On May 15, AISD and Bear Creek Elementary School hosted a virtual community event for students who will be attending the new school. The event featured remarks from Superintendent Dr. Paul Cruz, District 7 Trustee Yasmin Wagner, and Bear Creek Principal David Crisey, who also did a live reading of two children’s books.

The new, modernized campus in southwest Austin will provide relief to the over-utilized Kiker and Baranoff Elementary Schools with a planned capacity of 522 students. Following the AISD vision of creating 21st-century learning spaces for students, the new elementary school will incorporate flexible spaces allowing for collaborative, interdisciplinary, and project-driven learning. While we wish we were able to hold this event in person, due to COVID-19 and campus closures, the district opted for a virtual event to ensure the school community was still able to meet their new Principal.

At the time of the event, the school had not been officially named, however, on May 18 the Austin ISD Board of Trustees approved the naming of the new southwest elementary school to Bear Creek Elementary School. The campus is anticipated to open in August.

The program for the event can be found here.

Follow along with the video using the closed captioning found here.

Watch the recording of the full event:

To kick off the presentation, Principal David Crissey did a live reading of “If I Built a School” by Chris Van Dusen and asked students to contemplate the kind of features they’d like to see at their new school. Check it out:

Over the course of the project, the AISD Construction Management Department has been documenting the construction progress of the new Bear Creek Elementary School. Take a look at how much the project has changed over time:

To close out the event, Principal Crissey did a live reading of “All Are Welcome” by Alexandra Penfold and talked about the kind of environment he wants for Bear Creek Elementary School. Watch below: