Mansfield ISD names new school for Holly Teague

By Amanda Rogers

Mansfield Record

Holly Teague is the first person to help design a school that will bear her name.

The Mansfield ISD school board announced Tuesday night that the new early learners academy will be named in honor of Teague, who retired from the Mansfield ISD in January 2019. In June 2019, Teague went to work for Huckabee Architects as director of planning and helped design the school, never thinking that it would be named for her.

“When Dr. Spencer called me, all I could say was ‘wow,’” Teague said, referring to the district’s superintendent Tiffanie Spencer. “It’s not something that you think would ever happen.”

Teague is a huge fan of the Dr. Sarah Jandrucko Early Learners Academy, the district’s first pre-kindergarten. A lot of the features from that campus will be incorporated into the Holly Teague Early Learners Academy, which will open in August 2027 at the corner of West Broad Street and Retta Road.

“People come from all over the nation to tour Jandrucko,” Teague said. “Over 10,000 people have toured it.

“They took everything that was in Jandrucko and everything else they have learned and put it in the new school,” Teague said. “There are a lot of features that make it more efficient. It has an interior courtyard for children to play and a window by the kitchen so the kids can watch and learn. It’s magical.”

Huckabee Architects is designing the school using “lots of thought and intentionality,” Teague said.

“Nobody has ever left the district and gone to the design firm and designed their own school,” confirmed Jeff Brogden, retired associate superintendent of operations who now also works for Huckabee Architects.

Teague spent 44 years in education, serving as an elementary school teacher, assistant principal and principal, assistant superintendent for personnel services in Weatherford, Cedar Hill, Irving and Duncanville. She worked in the Mansfield ISD for six years as associate superintendent of student services and associate superintendent of curriculum instruction.

The new $57.6 million Holly Teague Early Learners Academy is being funded by the 2024 bond and will hold 750 pre-kindergartners when it opens next fall.

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