Before it was known as Fort Bend ISD, and many years before it was the thriving educational hub it is today, education in colonial Texas and in the towns of Sugar Land and Missouri City was rustic and limited.

In 1897, there was only one teacher and a one-room school in the county. By the 1913-14 school year, four teachers supervised and educated students in grades first through 10. In 1915, a two-room schoolhouse was built, and the Sugar Land campus—now Lakeview Elementary—was constructed the following year.

"[Sugar Land] was a little bitty town when I came in, and it was so exciting to see the growth," said Rita Drabek, who has worn many hats in her tenure with FBISD, including assistant principal, principal, director of curriculum and as a teacher at Lakeview Elementary for 16 years. "As a fourth-grade teacher, [the history] was all at our fingertips and right outside our doors."

As the area continued to grow and more families moved to the area, administrators made the decision to merge Sugar Land ISD and Missouri City ISD to create Fort Bend ISD in 1959. About 2,800 students attended school at the new consolidated district, according to the FBISD communications department. FBISD's first graduating class was in 1960, but it was not until 1962 that the graduating class walked the stage in a ceremony at Dulles High School.

When former principal of Dulles High School James Patterson first came on board with the district as a math teacher in 1965, FBISD had one high school and junior high school and two elementaries.

"We had eight buses and about 600 students," Patterson said, who currently serves as Fort Bend County Precinct 4 Commissioner.

By the mid 1960s, Fort Bend ISD was experiencing many changes in its social and academic atmosphere. All schools in the district were desegregated by 1965, and enrollment numbers shot up by more than 8,000 students in the next 10 years. By the mid 1980s, FBISD's enrollment numbers were more than 20,000 students with a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

"When I became principal, there were 1,100 students," Patterson said. "When you're talking about this period of time in the early '80s we were definitely a country school, but we were growing. We didn't really think about it because [the district] was so spread out. The growth kind of snuck up on you."

Today, FBISD operates 92 facilities, including 74 campuses, with an enrollment of more than 70,000 students. The district continues to be one of the largest school systems and employers in one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the state, FBISD director of communications Nancy Porter said.

Source: "Fort Bend County, Texas: A Pictorial History" by Sharon Wallingford