Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District - History

History

Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District was established in 1927 as a consolidation of four smaller school districts Wilmer-Hutchins High School was established in 1928.

Around 1939, Wilmer-Hutchins Colored High School burned down in a fire. After that occurred, children were bused to Dallas ISD schools such as Booker T. Washington High School and Lincoln High School.

In September 1954, more than 100 African-American students and parents went into Linfield Elementary School, then an all-White WHISD school. They were tired of the district's periodic closing of Melissa Pierce School, an all-Black school, so students would pick crops. The district turned the students away.

In 1958, WHISD had 1,746 White students and 577 African-American students. The number of African-American students increased rapidly over the next decade as the United States government established housing policies that concentrated many African-American families in the northern part of the district. The district, still clinging to its policy of segregation, spent millions of dollars building new schools for black students - Alta Mesa Elementary School, Bishop Heights Elementary School, Milton K. Curry Junior High School and John F. Kennedy High School were all opened in the early 1960s. The more rural southern portion of the district remained predominantly white - Linfield, Wilmer and Hutchins Elementary Schools were reserved for white students, as was Wilmer-Hutchins Junior High and High School. In February 1970, WHISD was forced to implement desegregation busing.

The mayor of Hutchins, Don Lucky, formed a group of followers and hijacked Hutchins Elementary School for a period. Two out of three White people in WHISD moved away from the district in the early 1970s. WHISD became predominately economically poor and African-American; WHISD became controlled by African-Americans. In 1996 around 17,800 people lived within the district. U.S. Census figures stated that the area was about 70% African-American and mostly blue collar. One in five people lived in poverty. One in fifteen adults held one or more university degrees. Most residents were homeowners. The Dallas Observer described the district, which had "urban demographics" and a location "a few minutes from downtown Dallas," as having an "incongruous rural feel" with "pig farms sit cheek by jowl with burglar-barred houses in sprawling subdivisions built 25 or 30 years ago" within the Dallas portion of Wilmer-Hutchins ISD.

In 1999, the school district had 3,651 students. In April 2003 it had 3,060 students and had gained 35 students from the start of the year. By 2004 it had about 2,900 students. It was the only Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex school district to have lost population between 1999 and 2004. Many WHISD parents left the district, putting their children in Dallas Independent School District schools or charter schools.