Austin schools to explore $800K Southgate classroom remodel

Published 10:23 am Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Austin Public Schools has some PI in the sky dreams once again.

Board members gave tentative approval Monday for district staff to explore remodeling part of Southgate Elementary School to create a stylized center for the top 1 to 2 percent of elementary students in the district. District staff say the potential remodel, if it takes place, could cost about $800,000 to create space for the Southgate program, called PI (Personalized Instruction).

“If you can bring those students to a centralized location, you can have a higher benefit,” said Educational Services Director John Alberts.

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Alberts and David Wolff, the district’s gifted and talented coordinator, gave a presentation to the board Monday about the district’s research into gifted and talented education over the past two years on how best to serve students at multiple levels in the gifted and talented elementary program.

The district spent a year identifying ways it could better educate multiple tiers of gifted and talented students in first through fourth grade, and another year implementing some of those initiatives.

The PI program would serve students in the Tier 3 category, or the top performing elementary students in the district. District officials hope to remodel the front hallway to the east of the main office into a kind of flexible classroom, such as the ones found inside I.J. Holton Intermediate School, to give gifted and talented students a better classroom experience.

Alberts said the district is looking for funding for the project and is exploring all options to get it. The district hopes to move quickly, as Alberts said a potential remodel would be done over the summer in time to open next fall. If funding isn’t in place, Alberts said the district would find other places to hold PI.

Students who qualified for the program would be able to transfer to Southgate Elementary.