Moving Forward...

What is best for Tomball ISD... that is the real question we need to answer, isn't it. I think there are people on both sides of the issue that have lost sight of that common goal.

Each resident of Tomball ISD who has an interest in our future, needs to do what I did. Make time to sit down and spend an hour or two going through the key data and facts. Throw out the conjecture and emotional pleas, just take a look at each proposal, the data behind them and make a decision that YOU are comfortable with.

So much attention has been focused on the argument about the 9th Grade Campus or New High School, that we never talk much about the real problem in this school district and that is the over crowding of the elementary schools and in the very near future the intermediate schools.

In the next two years we will have 4 out of 5 Elementary schools above their operational capacity. Lakewood Elementary, where my kids go to school, will have 264 kids more then they have classrooms for. If we pass a bond election in May of 2007, the first school will not open until the 2009-10 school year.

That is why the decision about a new 9th Grade Campus or New High School is so important. If we cannot decide as a district what is best, then the bond will fail. If the bond fails, the education of our elementary students will suffer due to over crowding.

By drawing a line along 2920 and saying you are either with us or against us, as many supporters of both sides have done, you are just setting both sides up for failure. By polarizing the issue and alienating the other side it makes it more difficult for each side to find a common ground.

I support a new high school in the south part of the district. I have been through the data provided by Tomball ISD and I believe the Tomball High School has reached its capacity. That is my opinion, it is not a fact and it is not the only opinion. There are people the believe the 9th grade campus would be best for TISD. My opinion is no more “right” then theirs.

I hope this committees proposal includes a new high school. If it does, I hope all the bridges that have been burned over the last few weeks can be repaired before the bond election. Because if they are not repaired, the bond will fail.