AISD Bond - 2017

[Flatiron]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

Kids play sports. It will not and should not stop. With that being said, do you think they should be placed in small locker rooms where staph infections are likely? Bowie has outdated locker rooms. The football team has 2 or 3 guys sharing a locker. Just a couple years ago, a staph infection spread through the team in the middle of the season. And that's at one of the newer high schools in the district! Only Akins is newer.

Athletic fields get worn out. They have to be replaced. If not, kids get injured. Have you ever run on a turf field with the seams all jacked up? ACL tears waiting to happen. You'd rather that happen?

BTW, AISD does concentrate on teaching. The latest tests show that the district is not only above average in results in Texas, but in the nation. And that's with a majority of the students being economically disadvantaged, or English is their second language.

AISD is not the district spending $70 million on a football stadium, like in Katy. AISD spends so little on athletics compared to a lot of districts, especially those surrounding us.

In this bond, they actually decreased a lot of athletic spending that was originally wanted so they could appease voters like you. House Park is in disrepair, but instead of spending $10 million on it, which covers all projects needed, they cut it down to like $2 million and put the rest on the back burner.

Theres more to education than athletics. Stop being a bully.

[austin242]

Bowie does not need a Parking Garage. It is a waste of Money. People Need to ride the Damn BUSSES already provided. All the students are so privileged already they can drive to school when they could just ride the bus like at most other schools. Bowie is the most spoiled school in the whole city. That is $50,000,000 wasted. For that price, they could get their own personal light rail system from circle c to the school, with one stop at Escarpment, La Crosse, and the other at Bowie. I will be Voting it down just for that alone. I went to Bowie from 2012-2013. Locker Rooms are fine at bowie. We shared lockers. People didn't clean their stuff (which is why they get staph) Locker Rooms were of sufficient size. The football team is just too big. Only 9th graders shared lockers. The theater needs to be renovated. It's way too small.

I would rather just see a New High School Built somewhere in South Austin. Then Both Akins and Bowie would no longer have the problems of Over Crowding. Bowie wouldn't have to spend money on a new marching field across the street. Akins wouldn't have to add a new wing every few years because they had 50 classrooms in portables. Bowie wouldn't have parking problems (which it shouldn't have in the first place). Someone said that they appropriate bond money very poorly. That is clearly the case. As a former student of A.I.S.D I believe they need to sort out their priorities.

[lzppjb]

Originally Posted by austin242

Bowie does not need a Parking Garage. It is a waste of Money. People Need to ride the Damn BUSSES already provided. All the students are so privileged already they can drive to school when they could just ride the bus like at most other schools. Bowie is the most spoiled school in the whole city. That is $50,000,000 wasted. For that price, they could get their own personal light rail system from circle c to the school, with one stop at Escarpment, La Crosse, and the other at Bowie. I will be Voting it down just for that alone. I went to Bowie from 2012-2013. Locker Rooms are fine at bowie. We shared lockers. People didn't clean their stuff (which is why they get staph) Locker Rooms were of sufficient size. The football team is just too big. Only 9th graders shared lockers. The theater needs to be renovated. It's way too small.

I would rather just see a New High School Built somewhere in South Austin. Then Both Akins and Bowie would no longer have the problems of Over Crowding. Bowie wouldn't have to spend money on a new marching field across the street. Akins wouldn't have to add a new wing every few years because they had 50 classrooms in portables. Bowie wouldn't have parking problems (which it shouldn't have in the first place). Someone said that they appropriate bond money very poorly. That is clearly the case. As a former student of A.I.S.D I believe they need to sort out their priorities.

I agree that the parking garage is a weird piece to this.

I don't agree that expanding Fine Arts and the Athletics wing is a waste. But we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[lzppjb]

Originally Posted by Flatiron

Theres more to education than athletics. Stop being a bully.

You confuse me. How am I being a bully? Where did I say there was not more to education than athletics? All I'm doing is responding to eskimo's comment that they shouldn't spend so much on athletics. I'm pointing out that AISD doesn't, in fact, spend that much on athletics in the grand scheme of things. And yes, I'm passionate about it. I'm not trying to be a bully. I'm asking for facts to back up the statement.

[eskimo33]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

You confuse me. How am I being a bully? Where did I say there was not more to education than athletics? All I'm doing is responding to eskimo's comment that they shouldn't spend so much on athletics. I'm pointing out that AISD doesn't, in fact, spend that much on athletics in the grand scheme of things. And yes, I'm passionate about it. I'm not trying to be a bully. I'm asking for facts to back up the statement.

Your passion did come across as somewhat aggressive, but I find that education in general and sports specifically tend to arouse a lot of passion out of people (so no worries).
To beat the proverbial dead horse here; I am not sure that one can truly say that ASID does not spend "that much on athletics" when the teaching staff is some of the lowest paid in the area and they spend more on athletics than pier cities. I know it is 2015 data, but that is the data AISD itself has chosen to use and publish for the point of comparison.
Either way, I am not sure that Izppjb or myself are going to change our minds on this, and in my opinion that is okay.

[wwmiv]

I went to LBJ. I'd be incredibly saddened if it were combined with our rival school, Reagan.

[wwmiv]

San Antonio ISD:

https://www.saisd.net/admin/finance/...206-19-17.xlsx

(FYI: this link is a forced download .xls spreadsheet)

It doesn't have a specific category for Athletics, but I'm going to assume that athletics is some portion of the "co-curricular/extracurricular activities" line-item.

That would put the maximum athletics expenditures at $11,095,884 out of $594,638,217, a 1.87% share. The reality is probably that only a portion of that line-item is athletics related. Even if half that amount is athletics, that would still be .93% (still much higher than Austin's ISD).

[lzppjb]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

San Antonio ISD:

https://www.saisd.net/admin/finance/...206-19-17.xlsx

(FYI: this link is a forced download .xls spreadsheet)

It doesn't have a specific category for Athletics, but I'm going to assume that athletics is some portion of the "co-curricular/extracurricular activities" line-item.

That would put the maximum athletics expenditures at $11,095,884 out of $594,638,217, a 1.87% share. The reality is probably that only a portion of that line-item is athletics related. Even if half that amount is athletics, that would still be .93% (still much higher than Austin's ISD).

That's exactly what I'm finding. Houston, Katy, Fort Worth...they all lump Athletics in with extracurricular activities (which also includes Fine Arts).

[lzppjb]

I was going off the eyeball test. I follow HS sports pretty closely. I help run a forum for 6A Texas Football. I have an idea what districts pay their coaches, what districts have amazing facilities, etc. Austin lags behind badly.

[eskimo33]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

That's exactly what I'm finding. Houston, Katy, Fort Worth...they all lump Athletics in with extracurricular activities (which also includes Fine Arts).

My numbers for athletics came from page 413 of the FY 17 AISD budget, as did the rest of the stats I quoted (minus the national report card, as it came from both the AISD budget and the national report card). The AISD has athletics broken out as its own line item.
https://www.austinisd.org/budget

[eskimo33]

You are right I should have cited my sources, they all came from this years AISD budget. I will go back to my original posts and do so.
https://www.austinisd.org/budget

[wwmiv]

Okay, but where are you getting the numbers for your comparison claims that Austin spends more than peer cities on athletics?

[lzppjb]

Those numbers are 2014-2015, but that's ok for this exercise.

According to that chart, only Manor and Del Valle spent less percentage-wise than Austin on Athletics. That doesn't account for Del Valle just completing a major overhaul of their stadium with a state-of-the-art indoor practice facility.

If we're going to compare with other large districts, then off the top of my head those would be:

Dallas ISD
Houston ISD
Northside ISD (San Antonio)
Northeast ISD (San Antonio)
San Antonio ISD
Fort Worth ISD
El Paso ISD
Katy ISD
Cy-Fair ISD
Fort Bend ISD

[lzppjb]

I'd have to do more research, which I'm not really willing to do, but 2014-2015 could include some costs that aren't normal.

In 2015, that flood ruined House Park's field and it had to be replaced with emergency funds before the 2015 season started. I don't know what budget that is captured on.

[eskimo33]

Izppjb, I was not meaning to start an in depth conversation about the budget but merely answering the question asked.
Having said that, I am glad that we had the discussion because it made me do research which helped further my understanding of the bond. No one will ever agree on everything, but a healthy discussion based on hard facts is always good.

[Novacek]

So I think the devil is in the details here. What's the "related" in that line? Cause it sure ain't the athletic department itself (which is listed as less than $5M of that $12M).

[lzppjb]

I just realized something re: parking garage. It probably stems from the SOS impervious cover regulations.

I think I read that Bowie was allowed at ~40%, but now that they are going to change things up, they have to adhere to the new regulations, which is something like 25% cover. That's why they purchased the two neighboring lots. The expansions planned so far are over existing parking lots, so it doesn't add or take away. But I remember speaking with a man that works for AISD with their construction projects at a community meeting this summer. He mentioned something about the existing drainage areas near the existing parking lot are going to have to be redone. Perhaps they will be losing spaces due to these new regulations, and that's what spurred the parking garage idea.

I'm going to ask the trustee of the zone Bowie is in and try to get some answers.

[Texas Jeff]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

I just realized something re: parking garage. It probably stems from the SOS impervious cover regulations.

I can understand why they would do that, but in an era where property taxes are as high as they are and Robin Hood is taking so much and Crockett has space for students -- this limitation should just mean we get creative to solve the problem rather than building a parking garage, in my opinion. I do feel for students who can not park on campus at their school, but I feel there are cheaper options.

SOS is a government ordinance. Bowie is a government property. I would be very disappointed to learn that the school district spent taxpayer money on property adjacent to Bowie just to leave it empty to comply with SOS. I hope this is not the case.

If Bowie needs more parking spaces and SOS is the limiting factor, then Bowie and the City of Austin and Austin ISD should work together to find the cheapest possible solution. Of the top of my head, I can think of these solutions:

* Give Bowie an exception to the rule, as a government building.

* Move students to Crockett to free up parking.

* Give out student parking passes until you are out of passes, then stop giving out passes. Student passes could be given out based on seniority or grades or some other factor. Students who get better grades might get on-campus parking. C students ride the bus or negotiate for rides from their A student friends.

* Give parking pass priority to students who agree to bring another student with them.

* If no SOS waiver is possible, remove part of the parking at Burger Center, then use the savings to add parking at Bowie.

Those are all options that I feel are cheaper than building a parking garage at Bowie.

[Texas Jeff]

OK, one more post about the Bowie parking garage idea and I'll stop for today. When googling around this afternoon in the rain, I discovered that Bowie offers reserved parking spaces for seniors for a cash payment:

https://1.cdn.edl.io/OPERaJQrdXfIBTc...qKrdZlf3qU.pdf

The seniors get a reserved, numbered space on campus. Which they then paint to match their personality:

https://www.littlethings.com/painted...arking-spaces/

So, for the entire year, no one else can park in that space. This is an incentive for parents to buy a space for their kid, so that they can paint it. If parking space is at a premium, the campus should not be reserving spaces.

[drummer]

Originally Posted by Texas Jeff

OK, one more post about the Bowie parking garage idea and I'll stop for today. When googling around this afternoon in the rain, I discovered that Bowie offers reserved parking spaces for seniors for a cash payment:

https://1.cdn.edl.io/OPERaJQrdXfIBTc...qKrdZlf3qU.pdf

The seniors get a reserved, numbered space on campus. Which they then paint to match their personality:

https://www.littlethings.com/painted...arking-spaces/

So, for the entire year, no one else can park in that space. This is an incentive for parents to buy a space for their kid, so that they can paint it. If parking space is at a premium, the campus should not be reserving spaces.

Most high schools do that same sort of thing, so I don't see it going away. However, I'm not sure how high schools in dense areas handle this (downtown areas, for instance). Bowie is a bit unique given that it's not in a high-density area, but it is limited on room so a larger surface lot isn't in the cards.