The possibility follows five consecutive failing accountability ratings for Burnet and Webb middle schools, which require state intervention. The TEA could decide as early as mid-December whether to take over district management, as it has in Houston and Fort Worth.

The uncertainty has not deterred Sarah Dille, a former AISD Teacher of the Year, district parent and University of Texas education professor, from running for the South Austin District 6 seat. She is among 13 people running for the five open seats.

Dille said she entered the race knowing a takeover could leave elected trustees without voting power. If that happens, she expects to focus on listening to families, working with parent-teacher associations and sharing information through community meetings and neighborhood outreach.

“I believe in public schools so fully that if there’s any fire I’m going to run toward, it’s going to be one that’s in protection of what it means to be a democracy, a part of the community,” Dille said.

Lawyer and AISD parent Jessie Neufeld, a co-founder of the campus-networking group ATX116, said the prospect of a takeover became more likely to her after the TEA rejected AISD’s application for an 1882 partnership. The arrangement would have delayed the possibility of a takeover for two years.

Neufeld said elected trustees could still coordinate community engagement, organize public testimony at managers’ meetings and work with local officials and neighborhood groups, even if they were no longer making district decisions. She said candidates should not assume the state-appointed managers would ask former trustees to participate.

East Austin District 1 trustee Candace Hunter is the only current board member seeking reelection. After a difficult school year marked by campus closures and budget cuts, Hunter said she decided to run because she could not find someone else ready to continue the work.

If a takeover happens, Hunter said she plans to keep explaining district issues to residents through her podcast and encouraging them to speak for themselves at meetings. She urged community members to use their own words rather than rely on scripted comments.

Hunter’s opponent, Cheryl Bradley, served as the District 1 trustee from 2002 to 2015. Bradley said she would continue advocating through public comment if the state took control. She also argued that East Austin residents have long felt ignored by the district, drawing on her experience growing up in the area and living through school integration in 1971.

“We are a community that is never asked,” Bradley said. “We’re told we are a community where things are done to us, and not for us.”

The November election will determine who holds the five seats, but a state takeover could sharply limit the authority voters give them. For Dille, the work would still matter even without a vote: “I’m not interested in working for TEA. I’m interested in doing the work that I know schools should do, and that I know Austin wants the schools to do.”