City leaders in Richland Hills are not happy that Birdville school district officials are talking about merging Richland Elementary School with a school in Haltom City.
"I want to save our schools in the city of Richland Hills," said David Ragan, former Richland Hills mayor and a member of the school district's 2012 bond committee, which is charged with making recommendations for how future bond money would be spent. The school district is considering calling a bond election for May."The consensus they ended up with is consolidating Richland Elementary with Birdville Elementary," Ragan said. "I opposed that pretty strongly and I think everyone at the meeting recognized that."Committee recommendations are expected to be presented to Birdville school board members at a meeting Thursday. Among those is merging Richland Elementary School, which is at 3250 Scruggs Drive in Richland Hills, and Birdville Elementary, which is at 3126 Bewley St. in Haltom City, in a new building on the Haltom City campus.If Richland Elementary is closed, only two schools -- Binion Elementary and Richland Middle -- would be left in Richland Hills. The district's other 28 schools are in North Richland Hills (14), Haltom City (10), Watauga (three) and Hurst (one).Alarm at the recommendation is premature and based on misinformation, a school district spokesman said."The committee is recommending building a new campus because a demographer tells us that Richland Elementary, over the next 10 years, will continue to decrease in size, to about 225," Mark Thomas said. "Birdville has about 433 now, and Richland has about 298."The Richland Elementary site doesn't have enough room for a new building, Thomas said."We own additional property around the Birdville Elementary campus that would allow us to build a new building there," he said. "The campuses are less than two miles apart."The Richland Hills City Council was so alarmed by the news that it passed a resolution, urging the committee to develop alternatives to closing Richland Elementary and to ask the school district to delay any decision until the city can develop a comprehensive plan that takes into account what effect the school's closing would have.Several residents who spoke at the council session supported the council and its resolution."Closing Richland Elementary will be devastating to our community," said Ashley Evridge, a parent and an assistant coordinator for an after-school program on the campus. "We have more than 130 kids in the program. If they take the school out, where are the children going to go? What's going to be there for the children after school, for whom it's a safe haven?"A few council members said they couldn't understand why the committee would recommend closing a school that has a recognized rating from the Texas Education Agency and merging it with Birdville, which is rated academically acceptable. Both schools failed to meet the federal Adequate Yearly Progress standard.Mayor Bill Agan asked residents at the council meeting to organize their neighborhoods and pack the Dec. 13 school board meeting and, if the merger recommendation is approved, to oppose the bond issue when it appears on a ballot.Richland Hills City Manager Curtis Hawk said city leaders understand the school district's plight."They need to build new schools and their thinking is that there's only so much money the voters will approve," he said. "I'm sure that the bond committee's thinking is that you have a community that has a declining population and a school community with a declining population and maybe there's a school that can be closed."Terry Evans, 817-390-7620Twitter: @fwstevans
If you go
The Birdville school board will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Administration Building boardroom, 6125 E. Belknap St., Haltom City. www.birdvilleschools.net
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