Board approves plan to reshape Fort Worth school boundaries for first time in 20 years
The Fort Worth school board has passed for the first time in two decades a plan to reshape school boundaries despite strident opposition from parents in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood in the city.
The board voted 7 to 1 Tuesday night to approve the zone shifts recommended by Superintendent Kent Scribner. Trustee Anael Luebanos cast the dissenting vote. Trustee Daphne Brookins did not attend the meeting.
The changes correct flawed feeder patterns and will decrease bus travel times, Scribner told the board. Some of the changes will be implemented in the fall. Others will unfold over the next few school years, through the fall of 2023.
Protestations came primarily from parents in the Rosemont neighborhood, a few miles south of downtown Fort Worth.
There, students live in a collection of mostly single-family homes in an area that has been split by three Fort Worth school district attendance zones.
South Hills Elementary School parents who had hoped that children in the neighborhood would continue to attend McLean Middle addressed the board before the vote and urged it to reject the proposal.
Maria Garcia, a parent of students at South Hills Elementary and McLean Middle schools, said the plan would not benefit students.
“What you offer is not acceptable for us ... This does not work,” she said.
Luebanos offered an amendment to the motion the board considered that would have directed South Hills Elementary students to McLean Middle School. When that failed to win the support of other trustees, Luebanos proposed an amendment to postpone a boundary decision for several schools in District 8, which he represents. That, too, failed.
Trustee Quinton Phillips said he was comfortable with the boundary line change recommendations but asked Scribner to address the concerns of parents who were uneasy.
“Brown folks showed up tonight. They showed up in our inboxes. They showed up in these community forums. Latinx folks were showing up telling us that they felt like the system was about to do them over again,” he said.
Scribner said the board’s vote was historic because it had not been asked to consider significant boundary changes since 1999.
“A lot has changed in the last 20 years in Fort Worth with regard to our population, demographic shifts, etcetera,” he said.
The district held 26 community forums to seek input on the boundary proposal.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 7:12 PM.
