A Dallas-based charter school is scheduled to open a Katy campus in the fall of 2016 that could enroll 1,400 students. The International Leadership of Texas school will be constructed at the intersection of Porter and Franz roads with 90,000 square feet of space. Ground was broken Jan. 7 for the campus. The building is estimated to cost between $23 million and $25 million, IL Texas communications coordinator Jim Croswell said. Along with the Katy campus, IL Texas will build a school of the same size and cost in Alief. Croswell said while the two new schools will be 20 miles apart and teach students in kindergarten through eighth grade, officials with IL Texas are working on plans to build a high school located halfway between the two campuses. If the plan is finalized, the high school expected to open in the fall of 2017. Croswell said idea to build a school in Katy started with three mothers who were visiting Dallas. “It was a grassroots movement that started it,” Croswell said. The mothers saw the IL Texas school and wrote letters asking for a campus to be built in Katy. Currently, the school has campuses in Garland, Keller and Arlington with a combined 5,000 students among them. Another four campuses are being opened in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and there are plans to build a campus in China. The school was founded by Eddie Conger, a former Marine Corps officer and Dallas ISD principal. The first campus opened in 2013. Students at the school learn Spanish, English and Chinese and the curriculum emphasizes leadership skills, Croswell said. “We’re trying to build schools [where] it becomes incredibly easy to go from one school to another,” Croswell said. In addition to IL Texas, Katy will also be home to another new private school, the British International School of Houston, with a campus on North Westgreen Boulevard and Franz Road. The school is expected to enroll between 820 and 1,000 students, an admissions representative said.