AISD Proposes Cutting 558 Positions, Changing Bus Transportation, Selling Campuses, and More

On May 28, the last day of school for students, Alexia Haywood, bilingual librarian at Austin ISD’s Uphaus Early Childhood Center, received a letter from her principal notifying her that she may not have a job next fall.

“Your current position … has been identified as a potential reduction for the 2026-2027 school year,” the letter reads. The Office of Talent Strategy would try to find placements for impacted staff in existing and future vacant positions within the district. Haywood will receive a final notification regarding her employment by June 19.

“Notwithstanding the finality of any future decisions, we sincerely thank you for the valuable contributions you have made to our students, schools, and community,” the letter follows. 

Haywood has been an AISD employee for over 20 years. “I really love my school. I really love being a librarian,” Haywood said.

On June 2, AISD Superintendent Matias Segura released a recommended budget to fully address the $181 million budget deficit projected for next school year. It proposes to cut 558 full-time positions next school year – 330 on-campus positions and 228 off-campus positions.

The district could not supply how many of those positions are currently vacant or held by non-certified staff to the Chronicle, citing that principals’ submission of campus positions, staff placements, and resignations are still ongoing as of June 10.

And despite the district’s previous promise that it would not eliminate librarian and counselor positions, 11.5 librarian and 22 counselor positions are now proposed to be cut. “It was a slap in the face,” Haywood said. “It felt … backhanded and disrespectful, if I’m going to be honest.”

According to an internal AISD email obtained by the Chronicle, that means 23 campuses with under 400 students and no turnaround plan, or TAP, will only have a half-time librarian:Allison, Barton Hills, Boone, Bryker Woods, Campbell, Cook, Cunningham, Harris, Joslin, Langford, Lee, Mathews, McBee, Ortega, Palm, Pillow, Reilly, St. Elmo, Williams, and Zavala elementaries, plus Gus Garcia and Bertha Sadler Means middle schools and Uphaus ECC.

Librarians have been offered the option to work part-time at their current campus, or work full-time but manage the libraries of two schools. The district has claimed that students will still receive comparable library services. “That’s just not possible,” Haywood said. “When that part-time librarian is not there … likely in most of these cases, the doors are going to be closed and the lights are going to be off.”

Gabby Garcia, associate librarian at McBee Elementary, told AISD trustees during the June 4 board meeting she cannot personally afford to work part-time. “Besides the uncertainty about my finances or work prospects, what haunts me most is that I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to my students,” Garcia said. 

Far beyond shelving books, librarians also develop curriculum, arrange author visits, curate the catalog, run special programming and book fairs, and more. “I see every single kid in that school. I have six classes a day,” Garcia told the Chronicle. “You are one person doing the whole thing.”

Transitioning to part-time librarians will harm student outcomes and early literacy, multiple librarians emphasized to trustees. “I think they’re going to see test scores go down,” Garcia continued.

And the proposed cuts now go far deeper than library services and the previously announced cuts, which would halve teachers’ planning periods at non-TAP schools, increase class sizes at some elementary schools, and reduce stipends for some bilingual and special education specialists and educators.

While every campus will retain one counselor, 22 counselor and 11 assistant principal positions are proposed to be cut. Eighty-one elementary, 57.5 middle school, and 93.5 high school teacher positions are on the chopping block, plus 53.5 additional instructional and TA roles.

AISD also proposed discontinuing neighborhood school buses for middle and high schools, transitioning to a “hub” model where students are instead bused to their campus from the nearest elementary school. There would be no late activity buses. Elementary transportation would be reduced at certain campuses, and a fee-based model dependent on family economic status developed for the district’s magnet schools. 

Segura has cited that for every $7 the district pays per school bus mile, the state only reimburses $1. But during the June 4 meeting, AISD Board President Lynn Boswell and other trustees strongly opposed the slashing of school bus transportation. 

“I think we’re going to have students get hurt. I think we’re going to have students not show up to school,” Boswell said. “I have real concerns about that many middle and high schools congregating outside of our elementary schools … and not every neighborhood is equally safe for a kid to walk to an elementary school.”

The district is considering extra hub stops where the distance may be “too far” to the nearest elementary school, a representative wrote to the Chronicle. “However, we do ask families to assist in transporting students to and from the nearest hub location as we definitely do not want students crossing or walking in hazardous areas.”

The district also proposed cutting Communities in Schools at 25 campuses, an organization that offers one-on-one counseling and tutoring for students that need it. Edgar Morales, a new Akins HS graduate, urged trustees to retain the program.

“I’ll be the first person in my family to go to college,” Morales said. “CIS has shown me the kind of care, kindness, and commitment that helps others grow and feel acknowledged. … They helped me apply for college and gave me assurance that things would be okay.”

Other stipends and funding pots for some fine arts and athletics programs are on the chopping block. The district also plans to make cuts to benefits for employees, who will receive their updated benefit options in October, with plans to go into effect January 2027. Some administrative positions will face reduced working days and a salary reduction. Students will no longer have 1:1 device access.

AISD’s board of trustees hears public feedback on the recommended budget on June 4 Credit: Sammie Seamon

The district also hopes to shore $60 million in savings through the sale or lease of four closing school campuses. In May, Becker, Dawson, Widén, Sunset Valley, and Ridgetop elementaries and the excess land around Bedichek Middle School were recommended as “surplus” and scored for their monetization potential.

“That’s four land sales … where property sales and development are historically an issue for anybody, much less for us,” Trustee Fernando de Urioste pointed out. “So I have concerns about realizing that $60 million next year, particularly considering some of the delays that we’ve had in the past.”

AISD is now recommending a simple sale for the Dawson and Sunset Valley properties and a long-term ground lease for the land at Bedichek, a district representative wrote to the Chronicle. Trustees will also consider those recommendations this month.

Boswell urged Superintendent Segura to consider where these budget cuts may drive families out of the district. Since state funding for public school districts is based on average daily attendance in Texas, lower enrollment due to lost programs and services may partly negate some of the estimated savings.

Other trustees, like Candace Hunter, expressed concern about their ability to approve the latest iteration of the budget. The board is scheduled to vote on the budget June 18, ahead of the state’s June 30 budget deadline. If AISD does not approve a balanced budget by deadline, the Texas Education Agency could take over management of the district. 

“I hear the statement, ‘We can’t go back,’ but for me, I can’t go forward,” Hunter told her colleagues. “And I understand all the implications of what that means – the spending freeze, it could trigger TEA [takeover], it could trigger an audit, but there is some misalignment in our work, in our practice, and our beliefs right now.” 

Boswell also urged the superintendent to notify employees that they may lose their jobs as early as possible moving forward, rather than on the last day of school. “The cuts don’t get any harder, making them later. They just get less humane,” Boswell said.

Garcia had echoed similar words to the Chronicle. “I know that the board and the school district are in a really hard place, and that’s the state’s fault,” Garcia said. “But the way they treat their employees and how they handle this, that’s on them. And what they’re doing is eroding community trust.”

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