AUSTIN, Texas — The first day of school is always a big occasion for kids, their parents, teachers and school administrators.
A look back at a collection of KVUE News stories about the first day of school throughout the 1980s reveals new challenges virtually every year. That decade featured Austin’s first serious population growth spurt, and crowded classrooms were the order of the day.
A KVUE story from September 1981 focused on the rapid growth of southeast Austin, as Langford Elementary School had many new students and little room to grow. All sixth-grade classes were held in the school gym during the first weeks of school. Moveable blackboards were used as partitions, and the noise was said to be constant.
Eventually, three portable classrooms opened that alleviated some of the crowding.
Austin schools in the 1980s were constantly looking into adjusting school bus routes as parents complained about long bus rides to and from schools. Many students were being bused from their neighborhoods to schools relatively far away.
In 1984, many KVUE back-to-school stories focused on educational reforms from the Texas Legislature that led to such changes as mandatory school attendance, stronger curriculum guidelines and the “no pass, no play” law, under which students could be suspended from elective after-school activities like football and band if they had a failing grade in a course.
For teachers, one of the most controversial reforms of the '80s was mandatory annual competency testing, which was eventually abandoned.