After bulldozers this spring tear down the former Indian Spring Middle School near the Brazos River, all that will be left are half a century of memories of its former students.
It’s those memories the City of Waco and Waco Independent School District leaders hope to preserve.
Since the campus opened as Jefferson-Moore High School in 1972, it has served five schools educating students at every grade level.
The City of Waco last fall bought the empty school and adjacent track for $32.2 million to make way for a $213 million downtown redevelopment. Last Thursday, alumni from the school’s different eras gathered at the Waco Convention Center to share their memories and learn about the future redevelopment plans.
Alumni are encouraged to sign up to share their memories through an oral history interview. Alumni are also urged to share their stories and feedback on the Waco downtown redevelopment project website.
At the Thursday event, Sherry Williams recalled being able to peer into other classrooms at Jefferson-Moore High School due to the open wall concept. Williams was part of the second class to graduate from Jefferson-Moore after attending the segregated all-Black A.J. Moore High School from seventh grade to 10th grade.
As a student, Williams was in the band, she was a majorette and graduated third in her class. Her education prepared her for a long career at the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District, where she retired as director.
Williams said she hopes to see the new downtown project acknowledge the school’s origins.
“I know it’s been a lot of different things – a lot of different schools – but Jefferson was the first,” Williams said. “And that was the school that was promised to us as students of A.J. Moore.”
On Thursday, Williams thought about what the loss of another piece of history for her and other alumni meant. Her elementary school – Oakwood Elementary School – was torn down after being closed in 1981 due to school consolidation. Her former high school will be torn down this spring.
“It’s a little bittersweet for me that there’s nothing left for our history,” Williams said. “So I’m hoping that there’s going to be some type of memorial or something to designate some more of what’s here so that we will have something.”
Tom Balk, City of Waco director of strategic initiatives, hopes to honor the school and its alumni in the downtown development’s first phase, called the Barron’s Branch District. Construction is set to begin this year on the $213 million first phase, which will include a fountain plaza and a manmade creek with footbridge and amphitheater, along with commercial businesses, structured parking and major infrastructure improvements.
“This is an important threshold that is begging for either some sort of gateway, some sort of monument, or, at a minimum, you’re telling the story formally there, with the historical marker,” Balk said. “So I think it’s going to be crucial. But also it’s begging for the inclusion of the storytelling elements. So we can’t miss, we’ve got to deliver at least.”
Waco ISD sold the 22.8-acre site to the City of Waco in October, stipulating that the city seek community input for its future use. Balk led Thursday’s meeting to gather input from Waco ISD alumni.
Jefferson-Moore High School opened in 1972 as an integrated downtown high school following the closure of Moore High School.
After Jefferson-Moore consolidated with Waco High School in 1986, the campus served as a districtwide ninth-grade center. Starting in 1997 it served as a career and technology magnet school known as A.J. Moore Academy until it closed for budgetary reasons in 2012. Indian Spring Middle School took its place.
In 2021, the student body of G.W. Carver Middle School was displaced by a fire and consolidated with Indian Spring Middle School, and the combined middle school later moved to the rebuilt Carver campus.
In 2024-25, the campus temporarily housed Kendrick Elementary students while their campus in South Waco was being rebuilt.
At the meeting on Thursday, Orlando Rodriguez, A.J. Moore Academy class of 2013, learned for the first time his former school was sold to the City of Waco.
“There’s not going to be any more use for it as a school anymore, which is kind of sad, I guess, not to be able to see it there as a place that I used to go to classes at,” Rodriguez said.
Waco ISD Trustee Jeremy Davis told the group Thursday that the campus’ importance will not be forgotten.
“I understand that this space, this campus, holds a deep meaning,” he said. “A.J. Moore (Academy) was more than a building. It represented opportunity, innovation and community, and because of that, this process was never taken lightly from the very beginning. It was of the utmost importance to me and my fellow board members that the alumni and our broader community were respected and protected at each part of this process. It wasn’t about the property, it was about the legacy.”
Waco ISD’s board has not yet determined how to spend the $32.2 million the district received from selling the school. Davis said the funding is “awesome for us, especially as public schools are fighting being underfunded by the state.”
“It was definitely well-needed for Waco ISD, and it gave us the opportunity to not leave a building vacant as well.”
Destiny Gandara, a former Indian Spring student, was sad to learn about the sale of her former school during Thursday’s meeting. After the meeting, she felt hopeful about the future plans presented.
“What they’re showing us now, it just looks like it’s going to be really good and fun and more involved with people,” Gandara said.
Correction, Feb. 25, 2026, 5:21 p.m. Central:
This story has been updated with new estimates from the city of Waco of the cost of the Barron’s Branch project. The price tag has risen in recent months from $167 million to $213 million with the addition of new drainage tunnels and structured parking.
In addition, the caption on the main image has been corrected to show that Orlando Rodriguez is a graduate of A.J. Moore Academy.
