1800s - 1900

The earliest settlers to our area built log houses, churches and schools. Rural schools included Sams School and schools next to Lonesome Dove and White's Chapel churches. All served neighborhood families into the early 20th century.

1901 - 1958

By the early 1900s, in an effort to improve the education of its children, the state of Texas consolidated rural schools into county school districts. Our district, the Carroll Common School District, was named for the Tarrant County Superintendent of Public Instruction at the time, B. E. Carroll. Early on, the school was called Carroll Hill because it sat at a high point on Carroll Avenue, north of Texas 114. The Carroll School was completed in 1919 and went through grades one to eight. After that, children attended high school in Grapevine.

1959 - 1970

The Carroll Common School District served area children for forty years, from its consolidation in 1919 to 1959, when an election was held to change it to the Carroll Independent School District. Jack D. Johnson was the first superintendent of the district.

Here is an excerpt from conversations with Mr. Johnson, who served as Carroll district superintendent for 30 years, and his wife, Modean:

“Southlake was only one-year old when I got here. On August 21, 1957, my wife, Modean, and I and our two small children arrived in Southlake and Carroll School in the Carroll Common School District. I was hired as the principal. It was an eight-grade school with 125 students, six teachers, and a three-member board of trustees.” Mrs. Johnson shared what it was like to be the principal, and later the superintendent’s wife in such a small community. Their house sat where the former Carroll Intermediate School sits today. Many mornings, as “the mothers would drop their children off at school,” she recalled, “they would drive on around and stop to have a cup of coffee with me. I have such fond memories of all those families.” Mr. and Mrs. Johnson continue to live in Southlake today.

Several changes were made to the original 1919 building including the addition of a frame cafeteria and by 1965, a high school wing was added and the district offered all twelve grades. Twenty-four seniors graduated that year as the first Carroll High School graduating class.

1970 - present

In 1970, a new Carroll High School (today's Carroll Middle School) was built. The original Carroll School continued offering grades one to eight. It was renamed Carroll Intermediate School upon the opening of Johnson Elementary, named for superintendent, Mr. Jack D. Johnson.

The late 1980’s and early 1990's saw major growth for the district with the completion of Carroll Elementary and a new Carroll High School, the first two schools in the district built south of Texas 114. The Carroll High School was renamed the Carroll Senior High School and now serves 11-12th grades.

The district's first shared campus, the Durham Elementary School and the Durham Intermediate School, was named for teacher and coach, Mr. Don Durham. Coach Durham led the Lady Dragons basketball team to the 1A state championship in 1975 but was tragically killed in an automobile accident. His widow, Mrs. Martha Durham, served the district for many years as a school nurse. The district's fourth elementary school, Rockenbaugh, was built and named for one of Carroll’s longest-serving members and president of the CISD board of trustees, Mr. Robert Rockenbaugh.

The new three-story school on White Chapel began as the Carroll Junior High School but now serves as the district’s 9th-10th grade Carroll High School. The final flurry of school construction included Eubanks Intermediate, Dawson Middle, and Old Union Elementary. Old Union was named for a rural community that once thrived in that area.

The original Carroll School still sits on the hill just north of Texas 114 on Carroll Avenue, just south of the former Carroll Intermediate School, which is serving as a temporary home to the Southlake DPS while a new DPS facility is under construction in Town Square.

Today, the CISD serves approximately 7,800 students and is the largest school district in the state of Texas to earn the top rating of "exemplary" by the Texas Education Agency.

For more information about the district, visit the CISD website at www.southlakecarroll.edu .