AISD staff have discussed roughly 225 students as a practical elementary viability reference point — but total head count is only one lens, not the whole picture. This page uses head count to show how much enrollment cushion each scenario preserves or spends. Measured that way, here is what the scenarios actually do.
225 isn't an official Austin ISD floor — you won't find it written into board policy. It's a staffing-model rule of thumb. AISD allocates a minimum of 2 teachers per grade level (about 12 core classroom teachers for a K–5 school), and the state sets an optimal 22:1 ratio for K–4. Run that math and a campus needs roughly 225 students before its classrooms generate enough attendance-based funding to cover their own teachers plus a share of fixed building overhead — principal, nurse, counselor, librarian, utilities. Below that point the budget math gets tight, which is why planners treat it as a practical viability reference. It is not a closure trigger, and head count is only one of several lenses that matter.
A combined map is possible
Two big neighborhood clusters in north central Austin — Pillow / Gullett on one side, Brentwood / Wooten on the other — do not share boundaries. So the moves both maps already agree on can be kept while setting aside the two changes only one map makes. This isn't a finished plan or a proposal — it's not a proposed final map. It's an illustration that the Oak-vs-Elm tradeoff isn't forced by the numbers, assembled entirely from the district's own published figures. The exhibits below show the data behind it.
| Keep the Pillow / Gullett side as Elm draws it. Gullett stays intact at its current level, with no Allandale split. | |
| Take Oak's treatment of the Brentwood / Wooten side. Both maps share the Wooldridge move that fixes Wooten — but they split on Brentwood: Oak leaves it whole at 97%, Elm draws students out of it. Since Wooten reaches viability without that draw, the combined map keeps Brentwood whole. |
Every school in that combination clears the 225-student reference point on the district's own numbers, and neither neighborhood is split to backfill the other. The district said it wants to move past the Oak-or-Elm binary — this is one demonstration that a map honoring both communities is available within its own data.
Illustrative, not a position. It uses the district's published scenario figures only to show that the binary framing isn't forced by the numbers. The specific lines, and any moves outside this cluster, are the district's to draw.
The combined map, drawn
Each zone is shaded by how far its projected enrollment sits above the 225-student reference point. The color says the same thing across all four maps — every zone clears it. What changes is the shape of the boundaries: under Oak, Gullett's zone is split and Padrón's stretches north; the combined map keeps Gullett whole and Brentwood whole.
The amber band flags schools within 50 students of the floor (only Wooten, before its fix — watch it turn green across the scenarios). Because every zone clears the floor everywhere, the maps stay green throughout; the real differences are in the boundary shapes. Zone outlines are simplified from AISD's published scenarios and are illustrative — the district would reconcile exact lines. This is a zone-assignment view, not a parcel map.
Exhibit 1 — Head count vs. the 225 reference point
Color shows how far each school sits above the 225-student reference point. Read across a row: where a healthy school's color fades under a plan, that plan is pulling students out of a school that wasn't endangered.
| School | Current2025 | No change2027 | Oak2027 | Elm2027 | Hybrid2027 |
|---|
Pillow needs nothing done. It sits at 376 today and 368 on the district's own no-change 2027 projection — about 145 students above the 225-student reference point. The proposed maps are what pull it down, to 257 (Oak) or 278 (Elm). The change doesn't rescue an under-enrolled school; it moves a healthy one toward the edge. That's the shape of the whole Allandale move: large student disruption, little to show for it — exactly the cells that run high on disruption and low on capacity benefit in the districtwide matrix.
Color encodes margin above the 225-student reference point. The hybrid cell is outlined; it draws from Oak for Brentwood / Wooten / Wooldridge and from Elm for the rest. Figures are Austin ISD's own published scenario numbers.
Exhibit 2 — The same head counts, by school
If the test is viability, nothing here is failing — so the plans aren't rescuing an endangered school. They move healthy schools toward the edge.
Figures are Austin ISD's own published scenario numbers (SY2027 projection; current is 2025). The hybrid draws from Oak for Brentwood / Wooten / Wooldridge and from Elm for the rest.
Exhibit 3 — Distance burden, Pillow & Padrón
Distance from each zone's farthest edge to its school. Read each scenario as a pair: under Oak, the two trade places.
Under Oak, Pillow's farthest reach shrinks from 4.0 to 1.7 miles — but Padrón's grows from 0.9 to 3.4. The long commute doesn't go away; it transfers to Padrón, the school the district has flagged for equity concerns. Elm and the hybrid keep Padrón compact.
Straight-line distance from each zone vertex to the geocoded school building — a conservative measure, not drive distance. Boundaries simplified from AISD published scenarios.
Independent analysis. Not an official Austin ISD product. Built from the district's own published redistricting data.