Cleveland Independent School District now serves more than 12,000 students, nearly triple its enrollment from a decade ago, as the sprawling Colony Ridge development in Liberty County has reshaped the region between Houston and Beaumont. But the district has asked voters to approve loans more than three times since 2019, leaving it to rely on portable classrooms, staff cuts, and failing academic ratings while a charter school network builds new campuses inside the very community driving the growth.
A Decade of Explosive Growth, A District Left Behind
Cleveland ISD's enrollment climbed from 3,847 students in the 2014-2015 school year to nearly 12,000 by 2023-2024, according to Ballotpedia, a surge driven almost entirely by Colony Ridge's residential expansion. The district has relied on temporary portable classrooms, The Texas Tribune reports. The district did eventually build a 51,000-square-foot administration building, a weight training center, a middle school, and an elementary school, the Tribune notes, but it also implemented staff reductions and position consolidations in 2025 as financial pressure mounted.
Colony Ridge itself covers 34,000 acres and is described by the Tribune as a predominantly Latino community with limited resources and nearby schools. The developer behind it, Colony Ridge Land LLC, agreed in February 2026 to pay $68 million to settle federal and state lawsuits brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Texas Attorney General over allegations of predatory seller-financed loans, misleading sales practices, and high foreclosure rates.
Bond Proposals Face Voter Rejection
Cleveland ISD has asked voters to approve loans more than three times since 2019, according to the Tribune's reporting. The 2023 rejection, a 65% to 35% margin against a $125 million bond intended to fund a new middle school and career and technical education facility, came after taxpayers balked at total repayment costs projected at $282 million with interest, according to Texas Scorecard. Nearby Liberty ISD saw similar resistance, with 52% of voters opposing a $26 million bond meant to address aging facilities and structural capacity, the Tribune reports.
The district's finances have been squeezed from multiple directions. Cleveland ISD adopted negative budgets during former Superintendent Stephen McCanless's tenure, the Tribune reports, and one of its middle schools received failing state A-F academic ratings for four consecutive years. The district has not blamed local charter schools for its public-school enrollment struggles, according to the same reporting, even as it contends with a funding structure that has not kept pace with its growth.
State Funding Formula Hasn't Kept Up
The state's school funding system has struggled to keep pace with rapid enrollment growth, adding pressure to fast-growing districts such as Cleveland ISD.
Fast-growth districts like Cleveland ISD have also run up against a statewide cap. Texas's fast-growth allotment is capped at $320 million annually, and state law requires proportional scaling of payments when eligible entitlements exceed that ceiling, per the Tribune. Cleveland ISD was entitled to roughly $17 million from the fast-growth allotment during the 2023-24 school year but received only $13 million. Over six years, the district was entitled to about $83 million but received $69 million, leaving a $14.6 million gap. Nearly a third of the district's $4.2 billion in assessed property value in 2022 was classified as vacant lots, with $327 million assessed on mobile homes, further complicating the tax base the district depends on.
Charter Network Steps Into the Gap
Into that vacuum stepped International Leadership of Texas, a free public charter system founded in 2012 by Eddie Conger and approved that same year by the Texas Education Agency. The Tribune reports that Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath personally asked Conger in 2021 to start a new school in the Liberty County region. ILTexas now operates 26 charter campuses statewide, according to Colony Ridge Land LLC, serving more than 25,000 students and requiring every student from kindergarten through 12th grade to study English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese alongside four years of leadership coursework modeled on Marine Corps principles.
The network opened its second Liberty County campus, ILTexas MSG Ramirez K-8, in August 2023 with 1,100 students, according to ILTexas. That groundwork led to the July 31, 2026 opening of ILTexas Liberty High School, the first high school campus physically located inside Colony Ridge, as reported by Bluebonnet News. The new high school serves grades 9 through 12 and draws from two existing ILTexas K-8 campuses in the area, each enrolling over 1,300 students. The Tribune reports ILTexas is now building three additional campuses and expanding enrollment further, and in Liberty County, charter schools have outpaced traditional districts in enrollment growth for the first time.
Different Enrollment Trends Across Texas
Texas's public-school enrollment trends differ between rural and urban districts.
Unlike traditional districts, charter schools cannot levy local property taxes or issue bonds, and they maintain attendance caps rather than being obligated to enroll every student living in their service area, as traditional public schools must.
Liberty County's Growth Shows No Sign of Slowing
Liberty County had 91,628 residents in the 2020 Census.
Statewide, rural districts added 156,204 students since 2021, a 13% increase, while urban districts lost 89,707 students over the same period, the Tribune's data analysis found. Cleveland ISD's basic operating math has not changed to match: the district has also faced bus shortages and overcrowded buses as enrollment has grown.
