Based on January demographic calculations, student enrollment in Lake Travis ISD is expected to increase 39 percent from its 2015 enrollment of 8,805 students to 12,213 students by 2020, said Jim Ratcliff, LTISD senior director of facilities and construction. District facilities are anticipated to increase by 33 percent from 1.347 million square feet to 1.789 million square feet during the same time frame, he said. From 2005-14, enrollment increased 67 percent, Ratcliff said. The district has nine schools, including six elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school.By 2032 the district will be built out to capacity, incorporating a second high school with a 2,500-student capacity, two additional middle schools and five additional elementary schools, he said. LTISD’s enrollment at build out is projected to be 21,580 students, he said. “High school-wise, we are projecting somewhere around 2022 we’re going to need a second high school,” Ratcliff said. Lake Travis High School will reach its capacity of 3,500 students around 2020, he said. The projected site for the district’s third middle school is at its bus depot site on Hwy. 71, he said. This school is slated to later become an academic high school including fine arts programs so as to not compete with LTHS, which will house the district’s athletic programs, he said. To keep up with the expected population growth in western Travis County, Ratcliff said the district maintains five tracts on which to potentially add facilities—on 136 acres in the Sweetwater Ranch area of Hwy. 71, nearly 89 acres in the Bee Creek/Hwy. 71 area, about 40 acres on the Hert Tract by the proposed Reimers Peacock Road, about 18 acres on Old Ferry Road and a new elementary school site of about 12 acres in Rough Hollow.

Reimers Peacock Road

Ratcliff said the proposed Reimers Peacock is important to the district. The road runs past La Cabana restaurant on Hwy. 71 and travels south toward Hamilton Pool Road to Hwy. 12, he said. “Between now and 2024, it is projected [LTISD] will gain 1,750 students in the [area encompassing Reimers Peacock and Hamilton Pool Road],” he said. “If we don’t get some relief on traffic circulation on the western end of that, everything is going to have to go through that intersection of Hamilton Pool Road and [Hwy.] 71.” Ratcliff said a Travis County bond election would be needed to build Reimers Peacock. “So we’re hoping that this road will happen over the next five to 10 years, sooner rather than later,” he said.