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Public meetings to help district draw boundaries
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| Humble Independent School District will hold three public meetings over the next week and half to discuss boundary plans for Summer Creek High, shown here and set to open in fall 2009, as well as Middle School No. 8, which will open in fall 2010. |
By RYAN HICKMAN
Besides bricks, mortar, a principal, staff and a mascot, one of the most important things a new high school needs before it opens is a boundary map.
As Humble Independent School District prepares for Summer Creek High School to open in fall 2009, the public is being asked to join in the process of determining which students will attend the high school currently under construction.
Three open meetings are scheduled over the next week and a half where district residents will have a chance to express thoughts on the Summer Creek boundary maps, as well as the borders for Middle School No. 8, slated to open in fall 2010.
John Widmier, the district’s facilitator of Humble ISD’s Citizens Boundary Advisory Committee that makes the final boundary recommendations to the superintendent, explained that the public hearings really do have an impact on the final maps.
“The recommendation that will go to the superintendent and on to the board will be based on the input the (Citizens Boundary Advisory) committee receives out in the community,” Widmier said.
The committee will be open for questions at the hearings as well as gather comment cards that will include sentiments toward the plans as well as a ranking of the five boundary options the committee will present.
The boundary options are based on an initial assessment of the district’s enrollment by the demographics company Population and Survey Analysts after geo-coding each student across Humble ISD and making its own zoning suggestions.
The committee, made up of district employees, representatives of each middle school and an eighth member who will live in the new school areas, then goes to the drawing board with one underlying factor in sketching out enrollment borders.
“One of the charges of the board is to keep kids together from elementary school to middle school to high school,” Widmier said.
Of the five boundary options, which can be accessed on the district’s website, that will be shown at the meetings, there are only two options for Summer Creek High School throughout.
The new high school will service, as its name indicates, the Fall Creek and Summerwood subdivisions and surrounding areas to the south of the district.
The first option, brought by PASA, will slice up the south end of the district starting at Old Humble Road to the west and end at Lake Houston to the east.
“The boundary is going to follow Old Humble Road from the railroad tracks northeast up to Mesa Drive to where it becomes Atascocita Road to the intersection of Wilson Road,” Widmier explained. “The line would then go straight east to the railroad tracks in the southeast corner of the district, follow the railroad tracks northeast to Lake Houston.”
The second option, devised by the CBAC, has only a slight change that dips the boundaries a bit south at Wilson Road and across west to the Mesa Drive-Old Humble Road intersection, keeping the Audubon Park and Atascocita Pines apartments, which both filter into Jack Fields Elementary, as well as the Atascocita Road Mobile Home Park and Classic Pines Estates, both sending students to River Pines Elementary, zoned to Humble High School.
The reasoning, Widmier pointed out, is to keep the Fields and River Pines students in the track to middle schools going to Humble High School.
The boundary process for the sixth district high school, Widmier supposes, won’t be as contentious as it was leading up to the opening of Atascocita High School in 2006.
“The biggest challenge is moving kids to a new school when the new school is not in their neighborhood,” Widmier said. “When you live in a neighborhood and see that new school being built, you expect your kids to go to that school. When you bring in the kids from outside the neighborhood, that’s when you get a challenge.
“I think it’s probably fairly obvious that people from Summerwood and Fall Creek expect to go to that school,” he continued.
Summer Creek is being built south of Beltway 8 just west of where West Lake Houston Parkway connects for an enrollment of 3,200 students, but will only start with ninth- and 10th-graders, much like the scenario at Kingwood Park High School. The school will have all four grades by the 2011-2012 school year.
Initially, HHS will lose about 550 freshmen and sophomores to the school and AHS will turn over roughly 400 of its students to Summer Creek, according to Widmier.
The CBAC is hoping to have the boundary recommendation to Superintendent Dr. Guy Sconzo in time so it can be presented to the board of trustees by October and voted on by November.
Boundary meetings
Humble ISD will conduct three boundary meetings with the public to get input on the enrollment zoning of Summer Creek High School and Middle School No. 8. Each meeting will be in the auditorium of each school and start at 7 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 8: Atascocita High School
Thursday, Sept. 11: Humble High School
Monday, Sept. 15: Humble Middle School
Boundary options
For details of all five boundary options to be presented at the public meetings, visit www.humble.k12.tx.us/ boundaries_SCHS.htm.
As Humble Independent School District prepares for Summer Creek High School to open in fall 2009, the public is being asked to join in the process of determining which students will attend the high school currently under construction.
Three open meetings are scheduled over the next week and a half where district residents will have a chance to express thoughts on the Summer Creek boundary maps, as well as the borders for Middle School No. 8, slated to open in fall 2010.
John Widmier, the district’s facilitator of Humble ISD’s Citizens Boundary Advisory Committee that makes the final boundary recommendations to the superintendent, explained that the public hearings really do have an impact on the final maps.
“The recommendation that will go to the superintendent and on to the board will be based on the input the (Citizens Boundary Advisory) committee receives out in the community,” Widmier said.
The committee will be open for questions at the hearings as well as gather comment cards that will include sentiments toward the plans as well as a ranking of the five boundary options the committee will present.
The boundary options are based on an initial assessment of the district’s enrollment by the demographics company Population and Survey Analysts after geo-coding each student across Humble ISD and making its own zoning suggestions.
The committee, made up of district employees, representatives of each middle school and an eighth member who will live in the new school areas, then goes to the drawing board with one underlying factor in sketching out enrollment borders.
“One of the charges of the board is to keep kids together from elementary school to middle school to high school,” Widmier said.
Of the five boundary options, which can be accessed on the district’s website, that will be shown at the meetings, there are only two options for Summer Creek High School throughout.
The new high school will service, as its name indicates, the Fall Creek and Summerwood subdivisions and surrounding areas to the south of the district.
The first option, brought by PASA, will slice up the south end of the district starting at Old Humble Road to the west and end at Lake Houston to the east.
“The boundary is going to follow Old Humble Road from the railroad tracks northeast up to Mesa Drive to where it becomes Atascocita Road to the intersection of Wilson Road,” Widmier explained. “The line would then go straight east to the railroad tracks in the southeast corner of the district, follow the railroad tracks northeast to Lake Houston.”
The second option, devised by the CBAC, has only a slight change that dips the boundaries a bit south at Wilson Road and across west to the Mesa Drive-Old Humble Road intersection, keeping the Audubon Park and Atascocita Pines apartments, which both filter into Jack Fields Elementary, as well as the Atascocita Road Mobile Home Park and Classic Pines Estates, both sending students to River Pines Elementary, zoned to Humble High School.
The reasoning, Widmier pointed out, is to keep the Fields and River Pines students in the track to middle schools going to Humble High School.
The boundary process for the sixth district high school, Widmier supposes, won’t be as contentious as it was leading up to the opening of Atascocita High School in 2006.
“The biggest challenge is moving kids to a new school when the new school is not in their neighborhood,” Widmier said. “When you live in a neighborhood and see that new school being built, you expect your kids to go to that school. When you bring in the kids from outside the neighborhood, that’s when you get a challenge.
“I think it’s probably fairly obvious that people from Summerwood and Fall Creek expect to go to that school,” he continued.
Summer Creek is being built south of Beltway 8 just west of where West Lake Houston Parkway connects for an enrollment of 3,200 students, but will only start with ninth- and 10th-graders, much like the scenario at Kingwood Park High School. The school will have all four grades by the 2011-2012 school year.
Initially, HHS will lose about 550 freshmen and sophomores to the school and AHS will turn over roughly 400 of its students to Summer Creek, according to Widmier.
The CBAC is hoping to have the boundary recommendation to Superintendent Dr. Guy Sconzo in time so it can be presented to the board of trustees by October and voted on by November.
Boundary meetings
Humble ISD will conduct three boundary meetings with the public to get input on the enrollment zoning of Summer Creek High School and Middle School No. 8. Each meeting will be in the auditorium of each school and start at 7 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 8: Atascocita High School
Thursday, Sept. 11: Humble High School
Monday, Sept. 15: Humble Middle School
Boundary options
For details of all five boundary options to be presented at the public meetings, visit www.humble.k12.tx.us/ boundaries_SCHS.htm.
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