Mapping the Future: School Board Adopts New Elementary Attendance Boundaries

by Charlotte Kovalchuk

On February 20, the Liberty Hill ISD School Board approved new elementary school attendance boundaries in an effort to balance student enrollment across campuses and alleviate overcrowding in one of its elementary schools. “We have 1,000 students at Santa Rita Elementary, a school that was built for 800, so we need to even out the overcrowding at Santa Rita Elementary; Tierra Rosa will help us do that,” Superintendent Steven Snell said at a community forum in January on the rezoning.

Tierra Rosa Elementary is set to open in August on Santa Rita Boulevard across from Santa Rita Middle School. The rezoning option approved by the school board features Tierra Rosa drawing students from Santa Rita and Bar W schools. The rezoning originally included The Ridge at Cross Creek neighborhood, but after receiving public feedback through a survey and stakeholder meetings, the board decided to keep The Ridge at Rancho Sienna Elementary.

The survey received 700 responses, with 78 percent giving the option a positive rating of 3-5, according to the district website.

Throughout the rezoning process, the school district aimed to move as few families as possible. “We did our absolute best to minimize the number of families who were being moved or transitioned,” Todd Washburn, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, said at the February school board meeting. “We know they love their schools and don’t like to move from their schools, so we tried to mitigate that as much as possible.”

The goal, he adds, is for the rezoning changes to remain static for at least two years so families will not have to move between schools again in back-to-back years.

To learn more about the rezoning, visit libertyhill.txed.net/16035_3.

ENROLLMENT SPIKE

The rezoning comes amid major enrollment growth in the school district, which saw 3,300 more students in the last four years. A total of 8,843 students are currently enrolled with a projected total of 11,619 during the 2026-27 school year. To keep up with that growth, the ISD has planned to add three more elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools in the next decade.