At the Jan. 23 LCISD board of trustees meeting, demographic firm Zonda provided a report from the third quarter of 2024 outlining housing and student enrollment trends.
Since March, the district has been coined a “hypergrowth” district, meaning it has an elementary school zone that has between 150 to 300 new home starts annually, Community Impact reported.
The gist
Zonda has projected the district’s enrollment to reach nearly 57,600 students by 2029-30 and approximately 67,400 students by 2034-35, said Jonathan Maxwell, executive director of student programs at the district.
“We're looking at growing 3%-4.5% per year for the next 10 years, and working with Bob [Templeton] from Zonda, he doesn't think it ends there,” Maxwell said. “He's looking at more of a 20-year hypergrowth aspect to our district.”
In the third quarter of 2024, LCISD had the highest annual home start and closing rates, inventory units, vacant lots and future lots among all districts in the Houston area, with Conroe ISD following, Maxwell said.
Zooming out
More than two years after the district approved a $1.52 billion bond in November 2022, officials have discussed a new 2025 bond proposal that could include land purchase and development for new schools, transportation, technology items, and safety updates, Community Impact reported.
The district will create a bond citizen committee this summer prior to voting on a bond, district officials said in a September board meeting.
Specifically in the northern Fulshear area, Secondary Complex No. 8—which is set to open in fall 2027—is not supported by elementary schools, Community Impact reported. Officials said that a bond in 2025 will need to be passed to open two elementary schools to support the area.
Zooming in
Right now, six elementary schools and two middle or junior high schools are overcrowded. By the 2034-35 school year, over half of all campuses will be over capacity, according to the board presentation.
However, the total number of high schools over capacity do not account for the district’s three alternative schools, for which a capacity is not determined, according to the presentation.
Maxwell said the number of new schools needed to keep up with the population is rising, especially with the projected 20 years of hypergrowth.
The cause
Unemployment rates in the LCISD area are around 4.1%-4.5%, which is lower than the 7% unemployment rate at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and comparable to state and national levels, Maxwell said.
“The reason the demographer looks at this information is truly to see, OK, what is the health of the economy? How many people are looking at moving in who have jobs. ... It gives them an insight of the purchasing of new homes, especially in our area,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said across the district, there are:
- 2,600 homes currently for sale
- Nearly 4,500 available lots for building
- 94 subdivisions actively building
- More than 5,000 lots under construction
- Over 33 future subdivisions in various stages of planning
Among high areas of growth are:
- The northern sector of LCISD, with 1,000 rental units under construction or in planning
- The northwestern sector with 900 multifamily units in the past six months and 417 rental units in planning or under construction
- The central sector with 100 mobile homes under construction and over 5,850 future multifamily units in planning
There has been no update on the plans to create the Hypergrowth Oversight Committee that was announced at the October meeting, Chief Communications Officer Sonya Cole-Hamilton said.
