The 2022 Bond planning process began in 2021 with facility condition assessments (FCA). The FCA evaluates the physical condition of a facility to measure what systems are broken, aging or at the end of their lifecycle. During this process, the district also conducted an educational suitability assessment (ESA) at each facility. These assessments included interviews with campus leadership to understand better how the facility works for their school community.
Through this process, it was identified that 25 schools had an FCA score of unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory, and 8 schools had an ESA score of unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory.
Along with the facility assessments, the district’s Long-range Planning (LRP) efforts continued through the formation of the LRP Committees. This work was informed by the 2017 and 2019 Facility Master Plans and identified additional needs throughout the district.
We collaborated with seven planning committees made up of parents, community members, students and district staff representing different segments of the community.
We used a decision-making framework known as Equity by Design to prioritize projects based on the data we collected. This approach seeks to understand historical issues and identify root causes in order to more effectively address the challenges facing our district and underserved communities.
The LRP strategies identified for potential bond funding were given to the Bond Steering Committee (BSC), which was formed in February 2022. The BSC used the district’s Long-range Plans, Facility Condition Assessment and Educational Suitability Assessment scores, bond capacity, and other relevant information to create a recommended package for review by the superintendent and board of trustees.
The BSC developed two draft bond proposals that were presented to the community in July 2022. After receiving community feedback, the BSC revised the draft bond proposals and submitted those to trustees for consideration. The Board of Trustees approved the final bond package at the Aug. 11 Board meeting.
Voters approved Austin ISD’s 2022 Bond on November 8, 2022. The first bond projects will begin in Summer 2023. Click here to view a detailed schedule of the modernization projects.
