The Bond Passed in May. The Builders Got Their Contracts Last Week. The First School Breaks Ground in March.
By The Magnolia Standard · September 25, 2026
In July we said we would follow the bond to its first shovel. The shovel now has a month.
At its September 15 meeting the Magnolia ISD board approved the construction contracts for the biggest pieces of the 2026 bond. B&C Constructors will build Elementary No. 10 and Elementary No. 11. Stewart Builders will build the district's third high school and the additions at Magnolia High School and Magnolia West High School.
Those two firms are not new to the story. The board picked them as its construction managers back on May 12, ten days after voters approved the bond. What happened last week is the next step: the contracts that let them build.
The bond itself was the second try. In November 2025 voters turned down three propositions totaling $516.9 million. In May 2026 the district came back with one proposition, $465,688,326, and it passed with 63.51 percent of the vote.
The dates, school by school
Assistant Superintendent Erich Morris gave the board an update on each new campus, as reported by Community Impact.
Elementary No. 10 is furthest along. Half of its construction documents are done, and all of them are due by December. On February 8, 2027, the board is scheduled to approve the project's guaranteed maximum price. Construction starts in March 2027. The district's earlier estimates put this school at about $53.9 million and an opening around 2028.
Elementary No. 11 is at the surveying stage. Crews are doing topographic surveys and testing the soil. Exterior design starts in early 2027 and construction bidding in late fall 2027. The earlier estimate was about $57.7 million, targeted for 2029.
High School No. 3 is the big one, about $304.7 million in the district's estimate, on roughly 100 acres along FM 1486. The schedule presented at the meeting calls for a design presentation to the board in December, construction documents half finished by January 2027, construction bids in April or May, and a guaranteed price at the June or July 2027 board meeting. The earlier target for opening was around 2030.
What a "guaranteed maximum price" is
The contracts approved last week do not carry a final dollar figure for each building. That is how this kind of contract works.
Under the construction-manager-at-risk method Texas allows school districts to use, the builder joins while the architect is still drawing. Once the plans are far enough along, the builder commits to a guaranteed maximum price. Costs above that number are the builder's problem, not the district's. That is the "at risk" part.
So February 8 is the first date where a real number for a single building gets voted on in public. For the high school, it is next summer.
Why they are in a hurry
Growth. By the district's count in January, enrollment was up 670 students over the year before, 191 more than its own projections had called for. That is 4.6 percent in a year. The district expects about 4 percent a year to continue.
None of the new schools opens in time for anyone enrolled this fall to notice a change. A child in second grade today is the kind of student Elementary No. 10 is being built for, and would be in middle school before the high school opens.
The next public moment is December, when the board sees the design for the high school. After that, February 8. Board meetings are open, and agendas post on the district's site ahead of each one.
Editor's note: this ran as straight reporting. The bond is settled, the contracts are approved, and the schedule is the district's own. The cost and opening figures are district estimates from before the contracts and can change when each guaranteed maximum price is set.
Sources: Community Impact's September 22, 2026 report on the September 15 Magnolia ISD board meeting, by Cole Gee, for the contract approvals, the firms and projects assigned to each, and the schedule presented by Assistant Superintendent Erich Morris. That report gives the Elementary No. 10 and No. 11 timelines by name; the paragraph with the December design presentation, January 2027 documents, April or May bids and June or July price is not labeled by campus, and the paper reads it as the high school's because Elementary No. 11's bids are separately set for late fall 2027. Hoodline's September 22, 2026 report for the $465,688,326 total, the May 2 approval date, the November 2025 propositions totaling $516.9 million, and the district's enrollment figures. Community Impact's May 14, 2026 report for the May 12 construction-manager approvals. Our July 10, 2026 story, The $465 Million Bond Passed, for the 63.51 percent result, the FM 1486 site and the district's cost and opening estimates for each campus. Texas Education Code section 44.038 for the construction-manager-at-risk method. Corrections to editor@themagnoliastandard.news.