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Webb Middle School in 2007 faced closure due to low test scores under an accountability law. Community members, students, and teachers organized within a month to persuade the school board, then proposed a family resource center to bring social services onto campus. After wraparound supports helped students pass required tests, the approach spread to Reagan High School in 2008 and evolved into a strategy for multiple high-poverty Austin schools, supported by education funding and legislative efforts.",{"@graph":69,"@context":121},[70,84,104],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":53,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/lifestyle/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/cultivating-community-schools-austins-grassroots-effort/591536/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":98,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":99,"interactionStatistic":100},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/cultivating-community-schools-austins-grassroots-effort/591536.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"supergirl","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":101,"interactionType":102,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":103},"ViewAction",{"@type":105,"mainEntity":106},"FAQPage",[107,113,117],{"name":108,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":110},"Why was Webb Middle School scheduled to close in 2007?","Question",{"text":111,"@type":112},"It was set to close because low test scores gave the superintendent grounds to act under an accountability law.","Answer",{"name":114,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":115},"What solution did the community propose to keep Webb open?",{"text":116,"@type":112},"They proposed creating a family resource center with a coordinator to connect parents to housing, immigration support, counseling, and other resources so teachers and students could focus on learning.",{"name":118,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":119},"How did the community school approach expand after Webb and Reagan?",{"text":120,"@type":112},"After wraparound services proved effective, the model grew into a strategy to transform multiple high-poverty schools in Austin, supported by funding and legislative encouragement.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":123,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":125,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":127,"site_id":62},591536,1792072681,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":130},{"doc_id":127,"user_id":131,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":132,"doc_module":4,"category_id":52,"category_name":53,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":133,"file_id":134,"file_url":135,"file_type":136,"file_size":137,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":34,"language":138,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":139,"faqs":140,"seo_title":141,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":128,"read_time":142},962088121634,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","Cultivating Community Schools  \nAustin’s Grassroots Effort  \nILLUSTRAT IONS BY NENAD JAKESEVIC  \nBy Jennifer Dubin  \nI  \nn 2007, Walter P. Webb Middle School faced a crisis. One evening in January, the superintendent at the time held a meeting at the school in Austin, Texas, to let students, parents, teachers, and community members know that at the  \nend of the academic year, their school would close. Thanks to anew state law focused on accountability, the superintendent, with the approval of the school board, could close a school because of low test scores. The superintendent told the community that students would be sent to two other middle schools in the Austin Independent School District, both of which were struggling academically.  \nThe hundreds of people who attended the meeting at Webb were outraged. They took turns going up to the microphone tourge school district leaders to reconsider. They reminded district officials that students hadn’t even taken the end-of-year statemandated tests, and they demanded that students be given another chance. The superintendent held firm: he believed that not enough students would pass the tests.  \nJennifer Dubin is the managing editor of American Educator. Previously, she was a journalist with the Chronicle of Higher Education. To read more of her work, visit American Educator’s authors [index at www.aft.org/ae/](index at www.aft.org/ae/)[ ](index at www.aft.org/ae/)[author-index.](author-index.)  \n“It was a terrible meeting,” recalls Allen Weeks, a community activist.“We were told that the kids had failed, the teachers had failed, the community had failed—everybody had failed except the school district.” The superintendent’swords hit a nerve for Weeks.“I thought, he would never say this on the other side of town.”  \nWebb is located in northeast Austin, a low-income area removed from the trendy restaurants and gleaming buildings of the University of Texas at Austin that have come to signify the wealth of downtown. Separated by I-35, a monstrous doubledecker freeway, these affluent neighborhoods are a world away for Webb’s students, nearly all of whom are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price meals at the school. One of those students, Zaira Garcia, pleaded with the superintendent that night to keep her school open.“Teach us, educate us, do not tell us the answer is closing Webb down,” said the eighth-grader.“Give us resources. We need clubs, teams, and committees of parents and students. There is nothing wrong with the students. There is nothing wrong with this school building. We just need a better system.”  \nGarcia’s statement would prove prescient. The “better system”would turn out to be a community school.  \nAfter that night, a group of parents, teachers, and community members decided to save their school. They had one month to convince the school board to reject the superintendent’s plan for closure.  \n12 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | FALL 2015  \nA neighborhood resident, Weeks was determined to help the community keep Webb. Hewas a former teacher who had taught high school English in North Carolina and Virginia and had also done youth development work overseas. Since moving to Austin a few years earlier, he had spent much of his time volunteering at John H. Reagan High School, the high school Webb feeds into.  \nWeeks used his community organizing skills to help this group of parents, teachers, and community members figure out what would dramatically improve their school. They agreed that Webb most needed a way to support student achievement by bringing social services to the school. So the group wrote a proposal to the school board calling for the creation of a family resource center where a coordinator would connect parents with housing, immigration, counseling, and other resources, so that teachers could focus on teaching and students could focus on learning.  \nThe school board accepted the group’s proposal and declared that Webb would remain open. With a renewed sense of purp","cbCaip7NQyU9W4Lz","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaip7NQyU9W4Lz","pdf",254887,"English","# Crisis and Community Response\n## The Webb Middle School Closure Plan\n# Building a “Better System”\n## Family Resource Center and Wraparound Supports\n# Replication and Growth\n## Reagan High School and the Spread of the Model","[{\"question\":\"Why was Webb Middle School scheduled to close in 2007?\",\"answer\":\"It was set to close because low test scores gave the superintendent grounds to act under an accountability law.\"},{\"question\":\"What solution did the community propose to keep Webb open?\",\"answer\":\"They proposed creating a family resource center with a coordinator to connect parents to housing, immigration support, counseling, and other resources so teachers and students could focus on learning.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the community school approach expand after Webb and Reagan?\",\"answer\":\"After wraparound services proved effective, the model grew into a strategy to transform multiple high-poverty schools in Austin, supported by funding and legislative encouragement.\"}]","Cultivating Community Schools - Austin’s Grassroots Effort | PDF",11]