A Roanoke daycare owner says her business could shut down for good if Northwest Independent School District opens another pre-K campus, and she's not waiting around to find out. Heather DeHoyos-Williams, who owns Horizon Kidz, has joined the Texas Licensed Child Care Association in suing the fast-growing suburban district, alleging it expanded its pre-K program without properly seeking partnerships with private providers like hers first.
The lawsuit accuses Northwest ISD of violating state law by failing to sufficiently seek partnerships with local childcare providers before building and expanding its pre-K facilities, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction to stop the district's continuing expansion and construction of three new pre-K facilities, on top of the Dr. David Hicks Early Childhood Center the district has already opened. Texas state law requires school districts to solicit and consider partnership proposals from community childcare providers before building or expanding pre-K facilities, and before issuing bonds to pay for them, per the same report.
A Daycare Watches Its Enrollment Disappear
DeHoyos-Williams says her enrollment of four-year-old students has plummeted since 2023. Horizon Kidz can serve up to 22 four-year-old children but currently serves just seven, according to the Star-Telegram's reporting. She said she reached out to Northwest ISD in both 2024 and 2025 to try to establish a partnership, but the district told her it does not participate in pre-K partnership programs.
Pre-K revenue is typically a core part of her business, DeHoyos-Williams said, and she has warned that she will have to close Horizon Kidz entirely if Northwest ISD opens another pre-K facility. She's not alone in that fear — the lawsuit alleges that public pre-K expansion has caused a loss of enrollment and revenue for private providers serving four-year-olds statewide, and that several providers have already shut down both statewide and locally.
Why Northwest ISD Is Building So Fast
The district's expansion traces back to a $2 billion bond package that Northwest ISD voters approved in May 2023, which funded four dedicated early childhood centers to handle the district's rapidly growing pre-K population, according to KERA News. The first of those, the Dr. David Hicks Early Childhood Center in Fort Worth, cost $37.15 million to build and serves up to 450 pre-K students across 16 classrooms with interactive, museum-style learning spaces, Community Impact reported. Beyond Hicks, the district plans to build three more early childhood centers across its territory, including a second campus near Rhome, since the fast-growing district is currently only about one-third built out, per the same outlet.
The growth numbers explain the urgency. Northwest ISD's pre-K enrollment more than tripled in four years, climbing from 339 students in the 2020–2021 school year to 1,075 students in 2024–2025, according to data from demographer Zonda Education cited by Community Impact. For families who don't qualify for the state-funded free pre-K created under the 2019 Texas House Bill 3 mandate, the district charges $7,000 a year for tuition-based pre-K — a rate it says is roughly half the price of many private child care facilities in North Texas, per WFAA.
A Jurisdictional Setback, and an Appeal Ahead
The case has already hit a legal snag. A judge granted Northwest ISD's motion challenging the court's jurisdiction, ruling instead that the Texas Education Agency commissioner is the proper authority to interpret the statute and the state's school-district requirements, according to the Star-Telegram. The court was reportedly concerned that ruling on the solicitation requirements itself could conflict with the education agency's own interpretation of the law.
Tim Kaminski said the lawsuit is meant to protect the financial interests of both taxpayers and childcare providers, and he told the Star-Telegram the next step is to appeal the jurisdiction decision. Northwest ISD has denied all allegations in the lawsuit and claims the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the claims. The district has declined to comment further, citing the pending litigation.
District Points to a 2020 Solicitation That Got No Response
Northwest ISD has pointed to its own history of outreach as part of its defense. The district says it issued a request for proposal over a two-week period in February 2020, advertised through the Denton Record-Chronicle and district communications, but received no responses. That solicitation predates the surge in pre-K enrollment and the bond-funded construction boom that followed.
The dispute also highlights how other districts have handled the same pressures differently. In neighboring Dallas ISD, public-private pre-K partnerships allow private child care centers to retain four-year-old students while receiving public funding shares or district-certified teachers directly inside private classrooms, according to KERA. Texas Education Agency guidelines require districts that do form such partnerships to pass through at least 85% of state pre-K funding to the participating private provider. Fort Worth ISD has taken a similar route, partnering with PreK Today — managed by Child Care Associates — to provide pre-K to its students at community-based Head Start centers.
A Statewide Childcare Squeeze
The Texas Licensed Child Care Association says it launched its legal action after a statewide survey found private child care operators routinely excluded from local school district pre-K expansion planning, KERA reported. That complaint lands against a backdrop of broader strain on the industry: more than 90,000 children in Texas remained on state waiting lists for child care financial subsidies in 2026, even as state officials enacted a 9.5% reduction in children served by the Child Care Services program.
For Northwest ISD, the legal fight is unlikely to slow its building plans anytime soon. The district maintains it has done nothing wrong and continues to plan for three additional early childhood centers as its student population keeps climbing. For DeHoyos-Williams and other small providers watching enrollment dry up, the appeal Kaminski has promised may be their last chance to force the district back to the negotiating table.
