Katy ISD is opening three new schools in August, which district officials say will temporarily alleviate crowding and the challenges that come with it.

The school district will open two new elementary schools and one new junior high school. In addition, it will open another three schools—an elementary school, a junior high school and high school—in August 2017, completing the list of schools to be built under KISD’s $748 million 2014 bond package.

Until those six new schools are opened, officials at several crowded schools—including WoodCreek Junior High School and Robert King Elementary School—have made adjustments throughout the 2015-16 school year to accommodate hundreds of extra students, some of whom will be rezoned next year.

KISD Superintendent Alton Frailey said the district’s continuing growth is attributable to the attractiveness of living in the Greater Houston area.

“When families are taking these jobs in these places [like Katy], they’re looking at what’s the best place for [their] children, and by and large, Katy ISD is the No. 1 brand,” Frailey said.

As of March 30, KISD had 73,525 students enrolled, and by 2025, student population is expected to increase to between 93,727 and 105,025 students, according to a 2015 KISD demographic study presented to the board in October.

The demographic firm Population and Survey Analysts in College Station assisted with the report, which also gathered information from the Texas State Data Center, the Houston Galveston Council of Governments and other entities.

District officials say with all of the growth, crowding in some places is not unexpected.

“Historically, we have all schools kind of on the edge of growth [areas] that tend to have a whole bunch of students until they can get relieved for whatever the next school is,” KISD Chief Operations Officer Tom Gunnell said.

Crowding

WoodCreek was designed for about 1,400 students but has 2,160 this school year, Principal Kerri Finnesand said. The extra students made the school operate more like two schools in one [building], she said.

“I have two different bell schedules. My sixth-grade students change class five minutes differently than my seventh- and eighth-graders,” Finnesand said. “That just helps with congestion in the hallways [and] safety. We run six lunches where most junior high campuses run three.”

Students at WoodCreek start eating lunch at 9:45 a.m. and finish at 1:15 p.m.

“All my incoming sixth-grade parents, I tell them all the time, we’re going to serve brunch and ‘lupper,’” Finnesand said.

The students are allowed to snack during the day, she said.

First period starts at 7:30 a.m., and the last period finishes at 2:35 p.m.

During any given class period, there are also about 1,000 students being housed for classes in 42 mobile classrooms, Finnesand said.

When the James and Sharon Tays Junior High School opens in August for the 2016-17 school year, WoodCreek will see some relief, at least temporarily, she said.

The school is projected to lose 735 students to the new junior high school, Finnesand said.

Audra Scott, a WoodCreek parent and volunteer, said her child will be rezoned next year as an eighth-grader.

“They’ve made it easy for sure,” Scott said of the transition. “We get emails from the new principal already.”

Kelly Goerig, a WoodCreek parent and volunteer, said her child will be staying at the junior high rather than going to Tays, but her children went through the rezoning process in elementary school.

Goerig said the rezoning and crowding were a “necessary evil.”

King is also operating over capacity, Principal Tammi Wilhelm said.

“Our enrollment, being over 1,400, we do have students who eat lunch at 10:20 in the morning,” Wilhelm said.

The school has capacity for about 1,000 students, and Wilhelm said about 400 students will be going to the new Catherine Bethke Elementary School next school year.

In the meantime, King has also made some adjustments to accommodate students, Wilhelm said.

When students are dismissed from homeroom to be in gym or fine-arts classes, they also have a science lab and character lessons to go to in addition so that every student would have a place to go rather than having a crowded gym and arts classes.

“It has to be very well-coordinated,” Wilhelm said.

Planning for growth

Crowding situations are nothing new for the district, which Gunnell said grows by between 2,000 and 3,000 students each year. The KISD board of trustees approved attendance boundary modifications in December to rezone students into the new schools opening in August as well as address crowding at schools that were at 130 percent of their capacity.

Gunnell said the district has lowered its original projections for enrollment this year by about 500 students, putting growth at about 2,000 new students for the 2015-16 school year.

“Frankly, [lower enrollment} makes [planning for district growth] a little easier to manage,” he said.

Part of managing impending growth is using portable classrooms, and Gunnell said even new schools use the portables.

Tays will open its first year with portables, using some that WoodCreek will not be needing as its student population decreases.

“Two of [the portables] are going to go to Tays Junior High [School],” Gunnell said. “Six of them are going to go to Katy High School.”

Gunnell said portables cost $120,000 each to buy and outfit and incur a cost of about $20,000 when moved and reused.

Each unit has two classrooms. The district has about 336 of the structures.

“Fundamentally, it’s no different than your classroom in the school,” Gunnell said. “Our planning model uses portables, and that’s how we’re able to manage growth, which allows us not to build schools that are pretty much empty.”

Although WoodCreek will be losing students, Finnesand said the crowding relief will not last long.

“This bond helped us get relief right now, but in three years, Seven Lakes Junior High is going to be overcrowded—where I am right now—and then I will be overcrowded,” Finnesand said. “This southwest quadrant, it’s growing so fast; I don’t know how you could physically keep up with it.”

Three of KISD’s largest geographic areas yet to be built out completely are the Cross Creek Ranch development, the northwest Katy area and the Cane Island development, according to the demographic study.

Overall, the demographics study indicated a growth of 29,545 single-family homes between 2015 and 2025 in KISD boundaries.

As more people move to the area, some might have to transfer their children from school to school as the district opens new buildings.

Scott said she accepts that scenario. She and her family moved to Katy three years ago specifically for the public    education.

“I don’t have a problem with the growth,” Scott said. “I think the growth is proof that the school districts are worth going to.”