Keller ISD proposal to split district will be decided by board of mostly Keller residents
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Keller ISD controversy
Read our reporting on the possible plan to split Keller ISD into two districts.
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Five of the seven Keller school board members live in the district’s namesake city, according to campaign filing forms and the Tarrant Appraisal District.
Board members are considering a plan to split the district, and many parents believe the dividing line will be the Union Pacific Railroad line along Denton Highway that serves as the border between Fort Worth and Keller.
The school board will meet at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 16, at the Education Center, 350 Keller Parkway, to discuss the proposal.
Keller is the fourth-largest school district in Tarrant County, with more than 34,000 students in Keller, Fort Worth, Colleyville, Haltom City, Hurst, North Richland Hills, Southlake, Watauga and Westlake; 27 of its 42 campuses are in Fort Worth.
Every district school in Keller, Colleyville and Southlake received an “A” rating from the state in 2022, the most recent accountability scorecard, while only three Fort Worth campuses earned the highest mark.
According to campaign filing applications, Vice President John Birt and trustees Chris Coker and Micah Young live in Keller while Joni Shaw Smith lives in Fort Worth.
Address information was redacted on the forms for board President Charles Randklev and trustees Heather Washington and Chelsea Kelly. But Tarrant Appraisal District records indicate Randklev and Washington live in Keller while Kelly lives in Fort Worth.
All of the seats on the Keller school board are at large. The seats held by Young, Smith and Kelly are up for election May 3. Filing for office begins on Wednesday, Jan. 15, and the deadline to file is Feb. 14.
Smith and Kelly have been the only members to speak out about the proposal. They posted on their Facebook pages on Jan. 9 that they oppose the plan and said they were “blindsided” when they learned about it during a Dec. 19 executive session.
None of the other trustees have responded to messages on whether they support or oppose a plan to divide the district.
This story was originally published January 14, 2025 at 3:16 PM.
