Cosmetology or Volleyball are no longer at Dobie.

While the programs are expected to remain, it’s unclear how partnerships will look like in and out of the school moving forward.

The Cost

According to the turnaround plan, this will cost about 2 million dollars. Per state law, the TEA will foot the bill for these resources. But it comes as AISD faces a $101 million dollar budget shortfall.

At the same time, enrollment has dropped from 80,000 to 72,000. That means less money for the district since funding is based on how many students are attending school. While there have been some bills passed this legislative session that would send more money to public schools, it’s unclear if it's enough to make up the funding gap that school officials say they’ve been contending with since the pandemic. And other bills like the school voucher plan could pull more money away from public education, according to advocates.

Looking Ahead

Right now only three campuses are facing these changes. But AISD says other schools might go through them too. Almost 43% of AISD schools received a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ on the 2022-2023 STAAR test–an increase of almost 32% from 2019.

But they are far from the only district struggling with failing grades. When the 2022-2023 accountability results were released in April, one in five Texas schools received a ‘D’ or an ‘F’. The percentage of schools with an ‘F’ went from just over 4% to 7.6%. Many school districts blame the lower scores on the TEA, who increased the scoring standards after students had taken the STAAR test in 2023. Over 100 districts sued the TEA to block the test scores from being released. But a judge found that TEA Commissioner Mike Morath was within his authority to change the benchmarks, thus clearing the way for results to be released.

What’s Next

According to AISD, there’s still time to make revisions to it. The board says they are hoping to hear and implement more community feedback.

After public hearing, the board will vote on the proposed turnaround plans on June 26. They have until June 30 to submit their plans to the TEA. The 2025-2026 school year will start on September 19.