Call to Action Update 2/10/2022 – How to Spend ESSER Funds

En Español

What you can do:

  • Write the Superintendent and Board of Trustees voicing your opinion on how to spend ESSER Funds. Their email addresses are: stephanie.elizalde@austinisd.org, trustees@austinisd.org.
  • Fill out the survey the district sent last week regarding use of ESSER funds. The survey is here. The deadline to fill this out is February 13th. 
  • AISD is holding Budget Talks to discuss 2022-23 finances. These are open to the public.
  • If your student would like to get involved, have them email the Superintendent as well. Nothing speaks to the Lively Law & Humanities program more than student advocates. 

You may have heard that due to a large budget shortfall, Austin ISD is considering changes to next year’s secondary (middle & high) school schedule.  This new proposal is worth your attention, as it will impact all students. Here is some information that we should be paying attention to about the possible change being discussed by the superintendent.

Right now, our teachers teach on a 6/8 schedule. In a block schedule, this means they teach 3 out of 4 class periods daily, or at schools like Lively, 6 of 8 class periods. The proposed change by the superintendent is to move to a 7/8 schedule, where teachers would be required to teach 7 of 8 class periods. At Lively, this will leave our teachers with one open period to take care of many tasks – grading, planning lessons, parent check-ins, and simply running to the restroom or getting a snack. In a block schedule, this will mean that either on an A day or a B day, a teacher will have no time to do any of those things, and teach every class period of the day. Their time to plan/grade will be cut in half. 

A good friend who’s a teacher explains the practical ramifications this way: 

When you add an additional course to high school teachers, you are adding 30-35 additional students to their overall teaching load. That’s 30 additional students to monitor, 30 additional families to contact (and then log that contact in eCST), 30 additional souls who each have their own stories, struggles, needs to be met, and 30 additional students submitting an assignment or two every week to be graded. I’m an English teacher. Let’s imagine I have 28 students in each class and assign a piece of writing, and let’s say I spend 4 minutes reading each piece of writing (which is ludicrous, because it takes longer to give good feedback, but let’s run with 4 minutes for the sake of argument), then it will take 672 minutes (11.2 hours) to grade a set of essays. Give me just one more class? Now that assignment takes 13 hours to grade. Clearly I can’t grade it during my planning/prep time every other day, because that’s when I’m creating lessons, grading other tasks, meeting with my PLC, emailing parents, updating Blend, updating the gradebook, and all the thousands of other things. It’s not JUST about the planning/prep period. It’s about overall student load and the capacity of one human teacher to meet the needs of a set number of students.

The district is trying to do this to help ease both the teacher shortage and the budget shortage. AISD has a budget shortfall of $61 million for the 2022-23 school year. AISD administration estimates that the savings this proposed change will garner is $21 million. Yes, something needs to be done to save money in light of this tremendous shortfall, however we do not think this is the right solution. And unfortunately, this change will not be voted on by the school board trustees. Instead, the decision will be made by Superintendent Elizalde. At the last board meeting, several trustees requested for the issue to be discussed at the next board meeting, but it has yet to be added.   

Our teachers and students have been through so much the past 2 years. This proposed change will only add to our teachers’ stress, in asking them to do more work in half the time. We fear that the added pressure on our teachers will drive even more teachers from

Our teachers and students have been through so much the past 2 years. This proposed change will only add to our teachers’ stress, in asking them to do more work in half the time. We fear that the added pressure on our teachers will drive even more teachers from

Our teachers and students have been through so much the past 2 years. This proposed change will only add to our teachers’ stress, in asking them to do more work in half the time. We fear that the added pressure on our teachers will drive even more teachers from our classrooms, exacerbating the existing teacher shortage we have here in Austin. We have already experienced significant challenges retaining them thanks to the pandemic.

UPDATE: There is also a possible plan to reduce the quantity and variety of electives in secondary schools in an effort to reduce the number of teachers and help to balance the budget. Some beloved magnet classes at Lively could potentially be eliminated.

Last week, a survey went out in the weekly AISD email, asking for parent input on how to best use the ESSER funds. These are federal funds, and part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. You can read Education Secretary Cardona’s open letter to school districts in regards to these funds here. Also, here is an infographic, created by teachers, sharing more details on how this change will affect both our students and teachers, and also some alternatives to the schedule change that could help with the deficit. We ask that Superintendent Elizalde look at these and other options to reduce the deficit. The 7/8 plan will be devastating to teacher morale, which will cause many teachers to leave the district. Those losses will affect the quality of work from the teachers, who are strapped for time, and the quality of education for all kids in AISD. 

What you can do:

  • Write the Superintendent and Board of Trustees. Their email addresses are: stephanie.elizalde@austinisd.org, trustees@austinisd.org.
  • Fill out the survey the district sent last week regarding use of ESSER funds. The survey is here. The deadline to fill this out is February 13. 
  • AISD is holding Budget Talks to discuss 2022-23 finances. These are open to the public.
  • If your student would like to get involved, have them email the Superintendent as well. Nothing speaks to the Lively Law & Humanities program more than student advocates. 

Thank you for advocating for our teachers and our students. District administration needs to hear that this should not be the only option for budget savings, and our teachers need to know that we have their backs and appreciate what they do for our children day in & day out. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. You can reach us at advocacy@livelymiddleschoolptsa.com.