Westlake High School sits in one of Austin’s most resourced pockets, the kind of place where beautiful facilities and strong teachers are simply part of everyday life. It was there that John Armbrust spent his teenage years, before heading east to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. At the time, none of it seemed remarkable to him. That would come later.
After college, he joined Teach For America, first landing in Metro Atlanta and then relocating to Los Angeles. It was during these years that he encountered high-performing public charter schools up close, and he saw how they could make a transformative difference in their communities. Something about that possibility stayed with him.
When he eventually returned home to Austin, he carried a different lens than the one he’d had as a teenager. He understood, with the clarity that only distance and experience can provide, that his own education had been an immense privilege, not the norm. The educational inequalities across his hometown stunned him. That realization became the seed of Austin Achieve Public Schools, a charter district he founded to give his poorest neighbors the same outstanding education he once took for granted.
Today, John serves as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Austin Achieve Public Schools. In his role, he has built a school district, a family-oriented culture, and an educational philosophy that demands every scholar be treated as a whole child.
From 104 to 3385 in Just Over a Decade
As CEO, John’s responsibilities center on the district’s strategic vision and on making sure every department feels supported and capable of dreaming big. But numbers tell their own story here. Austin Achieve began by serving just 104 6th graders in a few rented classrooms. In under 15 years, that number has grown to more than 3,300 scholars in PreK-12th grade on five custom-built campuses. This skyrocketing growth shows how in-demand Austin Achieve’s services are in the community.
He counts three accomplishments as his proudest. The first is simply that the vision got off the ground at all, something he still describes as feeling like a miracle. The second is a 100% college acceptance rate across every graduating class the district has produced. The third, and perhaps most quietly powerful, is that the vast majority of Austin Achieve’s graduates are the first in their families to attend college, a fact that breaks generational patterns of poverty one diploma at a time.
The Whole Child, Not Just the Test Score
Ask John what philosophy drives the classroom, and he will tell you that college readiness cannot be reduced to academics alone. It has to be holistic. The district operates on what it calls a whole child approach, treating each scholar as a whole person rather than simply a data point. The results, he says, show up not just in test scores but in extracurricular engagement and long-term college success. Austin Achieve offers a wide array of arts, athletics, and clubs (including guitar, chess, and robotics); this emphasis on extracurriculars is rare for charter schools, and demonstrates the district-wide commitment to the whole child.
Looking to 2026 and Beyond
Growth remains the throughline of John’s vision for the years ahead. Austin Achieve plans to enroll more scholars within its existing schools while also expanding by opening new schools in neighborhoods across the Austin and Pflugerville areas. To keep this expansion honest and accountable, the district tracks key performance indicators across academics, operations, facilities, finances, and fundraising. Senior staff and the board of directors review these metrics every month.
Equity by Design
Austin Achieve is an open-enrollment public charter school, meaning it welcomes any child who walks through its doors. But equity, for John, is not incidental. The district’s schools were strategically placed in the Austin ZIP code that suffered the greatest educational disadvantage. He and his team have also found that the longer a scholar stays enrolled, the stronger their academic and social-emotional outcomes become, which is why the district works toward zero suspensions and expulsions, choosing instead to resolve challenges at their root cause and keep children in their seats. This data also drives the team to expand PreK as quickly as possible to give more children a chance to start their Austin Achieve education as early as possible.
When the Money Didn’t Come
Leadership, John admits, has had its harder chapters. Between 2019 and 2025, the Texas Legislature did not raise the per-pupil funding rate at all, meaning Austin Achieve operated on 2019 funding levels for six consecutive years, a stretch that spanned a pandemic, its inflationary aftershocks, and two turbulent election cycles. He and his team responded by tightening spending, listening closely to their community about which offerings mattered most, and prioritizing those essential services.
Relief arrived in 2025, when the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2, raising the base student allotment statewide, a shift he credits in large part to the incredible advocacy of the Texas Public Charter Schools Association.
If Time Were No Object
When asked what he would do with unlimited resources, John doesn’t hesitate: he would extend both the school day and the school year, pointing to extensive research showing that more instructional time yields better results. Austin Achieve already operates on this data, running longer school days and more school days annually than most neighboring schools.
The Waitlist That Keeps Growing
Demand has outpaced even Austin Achieve’s rapid expansion. The district is adding hundreds of new seats this year alone, yet roughly 600 families remain on the waitlist. Beyond his own campuses, John also advocates for stronger education policy, partnering with the Texas Public Charter Schools Association and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools to push for better outcomes for children everywhere.
Keeping Teachers in the Building
Having once stood at the front of a classroom himself, John is candid about how demanding and undervalued teaching can be. To retain high-quality educators committed to the mission, Austin Achieve offers some of the highest base teacher salaries in Central Texas, robust paid family leave, and participation in the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program, which rewards top-performing teachers with substantial bonuses.
Miles Logged, On Foot and In Life
Outside of Austin Achieve, John is a devoted long-distance runner. He has completed every World Marathon Major and more than 100 marathons overall, including one on each of the seven continents. He also serves on the board of Marathon Kids, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting youth inactivity by getting children moving through running.
A Mother’s Voice, Still Present
John traces much of his purpose back to his late mother, Cheryl Armbrust, who, he says, was a major influence on the school he eventually built. She encouraged him, John recalls, to think about children from every walk of life, and to make sure his work created greater educational opportunity for all of them. It is a lesson that still shapes the district’s mission today: to prepare local children not just to attend college, but to excel once they arrive.
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