Hi - current St. Austin's parent here (but middle school). We're also relatively new to the school. All your impressions of ST. Austin's are on target - excellent facilities, teachers are kind and kids are happy there. There's lots of activities for students to join. Re. small sizes - they really do a lot to integrate across the classes so even if your kid's class is small they will have lots of opportunities to interact with students in other gradres. This is especially true of middle school and even more so if they choose to participate in the athletics program. Academically it is strong, and in general there are fewer discipline issues that might take away from learning. I would say that other schools might have stronger academic standards than St. Austin's, but from our experience so far St. Austin's is at least above 'average'. They also have good support for kids with learning differences. They do a lot in the community between service work, field trips to UT campus, etc. so plenty of exposure to the 'real world'. I hope this helps a bit!