Administrators from Boerne ISD Monday said they hope to continue their collegial collaboration with Kendall County as they look to complete a road project the district calls vital to the safety of its students.
Viola Wilson Elementary School opened its doors in August 2024 to 480 students whose families live in and around Corley Farms and subdivisions feeding off Scenic Loop Road in Kendall County, in the city of Boerne’ extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The school fronts Homestead Ridge with a rear drive exiting onto Corley Road. The district contracted with the developer of Corley Farms to make road improvements in and around the school prior to its opening.
The district, according to board President Garrett Wilson, dedicated right-of-way to the county to support road improvements on Corley Road, which more resembles a country lane than a roadway supporting a school exit plan.
Ramiro Guerrero, district executive director of operations, told the board Monday that a stretch of Corley needs to be widened in order to allow its school buses to approach Wilson Elementary from Corley for efficient drop-off and pickup of students.
“We were expecting the work to be done when we bought the property,” Guerrero said. “But the developer is having a hard time getting Kendall County to widen the road there.”
Guerror said the roadway in question measures only 91 feet. The widening will allow buses and ongoing traffic to pass safely, without one direction of traffic having to pull off the road into the sometimes-muddy berm, to allow the other to proceed.
But a request of the Kendall County Commissioners Court failed in January to receive the unanimous vote of the commissioners it needed in order to proceed, receiving a 4-1 vote instead.
Boerne ISD Superintendent Dr. Kristin Craft and Guerrero were slated to speak Tuesday to the Commissioners’ Court, to impress upon the county the need “for immediate action to remedy the situation ... to finalize the road improvements on Corley Road,” as written in a resolution signed Monday by all seven school trustees.
Guerrero said the district needs county approval before a “specified time frame” expires with the developer. At that point, the district must foot the bill for any road improvement.
Board Trustee Rich Sena mentioned the district’s cooperation with the county in getting its new EMS substation built on school land. The district leased land to the county for 50 years, at $1 per year, to build the substation on Voss Parkway, the road constructed to access Voss Middle School.
Sena said he would embrace the county’s continuance of the camaraderie and cooperation established for that project, in bringing the Corley Road widening to fruition.
The item was not on the Kendall County Commissioners’ Court agenda, meaning any such action would have to come at a future meeting.
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