At a Jan. 12 work session, the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees voted 5-0 to close Don T. Durham Intermediate School in August 2027, after recommendations from a committee composed of parents, teachers, administrators and board members. The Budget Reduction Advisory Committee task force made its proposal at a Dec. 15 meeting.
According to a press release from the district, the move is largely in response to shrinking enrollment numbers. According to the district, Carroll ISD has lost approximately 650 students since peak enrollment in 2019, costing the district more than $8 million. Durham currently has 664 fifth and sixth grade students enrolled, far under its capacity of 849. That number is expected to drop to 501 by 2030, based on a Zonda Demographics report. Since state funding for public school districts in Texas is directly tied to enrollment, this contributed heavily to pre-existing budget pressure. Durham also currently requires more than $8 million in repairs, far ahead of all other schools in the district.
The move will earn Carroll ISD approximately $1.3 million dollars yearly, and, according to Board President Cameron Bryan, the sale of the area would net the district a large sum.
“The millions and millions of dollars that we will receive as a result of that sale will go into a high-yield account and earn interest,” Bryan said during the Jan. 12 board meeting. “We’re going to leave it in a bank, we’re going to earn interest on that, and that will build clear expectations for our staff and teachers to put a portion of that … percentage towards teacher and staff raises every single year.”
When the shift goes into effect in fall 2027, fifth graders will be added to the five existing elementary schools, and sixth graders will join the two existing middle schools, Carroll Middle School and George Dawson Middle School. Dawson Middle School will also merge with the adjacent intermediate school, Eubanks. There will be no impact on the current high school and senior high system.
Carroll isn’t the only Texas school district to consider closing certain campuses. They join a number of districts, including Fort Worth ISD, which last year finalized plans to close 18 schools over the next few years.
“While other neighboring school districts … are ripping off the Band-Aid and closing multiple schools, including elementary schools,” Bryan said. “This board and this administration [has] been extremely fiscally conservative over the last five years, and 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.”
For community members, such as Dragon parent and senior high art teacher Ms. Emily Trammell, that’s an important aspect of the restructuring process.
“I’ve noticed neighboring districts, like Grapevine-Colleyville, voting to close two of their elementary schools, and that’s, from what I understand, happening next year,” Trammell said. “That gives them a semester in the summer to figure everything out. Having this longer runway to think about it, ask questions and plan is quite wise.”
Trammell taught at Durham Intermediate and Dawson Middle for 20 years, and remembers when the intermediate schools were first introduced.
“I taught at Durham when there was a Durham Elementary attached to it,” Trammell said. “They had one office that ran kindergarten through sixth grade, and they realized pretty soon that that didn’t work. So when I worked there, they had an office at the back that was actually the Durham Intermediate office and ran that side of the building. After they built Walnut Grove [Elementary], they moved everyone from Durham Elementary, and now it doesn’t exist anymore.”
For Trammell, separating students during fifth and sixth grade, a vital portion of pre-adolescence, is a crucial aspect of the Carroll ISD experience.
“I think insulating those two grades is such a great idea,” Trammell said. “Fifth and sixth grade are kind of their own thing. Sixth graders have some maturing to do before they’re in middle school, and fifth graders are a little big for elementary, which is why we’ve had intermediate school for so long. I think it makes sense and it works well.”
But Carroll is one of the few districts in the state that uses an intermediate schooling system. And as Trammell notes, shifting to a more uniform school system may prove to be beneficial in other ways.
“Our middle schools do academic UIL and compete with Northwest ISD,” Trammell said. “All of their schools are sixth through eighth. When we would go to UIL, we would only be able to compete in seventh and eighth-grade competitions. Certain things like that, being able to bring a whole team of sixth, seventh and eighth graders, will make a couple of things a lot smoother because you have that continuity.”
Many students, like freshman Vivian Terry, who didn’t go through the intermediate school system, feel the system was flawed and could do with changing.
“I think it affects the maturity level of those students,” Terry said. “My sister spent one year at an elementary school in fifth grade and then moved to Durham in sixth grade, and all of a sudden, for her, things were really awkward. There’s a big development gap between fifth and sixth grade. That’s around the time people hit puberty, and sixth graders just start developing much quicker. I don’t feel like they blend well.”
While many members of the Carroll community undoubtedly have strong memories attached to Durham, for many, the restructuring represents a possible bright future for the district.
“I think when you have all of these shifts, there’s always going to be a lot of growing pains,” Trammell said. “It’s going to be a lot of changes and a lot of questions asked to make sure these schools can handle another grade. Those are things that will probably happen soon. But I’ve seen that the district is trying to be very transparent about where all the money is going to go, and I think a lot of good can come from it.”
More information about the consolidation process can be found on the district’s website.
