Trustees approve elementary charter

School

encroachment,” said community member Monica Guzman. “The East Austin community has spoken. IDEA is a bad idea. The east side community expect the board to cancel the contract. East Austin is not, was not and never will be for sale.”

Under the contract signed last December, IDEA is to expand into Eastside Memorial High School next fall. Newly elected Trustee Jayme Mathias, however, asked the board to consider confining IDEA to the former Allan Elementary for another year to gauge whether the community wants it to remain. Other trustees have questioned the partnership, and it remained unclear by print deadline whether there would be a push by any of the trustees to end the partnership altogether.

Trustees voted unanimously Monday night to approve a full-scale charter partnership for Travis Heights Elementary, the district’s second such partnership.

The charter, lauded by trustees and community members, will be managed by a board representing teachers, community members, the district’s labor group Education Austin and Austin Interfaith. But unlike IDEA, school leaders agreed not to move forward on the charter unless it had the support of a majority of its teachers and the neighboring community. The school’s leaders will have greater power over their budget and curriculum, which next year will focus on dual language instruction; technology and digital learning; and service learning, which teaches through community ser-