As Plano Schools Close, Parents and Faculty Look Back, Wonder About the Future

In June 2024, the Plano ISD School Board voted unanimously to close four schools, citing budget concerns and declining student enrollment: Davis Elementary, Forman Elementary, Armstrong Middle School and Carpenter Middle School. Although these campuses will be closing their doors after five decades, the communities formed there and the schools’ history are going nowhere.

Parents from Armstrong and Forman have been working together in recent months to make sure they went out with a bang at the School Block Party and Farewell Festival.

“You know you first have that shock, then you go through the anger, then you go through acceptance,” Forman Elementary School Principal Noline Martin said. “We’re just at a place where we know it’s a reality. We know it’s happening. We’ve already started packing. And so today is just a day to celebrate what Forman has been, so I’m in a good mood today.”

Looking Back

The event on May 17 had yearbooks dating back to 1977 on display inside both schools, a performance from Armstrong’s orchestra, food trucks, resources for students and their parents from schools they will be transitioning to and a proclamation ceremony from Plano Mayor John B. Muns.

“They have really developed into wonderful schools and at the same time, kind of created a quality of neighborhood around Armstrong and Forman that has been known for two or three decades,” Muns said. “Those schools have really been the lifeblood of the east side of Plano.”

Parents on the Armstrong and Forman Planning Committee wanted to highlight the campuses’ historical legacy and gather the community together to say goodbye. They also wanted to offer resources to students and parents who will be going to different schools in the 2025-2026 school year. According to the ISD's Long Range Facility Plan, the five elementary schools that Forman students will be moved to are Dooley, Schell, Stinson, Memorial, and Meadows.

“When they invited us, we were super excited to take part and let our students and our families know that we are excited and can’t wait to welcome them next year,” the principal of Dooley Elementary School, Dr. Kim Blackwell, said.

Moving Forward

In addition to that, there was a Mobile Services on the Go truck parked a few minutes’ walk away from the welcome tables. They are part of the Welcome and Enrollment Center for Plano ISD. The mobile unit travels to neighborhoods in Plano and offers parents and students classes in financial literacy, computer basics, and learning English. They also help parents with enrolling their students, creating a SchoolCafe account to apply for free or reduced lunch, submitting volunteer applications, and completing district forms in Skyward Family Access.


“It’s a tool to reach out to the parents, to the community,” The family services specialist for Mobile Services on the Go, Clarissa Carter, said. “Because some parents don’t have transportation to go to a building to receive a class, and then that way we bring down barriers.”

Armstrong Middle School is the only school in Plano ISD that has earned the National Demonstration School Validation three times. It has done so because of its work helping students with college and career readiness.

The student bodies at Armstrong Middle School and Forman Elementary School are socioeconomically and racially diverse, with the majority of students in those schools being Hispanic and bilingual. Three out of the five elementary schools that Forman students will be transitioning to have a student body majority that is not bilingual or economically disadvantaged, and have a smaller number of Hispanic students.

The differences in the student body's makeup have left some parents with concerns about how the kids will fit in and adjust to their new school. In addition, the two schools being closed are within walking distance for many children in the neighborhoods, and the closures mean they will now have to find a new way to get to and from school.

Anna Buckhalter, an Armstrong Planning Committee member for the event, feels that her child has benefited from attending a school with socioeconomic and racial diversity. She’s going to miss what the school has provided for her kids.

“It serves a whole range of socio-economic people, kids from so many different socioeconomic backgrounds,” Buckhalter said. “Which has been, from a parent perspective, really great, because my kid is getting to see people from all different family situations and backgrounds, and you know, she's getting a real lesson, not just an education from the school, but in life.”