Lamar Consolidated ISD Growth Disussion Thread (Sugar Land, The Woodlands: 2015, homes, school district)

[NTexas2010]

Rather than continue to post this in other threads, I decided to start a new one regarding the growth plans of Lamar CISD, which is the school district that serves a large geographical portion of Fort Bend county (including Richmond,Rosenberg, Fulshear, their respective ETJs, and large swathes of unincorporated Fort Bend county.)

As most (but not all people) know, the district currently has 4 high schools that serve the district: George Ranch, Foster, Terry, and Lamar. There is a 5th campus that is scheduled to open in the fall of 2016 in Fulshear (and, incidentally, named after Churchill Fulshear, thus Fulshear HS).

That said, the district is one of the fastest growing in the state of Texas. As part of its effort to keep its high schools in the 5A population class (formerly known as 4A), the high schools are typically kept at or below roughly 2000ish students per campus.

The new high school in Fulshear will serve to alleviate over-population at Foster HS, as it currently serves the arguably fastest growing region of LCISD. This will also present an opportunity for the district to rezone its other schools and relieve George Ranch HS as well, which has swelled past the 2000 cap. While no official decisions have been made, it is generally agreed that students currently zoned to George Ranch will be re-zoned to Lamar and Terry HS, which are severely under-utilized at the moment and have been since George Ranch opened.

The most recent demographics report for the district, which studies the population and growth patterns of the district, was published earlier this year (link below for the 2015 demographic report, as well as previous years' reports.) It suggests that George Ranch will continue to be over-capacity if current zoning boundaries remain in place - it does not adjust forecasts based on what the new zoning guidelines will be, as this is outside of the scope of the analysis. The report does not necessarily contradict itself, but it does acknowledge that 3 of the 4 major potential growth centers for the next decade are in the north/northwest region of the district, which is currently serviced by Foster (and additionally soon to be Fulshear) high school, lending credibility to the theory that another high school for the western portion of the district may be in order in less than a decade.

That said, both high school areas are predicted to be at capacity (given current zoning boundaries) by the year 2021, if one were to group Foster/Fulshear into one area, and George Ranch/Terry/Lamar into another.


http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...96952980,d.b2w

[hbcu]

in one of the zoning scenarios it alluded to a new high school South of 59 that would be needed to be funded

that would basically make 59 the cutoff and create scenarios where they don't have to zone Kendleton past Terry just to fill Lamar and you have a new school on that side which would grow slowly and relieve George Ranch

with the new KB Homes Community coming off 59 it would help fill Lamar

You would then have three 3 groups divided by a major highway (59 and 90)

the issue is the communities south of the Brazos Town Center which are closer to George Ranch and about to be zoned to the new elementary school...already, Summer Park is zoned to Terry but eventually as that grows there will be factions that prefer to stay south as reading road makes it much quicker to get to George Ranch

[Houston321]

Nobody wants to go to Lamar or Terry. So this is going to be a battle.

[hbcu]

that normally happens when new residents from outside areas move into small towns that begin to grow...

they build foster for the country folks but then the grand parkway developments take off and its now a suburban school..

George Ranch was a mixture of both but more suburban due to its proximity to Sugar Land and the influence of Greatwood and other surrounding areas....not surprising, it takes off quickly academically and athletically and becomes a goto destination

Lamar and Terry used to be just Richmond/Rosenberg and whatever outlying area...well now, newer communities pop up and the residents come from a George Ranch/Foster lifestyle as opposed to Terry/Lamar lifestyle and will do whatever it takes to maintain it....hence the Pecan Grove resistance to Lamar

kinda like Magnolia ISD as they built a new Magnolia High far out for a reason and built Magnolia West.....West was for the older residents in Magnolia but they get new digs while Magnolia High was built for The Woodlands residents who were zoned that way

[ftbend06]

Good thread, interesting topic. Lots of good info, but I think the one person hit the nail on the head in 2 sentences about the elephant in the room being that ppl don't want to be zoned to terry/Lamar (the latter to a lesser extent).

It will be interesting to see what happens for sure though. Frankly I think the demographic projections discussed above are too low (barring a significant recession). There are new subdivisions constantly springing up along reading and fm 762 between the freeway and George ranch. They may have to build a separate hs for greatwood, river park & Tara (areas east of future grand pkwy?) and reserve George ranch for the new growth? I don't know, I haven't looked at it closely enough.

Lamar used to have more informative zoning maps on their website that have been taken down. They do have meeting agendas posted about rezoning though. I think I will check it out.

[ftbend06]

https://www.lcisd.org/docs/default-s...5.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Appears to be a link to the latest hs zoning options that have been discussed.

And scratch what I said earlier about a potential new hs for the greatwood area. When looking on the map, George ranch makes perfect sense.

[Zoo2000]

LCISD seems disjointed--i.e. what does Fulshear have to do with GreatWood have to do with Kendleton. The disparity between Lamar/Terry and George Ranch/Foster is glaring as well.

That said, the opening of Fulshear High will be a game changer in the Northern portion of LCISD. I think that it will appeal to many parents who dont want their kids to be swallowed up in the 3K + kids at Seven Lakes or Cinco Ranch High Schools.

I guess that the district doesn't matter as much as the individual schools themselves.

[hbcu]

I travel 723, 359 and 1463 quite frequently and a lot of people don't realize how close lamar, fbisd and Katy are and how far lamar stretches....

Lakemont is closer to bush high school but a lcisd school and they pass two schools in katy isd just to get to foster...they're either going to fulshear or foster as we know anything off 1093 to the north is fulshear but to the south is where it gets interesting

on the south side of 59 the population factor will come into play when summer lakes is built out along with bonbrook and the community further out with Cobb elementary as there's plenty of land available

That's why I think the new high school will come into play near the fairgrounds or near brazos town center by then as you got sunrise meadows and those areas further west combined

The outlet mall also will be a game changer as that could attract more folks

[NTexas2010]

Originally Posted by Zoo2000

LCISD seems disjointed--i.e. what does Fulshear have to do with GreatWood have to do with Kendleton. The disparity between Lamar/Terry and George Ranch/Foster is glaring as well.

That said, the opening of Fulshear High will be a game changer in the Northern portion of LCISD. I think that it will appeal to many parents who dont want their kids to be swallowed up in the 3K + kids at Seven Lakes or Cinco Ranch High Schools.

I guess that the district doesn't matter as much as the individual schools themselves.

Part of that has to do with how this area has developed in the last 30 years. Lamar and Terry were at one time more or less equal, with Greatwood and Pecan Grove zoned to Lamar and rich country / Weston Lakes were zoned to Terry.

Then Foster opened and Terry suffered (Lamar remained okay, with Greatwood still being zoned to it.) The real problem is that you now have Terry and Lamar just a few miles apart servicing primarily the poorest parts of the districts (save for Pecan Grove) with the fewest numbers. There was a compelling argument that, rather than updating Lamar back in 2004-2007, they should have moved up the build-out of George Ranch several years sooner and merged Lamar and Terry (and dispersed the overflow into Foster and George Ranch). Instead, the district has two schools where one would suffice and now have two schools that no one wants to go to.

That said, the under-utilization of these schools can be remedied with re-zoning, but to truly fix the problem of having 2 undesired schools would require some serious carving up of the district that would defy most geographical logic (and a bunch of upset parents that their kids aren't going to the pristine school.)

As for Kendleton, that was because Kendleton ISD lost their charter (don't know exactly when, but Kendleton was already being bussed to Lamar when I was a student in 2003-2007) and LCISD picked up that area.

[NTexas2010]

Originally Posted by ftbend06

https://www.lcisd.org/docs/default-s...5.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Appears to be a link to the latest hs zoning options that have been discussed.

And scratch what I said earlier about a potential new hs for the greatwood area. When looking on the map, George ranch makes perfect sense.

Good link!