AISD stalls vote on $440K family resource centers contract after applicants violate rules

The Austin school district has postponed a school board decision to pick an organization to run five family resource centers in district campuses after staff members said both applicants violated rules about communicating with the board or staff members.

The delay puts on hold the renewal of a contract that facilitates the resource centers, which serve some of Austin’s most at-risk students and families. The contract process drew bids from two well-known, long-established nonprofits in the Austin school community: Austin Voices for Education and Youth and Communities in Schools of Central Texas.

The new contract would establish services for family resource centers at five Austin campuses: Houston Elementary School and Burnet, Dobie, Martin and Webb middle schools, according to district documents.

Family resource centers are on-campus support facilities meant to help families in the district with basic needs such as housing and access to health care. The resource centers are partly meant to help stabilize the home situations of at-risk students so they can more easily focus on their education.

Nonprofit Austin Voices for Education and Youth has run family resource centers in the district for about 17 years. Austin Voices currently runs the five that receive funding from the district plus two others it funds itself.

During the process of a regularly scheduled bid to update the contract, the district’s panel of scorers gave Communities in Schools an 88.86 and gave Austin Voices an 82.14 on the procurement rubric. Typically, district staff members will recommend the highest scoring vendor to board members for final approval.

The board had been scheduled to vote on the contract Thursday, but the staff pulled the item after they found all parties involved violated local board policy, said Jacob Reach, chief of governmental relations and board services.

An existing board policy prohibits vendors from communicating with board members or district personnel during a specific period in the procurement process, Reach said.

Reach declined to discuss the specifics surrounding the alleged violations.

Generally, email communication and in-person conversations would constitute violations of the noncontact period, save for public comments during board meetings, Reach said.

The Austin school district had opened the contract for bids as part of its public procurement process, as the district opens the floor to vendors to bid on contracts over $100,000.

The $439,449 contract uses $218,300 from the district, $111,149 from the city of Austin and $110,000 from Travis County.

Vendors and their representatives cannot indirectly or directly ask or influence board members and district personnel to take certain actions but can communicate with the district on a “nonsubstantive, procedural matter,” according to the local policy.

Investing in Austin schools

Both nonprofits have been integral parts of the Austin education community for decades.

Austin Voices created the first family resource center at Webb Middle School in 2007, Associate Executive Director Louis Malfaro said.

“We founded them,” Malfaro said. “We do more than just run family resources centers. We have community school alliances.”

In a 2023 report, the nonprofit noted it served 6,800 clients in the 2022-23 school year, largely with basic needs and health and housing services.

“We've created this climate of nonprofits and government agencies and churches that support the schools,” Malfaro said.

Communities in Schools of Central Texas, a local affiliate of the national organization, has also served area schools for more than 40 years.

“This work aligns with our mission to surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life, as well as our strategic plan that builds on our 39-year partnership with AISD to engage and support families,” said Sharon Vigil, CEO of the local chapter.

The nonprofit works in schools to connect students with counseling and academic support and provides basic needs to families. The Central Texas chapter works with more than 8,500 students across seven school districts, including Austin.

"We are confident we have made good faith efforts to comply with AISD policies and we followed the precedents and standards set by the district in recent solicitations," Vigil said.

The school board won’t act on the contract Thursday, but district staff members may provide an update, Reach said. The item was pulled from Thursday’s agenda, but staff noted the change in an effort to provide transparency, since the contract has garnered much community interest, he said.

After Thursday, district staff members plan to decide how to address the open contract, Reach said.

The district could place the contract up for a new bid on a truncated bid timeline, which is typically 30 days, Reach said. Austin Voices and Communities in Schools, the only two vendors who sought the contract, could reapply if it's put up for a new bid, he said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin school district delays vote on family resource centers contract