CS78 said:

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Captn_Ag05 said:

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CSISD enrollment trends

2021-2022: 13,046 students

2022-2023: 14,217 students

2023-2024: 14,324 students

2024-2025: 14,150 students

2025-2026: 13,621 students

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Thanks. Suspect a number of those are just people choosing another option. I know some families that are starting homeschooling for the first time this year. Direct result of issues with the superintendent.

Do they have similar numbers broken down by school?

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We aren't in CS, but in Navasota. I think a lot of people nationwide are opting into homeschooling for a variety of reasons. We have homeschooled from the very beginning. I don't think it's just the CSISD superintendent, but I'll admit I know zero about CSISD.

CSISD ain't what it was 10 yr ago. Way more parents with resources, and those without, voting with their feet to private schools, charter schools, and home schooling. Explains their open enrollment, their shortfall in expected numbers, and cascading concerns. BISD responded with online school options that meet state standards. Will be an interesting comparison for the coming years.

Agreed, but again, the move towards homeschooling is nationwide. Maybe schools should address the reasons for the decrease in enrollment instead of using gimmicks like open enrollment. But thats not my problem, we homeschool.

EBrazosAg said:

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CSISD ain't what it was 10 yr ago. Way more parents with resources, and those without, voting with their feet to private schools, charter schools, and home schooling. Explains their open enrollment, their shortfall in expected numbers, and cascading concerns. BISD responded with online school options that meet state standards. Will be an interesting comparison for the coming years.

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These are graphs I put together of Cameron ISD over the past 10 years, who is also experiencing lower enrollments and academic performance decline, out of my own curiosity last month. These numbers compare the past 10 years with neighboring districts. Then compares the individual school campuses in Cameron ISD. I may run a comparison with CSISD just to see.

I thought it was interesting that a bulk of the decline comes from the elementary / jr high levels. This makes me hypothesize that parents are pulling kids out at the early levels for home schooling or other options and sending them back into the system in high school I would guess athletics plays a big part in that if that were the case.

This trend really started in 2018 for Cameron and as you can see, it's a much larger problem here than some of the surrounding districts.

All that to say, I think even the best districts are struggling. I would like to explore what Academy and Rosebud have driving their growth the past 10 years from this area. I'm sure there's districts outside college station growing some over that period as well.

Big news at the @spaceX and @Tesla Terafab site today … foundation construction is already underway with a long rectangular graded area getting footing excavation rock. This is possibly the first part of the main structure, but at this stage, very hard to tell, but nonetheless,… pic.twitter.com/iDl1B5OrfU

— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 10, 2026

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Terafab site today … foundation construction is already underway with a long rectangular graded area getting footing excavation rock. This is possibly the first part of the main structure, but at this stage, very hard to tell, but nonetheless, this is showing the pace here is very fast!

More land clearing and backs grade work around the western "Phase" 1 of the site today, about 40% to 50% more than I saw on my first trip just shy of 1 month ago. The county-wide burn ban has not slowed the progress at the site as you can see with these images from today's drone flight.

More ruck activity on the main construction road along with additional temporary operations and staging areas on the newly cleared parts of the site. There is a Starlink ground station here as well, which I reported on 2 weeks ago … I cannot say if it is active yet or not.

I will have a full video out soon, but for now, enjoy these new images!

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reineraggie09 said:

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Bob Yancy said:

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TLRS said:

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I honestly don't know who developed the projections or exactly what data they used. My bigger concern is how these numbers could influence planning decisions.

If city and county officials are being shown projections of only 1,532 direct Terafab jobs by 2037, when the State and SpaceX have announced 3,000+ jobs for Phase 1 alone, it could significantly understate what may be coming.

I'd much rather see our communities plan for the larger scenario and get ahead of housing, roads, utilities and infrastructure now than underestimate Terafab's impact and spend the next decade trying to catch up.

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I believe the axiom "under promise and over deliver" is in play. I feel these numbers are low.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

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Or instead of humans, they will just use those new robots to build more robots.

Actually, Musk stated in his arguments for property tax abatement, that taxes on all of the high cost automated equipment inside TeraFab would make the project much less feasible. That leads me to believe there will be an extremely high level of automation and fewer employees than a traditional manufacturer.

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I follow the development of Robotics closely and listen to two robotics daily/weekly podcasts as I drive around and the estimated total cost of a robot that will basically replace a person is $1.92/hr. And the robot won't show up for work late, will work 24/7 with no overtime pay, won't go on strike, won't fight with other robots, doesn't have matching retirement, doesn't need a hospitalization plan, etc, etc, etc.

The key to secure future employment is to either get a job in the development, testing, installation, and maintenance of equipment such as HVAC, elect, plumbing, etc. or a job in the management of these functions,

For those that didn't catch it, there was a detailed presentation about the expected growth and impact of Terafab on College Station at the council meeting last night.

Can't blame SpaceX for wanting to protect info. They're in a highly competitive field dealing with national security matters.

Unfortunately, there is a cadre of folks who really thought they could tell people who to sell their land to and who could stop progress. It's sort of a tradition there. When they couldn't, they now want to rain down hell on their elected officials in their quest for revenge. They can dress it up any way they want to, but it is what it is.

Jmho.

reineraggie09 said:

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Bob Yancy said:

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TLRS said:

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I honestly don't know who developed the projections or exactly what data they used. My bigger concern is how these numbers could influence planning decisions.

If city and county officials are being shown projections of only 1,532 direct Terafab jobs by 2037, when the State and SpaceX have announced 3,000+ jobs for Phase 1 alone, it could significantly understate what may be coming.

I'd much rather see our communities plan for the larger scenario and get ahead of housing, roads, utilities and infrastructure now than underestimate Terafab's impact and spend the next decade trying to catch up.

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I believe the axiom "under promise and over deliver" is in play. I feel these numbers are low.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

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Or instead of humans, they will just use those new robots to build more robots.

Actually, Musk stated in his arguments for property tax abatement, that taxes on all of the high cost automated equipment inside TeraFab would make the project much less feasible. That leads me to believe there will be an extremely high level of automation and fewer employees than a traditional manufacturer.

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I think that a significant number of the construction jobs at TerraFab will be contractor's employees driving from the northern areas of Houston, Conroe, Spring, Huntsville, Tomball, etc. rather than staying in BCS. It may be less expensive for a contractor to pay employees to share rides and drive 30 to 50 miles each way than hotels for about $1,500 or more a month for each employee.

Grimes County resident here. My place is 17 miles north of the build site.
In short, too much was done too quickly without any due diligence from Grimes County Commissioners.
Most everything was done in secret and anyone who complained to the County Judge, Joe Fauth, were told to just shut up about it.

Muzzleblast said:

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Grimes County resident here. My place is 17 miles north of the build site.
In short, too much was done too quickly without any due diligence from Grimes County Commissioners.
Most everything was done in secret and anyone who complained to the County Judge, Joe Fauth, were told to just shut up about it.

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So in other words, nowhere near the build site. Bryan/College Station is only about 20 miles from the build site.

Bucketrunner said:

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Unfortunately, there is a cadre of folks who really thought they could tell people who to sell their land to and who could stop progress. It's sort of a tradition there. When they couldn't, they now want to rain down hell on their elected officials in their quest for revenge. They can dress it up any way they want to, but it is what it is.

Jmho.

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I agree that there is a vocal anti-progress or NIMBY group in Grimes County. The sad thing is that the Houston metro area is only a couple years away from invading southern Grimes County from Magnolia and a few more years from invading from the east through Willis/New Waverly. Developments like Terafab can cause the inevitable development to happen quicker and allow the county to better manage and gain from the development.

The vocal NIMBY residents were on a roll with the train derailment, stopping the Lake Millican conversations, stopping the toll road, etc. They are also against I-14 going through Grimes County. Note that they also were against the FM-244 overpass at Hwy-30. It seems like safety is secondary to preventing development.

Terafab was a big loss for these folks.

They allowed stupid solar farms and a huge landfill to eat up huge swaths of land without too much protest. They don't seem to mind being the dumping ground of the Brazos Valley as long as it doesn't bring new technology.

You are correct they want to take out their tantrums on the elected officials who ultimately did what they saw was best for the county. These NIMBY folks now want to take over the county government. Since things are in place, if these people get in control, most likely all they will do is put up obstacles to disrupt the Terafab development.

At this point the county needs leadership that will help guide the progress so that it is done in a way that most benefits the citizens of the county. The anti-development people need to realize that they lost, and development is happening.

Moves that might give the impression that under-the-table deals were negotiated to benefit current politicians and give SpaceX free reign, like the lawsuit to prevent public disclosure, just emboldens the "cadre of folks who really thought they could tell people who to sell their land to and who could stop progress".

Muzzleblast said:

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Grimes County resident here. My place is 17 miles north of the build site.
In short, too much was done too quickly without any due diligence from Grimes County Commissioners.
Most everything was done in secret and anyone who complained to the County Judge, Joe Fauth, were told to just shut up about it.

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I am about 7 miles north of the build site.

Yesterday my wife and I commented that we haven't seen the big increase in traffic that we expected with the site development. There was a lot more traffic, especially large trucks, during the oil drilling boom a few years ago.

And the cleared site is not (yet) visible from Hwy 30, Hwy-90, or FM-244.

It impresses me how quickly they got moving on this. They clearly had the environmental permits, architecture, engineering, etc all running in parallel with the tax abatement discussions.

Grimes County was always going to get consumed by the growth out of Houston and BCS. It was just a matter of time. If anybody seriously thought it would remain a quaint, remote part of Texas, they were fooling themselves. The same story is playing out for "quiet areas" outside of DFW, Austin, San Antonio and other areas across the US. If you really want to be remote, you've got to go really remote. There are still places in Texas that qualify.

CS78 said:

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First law suit didn't take long.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/space/article/spacex-lawsuit-ken-paxton-22426029.php

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Pretty standard activity related to open records laws.

Didn't the local TV station run some stories inflaming the "local govt is hiding stuff from us" crowd regarding Grimes County sending a request to AG regarding what needed to be released in response to open records related to Terafab. This is just the other side of that back and forth over what is protected (sensitive corporate information) and what should be publicly available. Corporate lawyers would prefer everything to be confidential while reporters and concerned citizens want to know everything. The line is somewhere in the middle and will be determined by a judge.

Some people gripe about most every development in an area and then gripe about there not being any good jobs in the area and their children have to go to Houston, DFW and farther for decent paying jobs.

This is the biggest thing to occur in our area since 1876.

woodiewood1 said:

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Some people gripe about most every development in an area and then gripe about there not being any good jobs in the area and their children have to go to Houston, DFW and farther for decent paying jobs.

This is the biggest thing to occur in our area since 1876.

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BiochemAg97 said:

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It impresses me how quickly they got moving on this. They clearly had the environmental permits, architecture, engineering, etc all running in parallel with the tax abatement discussions.

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Check this out released today. It's nuts:

ETA: I don't know why this keeps starting half way through but it's worth rewinding to the beginning.

At the 1 hour and 50 minute mark that one Councilman is blown away by the presentation. Then he proceeds to ask when is Terafab going to start and do we have a timeline of when they will start breaking ground. That's a little disturbing that he had no idea it already started almost a month ago.