This brief report summarizes some of the family engagement services provided by Austin Independent School District's parent support specialists to families during the 2020 calendar year. There is a separately published report that summarizes services during the 2019-2020 school year.

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This report first offers a…

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' NB certification process is rigorous professional development opportunity available to teachers, counselors, and librarians that involve intensive self-reflection of their teaching practices, based on nationally established standards. This report provides a summary of AISD's National Board…

In this article, the author argues that given the Supreme Court's recent decision to ban affirmative action, there is much to be done to maintain and increase diversity in a race-neutral admissions environment. Those who oversee admissions/enrollment planning and strategic enrollment management must find innovative ways to accomplish this. The…

This report summarizes the application rate for the 2019-2020 student teacher cohort between January 2020 and August 2020, as well as hire rates for student teachers who applied. Overall, 49% of the student teacher cohort applied for a teacher position during that time frame, and 44% who applied were hired and employed as a teacher by November…

As campus carry policies are implemented at colleges and universities across the country, the concern for the safety of students, faculty members, and campus community members has heightened. In the state of Texas, broad sweeping campus carry policies were recently enacted by Texas State Legislature that allows individuals to conceal carry…

Texas is home to a burgeoning linguistically diverse population, which has contributed to the exponential growth of bilingual education programming across the state. One program type, two-way dual language (TWDL), has become a popular enrichment model of bilingual education and has received increased attention and funding at the state level. While…

Campus carry laws have allowed civilians to legally bring their concealed firearms onto college and university campuses in several states in the U.S. over the past decade. Previous studies have addressed the policy's legal grounds, arguments for and against it, impacts on campus safety, and faculty and students' attitudes toward it. This paper…

The Texas Afterschool Centers on Education is the program administered through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the federally funded 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) grants. The Texas ACE Austin Cycle 9 program is composed of a compilation of activities at 10 AISD campuses that provide a comprehensive range of high quality and…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…