Lake Travis Finally Considers Adding a Second High School

Lake Travis High School's much-celebrated football program (in red) could prevent the school from splitting, despite overcrowding (Photo by Randall Chancellor / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Amberly Marston, the mother of a child attending elementary school in Lake Travis ISD, said her neighbors with students in the district's one high school have horror stories of cafeterias so filled to the brim with students that many have to sit on the floor and tables to eat lunch. They've told her that capacity at Lake Travis High School, which is proud to be a large campus with excellent sports programs and high academic achievement, has finally reached a breaking point.

Rapid growth in the district west of Aus­tin isn't an entirely new development. But longstanding pride in the Lake Travis Cavaliers football program, whose alumni include NFL quarterbacks Baker Mayfield and Garrett Gilbert, could be one possible reason for the delay in alleviating the mounting pressure on the campus. Over­crowding has not gone unnoticed by district administration, and the bond committee working now on recommendations for a potential November package will almost certainly call for funds to build a second high school.

Any new high school would likely be open by the time Marston's child reaches ninth grade. But for many parents in the district, action is coming too late. Overcrowding will directly affect Porter Herring's two children, currently attending middle school in the district. "Our students are basically having to elbow their way through hallways," said Herring, who lost her bid for a seat on the LTISD Board of Trustees last weekend (read more).

The Lake Travis HS campus on RR 620, just outside the Lakeway city limits, is designed for 3,500 students; enrollment currently stands at about 3,700. State regulations allow campuses to reach 120% of capacity (or about 4,200 students) before districts have to build new schools. Many parents fear that the high rate of growth in the area will only continue, and construction of a second high school will take years after it's been approved.

The district's Bond Advisory Committee is currently considering what options for funding a new high school will actually look like on the November ballot. The committee will deliberate one more time in a closed meeting on May 17 before it finalizes its recommendations. Then, the trustees will have to approve those recommendations before the ballot item is made public. The community appears willing and ready to approve any bond package that would alleviate overcrowding pressures, especially since the committee is working on proposals that would not require a LTISD property tax increase. But important details remain unclarified.

One of these is whether a new high school would affect Lake Travis HS's 6A classification within the University Inter­scholastic League. According to Randy Rogers, an expert in Texas high school football recruiting, 6A carries more prestige in the eyes of administrators, parents, and coaches, though not necessarily in the eyes of university recruiters.

"Adding a second high school into a community that [has] really rallied behind a very successful sports program for our students is hard to do," Herring said. "You don't want to split up the community or have to choose between two competing high schools, but there's ways that you can manage that one." One proposal being considered by the bond advisory committee states that Lake Travis High School would remain a 6A school; the new high school would likely end up in the lower 5A class, which is perceived as less competitive.

The district has already purchased land near the intersection of State Highway 71 and Reimers-Peacock Road, near the West Cypress Hills neighborhood, for new school construction. According to information shared with the public via Facebook, the bond committee is considering three different options for the package to be put before voters in November, ranging from $539 million to $703 million.

As the committee weighs what the district needs, what voters may want, and what the community can afford, Lake Travis school overcrowding continues to put pressure on the district's reputation. Marston believes crowding is why LTISD's overall district ranking has declined from No. 7 to No. 76 in the SchoolDigger ranking system over the past eight years. The district's rankings have likewise dropped out of the Texas elite in other ranking measures, despite Lake Travis HS's 18-to-1 student-­to-teacher ratio – lower than, for instance, the 24-to-1 ratio at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, one of the highest-rated public schools in the state.