Fort Worth ISD’s Helbing Elementary will close. Teachers there ‘gave it our all’
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Fort Worth ISD school closures
Officials in the Fort Worth Independent School District say that closing and consolidating more than a dozen campuses will save the district millions of dollars over the next four years, allowing them to redirect more money toward academic priorities.
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As the Fort Worth Independent School District bids farewell to 18 of its campuses over the next four years, educators and residents are reflecting on how the parting schools have left their mark on the community.
The Fort Worth ISD school board approved the closures on May 20 in the face of declining enrollment and underutilized campus buildings. District officials acknowledged the emotional weight behind the closures and consolidations while underscoring them as a necessary measure to reinvest millions of dollars into academic priorities.
Now, the Star-Telegram is highlighting the stories of those who are connected to these campuses that not only served students, but served teachers who were the lifeblood of the schools.
A retired educator and the husband of a late educator at H.V. Helbing Elementary School shared fond memories of the campus, located in Fort Worth’s Diamond Hill community. Helbing Elementary, which served about 350 students in the 2023-24 school year, opened in 1947 and is scheduled to close in June 2028.
If you have a memory of a soon-to-be-closed Fort Worth ISD school, share it with us here or through the form below. Readers can also contact reporter Lina Ruiz via email: LRuiz@star-telegram.com.
A 25-year career
Pam Lunsford’s career at H.V. Helbing Elementary spanned from 1983 to 2008. She taught kindergarten through fourth grade before becoming a Title I reading teacher and an instructional specialist. When she heard the school was approved for closure, she was heartbroken to know that the place she spent the majority of her teaching career was going away.
“The teachers that taught at Helbing gave their whole heart and soul. Basically, we were always extremely happy there. We loved what we did; we loved the community. We gave it our all,” Lunsford said.
Her favorite grades to teach were first grade and fourth grade.
“I loved fourth grade because the kids were old enough to do things on their own, but they weren’t at the smart aleck stage yet,” Lunsford said with a chuckle. “Also, I loved first grade because there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing children beginning to read.”
She recalls teaching different generations, when students would grow into adults, become parents and send their children to Helbing, where they would also be taught by Lunsford. She still keeps in touch with a handful of her former students, one of whom is Lunsford’s dental hygienist.
After Lunsford retired in 2008, she and her colleagues started a tradition of going out to lunch once a month. The group grew as more educators retired from the campus, she said. El Rancho Grande in the North Side neighborhood was the meeting spot until it closed, she said, but now the group switches up lunch locations.
Lunsford said she’ll remember H.V. Helbing Elementary as a place where the teachers and campus leadership created a positive work environment that kept educators there for decades.
“I just have wonderful, wonderful memories of that school. I know people say it’s just brick and mortar, and yes it is just brick and mortar, but it holds a lot of our hearts. And it holds a lot of memories for a lot of us that were at that school for so long,” Lunsford said.
From the altar to the classroom
In 1965, Lynda Ballou started her first teaching job at H.V. Helbing Elementary a couple of months after she married her college sweetheart, Jack, in July after graduating from the University of Corpus Christi (now Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi). She only spent one school year at the campus before her husband received his draft notice, and the couple moved to Virginia. But Jack Ballou will remember the school as the place where his wife got her first hands-on experience in education.
“(H.V. Helbing is) where she got her on-the-job training, so to speak, where she experienced the real world in terms of teaching versus her learning that she got in college,” Jack Ballou said. “For her, I think it was a very good experience.”
Working with children was “a calling that the Lord gave her,” he added. Because Lynda Ballou died in 2022, Jack Ballou said the news of the school closure stirred up some emotions. Even when she left the classroom, he said, she continued to serve children through the role of a grandmother and great-grandmother.
“She started having what she called Camp Lynda here at the house every summer, where it’s kind of like going to camp for a week. All of the grandkids came,” Jack Ballou said. “They spent a week going places, doing trips around the area and so on and so forth. And all of the grandkids talk here today about that experience.”
This story was originally published June 9, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
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