Dobie In Wonderland

There are no cards in Wonderland.

In the theater adaptation of “Alice In Wonderland” by Jason Pizzarello, the playing cards that serve as the Queen of Hearts soldiers are meant to rush through the scene, chasing a terrified Alice. But at the Dobie Middle School gym, there is only a waiting actress and a silent audience.

This is Dobie Theater Director Laney Gilbert’s favorite memory of her school’s spring performance.

“Then little Jackie, our student director, comes running across, ‘go, now, cards, now!’” Gilbert recalls. It was at this point that the cards, played by teachers and staff including the vice principal Mr. Holloway, realized they missed their cue.

“He runs out just yelling every “Alice In Wonderland” line he could think of,” Gilbert says. “Everyone backstage was peeking through the curtains, everyone in the audience was going wild. …And I really feel like it was our rallying cry to just persevere for the rest of the year.”

While Alice goes on an imaginary adventure, students and staff have spent the spring slogging through a journey of their own. After state accountability scores put the Austin Independent School District at risk of state takeover, different options were considered for the struggling campus. District leaders considered moving students to another campus, turning it into a charter school, or closing it entirely. AISD is now moving forward with a district-managed restart plan that will mean a lot of new staff in familiar roles.

It created a tumultuous semester for Dobie students.

“We started calling it Dobie In Wonderland, because it did feel like we were lost in Wonderland during this process,” Gilbert says.

Dobie Middle School’s journey down the rabbit hole began back in 2019, the first year Texas schools received a letter grade through the new A-F system. That year, Dobie got an ‘F’. Schools are graded on closing achievement gaps and college or career readiness. But the bulk of a school’s grade comes from STAAR test results. STAAR stands for State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. Students take STAAR tests from third to 12th grade on subjects like math and English. If a school gets a failing grade for five years in a row, the Texas Education Agency can intervene. That can mean taking over the entire district and install a new superintendent and board of trustees–much like it did in Houston ISD in 2023.

“It can have an impact on the entire school district if just one school continues to fail to meet state standards,” says Jacob Carpenter, the education editor for the Houston Landing said during an interview in April. “Here in Houston we've seen it where they have come in and dramatically changed huge parts of the school district that go way beyond even just the issues that were seen at the one school that triggered the state takeover.”

“What will happen to the theater program?” Student Rashawn Brown asks during a community meeting. “Because Dobie has one of the best.”

Grades for the 2022-2023 school year had been held up in court–over 100 districts sued the TEA saying they had unfairly changed the grading standards after the term had finished–but this spring the 15th Court Of Appeals ruled the TEA could release the grades. One in five Texas schools received a ‘D’ or an ‘F’. Dobie received an ‘F’ that year, and AISD as a whole dropped to a ‘C’ average.

“The state tests are the state tests, we can’t change that,” said AISD Superintendent Matias Segura at a community meeting in April, when parents expressed frustration over the exam. “Can we as a system have enough supports and scaffolds in place to transition our students so they have a shot at being successful? Yes. But it takes resources. Lots and lots of resources.”

Failing campuses are overwhelmingly concentrated along Austin’s eastern crescent, where a high concentration of vulnerable communities live. Nearly 87% of Dobie students are economically disadvantaged. But this is also happening at a time when AISD is facing massive budget shortfalls, and is considering consolidating campuses.

To avoid a potential state takeover, AISD is opting for a district managed restart for Dobie Middle School, as well as Webb and Burnet campuses. This means Dobie will remain open, but the staff inside will change drastically.

“Unfortunately they let most of the staff know they were ineligible,” Gilbert says.

-Dobie Middle School Theater Director Laney Gilbert speaks to her class before rehearsal. Theater will remain under the district’s turnaround plan, but many staff members won’t be back in the fall.

Under a district managed restart, principals and teachers are selected based on their ‘proven track record of student success and promoting a positive campus culture.’ The turnaround plan goes on to say that teachers with more than three years of experience or have demonstrated student growth in the top 20% district-wide are eligible to apply. Many current staff at Dobie were just shy of those designations. They 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.

Gilbert says the theater program is safe, and the turnaround plan backs this up. It states that arts-based activities will be ‘strategically implemented’ to foster a sense of community with students, staff and parents. But Gilbert says it’s the community that they’re losing that made the theater program possible.

“I don't think they realize that the reason why we thrive is because this is not happening in a silo,” Gilbert says. “The amount of support we get on this campus is untouched. ... And a lot of times that is our staff that are not going to be here next year.”

Only a handful of staff will be returning to Dobie Middle School for the 2025-2026 school year, according to former teachers at the campus.

The turnaround plan is centered on improving student test scores. Instead of four 90-minute class periods, students will now have five 70-minute classes and one day a week will be an extended day. Students will now have English and math every day instead of every other day. But Gilbert is concerned that the educational focus in Texas is all about the test.

“At the state level, I think the focus has been on turning our children into test scores instead of educating them as a whole child,” Gilbert says.

Students work on set pieces for the ‘Alice In Wonderland’ performance. Gilbert says fine arts programming helps bring subjects like math and English to life in new ways.

Carpenter says it’s an evaluation model that, while potentially flawed, isn’t going away anytime soon.

“There's really no avoiding the tests,” Carpenter says. “the state is mandated by the federal government to have an accountability system. And there's not a lot of wiggle room around building it around tests.”

But Gilbert says there are opportunities to learn all of that in fine arts.

“Let's say I need to build a set,” Gilbert says. “If they know the math, I can give my kids the information and we can watch them apply that real world math to what they're creating, and then we can watch it come to life on stage. …It's not just theater, right? It's happening in band. It's happening in dance. It's happening all over the place.”

Back at the Dobie gymnasium, the play draws to a close. Alice finds herself with her sister, and her whole adventure was actually a dream. The world is back to normal. Gilbert says she’s not sure the students and staff at Dobie feel the same way.

“I think we are still lost in Wonderland,” Gilbert says. “I don't think we've made it out the other side yet.”

Tell us how we did on this story!