How a Fort Worth-area school district is planning to handle 1,100 new students a year
In August 2018, Leo Adams Middle School opened in far north Fort Worth to 1,200 students.
The campus was built with innovation in mind: wide hallways so students could work in groups, partitioned classrooms to inspire collaboration among teachers.
But not even two years later, they’ve already outgrown the school.
Even for the Northwest Independent School District, where they’re adding 1,100 new students a year, the growth at Adams came as a surprise, said Tim McClure, the assistant superintendent for facilities.
“I don’t think anyone thought we would see the number of houses being opened at such a fast rate when we were building that school,” he said. “So we knew the growth would come — it just started accelerating more than we expected.”
It’s a familiar story as families drawn by the district’s “A” rating fill up the housing developments that are popping up along the Alliance corridor and along U.S. 287 into Wise County, helping to make Dallas-Fort Worth the fastest growing metro area in the nation.
The number of housing developments has almost doubled within the district’s 234-square mile boundary since 2016. McClure said the number could be in the 90s by the end of the year. More than 10,000 new homes are expected to be built in the district by 2025, according to a report by Templeton Demographics.
The district expects its $986 million bond package to help accommodate the growth. If voters approve the plan, the district would build seven schools, expand three others and renovate existing campuses. The board voted Feb. 10 to place the issue on the May ballot.
Because of the district’s growth, the bond would not increase the tax rate of $1.42 per $100 of property value, district officials said. In the Northwest district, the owner of a $300,000 home with a homestead exemption pays $3,905 a year in school taxes.
Accommodating the growth
Administrators expected 390 students when they opened Lizzie Curtis Elementary in 2018. But by the time the doors opened in August, enrollment had reached 485. Principal Carrie Pierce said the school is adding about 100 new students a year.
Pierce hired seven staff members to handle the influx and accommodated the newcomers by opening unused classrooms in her building.
“It can be very daunting to open new class sections, but I was very blessed to find high-quality people,” Pierce said.
Jacob Wurman, a real estate agent who has lived in the area for six years, moved a mile so his two children could attend Northwest ISD schools.
They go to Kay Granger Elementary, which earned an “A” rating in 2019 from the Texas Education Agency. Twenty-two of 28 district schools received a “B” or higher in last year’s accountability ratings.
However, Kay Granger Elementary felt a bit crowded when Wurman’s kids enrolled. It was built to hold 850 students when it opened in 2007 and instead had 930 attending.
The district put up four portable buildings — think brown trailers with ramps.
Two years later, the attendance boundaries were redrawn and enrollment dropped to 770.
“We basically lost one classroom per grade,” he said. “Now, there’s a little breathing room.”
Other district schools are using portable classrooms as they wait for similar relief.
At Schluter Elementary, near Adams and Eaton High School, some students attend class in three portables.
McClure admits some people see the trailers as an eyesore — the district plants flowers to brighten them up — and the goal is to be able to get rid of them by 2021 when a new elementary school is built.
A $399 million bond program passed in 2017 covered the construction of three elementary schools. The first is scheduled to open in 2021, near U.S. 287 and West Bonds Ranch Road.
Planning ahead
Pierce has lived in the area for 20 years and has watched firsthand how the area has changed.
“They would show us different graphs (on growth), and I just thought, ‘I cannot even imagine that,’” she said. “And now here we are, living that out.”
The district’s enrollment of 25,000 is five times bigger than it was 20 years ago, and another 11,000 students are expected in the next 10 years.
Wurman was one of the 42 members on the district’s Long Range Planning Committee that recommended the bond to the board. He knows how quickly the area is growing, and how important it is to think years ahead.
“We have 11 more years of Northwest ISD in us,” Wurman said. “The biggest thing was looking at demographics and projections that we’re given, and finding the best way to serve constituents and the students.”
The district has already been feeling the pains of traffic and road congestion for years.
McClure said the reaction to the bond proposal has been largely positive. Most people are on board with school development, but are concerned about tax increases and school locations.
The school board has tried to coordinate school construction with the neighborhoods.
“The developers are begging the district to put a school in places,” Wurman said. “People want to walk to their campus.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
