At its April 22 regular board meeting, Willis ISD trustees approved a one-time employee retention stipend for WISD educators and district staff.

The breakdown: At the April 21 board workshop meeting, WISD Chief Financial Officer Garrett Matej reviewed the district’s budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Matej reported that WISD would have a projected budget surplus of $2.9 million, and recommended that part of the remaining balance be used for a one-time employee stipend.

More details: Employees who are eligible for the one-time payment include teachers, administrators and professional personnel, Matej said. Nonexempt hourly employees, part-time staff and school resource officers are also eligible.

Slick City Action Park is a family-friendly indoor slide park that recently opened along FM 1488 in Spring, social media manager Paige Crespo said.

What they offer: Owned and run by Chris and Mandy Bush, Slick City offers a wide variety of activities for customers to enjoy, including an indoor trapeze court, multiple slide courses, a jungle gym and trampoline basketball and dodgeball. 

• 3905 FM 1488, Ste. 100, Spring

At the board of trustees' April 21 workshop meeting, Willis ISD Chief Financial Officer Garrett Matej reviewed the district budget for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 fiscal years. WISD will be able to fund a one-time employee stipend thanks to a 2025-26 FY budget surplus, and Matej also broke down the estimated $104 million budget for FY 2026-27.

Budget explained: Matej presented a full estimated breakdown of WISD’s budget for the current and future fiscal year. Matej said the projected revenue for FY 2025-26 is $103.1 million and the total projected expenditures are $100.13 million. The projected surplus is $2.96 million, and as previously reported, $1.8 million of the surplus will be used to fund a $1,500 one-time stipend for district employees.

Conroe City Council hit pause April 23 on a proposed stormwater utility fee that would have added a new monthly drainage charge to utility bills, opting instead to defer the item.

This comes after council members raised concerns about exemptions, financial projections and how the policy would work for commercial properties. 

What happened: Council opened a public hearing on three stormwater-related agenda items, including the proposed fee, changes to Chapter 70 of the city’s code to add a municipal drainage utility system and an update to the city’s fee schedule. After discussion, the council unanimously deferred the ordinance and fee schedule items rather than approve them that day.

The proposal presented by consultant Freese and Nichols called for a $4 monthly flat fee for residential properties and a $4-per-equivalent residential unit monthly charge for commercial properties, with one equivalent residential unit, or ERU, set at 3,200 square feet of impervious area. 

Friendswood and Alief ISDs had the largest percentages of students with dyslexia and autism across the Greater Houston area, according to Texas Education Agency data released March 13 and April 9.

The overview: Community Impact analyzed 30 local school districts across the Greater Houston region to determine which schools have the most students enrolled in special education programs.

According to the data, the districts with the largest total of students receiving special education services in 2025-26 are:

• Houston ISD with 21,430 students
• Katy ISD with 18,443 students
• Cy-Fair ISD with 17,584 students
• Fort Bend ISD with 12,688 students
• Conroe ISD with 11,239 students

In the early hours of July 4, 2025, an intense rainstorm pummeled communities in the Texas Hill Country, submerging low-water crossings as segments of the Guadalupe River rose more than 30 feet in 90 minutes. Twenty-seven young campers and counselors died at Camp Mystic, a private Christian girls summer camp located along the river in Hunt.

Those deaths could have been prevented if camp leadership took action sooner or had a written evacuation plan in place, investigators told a panel of state lawmakers tasked with studying the flood response during an April 27 hearing.

Quote of note: “Questions about what should happen next are many, but for me, one thing is clear: This tragedy could have been prevented,” Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, said.

Zooming in: Camp Mystic staff had more than two hours to evacuate 386 campers from their cabins, investigator Casey Garrett said.

In violation of state law, the camp did not have a written evacuation plan and counselors were not trained on what to do in an emergency, she said.