Parents rally to save Fort Worth ISD schools from closure
FORT WORTH — The threat of possible school closures is a major issue facing many North Texas school districts.
Fort Worth ISD is considering closing more than 20 schools to address a $17 million budget deficit.
Parents at three local schools—North Hi Mount Elementary, South Hi Mount Elementary, and Stripling Middle School—came together Wednesday night to fight for their schools' survival. The group is promoting its efforts on Instagram at @saveheightspyramid.
"I think our biggest thing is that we have such a great community in our schools," parent Erin Lynds said. "We have super active, involved parents, involved PTAs, and super active communities that we're really afraid we're going to lose."
On Wednesday night, they met with Fort Worth ISD Deputy Superintendent Kellie Spencer.
She said in the 2018-19 school year, the district had around 85,000 students. Now, that number has dropped to 70,000.
"The demographics study that has been done as part of the master facility planning process tells us that over the next 10 years, we will continue to decline and probably level out somewhere around 60,000 students," Spencer said.
Last week, there was a board workshop to discuss possible options for master facility planning for the district's 140 or so campuses.
A committee of mainly community members and a task force comprised of parents and staff presented possible options, some of which included closing North Hi Mount Elementary, South Hi Mount Elementary and Stripling Middle School.
At the meeting, parents were able to give their thoughts on the information presented.
"We were all really thankful for the representative to come and speak on behalf of the district and provide those insights," parent Brendan Fenno said. "I think there are still a couple of loose ends we would like to be able to address."
They're now discussing a plan of action moving forward.
"First of all, we have more of a legislative edge where we have some parents getting together to talk with our school board members, deputy superintendent and superintendent to talk in small groups. Then our community arm is focused more on showing up to these meetings and sharing information," Lynds said.
After being named the lone finalist for superintendent at Tuesday's school board meeting, Dr. Karen Molinar stated she's looking at late spring before any recommendations are made.
"This is not going to be next year where we're looking at closing 5, 10, 15 schools," she said. "It will be a phase-in, and then as we go through the process, we have to make sure we're continuously updating and making sure our decisions are still the right decisions as we go."
Next week, the district will host multiple community-wide meetings to discuss the possible closures. Click here to learn more.
