Celeste Quesada reflects on daughters' time at Becker Elementary ahead of potential closure

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Celeste Quesada and her husband, Adrian (you may know him from Black Pumas or Grupo Fantasma) come from “strong cultural arts backgrounds,” Celeste puts it. They shared that background with their two daughters throughout their time raising the girls.

Although the Quesada girls are in high school and college now, they are graduates of Baker Elementary, one of the schools slated to close in the Austin Independent School District’s plan to close several schools and redraw school district boundaries districtwide.

The Quesadas (parents) were very involved in the school when their daughters were students there. Celeste said she and Adrian were “very involved in the PTA” at the time.

“Because my husband and I come from a strong cultural arts background, this is what we can bring to the school,” Celeste said. “So we came up with this program called Pachanga.”

She said they were able to leverage their community into making music and bring in DJs to throw big dance parties at the gym.

“We turned out the lights and brought out a disco ball and there were people from 4 to 45 dancing around us. The teachers could let loose, the kids could interact, and it was just a great, great time,” Celeste said. “The fundraiser was fun, but it was really a time to bond on the dance floor and see everyone’s funky moves.”

the Baker Elementary PachangaThe school’s annual “Art/Music/Dance Festival” began in 2012 and is still held every year.

The annual festival is just part of Celeste’s fond memories of school.

Baker Elementary School gave the Quesadas a strong foundation and community

Celeste said Baker was a solid foundation for her daughters, who are now 15 and 20 years old.

“I think that was a real foundation for their childhood memories and who they are today,” she said, reflecting on the girls’ time in elementary school in the 2000s. “They still have a close group of friends from their Baker Elementary School days…Both daughters have best friends they met at Baker Elementary.”

Celeste was born and raised in Austin, and jokes that when people find out, they’ll tell her she’s “a bit of a unicorn,” and now she’s raising “little unicorns in Austin.”

“When we have such a large, fast-growing, dynamic, growing city, a small environment for a child is really important,” Celeste said, noting the relatively small size of the school at the time her daughters enrolled.

“And these generations are pivotal to our future,” she said. “I really believe it starts with a strong primary foundation of education and those soft skills and curriculum.” “Baker Elementary was a bilingual program; that was very important to us. So, a foundation of communication and relationships for the child is important.”

Celeste said Baker not only set her girls up for future success, but also prepared her and Adrian for the next stage of parenting.

“Years later, as we form groups about our kids going to college and what that looks like, we almost feel like we’re kindergarten parents again, just like this other wave of parenting, and ‘Are we making the right choices?’ and all that. It’s still this extended family, so to speak,” Celeste said.

As for her daughters, Celeste said Baker helped teach them a sense of well-being and security through the processes of them learning to make and maintain friendships.

“Even though Austin is a huge city in the United States with a lot of exciting things going on, when you have these small schools within such a large urban community, it feels like a small city,” Celeste said. “So you can still have a human experience where you have deep, rich relationships with these teachers that we still have contact with, and the principals that we still have contact with.”

She added: “It is a good foundation for our human relationship, and the proof is its longevity, that it is still there after all these years.”

The importance of the Baker Bilingual Program and what will happen to it

Becker Elementary School has a bilingual program in which students enrolled in English and Spanish study.

Celeste said the dual enrollment program was one of the main reasons she and Adrian chose Baker for their daughters.

“It’s very important,” Celeste said. “Communication is key, and being able to speak to others in different languages, even if it’s just a few words, is very helpful.” “Forget being a little kid and making friends, we live in a global economy now.”

Celeste noticed how close Austin is to the Mexico border as well. “In Austin we forget how close we are to another huge country, a Spanish-speaking country,” she said. “So I think it’s very important to teach our children the ability to communicate with all kinds of different people.”

Celeste said many people work hard to provide generational wealth for their children. “For her, wealth is human connection and the ability to communicate,” she said.

Under AISD Draft merger and rezoning planStudents at Baker will transfer to Zilker Elementary or Sanchez Elementary.

AISD said its goal is to move unassigned dual language programs to districts “closer to where emerging bilingual students now live.” The programs aim to serve 50% of emerging bilingual students and 50% of non-emergent bilingual students.

Dual language programs not assigned to the district will transfer as follows:

According to the draft plan, Baker School would be closed, and neighborhood students would be reassigned to Zilker. The school-wide dual Spanish program will be transferred to and integrated with Sanchez.

This means Sanchez will no longer be a neighborhood campus and will support a school-wide dual Spanish program that is not zoned. In the draft plan, AISD wrote that Sánchez ES was chosen to host the program because it “already has a strong bilingual enrollment and serves many emerging bilingual students nearby.”

Here’s how the changes break down, according to AISD:

• Students who are currently participating (or would like to participate) in a dual language can stay at Sánchez ES.
• Sánchez ES neighborhood students will be reassigned to Allison ES, Zavala ES, or Travis Heights ES through boundary changes.
• Bilingual students from Sánchez ES and Becker ES will be prioritized next year; Other students can apply to participate in the program.

Families with students who live within the current Baker boundaries can go to Zilker or apply for a priority spot in the school-wide Sanchez Bilingual Program. Transfer students can go to their assigned school or apply for a priority place at Sanchez.

AISD noted in the draft plan that it is “very confident that all students who apply will receive a spot.” If Sanchez fills up, each student will be guaranteed a spot in another schoolwide dual language program (Odom ES, Pickle ES, Wooten ES) or in the Spanish and Mandarin immersion program at Joslin ES, according to the draft plan.

School closures and consolidations affect not only students but also parents

Although they are not involved with AISD elementary schools, Celeste said she and Adrian’s “hearts are always there,” that they love the community and still have friends and family involved.

Celeste also acknowledged the financial challenges AISD faces in its future plans. However, she said the upcoming changes look daunting for the affected families.

“By nature, I’m a very positive person, so I believe that kids are resilient and that, in the face of some uncomfortable changes, they will rise to the occasion,” she said. “However, I think there are more and more challenges that one child faces, than there certainly were when I was a child,” Celeste said, referring to things like school shootings, bullying, isolation, and the negative effects of social media.

“I wonder if all of these things combined could negatively impact children [more] “More than they’re used to dealing with their little bodies,” she added.

Celeste also said that stressors parents face, such as affordability issues and economic challenges, can be passed on to children, noting that parents will have to change their routines based on where their children will go to school.

“I hope we can stop and think about the values ​​that we want to teach our children and for our children to experience in this capital of Texas,” Celeste said.

The AISD Board of Trustees will take a final vote on the closure and consolidation plan during its Thursday, Nov. 20 meeting. If the changes are approved, they would take effect in the 2026-27 school year.