Stafford, first settled in the early 1820s as Stafford’s Point by William Stafford, developed local schooling from a one-room school with ten students in the 1830s and later classes in a blacksmith shop to an official school built in 1895 on Louisiana Street in Missouri City with seven grades and one teacher. Students from Stafford, Missouri City, and surrounding areas attended the Missouri City School District, formally organized in 1938, until it consolidated with the Sugar Land School District in 1959 to form the Fort Bend Independent School District. In 1976, a Fort Bend Independent School District decision to reduce bus transportation for schoolchildren led the Stafford City Council to consider leaving the district and creating the rare municipal school district. Stafford citizens petitioned for an election, the vote was approved on January 15, 1977, and after investigation by the State of Texas Commissioner of Education and legal challenges that reached the Federal District Court and then the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Stafford Municipal School District was ruled constitutional on July 30, 1981. Stafford then moved quickly to build its school system, opening grades Kindergarten through 5th on August 26, 1982, adding 6th through 11th grades the following year, and graduating its first class in May 1985.