Barton Hills Neighbors,

Posted below is the text of the letter I mailed and e-mailed yesterday to AISD Superintendent Carstarphen and the school board members on behalf of the Barton Hills Neighborhood Association.

Craig Smith
President, Barton Hills Neighborhood Association

Dear Superintendent Carstarphen and School Board Members:

I am enclosing the resolution Save Our Strong Neighborhood Schools! that was adopted by the membership of the Barton Hills Neighborhood Association on January 25, 2011.

Barton Hills Elementary has been a vital part of the Barton Hills neighborhood since it opened in 1964.  It would be devastating to our neighborhood, and to the Austin Independent School District as well, if the school were closed, as the Facilities Task Force has tentatively recommended.  It would not only be a blow to the many young families whose children attend or hope to attend Barton Hills Elementary, closing the school would gravely undermine the support for AISD in one of the highest-voting precincts in Austin.  I cannot imagine that our voters would continue to back the issuance of school bonds or participation in District activities if Barton Hills Elementary were closed.  That would be a setback to AISD as a diverse successful urban school district and to public education in general.

You are certainly aware that Barton Hills Elementary is rated academically exemplary – in the top 20% of all schools in the state.  Many parents have transferred their children into the school so that they can have the benefit of the good educational environment.  Yet the Facilities Task Force deemed the school’s academic success to be irrelevant and took the fact that the classrooms include transfer students to be a sign of inefficiency.  Such a wrong-headed analysis, one that ignored the educational result, was bound to produce a wrong answer.

While we all understand the necessity of coping with anticipated cuts in state education funding and appreciate the need to be efficient in utilizing AISD’s existing facilities, it makes no sense to close successful schools such as Barton Hills Elementary in order to save money.  That would like cutting off your foot in order to lose weight.  Education is AISD’s core mission, and the District cannot sacrifice that mission in the name of “efficiency.”  There are bound to be other ways for the District to save money besides closing one of its best elementary schools, the first step in a good education.

The Barton Hills Neighborhood Association has a history of both moral and financial support for Barton Hills Elementary.  The Association has used its resources in the past to pay for improvements to the school playground, which is jointly owned by the City of Austin .  We are ready to make additional contributions of funds, knowledge, and work to address the facilities issues identified as problems in the Task Force report.  I have asked Principal Katie Achterman to point out some of the problems that the Association could help to solve.

If the proposal to close Barton Hills Elementary, Zilker Elementary, and other successful central city schools was intended to a be test of the community’s support for their schools, I think you have already seen that the support is strong.  We in Austin , if not those folks at the Capitol, understand that the education of our children is the key to our future.  We are prepared to do whatever it takes to assure it.  And we hope that you are on our side.

Thank you for your service to our children and Austin ’s future.  I am,

Yours truly,

BARTON HILLS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

By: /s/

Craig Smith, President

Enc.:     Resolution

cc         Mayor Lee Leffingwell

Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez

City Councilmembers Sheryl Cole, Laura Morrison, Randi Shade, Bill Spelman, & Chris Riley