Because the law leaves only two outcomes, and this is the only one where parents decide. Once a school receives five F ratings in a row, the Commissioner must either close it or take over the district; he cannot choose to do nothing. A parent petition chooses closure on the parents' terms: the district keeps its elected board, your child keeps the right to choose their next school, and the campus can reopen with a new program. Without the petition, the Commissioner chooses for you, and he can still close the school.

If the petition is valid, the Commissioner must order the school closed at the end of this school year. Closure is a legal status for the campus. It does not mean the building sits empty: state law allows it to reopen as a new school with a different program, new leadership, and open enrollment, under strict rules. Mayor Watson has proposed exactly that for the new Burnet building.

There is no time to wait. Austin ISD has appealed both ratings (Burnet scored 59 and Webb 58; a 60 is a D). The results are not expected before the October 15 deadline, and ratings become final in December. If an appeal succeeds, the fifth F goes away and the petition is not needed. If it fails and no petition was filed, the Commissioner decides alone. Signing now protects families either way.

Yes. Earlier this year the district placed Burnet, Webb, and Dobie under an outside partner, the Texas Council for International Studies, and asked the state for the two-year pause in accountability ratings that comes with that kind of partnership. TEA declined the pause in late May, and the district and the partner ended the arrangement on July 31. The schools are back under Austin ISD, which says it is keeping the extra teacher coaches, interventionists, and funding in place. The state's clock kept running, and the fifth F has already been issued.

No. Your child stays in Austin ISD. You choose any Austin ISD school that serves their grade, and the district must provide transportation on request. If the campus reopens with a new program, families may also be able to stay together there; that depends on the plan the district and parents create, and under one of the state's options, neighborhood students must be admitted.

Students enrolled at each school on October 30, 2026. Each school is counted separately, and each needs signatures from the parents of more than half of its students. One signature per student counts, and the signer must be a parent or guardian listed on the registration form. If your child withdraws before October 30, their signature no longer counts, so keep your child enrolled.

Then the petition works for that school only. For the other school, the Commissioner must still choose between closing it and taking over the district. Both Webb and Burnet need a majority to take the district takeover option away from the Commissioner entirely.

This is an independent community effort. Austin ISD will not gather signatures or run the petition. Superintendent Matias Segura said on September 24 that it “needs to be driven by the community,” and that he believes “strongly that families should have a voice in what happens to their students.” The district will verify the petition and, if it is valid, submit the required plan to the state. Mayor Kirk Watson has publicly called on Webb and Burnet parents to use the petition to keep Austin ISD under local control.

The petition removes the requirement to replace the elected school board. The law does leave the Commissioner other tools, such as appointing a conservator to oversee the district. When Snyder ISD parents used this petition in 2019, the Commissioner honored it, the elected board stayed in place, and he appointed a conservator. That is a far smaller intervention than an appointed Board of Managers running every school.

Yes. The online form is the official TEA petition form. It collects every required field and records your signature with a time stamp.