Visit the WPNA Schools Committee Public Advocacy Folder to see where we stand around advocacy issues in AISD, and to read our official communications with the district. We love our public schools in Windsor Park! 

 Fix Windsor Park’s School Feeder Patterns !

2022-2023 School Issue:

If you live in Windsor Park and have children, you have likely had to choose an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. Our schools have a lot offer including dedicated & experienced teachers, tight communities, linguistic and racial diversity, dual language classes, and innovative after school programing.

However, our feeder pattern & attendance zones are confusing.

Why it’s a Problem:

• Your neighbor zones to a different school than you
• Your child’s longtime elementary school friends are zoned to different middle schools
• You don’t know anybody going to the school you’re zoned to, so you transfer
• You don’t know anything about our neighborhood’s 2 single gender schools (Bertha Sadler Means Young Women’s Academy & Gus Garcia Young Men’s Academy)
• It’s confusing: instead of having a simple pattern where our 3 elementary schools zone to 1 middle school which zones to 1 high school, families get bounced around
• It’s an equity issue: Higher income schools on Austin’s west side have simple, “aligned” feeder patterns. The most confusing feeder patterns are on the Eastside.
• It’s based in racism: The reason our feeder patterns are confusing is the result of a long history of racial segregation (legal & defacto) and using attendance rezoning as band aid fixes for improving poor-performing schools.
• It cuts off our community’s ability to build power and advocate for issues that affect our neighborhood when we all attend different schools.

Call to Action:

In Fall of 2023, a new middle school currently being built in Mueller is slated to open its doors. The Windsor Park Neighborhood Association Schools Committee thinks the conversation about attendance for this new school should be more broad.

We are asking AISD to do a deep dive around how we got here, how our current pattern affects our children, and how they can be changed to better align all of East Austin’s feeder patterns. 

• Email Gloria Bedolla (gloria.verabedolla@austinisd.org), Community Engagement specialist with AISD
• Write a letter/email to our trustees asking them to review Northeast Austin’s Feeder Patterns. Ask for historical snapshots of how it got so tangled.
• Make a public comment during a board information session.
• Make a comment to the long range planning committee.

You don’t have to be a parent to care about what a fractured feeder pattern does to our community. Stronger and better connected community schools fosters a deeper connection to neighbors, businesses, and organizations in Windsor Park. 

Below is a visual representation of Northeast Austin’s school feeder pattern on the left, and a Northwest Austin school feeder pattern on the right. The path to high school shouldn’t be more complicated on one side of town than the other. Go here to see even more diagrams.

Northwest Austin Feeder Pattern: