Conroe ISD proposing new bond package
The Conroe ISD 2023 Bond Planning Committee has agreed to create a bond package for voters in November to help build new facilities for the rapidly growing district.
The school board assembled the committee in January, appointing almost 160 members from across the county.
The board has until Aug. 27 to place a bond package on the Nov. 7 ballot.
“Over 98 percent of the committee said ‘yes, we need to consider having a bond referendum in November,’” Superintendent Curtis Null said in a community update Feb. 15. “We will push forward with their guidance.”
The use of bond funds is limited, Null said.
Those funds can be used for the construction and renovations of facilities, land purchases, school buses, vehicles, said and security and technology. Staff pay raises, stipends and bonuses are prohibited bond expenditures.
The district’s last successful bond was in 2019. Voters approved a bond package of $653.57 million which included five new campuses, seven additions, campus upgrades and a new career and technical education center.
Null said the committee has discussed the district’s financial capacity, growth, new construction needs, and land acquisition. The district, he said, has about $3 billion in needs.
A demographic study commissioned by the district last year estimates that to accommodate the growth of the district, CISD will need to build 25 new schools across multiple feeder zones.
The Conroe High School feeder zone and the Caney Creek feeder zone are estimated to see the most growth in the next decade.
The study indicates CISD could grow to 100,000 students in the next 10 years. The district now has around 71,000 students with the district’s 67 schools operating at an average capacity of 102 percent.
“In the last two years, that rate of growth has really accelerated,” Null said.
During the committee’s Feb. 22 meeting, Null said the district could build a second, larger high school to serve the Conroe area and build a Caney Creek ninth-grade campus that could
be converted to a high school later. That option, he said, could save about $1.6 million.
District Communications Director Sarah Blakelock said over the next several weeks, the committee will determine priorities that may include a new high school to alleviate Conroe High School, a ninth-grade campus to support anticipated growth at Caney Creek High School, a new elementary school in the Caney Creek feeder zone, a seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade campus in the Grand Oaks High School feeder zone, a new junior high in the Conroe feeder zone and other schools to address growth.
Assistant Superintendent of Operations Chris McCord said during a recent bond committee meeting the district currently has five tracts that could be used for three elementary or intermediate schools and two sites that would accommodate future high schools.
Additionally, McCord said, the district is contracted to purchase almost 180 acres totaling about $36 million.
Null said the committee is working to develop a bond package to bring to the school board by May 11.