Parent Petitions to Close Webb and Burnet Middle Schools Called Into Question

By Thursday night, Oct. 15, Austin Council of Parent Teacher Associations’ president, Crystal Brothwell Hernandez, announced that volunteers had collected petition signatures from over 50% of parents at Burnet and Webb middle schools, asking the Texas Education Agency to close the two campuses instead of taking over Austin ISD.

The two AISD campuses received a fifth consecutive F rating in August, a benchmark that requires TEA to intervene in the district. State law offers a rarely taken option, Parent Petitions for Action, for parents at the failing schools to indicate what they want TEA’s intervention decision to be: either the closure of their own schools, or the installation of a board of managers in place of the current school board. 

Texas Education Code says the commissioner “shall” order what the majority of parents request, but it’s unclear if that is a binding obligation. TEA did not respond to the question.

Volunteers – some associated with the Austin Council of PTAs, Austin ISD’s union Education Austin, and the coalition Keep Austin Schools Independent – collected the petition signatures. At an Oct. 9 press conference, Brothwell Hernandez acknowledged the difficult request they asked of Burnet and Webb families.

“Yes, we are asking parents to close their schools,” Brothwell Hernandez said. “We’re asking them to sacrifice their school for their students, and their teachers, and the entire school district.”

At the same briefing, Webb teacher and AISD parent José Muñoz pointed to the classroom changes enacted in other state-controlled districts. “A districtwide takeover could mean loss of essential fine art programs for electives, educational services, social services, libraries, dual-language,” he said. “These are concerns we cannot afford to ignore.”

An AISD spokesperson confirmed to the Chronicle that they had received the petitions by the Oct. 15 deadline, adding that district leaders will begin validating the signatures once the district’s enrollment data is finalized on Oct. 30. AISD must submit the results to TEA by Dec. 1.

“The petition process created an invaluable opportunity to continue conversations on the needs of our students, families and staff, and we plan to maintain our engagement with the Burnet and Webb communities throughout the year,” the district wrote to the Chronicle.

Since the petitions were submitted to AISD last week, Vanessa Gámez, president of the Webb PTA, has accused the involved groups of collecting signatures from Webb and Burnet parents without transparently informing them of what they were signing.

“What hurts me the most is witnessing parents signing a document without fully understanding what they were signing. I personally saw and heard this from parents. Even more heartbreaking was learning that children were also being approached,” Gámez wrote on social media Oct. 13. “Our families and our children deserve respect, transparency, and peace – not pressure, confusion, or intimidation.”

At the Oct. 9 briefing, Education Austin President Ken Zarifis, who personally solicited signatures from Burnet parents, said almost everyone he approached signed. “It’s about getting a voice. Do you want a voice, or do you want no voice? That’s the bottom line. That’s what we’re working with. So to get a voice, we have to sign this petition,” Zarifis said.

On Oct. 17, Gámez and Valeria Gonzales, another member of Webb’s PTA, posted a formal complaint asking TEA to investigate the process in which signatures were solicited, and expressed concern that Burnet and Webb families’ personal information, including residential address, was collected by individuals outside of AISD.

“We firmly maintain that the petition requesting the closure of Webb Middle School was not initiated by Webb parents. … A signature obtained through deception, pressure, or without a clear understanding of what is being signed should never be treated as an unquestionable expression of a parent’s wishes.”

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