When the morning bell rings at Zavala Elementary School in East Austin, 295 students file into a building made for 561.The school’s population has decreased by almost one-third in the past 10 years, a more extreme example of a trend that has been seen districtwide. With school consolidations on the way, East Austin residents are fearful of what this could mean for the area.

Because of the downward trends in enrollment, the Austin Independent School District is working on a plan that includes closing some schools starting in August 2020. The district will not announce which campuses will be closing until August 2019 and has not released criteria for how campuses will be chosen.

Cindy Anderson, vice president of the AISD Board of Trustees, said that she and her colleagues “support an equity lens in how we elect to consolidate schools.”

The Austin district has 37 schools that are enrolled at under 75 percent capacity. Twenty-eight of these schools are split evenly between northern Central Austin and East Austin.

“There’s a need from a district perspective to better balance enrollment,” Anderson said.

If enrollment were the only criterion for deciding which schools would be consolidated “it would disproportionately affect two different areas of the city,” Anderson said. “We have to look at other criteria which will allow us to have more of a geographical distribution.”

The district’s choice to consolidate and close campuses follows the sixth year of decreased enrollment in Austin’s schools. Enrollment decreased by 1,574 students for the 2018 school year.

According to Austin district data, of those who left from 2013 to 2017, a majority re-enrolled in public schools in nearby districts including Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hays.

“There is a multitude of reasons,” Anderson said of this trend. “But I would wager that some of that is driven by the affordability factor. You can save quite a bit of money if you live outside of Austin.”

According to the American Community survey, part of the United States Census Bureau, areas in East Austin between Interstate 35 and U.S. 183 saw increases in median home value ranging from between 90 to over 200 percent since the year 2000. Most areas in Austin saw an increase of less than 50 percent, with the median home value even decreasing in some places.

During this same time period, Austin has seen population growth of over 275,000.

If the population of Austin is increasing, why is the Austin district enrollment decreasing?

“Austin is changing,” Zavala PTA President Brenda Garza said, “and people are moving away from these neighborhoods to a more reasonable neighborhood, and the people moving in don’t have any kids.”

A 2018 study by the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis at the University of Texas found that the percentage of East Austin under the age of 17 dropped from 30 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2010, citing the “displacement and absence of children (as a) defining characteristic of gentrification.” At the same time, the white population increased by 442 percent, researchers found.

Richard J. Reddick, faculty fellow in the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis, said “a lot of people who have lived in AISD in the district boundaries historically can no longer afford to live here.” Reddick is also an associate professor in educational leadership and policy at the university.

“Austin is growing, but that growth is not really reflected in a large growth of middle income students and their families, nor has it resulted in an increase in, frankly, white students coming to the district,” Reddick said. “We have a combination of people moving to the city who do not have children or those who do have children and are middle income, they’re not ending up in the school district for some reason.”

As AISD is determining which campuses will be closing, Anderson said the board is aware of the “enormously detrimental effect on surrounding businesses and the community (of East Austin) in general” caused by school closures during desegregation in the early 1970s.

Public schools “are not just places where people go and take classes; they are community centers,” said Reddick, “people have a lot of identity wrapped up in the school.”

A school closing is “a very painful process, part of this community is going to be taken away,” Reddick said. 

“We understand the chronic reasons and so forth,” Reddick said, such as enrollment and campus efficiency “but it still a very painful thing for a community to go through. It’s not just bricks and mortar. It’s actual relationships and community pride.”

School closures are hard on kids, families and the community as a whole, Garza said.

“I don’t know if there is going to be a community anymore,” Garza said “I think it might cause a lot trouble within neighborhoods and communities, sadly. I think it might diminish the community.”