HTX-CYP: Impact 8/29/2025

Cypress Christian School celebrated the ribbon-cutting of its newest campus in Bridgeland on Aug. 28 following over a year of construction.

The details: The new campus features a central pavilion area for students to gather during the school day, as well as over 50 stones placed across the 40-acre campus with Bible verses etched into them. The new facilities include:

• 66,923 square feet of high school class space
• 30,720 square feet of middle school class space
• 32,697 square feet of elementary school class space
• A 10,000-square-foot fine arts facility
• A 38,500-square-foot athletics center

Harris County commissioners are urging officials from The Federal Emergency Management Agency to release updated floodplain maps.

The gist: Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia brought the motion to the Aug. 26 court meeting, where commissioners unanimously voted in favor to authorize a letter signed by court members to prioritize and expedite the maps which guide infrastructure and insurance decisions for a county with a growing population of more than 4.7 million residents and nearly 1.8 million households, according to the latest data by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We respectfully urge FEMA to prioritize and expedite the release of these new flood risk maps for Harris County," Garcia said.

Zooming out: The last time frame FEMA was set to release Harris County’s preliminary flood insurance rate maps was in 2023, according to Harris County Flood Control District officials, as previously reported in Community Impact. Previously, the HCFCD projected FEMA would release maps in the spring or summer of 2022, but has continually pushed back its estimate.

Harris County commissioners and department leaders are considering implementing a yearlong hiring freeze to save at least $25 million in costs to address a projected $200 million-plus shortfall in fiscal year 2025-26. Budget Director Daniel Ramos presented the personnel freeze proposal during the Aug. 26 commissioners court meeting, which stretched until 10 p.m. as nearly 200 residents signed up to address agenda items.

Explained: Ramos said three of the county’s bigger departments—the engineering office, information technology services and public health—would be the most affected. The freeze would exclude positions in several departments identified as critical by county officials, including law enforcement, elections, the county clerk and park maintenance offices.

Quote of note: “It's definitely inconvenient for the departments,” Ramos said, "but the crossroads that we're at ... is, do we want to go back and identify $25 million worth of departmental cuts at this point or do we want to do something more blanket, like a hiring freeze?"

Both chambers of the Texas Legislature have voted to overhaul the state’s standardized testing system, putting public school students one step closer to taking new exams in the 2027-28 school year.

The details: House Bill 8 would eliminate the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness and replace it with three shorter tests, which students would take at the beginning, middle and end of each school year.

Bill author Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, said HB 8 would “reduce test anxiety, provide teachers with immediate feedback and create a pathway for trust in our system again." The majority of House Democrats and a few Republicans disagreed, arguing Aug. 26 that the bill would increase the amount of time students spend on exams and essentially create “another STAAR test” developed by the Texas Education Agency.

Next steps: After state senators passed HB 8 with a 21-7 vote Aug. 27, the bill returned to the House for consideration of a Senate amendment. If House lawmakers sign off on the changes, HB 8 will be sent to the governor.