Fort Worth ISD school board member Wallace Bridges warned his colleagues May 14 that parents and community members felt a proposal to close middle school campuses was a done deal.
Families felt their concerns about the impact of school closures on student transportation and neighborhood culture would go unheard due to a “lack of trust” between the district and communities, he said.
Two weeks later, Bridges feels like parents were heard loud and clear. More than five hours into their May 28 meeting, Fort Worth ISD board members pulled a proposal that would have consolidated seven district middle schools into three.
“At this time, the board is pulling all items regarding consolidations and proceeding with the renovations to each middle school,” Camille Rodriguez, board president, said at the meeting.
The number of people who came out from across different areas of the city and were articulate about their concerns had a lot to do with the district changing course, Bridges said.
“I think that we sent the message to the community saying: I see you and I hear you,” he told the Report.
The decision followed a series of April public meetings where district officials presented their plans to close Daggett Middle School, McLean 6th Grade Center, Kirkpatrick Middle School and Morningside Middle School. They cited declining enrollment at those campuses as the reason for the move.
Under the plan, Daggett and McLean 6th Grade students would have transferred to McLean Middle School; Kirkpatrick students would have transferred to J.P. Elder Middle School; and Morningside students would have transferred to William James Middle School. Bridges and community members feared the closures would lead to even steeper enrollment decreases over the next several years.
The $1.2 billion bond passed in 2021 allocated millions of dollars for renovations at the campuses slated for closure. At the May 14 board workshop, it was revealed that Fort Worth ISD middle schools require $130 million in deferred maintenance needs. The district’s plan indicated that renovations to the schools would be costly and student consolidation would be more cost-efficient.
During the May 28 board meeting, community members, parents, teachers and students spoke out about their concerns of consolidating the middle schools. They cited the impact of closures on a student’s transportation time to school, the loss of crucial cultural institutions and higher student-to-teacher ratios.
Linda Miller, a Morningside resident for 63 years, said community members were concerned about potential decreased student and parent involvement due to traffic and transportation.
“If you vote to close Morningside, you are making the decision to put children in this neighborhood on school buses and transport them across the city,” Miller said. “This will certainly adversely impact them.”
Leo Vaughns Jr., an educator at Kirkpatrick Middle School for 34 years, said he believes the consolidation would cause schools to lose their community support and school spirit. Like several other speakers, he said using the bond money for renovations, as it was originally intended, would be the best solution.
“There is no place like home,” he said. “Instead of uprooting and consolidating our community, I ask you to please use the money that we have allotted for us to remodel and renovate our school which would preserve our legacy.”
Speakers also urged the school board to put off making a decision on closures until they evaluated other potential solutions.
“I agree that you need a lot more information and a lot more options so that you don’t make a hasty mistake or that you don’t do something that’s irresponsible,” Laurie Owens, a librarian at William James Middle School, said.
Hearing from the affected communities led the board to look at consolidations with a different lens, especially in areas like the Historic Southside which would have lost its middle school, Bridges said. In the future, district officials will need to go into communities and listen more before making proposals on campus closures, he said.
“I think we’re going to be more transparent. There are lessons that we learned from this across the board,” Bridges said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be better for our community, it’s going to be better for our city, and more importantly, because everything I do goes back to this, it’s going to be better for our kids.”
Georgie London is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at georgie.london@fortworthreport.org.
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