Tomball ISD is again planning for growth

With a projected increase of more than 5,000 students, officials look at options

Administrators and school board trustees in the Tomball Independent School District are considering their options in an effort to meet projected growth over the next three to six years.

The district is projected to grow from its current student population of 14,092 to 19,288 students by the end of the 202122 school year.

With that level of projected growth, a number of district campuses would be classified at 120 percent of their capacity and could be looking at some sort of expansion, or the need for new campuses to relieve the student population.

“Even past three years there is a confidence level that is better than average,” said Tomball ISD Superintendent Huey Kinchen. “But with the way growth is happening in our school district, where it’s happening and the potential for growth, it’s really hard for us to get a handle past three years. But at the same time we’ve got to look at where we are, based on our past history of building schools.”

The district has seen steady growth over the last 10 years, which spurred voters to pass a $198 million bond referendum in May 2007, followed by

approval of a $160 million bond referendum in May 2013.

Both bonds added three campuses in The Woodlands, with a fourth projected to open in August.

On the district’s south side, the bond passages also added Tomball Memorial High School, two elementary schools, an intermediate school, a new district administration building, a new agriculture barn, and funded numerous technology, security and transportation upgrades throughout the district.

To better pinpoint the projected growth in the district, trustees and administrators are looking at a number of options that could be implemented next year to alleviate overcrowding at Willow Creek Elementary, Lakewood Elementary, and Willow Wood Jr. High, as well as the projected overcrowding at Tomball Memorial High School that is expected by 2019-20.

“Some of this can be taken care of with rezoning,” said board president Michael Pratt.

If rezoning does occur, it will likely happen along the new boundary created by construction of the Grand Parkway, affecting those students in the Canyon Gate Subdivision, and other nearby neighborhoods.

“We may have patrons who are not happy with that,” said Chris Trotter, Tomball ISD’s chief administrative officer. “That’s something to take into consideration if we do that.”

The rezoning might help with the numbers in the elementary schools, but Trotter said rezoning enough students out of Willow Wood Jr. High would be much more challenging and would affect several subdivisions.

Willow Wood Jr. High, one of two junior high schools in Tomball ISD until Creekside Park Jr. High opens in August, can accommodate 1,264 students and is nearly at 91 percent capacity. Next year, Willow Wood Jr. High will be one of several Tomball ISD schools that will be near enough to capacity to use portable buildings.

In December, Trotter provided trustees with projected growth patterns, which suggested new facilities might need to be considered.

Those patterns suggested explosive growth in the southern segment of the district with the build out of Oakcrest at Wildwood subdivision by 2019, and the development of Rosehill Reserves subdivision, near Hockley in 2019-20.

Collectively, both developments will usher in more than 2,100 new home sites. In The Woodlands, there are more than 2,200 lots in the Creekside Park West subdivision, which already has 1,100 occupied homes.

If trustees opt for a bond proposal, they will need to convene a bond committee by early 2017 in order to call for a bond referendum by May 2017. Whether it is through rezoning, or adding more campuses, Kinchen said Tomball ISD has a number of hot spots that need to be addressed soon.

“There are three or four schools that we will have to address quickly,” he said. “We will look at options, and we’ll find the option that we think we can do… we don’t want to break the bank. I don’t think it would be good for our district and I don’t think it would be good for our students, but I didn’t want to exclude something. I want to look at everything.”