Fort Worth ISD could close these seven middle schools. Here’s why and what to know.

Although finalized plans are still months away, some residents in the Fort Worth Independent School District are getting a first glimpse of what school consolidation could look like in their neighborhoods.

The district held a series of community listening sessions over the past two weeks to talk about the possibility of consolidating seven middle schools. The meetings are a part of a larger facilities study that is expected to result in school closures.

Some of the listening sessions have grown contentious, with some attendees saying Fort Worth ISD leaders haven’t done enough to keep the broader community informed about the decision-making process. District leaders emphasized that no decisions have been made, and encouraged parents and other community members to voice their concerns through the district’s website.

Fort Worth ISD eyes middle school consolidation

The designs presented during the community listening sessions aren’t firm building plans. The district contracted with architects to do feasibility studies — preliminary work looking at whether there’s enough physical space to build combined campuses at the sites the district is eyeing.

In the Paschal High School area, district officials are considering consolidating McLean 6th Grade, McLean Middle School and Daggett Middle School into a single campus. In the North Side High School area, the district is looking at combining J.P. Elder and Kirkpatrick middle schools into a single campus. And in the Polytechnic High School area, the district is considering combining William James and Morningside middle schools. Any campuses the district decides to consolidate won’t see the change until the 2027-28 school year.

All seven campuses on the list of possible consolidations were slated for upgrades as a part of the $1.2 billion bond issue voters narrowly passed in November 2021. Under the consolidation proposal, the money that was designated to pay for those upgrades would instead go toward the construction of new consolidated schools. The proposal is expected to go before the district’s school board on May 28. If the board rejects the proposal, those campuses would instead get the upgrades and renovations originally planned in the bond proposal.

The proposal comes as Fort Worth ISD leaders are in the middle of a $2 million study of the district’s capacity. Officials expect to present a report to the school board later this year, including “rightsizing recommendations” that are expected to include school closures. The district’s enrollment has declined 17% since 2016, driven by a combination of increased competition from charter schools, declining birth rates and housing patterns.

Campus closures may go beyond middle schools

Kellie Spencer, the district’s deputy superintendent for operations, told the Star-Telegram that district leaders decided to hold listening sessions about potential consolidation of middle school campuses because middle schools were the primary focus of the 2021 construction bond issue. At the time, Fort Worth ISD officials planned to use that money on upgrades at middle school campuses across the district, as well as the construction of Rolling Hills Elementary School, a new campus in southwest Fort Worth. Rolling Hills opened its doors last December.

Although the plans presented at the community listening sessions focus only on middle schools, Spencer said the district’s facilities study is broader in scope. The proposal that district leaders eventually present to the board could also include closures and consolidations of elementary schools and high schools, she said.

Spencer said the district’s lawyers told them the bond proposal language that voters approved in 2021 was broad enough to allow the district to change course on the plans school leaders promised. The district’s board would need to vote on a resolution outlining the change and the reasons for making it, she said.

The conversation about possible consolidation comes out of a need to make sure district leaders are investing taxpayer dollars well, Spencer said. Fort Worth ISD’s enrollment has been declining for years, and she said those enrollment trends may force the district to close some middle schools eventually. It makes more sense to explore that option now, instead of spending millions on expansions and renovations at a campus that will end up being shut down soon afterward, she said.

Still, Spencer acknowledged that the change could anger district residents who voted to approve the bond issue based on one set of expectations, only to see the district change directions without taking another vote. District leaders are trying to be as transparent as possible about their plans, she said. She emphasized that district leaders haven’t made any final decisions, and said the district may need to hold more community meetings beyond the ones that have already been scheduled to make sure residents’ voices are heard.

Residents call for more transparency in school closure process

During a listening session April 11 at Morningside Middle School, the Rev. Kyev Tatum, pastor at New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church and a frequent critic of the district, said he was “adamantly and vehemently opposed” to closing the middle school. Under the proposal, the district’s board could vote to place the consolidated campus either at the site where Morningside currently sits, or a little over two miles northeast, at the current site of William James.

Tatum said the proposal harkens back to the days when districts bused students to schools in other parts of the city as a part of its court-ordered desegregation plan. Busing was a traumatizing experience for students who were dropped into other schools where, in many cases, they were met with hostility — “kids get up in the morning, having to travel across town into a foreign land to get an education when you have schools in your community,” Tatum said.

Tatum said there’s a perception among Morningside residents that the board has already made its decision. He called on the district to assemble a neighborhood oversight committee so that residents will have a greater voice in the decision-making process.

Another attendee said she had four children in two elementary schools in the area. Her kids will be in some of the first cohorts to attend either the new consolidated school or the newly-renovated Morningside Middle School. No one at either elementary school told parents the community listening sessions were happening, she said. The woman called on district leaders to do a better job of keeping parents informed about the process.

Fort Worth ISD officials said notification about the meetings went out to parents through various channels of communication, including social media and Superintendent Angélica Ramsey’s Friday message.

During a listening session Thursday at Daggett Middle School, Katie May, a resident of the Fairmount-Southside Historic District, asked if all the campuses included in the proposals are economically disadvantaged. Deputy Superintendent Karen Molinar replied that they were, but noted that more than 80% of the students in the district are economically disadvantaged. Nearly every campus in the district receives federal funding designated for low-income campuses, she said, and the ones that don’t are located in high-growth neighborhoods where the district needs more capacity, not less.

The final meeting of the series of listening sessions is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at J.P. Elder Middle School, 709 NW 21st St.