Bond for new Conroe ISD schools set

The Conroe Independent School District board of trustees Tuesday unanimously approved a $487 million bond proposal and called for an election in November. Montgomery County residents living within Conroe ISD's boundaries will be able to vote on the bond Nov. 3.

At the district's most conservative estimates of property valuation growth, Conroe ISD doesn't anticipate more than a 1-cent tax rate increase to fund its bond. A 1-cent increase for property owners within the district will mean an extra $10 for every $100,000 a homestead is worth. The property tax rate for the 2015-16 school year was approved to be $1.28 per $100 of assessed property value, which was the same as last year.

The school district has one of the lowest tax rates of neighboring school districts. In comparison, Klein ISD projects a tax rate of $1.39 per $100 of assessed property value for the 2014-15 school year. Spring ISD had a tax rate of $1.51 per $100 of assessed property value during the same period.

Conroe ISD, which serves more than 56,000 students across 60 campuses, is the 14th largest district in the state and the largest in Montgomery County, and it's growing rapidly. The district expects to add 1,400 students each year for the "foreseeable future." To get a handle on Conroe ISD's growth, several new schools will go up while other campuses will see major renovations over the next few years.

New high school
Of the $487 million bond package, $141.5 million - or nearly one-third of the package - will be allocated to a 3,000-student high school for the district.

This will be the second high school in the Oak Ridge feeder zone, which is the fastest-growing part of Conroe ISD, and the sixth in the district. The new high school is slated to open in August 2018 off Riley Fuzzel Road across from a planned segment of the Grand Parkway extension.
The price tag includes campus-wide WiFi, "think tank" and collaboration spaces, a robotics workspace, an audio/video lab, a graphics lab, as well as competition fields for softball, track and field, and baseball.

Plans for a new Oak Ridge high school are a result of the district's acute growth needs. Without a second high school, Conroe ISD's demographic study projects that its current Oak Ridge High School will be at 141 percent of capacity by the fall of 2024.

The district has already moved forward with plans for the second high school. It acquired 37 acres off Riley Fuzzel Road from Toll Houston TX LLC in a $5.7 million deal. The district filed to condemn an additional 46 acres of adjacent property through eminent domain in late May. The condemned property represents less than 10 percent of the adjacent land owner's property, and no homes are on the disputed land, according to the Conroe ISD board. The district offered $5.6 million before filing to condemn the property, which it says was the fair market value of the property.

The district is still in ongoing land negotiations. Funds for land acquisition came out of leftover 2008 bond funds.

More construction
The Oak Ridge feeder zone will see more than just a new high school.

Four of the five new schools in the 2015 bond are expected to go up in that part of the district, which includes an intermediate school and two elementary schools in addition to the high school.
The construction costs for the three additional Oak Ridge schools is expected to be $82.5 million.
The growing pains in the Oak Ridge area are severe for one school in particular: Birnham Woods Elementary. The K-4 school off Riley Fuzzel Road is growing so rapidly, that the district expects enrollment to be at 193 percent of capacity by the fall of 2024.

One of the two new elementary schools is expected to relieve pressure off Birnham Woods and possibly other surrounding elementary schools. Construction is slated to begin in 2016.
The second new elementary school, a K-6 campus, will go up off Texas 242 where students go to either Houser or Oak Ridge Elementary. Construction is slated to begin in 2018.

An intermediate school will also be built off Riley Fuzzel Road, and the district expects to start on the project in 2017. The new intermediate school will relieve pressure off Cox Intermediate, which the district projects will be at 182 percent of capacity by the fall of 2024 without a new school to siphon off excess capacity.

The fifth school on the list of new school construction is a junior high school in Conroe. The district will begin working on the $58.4 million project in 2018 off FM 3083. Although a large chunk of the bond is focused on new construction in the Oak Ridge feeder zone - about 44 percent - much of the bond will be spent on major renovation and facility expansion projects.

Knox Junior High in The Woodlands College Park feeder zone is expected to undergo a $12.2 million expansion to add a facility for new science classrooms. Stewart Elementary in Conroe will receive a small slice of the pie, about $1.2 million, to complete classroom build-out. Construction will begin in 2017.

Austin Elementary, a struggling school in the Conroe feeder zone, will receive $17.85 million for major renovations. The old east wing of the campus will be demolished and a new structure will be added on the south side. Construction is slated to begin in 2018.

The largest renovation project is at Conroe High School, coming in at $59 million. A three-phase school master plan was developed for the more than 50-year-old building to bring it up-to-date and maintain capacity for growth. The other phases, amounting to about $60 million, will be on the back burner for future bond packages. On top of all the new construction and facility renovations, funds have been set aside for district-wide upgrades, like safety and security and facility life cycle maintenance.

The bond was first proposed to be $511 million. But $24 million was chopped off, which included bond funds for new buses, some technology upgrades and "priority one" projects - electrical, plumbing, roofing, etc. However, the removed projects will still be funded through district budget surplus.

Additional funding
As part of the bond package, the board accepted a $5 million recommendation from CISD Superintendent Don Stockton. Of that addition, $2 million is expected to go to technical education improvements for cosmetology and welding programs at Caney Creek High School and Oak Ridge High School Ninth Grade center. An additional $3 million will go to building a robotics lab at The Woodlands College Park High School and Caney Creek High School.