School district closes on 100-acre school site

The new high school site is just to the north of the new Lynn McKinney Elementary School and McAnally Midle School.

Aledo ISD recently closed on a land purchase and partial land swap totaling 100-plus acres north of Old Weatherford Road for a future high school site. 

AISD purchased about 50 acres and swapped about 50 acres with the Walsh Ranch Development to add up to about 100 acres just north of McAnally Middle School and just northeast of Lynn McKinney Elementary School, which is under construction. The land purchase was for $1,959,580; the district will have responsibility for developing infrastructure on the site as required by the city of Fort Worth.

“With the passage of the Aledo ISD 2023 Bond, we were able to complete these transactions for a site that will allow for a large comprehensive high school to be built when growth and our community indicate it is time for another high school,” Superintendent Dr. Susan Bohn said. “We have been able to turn what years ago was planned to be a future high school site on Old Weatherford Road into three school sites for our community.”

The McAnally Middle School site land adjacent was originally purchased by the district in 2007 as a future high school site. At that time, it was predicted that Aledo ISD would need a second high school by 2017. However, demographic reports in 2019 indicated room to grow at the 9-12 grade levels and a more pressing need for a second middle school in Aledo ISD, and building McAnally Middle School on that site was included in the Aledo 2019 Bond proposal created by the community-led Bearcat Growth Committee. McAnally Middle School opened in August of 2022. 

The committee included in the 2023 bond package recommendation to the Board of Trustees the district’s seventh elementary school. Shortly after the 2023 Aledo ISD Bond was approved by more than 56% of voters in May of 2023, construction began on Lynn McKinney Elementary School, which will open in August of 2024 just northwest of McAnally Middle School and east of the Morningstar neighborhood.

“With our rapid growth, it is imperative that we continue to have ongoing discussions with developers and land owners so that we can purchase land or in many instances receive donated land for future school sites,” Board President Forrest Collins said. “This is work that never stops, but we have built many relationships in the last 4-5 years that have helped us be in the position to have options and opportunities for land that we’ve never had before.”

In addition to this new site, Aledo ISD also closed on the purchase of 20 acres directly east of Daniel Ninth Grade Campus and west of Champions Drive in 2022. As discussed by the Aledo Growth Committee and presented in their long-range plan for growth, the 20-acre site could potentially hold a future College and Career Academy for high school students. The AGC continues to meet and study enrollment, bonding capacity, construction costs, legislative actions and more to help determine when additional high school space will be needed.