The cost of growth: Fort Worth-area school districts seek $4.9 billion in bonds to keep up

The map of Northwest school district that hangs in Tim McClure’s office looks like a palmful of Skittles.

Twenty shades of pinks, blues, greens and oranges spread out across the black framed sheet. Lime green patches and clusters of red circled stars dot the expanse.

The colors represent the feeder patterns for the 20 elementary schools. The lime green patches are the incoming housing developments. The red stars are plots of land the school district is looking at buying to build more schools.

If you look at the demographics in recent years, it seems like everyone wants a taste of the Northwest school rainbow.

Just like any metro area, as Tarrant County grows and expands, development has consistently found itself pushed to the only place it has space to go: the surrounding counties — Denton, Wise, Parker and Johnson.

The growing pains have arguably shown the most in the classrooms. In May, voters in suburban Fort Worth school districts will be asked to approve more than $4.9 billion in bonds for schools and amenities in Northwest, Crowley, Godley, Decatur and other area school districts.

Northwest, which spans Tarrant, Denton and Wise counties, has added 15,000 students since 2010 and 4.5 million square feet of schools in the past 20 years. Its nearly $2 billion bond will go toward a high school, a middle school, four elementary schools and four early childhood centers. New builds will allow space for 8,400 more students.

Bonds across the school districts are anticipated to raise taxes for area homeowners. The owner of a $400,000 home in Northwest will pay an extra $3.60 a year. Homeowners in other school districts will see bigger increases. In Decatur, the bond will cost the owner of a $325,000 home $759 a year.

Students play during recess at Haslet Elementary on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
Students play during recess at Haslet Elementary on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.

McClure has been involved in the district’s operations since 2002. He worked for the district as a schools architect before becoming its assistant superintendent for facilities nearly six years ago.

His family moved from Euless to Newark because they wanted to be in a growing area, but McClure didn’t think it would explode like this.

When he first became assistant superintendent for facilities, the school district was tracking 45 housing developments.

Count the green development clusters on the map on the slightly outdated 2021-22 map in McClure’s office now and you’ll get 108.

Why the boom?

Growth in the areas around Tarrant County is often attributed to the quality of schools, the proximity to amenities and space for development.

Decatur is an example. The school district northwest of Fort Worth is asking voters to approve $331 million for a 2,200-student high school and renovations to the old high school to create a middle school.

Developments like the industrial park and the small town feel draw people to Decatur, said schools spokesperson Robyn Jones.

“It’s really just a welcoming environment and I think people feel that immediately when when they move in,” Jones said.

Growth in Decatur is two years ahead of its demographic projection, Jones said, and the high school and middle school are at 109% and 145% capacity. The students are stuffed in their classrooms and crowded into the halls and cafeterias.

Some teachers don’t have homeroom classrooms, and science classes are often not taught in labs.

“It certainly requires much more prior planning on the staff part in order to make sure that they can deliver all the lessons just as they would if we were not at over 40% of our capacity,” Jones said.

If Decatur’s bond passes, the district will be three years out from opening the new buildings. Until then there needs to be some sort of space for students to go, so Decatur has started to bring portable buildings to the middle school.

Northwest, too, has rolled out 13 portable buildings that hold two classrooms each at its schools closest to Fort Worth and Northlake.

Portable classrooms allow more space for students at Haslet Elementary on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
Portable classrooms allow more space for students at Haslet Elementary on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.

Northwest’s build cycle was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A bond election scheduled for May 2020 was pushed to November 2020. That bond ended up failing before voters approved it in May 2021. The delay put the school district a year behind in construction.

“I think people were still very concerned about what’s the new normal coming out of COVID in 2020,” McClure said.

When Michael McFarland became superintendent at Crowley in 2017, the district had 15,000 students. That number has since ballooned to 17,000, he said. The district is anticipated to reach 20,000 students by 2028.

Crowley’s $1.1 billion bond will go toward three elementary schools, one middle school and a replacement for Crowley High School. The old Crowley High will be torn down, with the exception of the fine arts wing, a spokesperson for the district said in an email. The bond will not increase the tax rate.

McFarland said families with children usually look toward the schools when deciding on a place to live. Their next glance is toward available housing.

More than 22,000 residential are under development in the Crowley school district, McFarland said.

Students play during recess at Haslet Elementary on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
Students play during recess at Haslet Elementary on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.

Development has pushed growth in Crowley, too. Amazon will soon put a distribution center in the area, and new retail off McPherson Boulevard and Chisolm Trail Parkway has driven more traffic.

Whenever there’s growth there is bound to be some blowback from the folks who have only ever known a traditionally rural area.

Dealing with growth and development has been a balancing act between members of the Crowley’s growth committee and city officials in Crowley and Fort Worth, especially when it comes to addressing concerns about population density.

“We’ve been mindful of the needs of the current residents, but also understanding that we have to prepare for the students that are coming,” McFarland said. “And we’re being clear about making sure that we’re able to maintain our current tax rate in order to support the new growth that’s happening.”

Growth is something people in Northwest’s school district are now used to seeing, McClure said.

“I joke and say we don’t get to be ‘Field of Dreams,’” he said. “It’s not ‘build the schools, they will come.’ They’re coming whether we build the schools or not. We’re reactionary planners, by nature. Most school districts are.”

Senior Jennifer Tran, 18, works on a blueprint during a architecture class at Eaton High on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
Senior Jennifer Tran, 18, works on a blueprint during a architecture class at Eaton High on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.

Growth shows its face

Northwest is still working through its bond money from the last time voters were asked to help expand the schools.

As you turn onto Texan Drive and into the school district complex you’re greeted by beams jutting out of the side of Northwest High School. This will eventually become a two-story classroom space addition that was funded by the 2021 bond.

Head a little farther and you’ll find another empty plot guarded off by a chain link fence bound in black windscreen. This will become the new Pike Middle School, also funded by the 2021 bond. The old Pike will be torn down, except for the competition gym, to become parking spaces.

Northwest has spent $1.5 million a week in construction over the past 20 years, McClure said. Inflation has taken its toll and upped that number, and also sometimes caused projects that may have been funded by one bond package to be pushed to the next package. The administration building that was supposed to be renovated during the 2021 bond was pushed to the 2023 bond package.

Freshman Agmnoor Bar, 15, works during architecture class at Eaton High on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
Freshman Agmnoor Bar, 15, works during architecture class at Eaton High on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.

Then there are the housing developments popping up in droves across the district. Each cluster of 1,000 homes brings 600 kids — almost enough to fill an elementary school. Northwest is seeing 3,500 homes built and sold a year.

Keep driving down Texan Drive and you’ll eventually see clusters of new housing developments that bring the people to Northwest and make that new school construction happen, like Rivers Edge and Trails of Elizabeth Creek on Texas 114. The tightly packed new builds start at $328,000 and $376,000, and the developments still have room to grow.

A giant field of dark brown tilled dirt sits ready for homes in Trails of Elizabeth Creek, and a hopscotch away Hatfield Elementary rises up against skyline of new rooftops.

Parents chime in on growth

Just after noon one Thursday, Northwest High baseball players warmed up for a game against Saginaw High as their parents milled into stands at the Texan Baseball Field.

Parents had their own reasons for coming to the area, from affordable housing to shared values to proximity to work. Their complaints about growth all go back to the way it affects roads.

Melinda Hall moved from California in 2002. Not only was she able to find a brand new, $96,000 house, but a better life for herself and her daughter as a single mom.

She likes living here and doesn’t mind the growth. She does mind the traffic.

“Texas should build roads before they build houses,” Hall said. “The traffic is atrocious.”

A new housing development is under construction near Clara Love Elementary, part of Northwest ISD, in Justin on Wednesday, March 30, 2023. Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students since 2010. Its nearly $2 billion bond will go toward a high school, a middle school, four elementary schools and four early childhood centers.
A new housing development is under construction near Clara Love Elementary, part of Northwest ISD, in Justin on Wednesday, March 30, 2023. Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students since 2010. Its nearly $2 billion bond will go toward a high school, a middle school, four elementary schools and four early childhood centers.

Kayla Bean has lived in the district for 10 years and moved here for her husband’s job as a salesman for a trucking company. Bean’s family chose the school district because of its reputation and shared values. She said she liked how Northwest schools weren’t as liberal as some others.

The area has grown “tenfold” since Bean arrived, and she finds it concerning. She doesn’t think the area getting bigger is a problem, but worries the values she moved here for may disappear when more people come in. Like Hall, she also thinks roads aren’t able to keep up with the development.

She’s seen growing pains in the classroom too, mostly in the form of too many students — sometimes, as many as 40 — assigned to a teacher. When Bean looks ahead to the bond in May, she’s a fan of most of the contents, though she thinks any stadium building and renovations can wait. The focus, she said, should be on hiring quality teachers and building more schools.

Joyce Morgan has lived in the school district for 13 years and came here to be close to both she and her husband’s jobs. The schools’ reputation didn’t hurt either.

She’s seen growing pains in the classrooms too: Morgan’s middle child takes classes in a portable classroom, and sometimes teachers are assigned to teach on topics they aren’t normally used to.

Morgan also sees heavier traffic on the roads, but thinks school administrators are doing a good job at handling the growth and being transparent about plans for growth.

“They have this everywhere,” she said. “Everyone’s growing faster than the infrastructure.”

Will the bonds be solutions or Band-Aids?

One of the first questions for Crowley’s growth committee was whether the bond package would be enough.

“The first thing is, we had to ask ourselves, like, how often do we want to have to go through this process?” McFarland said.

When it came time to go to the drawing board, it was smarter for Crowley to plan for 10 years than it was for five.

“If we said we only wanted to prepare for the next five years, then we were way behind already,” McFarland said.

The committee that put together Decatur’s bond worked hard to address the question of whether what was presented to voters would be enough to address current and future needs for space, Jones said. That question is what got the school board to consider a larger school that would accommodate Decatur for another 10 years.

When McClure was in charge of designing schools in high-growth areas, there were times he would have to design schools based on what a school district would need both now and later.

Now that he’s in charge of conducting the orchestra of new builds and what development comes next, the question McClure often gets about school bonds is how long the bond will last. He likes to flip the question on its head.

Northwest officials don’t look at the cash amount on the bond, but rather how many students that bond provides space for. Once the district gets close to hitting the spacing cap that bond allows, officials like McClure begin planning for another bond election.

It’s taking Northwest four or five years to hit those student limits, and new schools will need to keep on coming.

Students walk through a hallway in the freshman building of Eaton High on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
Students walk through a hallway in the freshman building of Eaton High on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Since 2010, Northwest ISD has added 15,000 students to its population and is one of the fastest-growing school district in Texas.

As development changes school feeder lines, McClure often goes into meetings with parents who are concerned about their child needing to move schools once new ones are built and new lines are drawn.

He finds himself asking those in the room to raise their hands if they had moved to the area over the course of the past few years.

And when a good majority of the people in the room raise their hands, McClure has to make light of it.

Their desire to live in the area, to go to Northwest schools and pack themselves like sardines into the developments popping up across the area are part of the reason the district got here in the first place.