Texas Education Code 45.003 (g) allows for a single ballot proposition for the issuance of bonds for the construction, acquisition, and equipment of school buildings in the district, the purchase of new school buses, and the purchase of necessary sites for school buildings.  As approved by voters, this ballot language does not restrict or commit the District to a single instructional facility configuration or the number of facilities. 

In addition to the ballot language, the purpose of the bond has not changed.  Both the election order and the ballot language from the 2021 bond election ask for the issuance of bonds for “the construction, acquisition, rehabilitation, renovation, expansion, improvement, and equipment of school buildings in the District…”  The initial proposal, as communicated in 2021 through materials provided to the community, was to construct a school building at the Tomball Innovation Center that would serve grades K-4 to relieve overcrowding at the three Creekside elementary schools.  That remained the plan until this year when the District administration began considering rezoning scenarios that would provide the most relief to the overcrowded campuses. It became clear that the best option for providing relief to overcrowded campuses and aligning instructional practices and grade levels across the District was to make the new Tomball Innovation Center campus an intermediate campus to serve grades 5-6.  While the grade levels served at the new campus will be different from the initial proposal from 2021, the purpose of the bond has not changed as a new campus will be constructed at the Tomball Innovation Center. 
 

Texas Education Code 45.1105 is in reference to the use of bond proceeds remaining after all projects have been completed and there is intent to change the purpose of the bonds.  Since the construction of an intermediate school meets the purpose of constructing school buildings under Proposition A as approved by voters, Texas Education Code 45.1105 does not apply.  Notably, Section 45.1105 requires a vote from the Board of Trustees, and not the community, to change the purpose of the bonds.  However, the specific purpose of the bonds as set forth in the election order and ballot language has not changed, therefore, Section 45.1105 is not applicable. 
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/files/divisions/public-finance/20191227BondLetter.pdf
 

The District began studying plans for populating new facilities in January, 2023. District staff, in collaboration with Zonda Demographics, explored several different boundary scenarios and the effect each plan had on enrollment projections. The purpose of the plans was to provide a balance of enrollment numbers throughout all schools in the district.  Initial plans yielded projections showing both Grand Oaks Elementary and the new elementary at the Tomball Innovation Center under-utilized. Additionally, all of the schools in the Creekside area, including the Junior High, were showing projections that were too close to their capacity levels. The District MIS team provided a spreadsheet showing student numbers by grade level for each planning area in the Creekside zones; this additional data was helpful in getting a better understanding of the concentration of numbers across the grade levels. After an analysis of the grade level numbers, it was discovered that the total number of 5th and 6th graders in the Creekside area would be an optimal number of students for the new campus at the Tomball Innovation Center because it would provide enough relief to the Creekside (CES, CFES, TCES) Elementary schools and also remove enough students from Creekside Park Junior High to allow that campus to stay under capacity for the foreseeable future.  Once that determination was made, it was necessary to investigate whether the other elementary and intermediate campus zones in the District could be adjusted to provide relief to Tomball Elementary and Decker Prairie Elementary (without the Tomball Innovation Center being an elementary school), and, at the same time increase the utilization of Grand Oaks Elementary. The answer was affirmative; by changing the Tomball Innovation Center campus to an intermediate, all of the numbers fell into place.

The initial goal was to provide enrollment relief by rezoning areas with new developments and/or outside of The Woodlands (Fairway Farms and Lakes at Creekside, for example).  Rezoning these areas did not drastically change the enrollment in the three Creekside elementary schools and still would have resulted in overcapacity campuses in Creekside and an underutilized elementary school at the Tomball Innovation Center. To achieve the target enrollments for CES, CFES and TCES, students and families in the Creekside area would be rezoned to the Tomball Innovation Center for elementary school.

The Creekside area is, in fact, still growing.  There are still a few subdivisions that are building new homes, and while there is not much vacant land for residential development, some land still remains for future growth.  Additionally, the yields for each household in the Creekside area have increased as more homes are supporting multiple families. Creekside Park Junior High is projected to be near its capacity by the 2026-2027 school year.  Typically in every District, the elementary schools will show an increase in student numbers initially as families tend to move into newer neighborhoods with younger students, but as the students grow older, the numbers at the secondary campuses increase.

Although neighborhood schools are always desired, the availability of land within certain areas of the District, including Creekside, is limited. At the time of the Bond 2021 election, the District already owned 20 acres of undeveloped property located at what is now the Tomball Innovation Center.  This location was presented as the site that would be used for the next instructional facility.
Within the Creekside community there is currently no available property that would support the construction of an instructional facility.  The District has conducted a search of available properties with the assistance of a professional realtor. The only available property large enough to accommodate an instructional facility is located at the corner of Hufsmith and FM 2978, which does not alleviate the current concerns of the community.

Preparation for Bond 2021 began in January 2021, eleven months prior to the bond election.  Because of the long lead time prior to the election, sale of bonds, and receipt of construction bids, an inflation factor of 8% was used to estimate the total costs of the bond projects. Historically, inflation related to construction costs had not approached this level, with a 10-year average near 1 percent.  Unfortunately, the District is being impacted by significantly inflated construction costs (32%) just like all other construction across the nation. 

The impact of inflation has been felt across all projects and is not limited to the Juergen Road Complex.  The District is focused on the completion of all instructional related facilities at this time, but will continue to evaluate the available Bond 2021 budget as these projects are completed. Higher construction costs did not impact the decision to change from an elementary school to an intermediate school.  That change was driven by the enrollment relief provided to all Creekside campuses after shifting 5th and 6th grade to the intermediate campus at the Tomball Innovation Center.

The District’s tax software does not provide the ability to pull reports specifically for one area of the District.  We are working with the Harris Central Appraisal District to pull this data in order to provide an answer to this question.

The Creekside Park Junior High campus sits on approximately 39 acres and is 227,550 sq. ft. with the capacity for 1,500 secondary students.  The available undeveloped land at the Tomball Innovation Center is only 20 acres, which is not enough space to adequately provide the same opportunities that exist across the other District junior highs.

There have been studies conducted by Precinct 4 and TxDOT as recently as 2020 in this area in preparation for the expansion of Hufsmith-Korhville.  We are not aware of any traffic study currently being conducted in this area.

The intent of the new school at the Tomball Innovation Center was to provide relief to Creekside schools via a new elementary school.  To achieve enrollment relief, students were always going to have to leave the Creekside area to attend the school.  Kindergarten through 4th grade students were going to have to travel by car or bus, as is the case in many attendance zones in the District. Not only does an intermediate school provide greater enrollment relief for CES, CFES, and TCES, the shift to 5th & 6th grades moves older students as opposed to younger elementary aged students. The intermediate school plan ensures that all current Creekside elementary students (K-4) would remain in Creekside for elementary school.

Tomball ISD offers a robust transportation service to all students in the District who wish to utilize this service.  Our ridership is not limited by minimum distance requirements to be eligible for transportation as in many Districts.  To maximize efficiencies and overcome a national bus driver shortage, the District conducted an internal study of our start times and implemented a district-wide tiered bell schedule.  The 2022-2023 school year was the first year of implementation and will be reviewed annually to ensure our routes and delivery times are consistent and attainable. The tiered systems, along with separating intermediate routes from junior high and high schools routes, allows the Transportation Department to operate efficiently, despite not being fully-staffed.  Adding more drivers through Human Talent recruiting will only help the department and the strain of adding potential new ridership, but we can run our tiered system model with the current number of drivers.

Tomball ISD is working with Commissioner Ramsey (Harris Co. Pct. 3) and he has communicated that there is a plan. This plan will be communicated once more information is received.

The Transportation Department, in collaboration with the Office of School Leadership, reviews our start and end times annually as part of our implementation of a tiered bell schedule.  Based on data and the needs of students and campuses, some tiered bell times may change slightly if the need arises.  We anticipate that the new Tomball Innovation Center Intermediate School will align with the rest of the District’s intermediate school start times and Creekside Park Junior High School will shift to an earlier start time to align with the junior high schools.  

For more information about our current bell schedules, please visit our website: https://www.tomballisd.net/families/bell-schedules.

Yes, currently there are intermediate students in the District that travel just as far or further than the distance from Creekside to the Tomball Innovation Center.  The average distance in mileage and time would be slightly higher for Creekside students traveling to the new intermediate school.  

The rezoning that was implemented this year was to distribute the student population to balance out enrollment among the three Creekside campuses.  No students were rezoned out of CES, CFES or TCES.  As was stated in the rezoning meetings, no true enrollment relief for the Creekside campuses would occur until the new campus at the Tomball Innovation Center was built.  The plan for an intermediate school provides the greatest opportunity for enrollment relief for all Creekside campuses, as well as align the instructional model within the District.

The proposed intermediate campus at the Tomball Innovation Center will not have a negative impact on accountability ratings at CFES or any other elementary school in the Creekside neighborhood.  In fact, reducing the number of students at CFES will decrease the student ratios for the campus counselor, GT specialist, instructional specialists and all other support personnel outside of the classroom. 

What appears to be changes to our CTE use of the Tomball Innovation Center are expansions of programs or additions of popular and high demand industry programs.  In fact, the only change we have experienced at the facility was the dissolution of the partnership with BJ Services, but the net result for the District was expanding from partnering with an oil and gas company to purchasing the entire facility to provide innovative and comprehensive CTE offerings now and in the future.

The expansion of campuses in Creekside has been discussed, but not considered as a feasible alternative.  None of the Creekside campuses were designed with the intention of expansion to a second story.  Trying to do so now would require significant renovations that would make the campus unusable during construction, and could not be completed during the summer months. The land the Creekside campuses sit on does not allow for the outward expansion of the facilities without removing access to playgrounds.

A school’s capacity is determined by the number of designed classrooms and the teacher to student ratio as required by state law.  Currently all available space is being utilized along with the addition of portable classrooms.

Sports fields/complexes are not a driving factor in the decision.  It is the standard for junior high schools and high schools in Texas public education to have athletics/extra-curricular activities.

Within the Creekside community there is currently no available property that would support the construction of an instructional facility.  The District has conducted a search of available properties with the assistance of a professional realtor.  The only available property large enough to accommodate an instructional facility is located at the corner of Hufsmith and FM 2978, which does not alleviate the current concerns of the community.

We have not proceeded with the elementary campus at the Tomball Innovation Center, but we have started construction on West Elementary.

Creating an intermediate campus at the Tomball Innovation Center will reduce enrollment at all Creekside elementaries (CES, CFES, TCES), which will allow capacity for a prekindergarten classroom at an elementary school in the Creekside area.  The location of a prekindergarten program in the Creekside area will be made in the near future.

The Tomball Innovation Center provides office space for over 100 professional personnel (i.e., Special Education, Finance, Curriculum and Instruction, etc.), serves as the location for Tomball Star Academy with an enrollment of 500 students, serves as a CTE hub (i.e., legal services, law enforcement, etc.) for THS and TMHS with an enrollment projected next school year at near 50 students.