Board approves rezoning changes to shorten some students’ commutes, shifting several neighborhoods to closer campuses

The New Caney Independent School District Board of Trustees approved recommended rezoning changes intended to shorten student travel times and balance growing campus populations.

Blake Carroll, a district staff member presenting the proposal, said the district offered two rezoning scenarios. The first would move students in the Holly Ridge and Summer Hills neighborhoods from Woodridge Forest Middle School to White Oak Middle School, reducing travel from about seven miles to roughly 1.5 miles. “Instead of going 7 miles across 59 to Woodridge, we're gonna go a mile and a half to White Oak, which makes logistic sense,” Carroll said.

The second scenario shifts small groups of students in a northwest section of the district (streets named in the presentation) off the current New Caney High School feeder pattern and redistributes them to Valley Ranch Elementary, Pine Valley and Porter High School; Carroll estimated roughly 100 elementary students and about 25–30 students at both the middle- and high-school levels would move under the second scenario.

Carroll told the board the district posted rezoning information the previous week and had received three inquiries — two from students and one from a homeowner on the boundary line — and staff responded to questions. Trustees voted by voice to approve the recommended rezoning changes (motion by Mr. Alters; second by Ms. Tompkins). The motion carried with no recorded opposition.