AISD Board of Education unanimous vote for Travis Heights Elementary School’s Innovation School Project. Dec. 17, 2012

On December 17, 2012, Travis Heights Elementary parents, teachers and staff gathered with members of Austin Interfaith and Education Austin to attend the AISD School Board vote on whether or not to approve ISP. Some rode on a school bus to the meeting and others made their way independently. Their were so many attendees that night that many of our supporters had to wait outside for almost two hours.

After listening to a number of community voices, the board unanimously voted to approve Travis Heights Elementary’s petition! Cheers erupted from the audience. It was an exciting moment. All our hard work paid off! Congratulations Thunderbirds! We are entering an exciting time!

City could soon have 1st campus-based in-district charter school
Posted: Dec 10, 2012 9:53 AM CST
Updated: Dec 10, 2012 9:53 AM CST
By Alex Villarreal

The faces that make up Travis Heights Elementary School, are as diverse as the colors decorating the cafeteria.

“They’re making friends from kids from all walks of life and that was really important to me and my husband,” said Kim-Marie Hernandez O’Driscoll has two daughters enrolled in the public school’s dual language program.

“Public education was a very conscious decision, my husband and I both grew up in private and parochial schools,” O’Driscoll said.

This campus is headed for a landmark change.

One Travis Heights teacher said, “In ten days of voting we reached 90% of our households and 99% said yes!”

If the AISD school board also says “yes”, Travis Heights School will be the city’s first campus-based, in-district charter.

“In the past couple of years, there have been a lot more restrictions put on the schools from the district, and so that’s when we as a campus started saying, we think there’s a better way to do this,” said another teacher, Kellie Marino.

It took 18 months and hundreds of conversations with community members to determine their own priorities for the campus.
“We believe if we do it together, we do it better,” said Ken Zarifis, President of Education Austin.

The proposal is to blend technology with student empowerment, while integrating real-world issues.

Marino said, “You have to make sure you’re honoring and making sure that the students are going to grow up in a society where they can communicate with everybody and they can relate to everybody.”

“The teachers and the parents and the community members, making decisions about the school, as opposed to a traditional charter, where there’s a private entity or business that applies their model to the school,” said Blake Trabulsi, President of the PTA.

School administrators say they would remain part of AISD, but be able to make key decisions at the campus level.

“It also allows us to understand where we’re going and focus on those steps, without other programs or other new things coming in…and having that autonomy allows us to do that,” Travis Heights Principal, Lisa Robertson, said.  “So that they can see the skills I’m learning in the classroom can actually go forward and be used to solve some problems in our community.”
O’Driscoll said, “When we moved to this neighborhood, we were very mindful of Travis Heights Elementary School, that it reflected the real world.”

These Thunderbirds consider themselves “the future” and in the real world, progress and success usually spawn a following.
“I think it depends on how we do…but yes, I’m very optimistic that this will become a model for other schools in Austin and beyond,” Trabulsi said.

The school board’s next regular meeting is scheduled for the 17th – - that is when they will vote on the application of Travis Heights to become a campus-based, in-district charter.

Read more: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/20304773/city-could-soon-have-1st-in-district-charter-school#ixzz2F0Gr7WZq

Community-Backed Charter in Travis Heights Goes to the Board

By Richard Whittaker

As the Austin Independent School Dis­trict considers showing one Eastside in-district charter school the door, trustees are considering opening a new charter in South Austin. But unlike IDEA Allan, which many feel was forced on the Allan neighborhood, the plan for a new charter at Travis Heights Elementary has been formulated and presented by the local community.

If the district’s board of trustees approves the proposal from the Travis Heights neighborhood at its Dec. 17 meeting, it would be AISD’s third in-district charter. Aside from IDEA Allan, last year the district contracted Responsive Education Solutions to run a graduation credit recovery program at Lanier and Travis high schools. But unlike either of those, the pre-K through grade 5 Travis Heights Innovation School Project isn’t by an outside charter group. Instead, it is a collaborative proposal developed by the neighborhood, the school itself, employee union Education Austin, and local nonprofit Austin Interfaith. It would still be the same students and same staff on the same campus: However, rather than taking edicts from AISD central administration, the campus would have a governing board with parents, teachers, and a seat each for Education Austin and Austin Interfaith. According to Sheryl Fisher, parent of a fourth grader, this would give the campus a degree of autonomy on decision-making, from classroom size to lesson plans to lunchtime menus. She said: “We don’t lead with ‘charter.’ This is a campus community-based school.”

In 2011, AISD trustees voted unanimously to adopt a policy to open in-district charters, and earlier this year the district joined the Austin District-Charter Collaboration Compact, a collaborative agreement with leading local charter groups, backed by Gates Foundation money. However, the Travis Heights proposal predates that policy. In 2010, Education Austin won an Innovation Fund grant from the American Federation of Teachers, and, along with Austin Interfaith, started looking for the right campus to convert into a community-led charter.

The proposal has been shaped by the Travis Heights community, and the charter backers say they have the numbers to prove it. In developing their plan, they sent a survey out to families via their students: Half of all families replied, showing clear support for measures like volunteer commitments and flexible scheduling. However, families were split down the middle on school uniforms, so that’s been tabled until they can get a clearer message about what the community wants. That may even change over time, as may everything from the length of the day to lesson plans.

According to Kim O’Driscoll, a parent with kids in kindergarten and first grade at Travis Heights, the community was looking for “more critical thinking, more hands-on learning, more project based learning. There was a desire for more integration of technology, not to replace teachers, but as a supplement, especially for those [who] aren’t exposed to technology beyond game playing or telephones.” Fifth grade teacher Mary Friedman said, “We want to teach in a way that’s engaging for the students, and that varies depending on what students we have.”

AISD District 6 trustee Lori Moya has been involved with the Travis Heights proposal since very early in process, observing the community’s information-gathering and guiding the community to answer some questions it might face. She was initially concerned that the plan would take students out of the Travis High vertical team, but she said she was impressed how they stayed true to its signature digital media programming. For the board, she sees it as the first real implementation of their campus-initiated in-district charter program. She said, “It’s going to almost be like a pilot for seeing how giving campuses a certain level of autonomy works.”

The Travis Heights plan is part of the district’s second Annual Academic and Facilities Recommendations: Intro­duced by Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, these are intended to take established policies – like charters and single-sex schools – and develop them further, with deadlines and budgets attached. With a new board, reshaped heavily during the Nov. 6 election, policies may also change. The IDEA contract is likely to be heavily reshaped on Dec. 17, as the board considers suspending its planned expansion to the Eastside Memorial campus. Moreover, the plan for a new boys’ academy seems to be on hold, as the new trustees’ vision diverges from that of the project’s big philanthropic backer, the Moody Foundation. As for trustee Cheryl Bradley‘s plan to turn Pearce and Garcia middle schools into single-sex schools covering most of East Austin, that seems to have collapsed completely.

When they vote on the proposal on Dec. 17, trustees can expect a very different experience from when they forced IDEA on the Allan neighborhood in 2011. Back then, families lined up in the rain to speak against it: This time, to even get the item on the agenda, the plan had to be backed by 80% of families and staff, and their petition exceeded that target.

The 2012 AAFR

Category A, most likely to be implemented for 2013-14 school year:

• Dual language program expansion and extension

• Continue Responsive Education Solutions contract at Lanier and Travis High Schools

• School for Young Men

• In-district charter at Travis Heights

Category B, more likely to be implemented in 2014-15:

• Garcia and Pearce Middle School program redesign

Category C, still being vetted:

• Programming & facility changes to Eastside Memorial Vertical Team

• South High School (AISD got voter approval to buy land in 2008)

Category D, for consideration by Citizens’ Bond Advisory Committee:

• Renovations for Rosedale and Clifton Career Development Schools

• Renovations for Fine Arts Program

• Parity and equity in career and technical education

• Renovations and improvement for Secondary Athletic Program

However our intrepid ISP volunteers were up to the task and accomplished this mean feat in about 10 days!!!

The parents, teachers and staff were heard loud and clear and you know what they said?

YES!

Overwhelmingly so!

Here are the facts and numbers:

The district requires that we have 80% community support (parents, teachers and staff) to become the first campus-based in-district charter.

Parents:
We reached 90% of households (in less then two weeks!) and of those households we received 99% support for ISP. (That’s 83.1% of all of the officially listed “parent/guardians”)

Teachers and staff:
We received 97% support for ISP. (That’s 92% of “professional staff” ie teachers, counselor, librarian.)

Congratulations Thunderbirds!

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Meet up at Travis Heights Elementary and venture forth in the neighborhood to meet and talk to your community.

ISP Community Meeting rescheduled to Thurdsay October 11, 2012. 6p.m. in Travis Heights Elementary Gymnasium.

The last ISP meeting before the school-wide vote!

Come learn about the latest news with ISP and celebrate to kick off of the vote on October 15th!

AAFRs likely for adoption get attention

Travis Heights is looking to partner with Education Austin and Austin Interfaith to start an in-district charter model allowing the school to have more autonomy. The school would focus on curriculum with its dual-language program, service learning model and a piloted blended learning program that incorporates digital media, Carstarphen said.

“They’re not asking for more money; they’re asking for more flexibility,” she said.

Trustee Robert Schneider called the project a grass-roots effort.

“I’d really like to find a way to set this as a standard,” he said.

A meeting to discuss the charter will be held Sept. 13 at 6 p.m. on the Travis Heights campus.

AISD is considering expanding its dual-language program. Dr. Pauline Dow, who recently joined AISD as chief academic officer, spoke to the board.

“If we’re going to implement a dual-language program, we have to make a commitment from elementary to secondary,” she said.

The board discussed expanding the dual-language program throughout vertical teams—a high school and the elementary and middle schools that feed into it—and possibly adding a third language option.