After three rounds of community forums and soliciting feedback from residents, Conroe ISD’s board of trustees is moving forward with finalized attendance boundaries approved in January to accommodate for three new schools opening near the Grand Parkway in the next two years.

“Not everybody is always pleased in a rezone, and rightfully so,” CISD trustee John Husbands said. “I will assure everybody here that [the public] has had ample opportunity to voice their opinion, and it has been considered. These kids are not just numbers.”

The process to select finalized attendance boundaries began in October, and appointed committees created multiple scenarios for each new school and thoroughly reviewed public feedback.

The new boundaries send students in the Legends Trace, Wrights Landing, Bristol Lakes and Creekside subdivisions, and portions of The Falls and Legends Run neighborhoods, to Bradley Elementary School, which will open in August.

Creekside, The Falls, Legends Trace, Benders Landing, Legends Run, Wrights Landing, Bristol Lakes and Woodson’s Reserve will all be zoned to the new intermediate school when it opens in August 2018.

Those neighborhoods, plus Fox Run, Legends Ranch, Spring Trails, Lockeridge Farms, Harmony, Legends Ranch Estates, Spring Creek Pines and Discovery Creek Apartments, will be zoned to Grand Oaks High School when it opens in August 2018.

The final zoning selections were made from a total of six scenarios—two for each new school.

“The intermediate [school] scenario that we recommend is 2.1,” said Chris Hines, CISD’s deputy superintendent of schools. “This was originally [Scenario] 2, but we made a slight revision at the end to allow all of Bradley [Elementary] to feed into [the new] intermediate [school].”

The approved high school boundary map was presented as Scenario 1 during the community forums. These maps received the most feedback online, Hines said.

“One of the realities of [Scenario 1] is that it leaves Oak Ridge [High School] maybe smaller than we would like,” Hines said. “There was a lot of discussion about enrollment and ways that we can look at increasing Oak Ridge’s enrollment over time.”

Grand Oaks High School will have an estimated enrollment of 2,420 by 2020, and Oak Ridge High School will have about 2,270—a decrease from the existing overcapacity enrollment of 4,127.

Although these enrollment totals do not affect either high school’s 6A UIL standings, residents were concerned about the lower enrollment numbers at Oak Ridge High School.

To alleviate this, Hines said the district plans to further explore the possibility of implementing a curriculum-specific academy at Oak Ridge High School.

Other options for increasing enrollment at Oak Ridge High School include accepting students from other overcapacity schools in the district and allowing students zoned to Grand Oaks High School with an interest in Junior ROTC to attend Oak Ridge High School for its program.

“We currently allow and would continue to allow students [who] are going to be in their last year at a school to finish at that school if they choose, if they can provide transportation,” Hines said.

All current Oak Ridge High School students will graduate from Oak Ridge High School. Current seventh-  and eighth-graders within the designated boundaries will attend Grand Oaks High School when it opens with a freshman and sophomore class only.

“As we have seen in many rezones, the school they are going to is going to be just as good as the school they came from,” Husbands said. “We’re confident in that.”