Irene Fulton has worked as a counselor at Fort Worth ISD’s West Handley Elementary School for 29 years.
Soon, she’ll retire, she told the Report. Not long after that, the school in which she spent nearly half of her career will be gone, too.
During Fort Worth ISD’s Dec. 10 meeting, trustees voted to close West Handley Elementary School as part of the district’s effort to address declining enrollment and modernize facilities. Instead of formally announcing a closure, trustees voted to redraw attendance boundaries to gradually phase out West Handley’s use as an elementary school.
The 70-year-old campus’s fate is tied to the replacement of Eastern Hills Elementary School, which will soon be completely rebuilt at its current site at 5917 Shelton St. During the meeting, trustees voted 8-0 to enter into a new contract with BRW Architects to design the $47.8 million campus.
That new campus, funded by the district’s $1.2 billion 2021 bond program, will feature a modern design with space for up to 750 students. As of the 2022-23 school year, 472 students attended the current Eastern Hills Elementary campus while 392 students attended West Handley.
Once the replacement campus is completed in 2028, students from both Eastern Hills and West Handley will consolidate into the new building, closing West Handley as an elementary school. During construction, Eastern Hills students will temporarily relocate to West Handley. The two campuses are located less than a mile from each other.
To alleviate overcrowding at West Handley and the eventual Eastern Hills campus, trustees also approved boundary adjustments to rezone some West Handley students into Sagamore Hill Elementary, effective next school year.
Now, all residents living south of Lancaster Avenue and west of Tierney Road will send their children to Sagamore Hill starting next school year. Incoming fifth grade students will be allowed to stay at West Handley, though transportation will not be provided.
“We look to stabilize enrollment across our campuses and better utilize our facilities,” said Kellie Spencer, deputy superintendent of operations.
The boundary redraw affecting West Handley wasn’t the only one approved at the meeting. Trustees also voted to rezone students between Carter Park Elementary and Clifford Davis Elementary schools in the O.D. Wyatt High School pyramid.
Clifford Davis, which the district says is over capacity, will transfer 105 students to Carter Park, which has space to accommodate students. The adjustment moves the dividing line between the schools from Sycamore Creek to the Fort Worth & Western Railroad tracks, beginning in the 2025-26 school year.
“The resulting shift will balance utilization rates and improve operational efficiency for both schools,” meeting documents said.
Aging infrastructure, underutilized campuses and an uneven distribution of students have prompted the district to rethink how its schools are used across the district, officials said, especially in regard to projects listed in the 2021 bond like Eastern Hills Elementary.
“To improve utilization rates in the Eastern Hills pyramid, it is necessary to reduce the number of schools in the area inside Loop 820 from four schools to three,” meeting documents said.
In the case of Eastern Hills, the current building’s design and aging infrastructure made it a clear candidate for replacement, said Mike Naughton, executive director of facility planning.
The new campus will address accessibility challenges and modernize learning environments, he said.
“There has not been new construction in the Eastern Hills pyramid inside Loop 820 in almost 70 years,” Naughton said. “The size of this property between the high school and the elementary school together really provides us a lot of opportunities and options that we don’t have elsewhere.”
During construction, the 48-acre site will undergo significant changes, officials said, including plans to improve traffic flow during pickup and drop-off.
At a Dec. 9 community meeting at Eastern Hills High School, BRW Architects emphasized that community input will continue to shape its final design.
West Handley is slated for closure due to the campus’s lack of educational adequacy compared to other nearby campuses, which examines whether school facilities meet the district’s educational standards. Prior to the building becoming an elementary school, West Handley was utilized as a district service center, Spencer said.
The building’s future use remains uncertain. Spencer assured the community during a Dec. 5 meeting at the campus that the building will not remain vacant, but its exact purpose will be determined after the transition.
Ideas floated during the meeting included converting it back into a district operations center or a community resource hub.
To Fulton, West Handley’s longtime counselor, the upcoming changes are bittersweet. She understands the need to consolidate campuses but hopes it’s done efficiently. Fulton wonders how many students will attend West Handley during the transition period, as the campus has a capacity of 671 students. As of 2022-23, a total of 864 students attended both Eastern Hills and West Handley.
School officials told her that she and her colleagues will know more in January, she said. For now, officials estimate that approximately 120 students will shift from West Handley to Sagamore Hill for the 2025-26 school year to balance enrollment, according to meeting documents.
“In this business, the one thing that’s constant is change,” Fulton said. “I have a wait-and-see attitude right now. Just wait and see.”
Eventually, Fulton will be sad to see the building where she spent nearly 30 years no longer filled with the shuffling of small feet down hallways and laughter echoing from classrooms.
But as the noise and activity at West Handley diminishes, the action will shift less than a mile north to the new Eastern Hills Elementary campus.
West Handley neighbors living on Putnam Street will almost certainly appreciate the lack of noise and traffic, she said.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
