Tag: school closure

The Southlake Carroll school board is moving ahead with a decision to close Durham Intermediate School in 2027 after recommendations from the 19-member “Tiger Team” taskforce made up of parents, teachers, board members and school administrators.

Monday night’s 5-0 vote to close the school came after the taskforce made recommendations at the Dec. 15 board meeting.

The district will consolidate schools after seeing years of enrollment decline. The closure of Durham will take the districts middle schools from three to two. Durham was an intermediate school for fifth and sixth grade students.

Jeff Brady, executive director of communications for the district, said Tiger Team Two met at least once a month from September to December to discuss and evaluate school enrollment, the capacity and upkeep and condition of each campus, finances and boundaries for each school.

Durham Intermediate is in need of repairs, and the cost of maintaining the campus exceeds $8 million.

Place 2 Trustee Eric Lannen said during the meeting that the there are several reasons that led to the low enrollment numbers in the district, one of which is that there are a lot of empty nesters in Southlake.

“We have lots of people in Southlake who fall into that category, and we’re not moving out of Southlake, because we love living here, and we want to keep living here now,” Lannen said. “But it’s not that kids are leaving because they don’t want to be here. It’s because they’re growing up, and their parents are staying here, and that’s a really positive because we love to live here.”

The four elementary schools will be kindergarten through grade 5 and the middle schools will consist of grades 6, 7 and 8. There will be no changes to the high schools.

The students from Durham will be transitioned to one of the middle schools.

The consolidation of grades will not take effect until the 2027-2028 school year in order to prepare students and staff for the change.

The plan has three phases, right now the district is in the discussion and decision phase, the second phase is planning and will be around next year.

“Then the third phase would be the implementation right around the time leading up to that first day of school, making sure their orientation, visits to each campus, so that all the families know exactly what to expect,” Brady said.

Cameron Bryan, president of CISD board, said there is a trend of low enrollments effecting North Texas school districts, such as Grapevine-Colleyville. He noted that other districts will have to start closing schools this coming school year.

“This board, and this administration have been extremely fiscally conservative over the last five years, and that has allowed us to put this district in a position where we don’t have to do that, we can spend a year and a half with engagement and planning with our community,” Bryan said.

In 2024, the board appointed a 60-person Budget Reduction Advisory Committee to find cost-saving recommendations to develop a five-year plan and address “long-term budgetary challenges.” The Tiger Team is a subcommittee of that advisory committee.

According to materials presented by Brady at Monday’s board meeting, Carroll ISD has lost about $8 million in annual revenue due to low enrollment numbers since 2019.

The Durham property sits on roughly 30 acres of “Prime Residential Property” that will be put up for sale.

Brady said with the closing the CISD is looking at a savings of $1.3 million per year in cost of personnel and other costs of running the campus. Once the building is sold its revenue will be invested and the interest on that investment would be roughly $1.25 million.

Brady told the Star-Telegram that with a consolidation like this, there will be some job reductions, probably in administrative areas but no decisions have been made so far were those staff members will be moved or what positions will be eliminated.

Jeremy K. Glenn, superintendent of Southlake Carroll said there are no discussions underway about rezoning .

“What will happen is, if you’re a third-grader at Rockenbaugh or Old Union or Carroll elementary in two years, rather than go to an intermediate school, you’ll stay on your campus one extra year,” Glenn said. “ I think our kids love their elementary schools, and they’re excited about that opportunity.”

Glenn said while no plans have been made official yet, they’re thinking ahead about the possibility of adding more students at Dawson Eubanks Middle School since it can accommodate more students than Carroll Middle School.

The district is going to put a committee together to plan for possibly connecting Dawson and Eubanks with a breezeway using Tax Increment Financing dollars that they’re expecting from the city of Southlake.

“But essentially, those buildings are so close together they will operate as one building again.,” Glenn said.