Why do so many people want to attend the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in North Austin? Only reason is because there is no magnet program for advanced academics existing in the southern district.

Approximately 400 students attending LASA live in the southern area of Austin ISD. There many more who wish to attend LASA who can’t because the campus is at its capacity limit. In addition, transportation and general distance away from students’ homes present problems.

This has caused a discussion downtown within the board of trustees to help combat this issue.

Five proposals to expand the advanced opportunities in South Austin were discussed at a board meeting  in early November. One proposal that has gained some support from trustees would be to implement an advanced academic magnet program at Crockett High School.

Some trustees believe this is the best choice because it would provide an advanced academic program in South Austin, closing the gap currently existing between students and the LASA, which is located in North Austin at the LBJ High School campus.

In addition, this would balance out the current differences in enrollments between schools in the district. According to the Texas Education Agency, last year Bowie had approximately 2,871 students, Akins had 2,667, and Crockett had 1,487.

The enrollment difference between Crockett and the other South Austin schools is staggering, with a difference of approximately 1,180 students between Crockett and Akins.

Enhancing programs in South Austin and centralizing it at Crockett would bring students to their campus, and take some of the load off of other schools like Bowie and Akins. Although there was some consensus in support of this proposal, school administrators have informed us that the board of trustees have gone back to the drawing board and formed a new committee charged with making a decision.

While it is unclear why the board had started the process over, at least we have more time to propose our own solution.

Currently, Akins and other schools in South Austin have advanced classes like Advanced Placement, On-Ramps, and Career Tech classes. While advanced to us, these classes don’t fully reach the desired level of difficulty that the district truly considers advanced.

What the district is really looking for is a step above what we currently have to offer. One example of what they prefer are programs like International Baccalaureate courses.

We agree that there needs to be a program of the same caliber in South Austin. Centralizing these special courses in north Austin is very inconvenient for students of Austin ISD because the admission rate is limited and everyone in the district deserves the opportunity to take the hardest classes available and challenge themselves.

However, we do not believe adding onto Crockett alone is the best idea.

If the courses we consider advanced are not truly what they need to be, then introducing a new set of classes to meet that standard will completely void what we already have and have been working toward creating at Akins.

So instead, we propose to revamp our current classes to the level the district requires and to do this at all campuses. This will also help prevent the so-called “Brain Drain” that happens with magnet programs that concentrate the brightest students at one campus and pull them away from neighborhood schools.

We as the Editorial Board of the Eagle’s Eye want to have the opportunities more available that are now restricted to north Austin. We urge the board of trustees to consider our proposal while ironing out plans, because we feel it would be the most beneficial for not only us here at Akins, but our sister schools in South Austin as well.