08-05-2025
Keeping Dobie Middle School open could cost teachers their jobs
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Showing support for teachers and their principal, students at Dobie Middle School staged a walkout Wednesday airing their frustration over the future of the school.
In August 2024, Dobie was identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement under the Federal Accountability System for the third consecutive year. A campus that fails to exit CSI for multiple years is required to prepare a campus Turnaround Plan.
Dobie and the discussion about what the district will do moving forward has been a hot button topic, with AISD discussing closing the school, moving students to Lamar Middle School and the most recent announcement that they are looking at a district managed restart plan.
Another option could mean a charter school and AISD work together to turn things around at Dobie.
'Current teachers and staff and the principal has been working so hard for the past two years,' said Yessyka Velasquez, a parent at Dobie.
While the district is no longer exploring a temporary closure for Dobie, the district is now proposing a district-managed restart plan, which could mean that not all staff will be around next year.
'It is concerning because they want to get rid of the principal along with every staff member, teachers and all,' Velasquez said.
TEA extends deadline for Dobie MS turnaround plan
Velasquez said the school has seen a lot of turnover through the years and students have not had stability. She said she's hoping some of the same faces return next year if AISD decides on a restart plan.
Jose Carrasco, with Austin Voices, shares the same concern with a restart.
'We need to stabilize things, we need a consistency of things, not restarts,' Carrasco said.
He said the STAAR Test and the A to F accountability system are also part of the reason some schools are seeing failing grades.
'Especially for a school like Dobie who has 73% of students that don't have the strong English, then to give them an English test,' said Carrasco. 'That test is a broken system nobody likes it.'
In a recent meeting with Texas Education Agency (TEA) commissioner Mike Morath, he said the A to F accountability system will help improve student outcomes.
'What the evidence shows is that schools that have a D or F rating, they get better very quickly because people realize that, hey, we need to change what we have been doing
because what we have been doing hasn't worked,' Morath said.
Webb and Burnet Middle School are also facing the same decisions.
AISD will hold a meeting Thursday to discuss these plans.
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