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 34,000 pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade students in a diverse district located north of downtown Houston in a suburban area of Harris County that spans . As of May 2023, the district's ethnic breakdown is 51.6 percent Hispanic, 38.0 percent African-American, 4.7 percent White and 2.0 percent Asian.
Spring ISD serves a small portion of Houston, and portions of unincorporated Harris County including the community of Spring.
Spring ISD earned an overall “B” rating under the Texas Education Agency’s accountability ratings system for the 2021-2022 school year. More than half of its campuses earned an “A” or “B” rating, with the district earning a cumulative score of 81.
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
Northgate Forest, 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
ExxonMobil's offices in the Spring area were being established around 2015, contributing to growth in the Spring area.