After sweeping school consolidations and deep budget cuts across Austin ISD, nonprofit organizations are stepping up to support the district as its financial crisis leaves less funding for schools, programs and outside partnerships.

As part of the $205 million in reductions approved by trustees in June, the district cut $1 million in funding for Communities in Schools programs at AISD schools. The outcry was swift, as the public rallied around the group. CIS moved nearly as fast, launching a fundraiser to raise $325,000 to support its work providing academic, emotional and resource support to students and their families across Central Texas, including in Austin ISD.

The district’s financial strain is also reshaping the role of organizations built to support its schools. Austin Ed Fund, the district’s public education foundation and philanthropic partner, is helping to fill gaps left by the reduced budget awarding $350,000 in grant funding for 48 teacher-led projects earlier this month, including projects focused on sustainability studies, literacy growth and incentives for students to meet and exceed learning goals.

As Austin ISD contends with fewer resources and declining enrollment, which reduces the funding it receives, Austin Ed Fund is taking on a more important role in supporting educator-led initiatives at individual campuses.

The two groups illustrate a broader challenge unfolding beyond Austin ISD’s classrooms. As the district confronts a historic financial crisis, cuts to partnership programs, teacher planning time, technology and bus services are pushing nonprofits to seek more community support at the same time schools are relying more heavily on their services.

The reductions have also sparked widespread concern among parents about the potential effects on attendance, student safety, support services and academic opportunities, particularly as programs with proven outcomes in some of the district’s highest-need areas could disappear from some campuses. For public education-focused nonprofits, the district’s financial crisis is intensifying the competition for funding even as the need for their services grow.

“Principals and community members refused to lose CIS,” said Sharon Vigil, CEO of Communities in Schools of Central Texas on what inspired the fundraising effort and how they are working with schools this year. “We had principals that came back and found funds, but they couldn’t find all the funds to keep CIS on their campus, and we just couldn’t turn them away.”

Community member Evelyn Watson told Austin ISD board members during public testimony in June that the program was a lifeline for students and families facing challenges inside and outside the classroom.

“Everyday, CIS helps students overcome barriers including food insecurity, mental health struggles, attendance issues and family hardships,” Watson said in her testimony. “When students have someone in their corner advocating for them, they are more likely to stay in school, succeed academically and graduate.”

A race to find funds

Vigil said after seeing community members show up to support students, teachers and CIS in the past, the organization launched a “Refuse to Lose” campaign to raise the $325,000 needed for the program to survive in some Central Texas schools at a subsidized cost for principals who were able to allocate some funding from their own campus budgets.

Typically, Communities in Schools runs about $130,000 per campus, with each school bearing 20-30% of that cost and CIS covering the rest, Vigil said. The funds cut from Austin ISD’s budget for the CIS program would have typically helped campuses afford their share of the cost.

“We weren’t expecting that principals would say ‘wait a minute, I can’t do it without CIS,’” Vigil said.

Communities in Schools has provided integrated student support for high-need campuses for four decades and its services include a staff member on campus who provides academic and mental health support to students and external resources, such as food pantries, clothing closets, mentor and volunteer support, leadership programs and summer programs. A recent national study by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights in partnership with the EdRedesign Lab at Harvard Graduate School of Education showed middle schools enrolled in the program see improved standardized test scores and students who have engaged with the program for at least three years have higher graduation rates and increased future earnings.

“The reason why CIS started was because the infrastructure that schools need to provide these services isn’t always readily available,” Vigil said.

Assistance for chronically-absent students, Vigil said, is one of the program’s main successes in Austin. Through the program, she said, some students with 70% attendance rose to 90%. With attendance a key figure in the state’s school funding formula, Vigil said the program’s success in increasing attendance meant an increase of nearly $1 million in state money for the district– nearly the same amount cut from Communities in Schools in this year’s budget.

Low resources, more need

Against a backdrop of cuts in classrooms, Austin Ed Fund’s annual Inspire the Future grants program has a heightened significance, giving educators increasingly-scarce resources to lead their own programs. The group provided $350,000 for 48 teacher-led projects this year, including a yearbook club at one elementary school, a sustainability initiative at another and literacy improvement initiatives at several local campuses.

Historically, the district has supported educators’ day-to-day work and Austin Ed Fund stepped in to provide opportunities beyond those quotidian needs, such as field trips or projects not covered in the district’s budget, said the group’s Executive Director Michelle Wallis.

However, as finances strain, she said they are seeing an increase in needs that could go unmet without additional funding.

“It is obviously a challenging time, with funding reductions,” Wallis said. “We always say district dollars do so much and we come above and beyond that. The challenging thing is that that line is shifting — of where district dollars stop and gaps start to occur — and we are seeing that across the system.”

In addition to their work supplementing school services, Austin Ed Fund has provided $150,000 to build community and honor the legacies for the 10 Austin ISD campuses shuttered due to academic and enrollment challenges. The group also launched a fine arts fund to help ensure equitable arts programming across the district, financial support for its Summer Theatre Series and private music lessons for students not otherwise able to afford them.

This year, Wallis said the group hopes to continue work with a school impact fund to understand and support what students need in the classroom.

“Often those campuses don’t have the wealth base to have a very robust PTA,” Wallis said. “We are hoping to provide a little bit of support for those leaders and those school communities as they are navigating this year.”