Spring Independent School District


Spring Independent School District is a school district based in the Gordon M. Anderson Leadership Center in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, United States. It is located in north Harris County.
The district serves over 32,100 pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade students in a diverse and growing district located north of downtown Houston in a suburban area of Harris County that spans. The district's ethnic breakdown is 38.9 percent African American, 37.6 percent Hispanic, 18.6 percent white, 4.6 percent Asian and Pacific Islander and 0.2 percent Native American.
Spring ISD serves a small portion of Houston, and portions of unincorporated Harris County including the community of Spring.
In 2009, the school district was rated "academically acceptable" by the Texas Education Agency.

History

Spring ISD formed in 1935 from the combination of the Harrell Common School District and the Spring Common School District.
The district's demographics changed as time passed. In the 1995–1996 school year the district had 28% low income students. Its racial demographics were 56% White, 20% Black, and 18% Hispanic. In the 2002-2003 school year the low income percentage was 43.9%. In the 2005-2006 school year the district had 55% low-income students. The demographics included 39% Black, 33% Hispanic, and 23% White. These demographic changes caused tension as, in 2007, residents of Northgate Forest unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw from Spring ISD. By 2012-2013 the percentage of low income students was 73.2%.
In 2005 there were plans to rearrange the attendance boundaries of several elementary schools due to higher than anticipated growth.
In 2006 its two high schools, Spring and Westfield, had a combined population of 7,500. Dr. Robert Sanborn, the president and CEO of the organization Children at Risk, said that Spring ISD should have had schools in the top ten high schools featured in the Houston Press article "These Kids Go to the Best Public High School in Houston" as Humble ISD and Spring Branch ISD did. Instead, both Spring ISD schools ranked in the "Tier Two" list.
In 2007 the district held a bond election.
In 2008 Spring ISD's virtual school opened.

Northgate Forest secession proposal

, a subdivision, garnered attention all over the Houston area when 190 residents filed a petition to withdraw from Spring Independent School District and join neighboring Klein Independent School District. The petition for detachment began circulating in December 2006, after Northgate residents helped defeat a bond issue for the district that November. Northgate Forest's primary complaints were that the district's SAT and TAKS scores had been declining consistently in recent years, that the district was spending money inefficiently, and that taxes were too high. Residents cited a section of the Texas Education Code that allows a given area to secede from the school district they are zoned to if another district will agree to absorb them. Jim McIngvale, an area resident and salesman also known as "Mattress Mac", said that he disagreed with the proposal.
In April 2007, the Klein ISD Board of Trustees denied Northgate's petition for detachment, shortly after Spring ISD unanimously rejected the proposal. Klein ISD stated that the petition did not fulfill all the legal requirements stipulated by the Texas Education Agency for the detachment to be valid. A small contingent of Northgate residents filed a new claim immediately after. Both school districts involved have declared they view the matter as closed.
The spokesperson for the group, Tom Mathews, said in 2007 that 45 school-aged children resided in the community. Seven attended Spring ISD schools, and the rest attended private schools. According to Mathews, the schools were low performing, so most parents did not send their children to the zoned schools.

2010s and 2020s

's offices in the Spring area were being established around 2015, contributing to growth in the Spring area.
In February 2017 the district proposed building one new middle school and one ninth grade center for each of its comprehensive high schools, as well as redrawing the attendance boundaries of its middle schools and high schools; all of the changes would take effect by the 2020-2021 school year. The district plans to use Interstate 45 as a boundary for its middle schools. According to the proposed 2020-2021 high school map, the eastern portion of the Spring census-designated place will be reassigned from Spring High School to Dekaney High School.

Schools

All of the schools are located in unincorporated Harris County.

Elementary schools

Zoned schools
School of Choice
Zoned schools
Schools of Choice
In 2015 the district acquired the former North Harris County Family YMCA. The YMCA had closed on September 30, 2014.
In 2019 the district announced plans to open TeachUp Spring, a teacher training center, in an ex-ITT Tech facility along Interstate 45, in May of that year.

Demographics

From 2008 to 2012, the number of Hispanic students increased by 3.8%, the number of black students increased by 1.4%, the number of White students decreased by 6%, and the number of Asian students decreased by 0.5%. The number of students with low economic statuses increased by 7.5% and the number of limited English proficient and/or bilingual students increased by 2.7%. The demographic trends were similar to the state averages of Texas.
In 2015 the district had 36,950. The enrollment was projected to grow by 1,800 in five years and the annual growth rate was 0.97%.

Academic performance

In the 2011-2012 school year the passing rates for the 10th grade Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests for Spring ISD were as follows: 92% for social studies, 90% in English, 65% in Science, and 62% in mathematics; the English and social studies percentages were similar to the state averages while the other two were about 10 points below the state averages. The 11th graders that year scored above the state averages in all categories.

Spring ISD Department

The Spring Independent School District Police Department opened in 1991. Its current command facility opened in 2003.

Alumni organizations