Fort Worth ISD Deputy Superintendent Kellie Spencer was direct in her remarks to the school board: Inflation is hitting the 2021 bond hard.
How and where specifically? The proposed replacement campus for Worth Heights Elementary. Higher construction material and labor costs increased the estimated price tag by $25 million.
However, her proposal to shift bond dollars to cover the escalating price failed Nov. 12 after a 4-4 vote resulted in a stalemate between trustees. Trustee Kevin Lynch was absent, leaving the nine-member school board one vote short.
“In order to construct new elementary schools, additional funds are required,” Spencer said.
How did trustees vote?
The Fort Worth ISD school board was tied on a proposal that would have shifted $25 million in bond funds to support higher costs for Worth Heights Elementary’s replacement campus. Here’s how trustees voted:
Yes:
- Anne Darr
- Quinton Phillips
- Michael Ryan
- Wallace Bridges
No:
- Anael Luebanos
- Roxanne Martinez
- Camille Rodriguez
- Tobi Jackson
Absent:
- Kevin Lynch
Worth Heights is one of three elementary schools expected to receive new campuses through the $1.2 billion bond program that voters narrowly approved in 2021. Maudrie W. Walton and Eastern Hills are the other two elementary schools that will be replaced; the school board previously approved shifting bond funds for the two projects.
All three schools were built in the mid- to late-1950s and are in areas of Fort Worth ISD that have not seen new elementary campuses in decades. Each new school was initially expected to cost more than $44.7 million — and likely include the consolidation of some nearby campuses, district officials said in 2022.
The replacement campuses are each expected to have a capacity of 750 students, Spencer said.
For the 2024-25 school year, 437 students attend Worth Heights Elementary.
Trustee Anael Luebanos questioned how administrators plan to add more than 300 students to the new Worth Heights.
“And the students would be from consolidating other campuses?” Luebanos asked Spencer.
“Potentially, yes,” the deputy superintendent said, adding that a still percolating plan examining school buildings will provide closure options for the school board to consider.
Additionally, a community task force guiding the school building plan will recommend possible closures that the school board will take to residents before making any decisions.
Projections show the school’s enrollment dwindling to 297 for the 2028-29 academic year, according to Fort Worth ISD’s State of the Schools document.
If the numbers hold, that would mean the school would lose about 32% of its current enrollment in four years.
District-wide enrollment has been declining since the 2016-17 school year. Since then, around 1 in 5 students have left Fort Worth ISD.
Spencer proposed shifting $8 million from the Daggett Middle School renovation, $3 million from the Leonard Middle School upgrades and $14 million from the bond’s contingency fund, a pot of money used in case costs increase. The contingency shuffle would have resulted in the depletion of that pool of dollars, district documents show.
The district wanted to move dollars from the pair of middle school projects because they are now smaller in scope, Spencer said. Fort Worth ISD previously scuttled a plan to combine middle schools and build new, larger replacement campuses after community backlash.
While planning work is underway for the middle school renovations, Spencer told trustees that they may revisit the projects and make changes in the future based on the district’s school buildings plan.
“I made sure that the work we’re doing now would not be in vain,” Spencer said.
Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
