🏫 Two New Schools Open August 12, a Third Over Winter Break

🎓 Lone Star College's $577.5 Million Budget Keeps Tuition at $111

🏊 Nine Township Pools Stay Open on Weekends Through September 7

🎯 Registration Opens on a Clay Shoot That Drew 180 Last Year

🌤️ Partly cloudy with patchy fog and isolated storms · 97°F / 77°F

Humidity to 90%, wind to 9 mph, rain chance 20%.

Fog early, then a normal August afternoon. Storms are possible but not likely, so evening plans should hold.

Source: Vaisala Xweather

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Conroe ISD trustees spent an August 4 special meeting walking through the numbers that will govern the coming school year. The preliminary budget for fiscal year 2026-27 comes to $769.6 million, built on a projected property tax rate of $0.9496 per $100 of valuation. That is slightly under the $770.42 million the district projected back in April. The board formally adopts both the budget and the rate at a public hearing on August 18.

The most visible piece for families lands in five days. Arnold Elementary and Fowler Intermediate both open August 12, and the Grand Oaks Ninth-Grade Campus opens over winter break. All three are meant to relieve overcrowding, even as the district projects enrollment growth stalling out at roughly 72,800 students for the year.

Spending rises about $7.59 million, and the single largest line in that increase is not instruction. It is $2.5 million to move employees onto TRS ActiveCare. Chief Financial Officer Karen Garza told trustees the district had been self-funding its insurance and covering employee premiums out of general fund reserves, and made the switch to avoid raising what employees pay. Districts around Conroe are doing the same thing, she said, because they cannot sustain being in the health care business.

What the budget does not carry is a district-wide raise. Conroe ISD received $22.3 million from the state in last year's legislative session to fund teacher pay, and chose to front-load it into higher pay across all employees rather than teachers alone, knowing that meant no large raise this year. Trustees Nicole May and Angie Gambino both pushed for something more durable. May said compensation keeps her up at night and that the district needs to generate more revenue to work on it. Gambino floated a three-to-five-year plan built into the budget instead of waiting on the state.

Why it matters: the district just told parents exactly which two schools open next Wednesday and told its own employees, plainly, that the money for a raise is not there this year.

Source/Credits: Community Impact

The Lone Star College System board of trustees approved a balanced $577.5 million budget for fiscal year 2027 at its August 6 meeting. In-district tuition stays at $111 per credit hour, a rate the board set earlier this year and one that has not risen since 2024-2025.

The system expects revenue to cover planned spending without pulling from cash reserves. That revenue breaks down as $263 million from local taxes, $162 million from students, $118 million in state allocations and $34.5 million from miscellaneous activity. Kristy Vienne, the system's vice chancellor for finance and administration, said the estimates on both revenue and expenses were kept deliberately conservative.

Employees get a 2% across-the-board increase. That covers full-time instructional and non-instructional staff hired by March 31, part-time hourly non-instructional employees other than student assistants and work-study participants, and adjuncts on a per-contact-hour basis. The tax side is not settled yet: budgeted tax revenue assumes a rate of $0.1058 per $100 of taxable value with an 8% homestead exemption, and the board votes on the actual rate in early October once certified property values arrive.

Why it matters: for a family weighing two years at Lone Star against four somewhere else, the price of a credit hour just held still for another year.

Source/Credits: Woodlands Online

The Woodlands Township's regular pool season ends August 11, but the water does not close behind it. Post-season starts August 12 and runs through September 7, with nine pools open on weekends and one open on weekdays.

Shadowbend Pool is the weekday option, Monday through Thursday from 1 to 6 p.m., closed Fridays. The weekend list is Cranebrook, Creekwood, Falconwing, Harper's Landing, Sawmill, Shadowbend, Rob Fleming Aquatic Center, Windvale and Wendtwoods, open Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 6 p.m. Those weekend pools also open on Labor Day from noon to 6 p.m.

The six Township spraygrounds run longer than any of it. They stay open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. all the way through October 31.

Why it matters: school starts before summer does, and this is the list of where the kids can still get in the water on a Saturday in September.

Source/Credits: Woodlands Online

Montgomery County Food Bank has opened registration for its 14th annual Shootout Hunger Sporting Clays Tournament, set for September 18 at Blackwood Sporting Co. in Conroe. Teams are already claiming spots on the course, which runs 72 targets and is open to shooters of every experience level.

More than 180 people shot it last year, and the Food Bank says that morning translated into hundreds of thousands of meals moving through the 90-plus partner agencies it supplies across the county. Cowboy Kia returns as presenting sponsor.

The day is built like a small county fair. Registration and breakfast open at 7:30 a.m., welcoming remarks and the safety briefing follow at 8:45, first shots go off at 9:00, and it closes with an awards celebration and a barbecue lunch. In between there is a silent auction and complimentary gun cleaning. Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Walker's staff cooks the barbecue, as they have in past years.

Scott Burns, the Food Bank's president and CEO, put the point of it simply: hunger is a problem the community solves together, and every team that shows up is one more reason neighbors will have food on the table.

Why it matters: it is a morning outdoors with a scorecard attached, and the scorecard turns into groceries for people three exits down the freeway.

Source/Credits: Hello Woodlands

🎨 Market Street wants local artists for its fall show : Applications for the October 17 Fall Fine Arts Show close August 31, with a 10-by-10 tented space running $150 and a rain date already set for October 24. Read more in Hello Woodlands

🤝 The Grand Central Park Artisan Market comes back from summer break : It returns September 5 at The Lake House and then runs the first Saturday of every month through December, closing the year with free photos with Santa. Read more in Hello Woodlands

🎓 A Lone Star College leader made a national teaching fellowship : Rebecca Saiz, who runs the system's Educator Preparation Program, is one of 24 people in the 11th Impact Academy cohort at Deans for Impact. Read more in Woodlands Online

🏛️ A Houston appliance installer is building in Spring : Texas Installs plans to put $9.6 million into 77,246 square feet at 25525 Richards Road, with occupancy targeted on or about October 1, 2027. Read more in intelligence360

🗓️ Parent's Night Out, Game Night | 4:00 PM | More info

🗓️ TOTO with Christopher Cross and The Romantics | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Drive | 6:45 PM | More info

🗓️ Friday Night Heights | 8:00 PM | More info

🗓️ Soul Fixx | The Blue Lion Brunchery and Pub, 8000 McBeth Way #100 | 8:00 PM | More info

🗓️ Ultimate Duck Dash, All Ages | 8:30 AM | More info

🗓️ Car Show | Bespoke Auto Pros, 1324 Sendera Ranch Drive, Magnolia | 9:00 AM | More info

🗓️ Slither Back To School | 10:00 AM | More info

🗓️ The Southern Hospitality Tour, The Black Crowes and Whiskey Myers with Southall | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion | 6:30 PM | More info

🗓️ Pretty Tied Up, All-Star Guns N' Roses Experience | Sawyer Park Icehouse, 314 Pruitt Road, Spring | 8:00 PM | More info

🗓️ San Antonio Transit, Playing Chicago's Greatest Hits | 7:00 PM | More info

🗓️ NE-YO and AKON, Nights Like This Tour | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion | 8:00 PM | More info

🗓️ Summer Art Camp, Heroes, Villains and Dragons, Ages 5 to 7 | 9:00 AM | More info

🗓️ Running Club | 5:30 PM | More info

🗓️ Boogie Bash In August | 11:00 AM | More info

🗓️ Fujifilm X Series Beginner Class | Precision Camera and Video, 17937 I-45 North, Shenandoah | More info

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The Woodlands was designed so people could work where they lived, with a target of one and a half jobs per household. It hit that mark years ago. More people now commute into The Woodlands for work than leave it in the morning.

"It's hot as all get-out." Translation: hot to a degree there is no polite word for. Tack it onto any adjective and it means the extreme version.

Your dog thinks you are unbelievably good at hide and seek, because you vanish for eight hours and always turn up again.

What do you call a sleepy cup of coffee? A nap-puccino.