Walnut Bend Elementary School is a primary school located in Houston, Texas. As a result of a bond proposal passed in 2002, it has been completely rebuilt over the old school; it was the first LEED "Green School" in the Houston Independent School District.The school serves the Walnut Bend and Briargrove Park areas and a portion of Rivercrest, Lakeside Estates and Lakeside Forest.HistoryWalnut Bend opened in 1964. On Tuesday January 21, 1992, Barbara Bush Elementary School opened, relieving Walnut Bend and two other area elementary schools. Sands Point Elementary School, an unzoned reliever school in the Westchase district, opened in 1998 to relieve Walnut Bend and some other area schools.In 2002, Houston voters approved an $808.6 million bond issue to "Rebuild HISD", which included a $13.2 million allocation to the old Walnut Bend Elementary. The original school was built in 1960 and could not sustain all of the elementary-grade students in its attendance zone. The original school was demolished, making way for a new school that could handle more students. At the same time, it was the first HISD school to apply for LEED certification.After Hurricane Katrina occurred, Walnut Bend Elementary School's enrollment increased from around 600 to around 800 with the addition of 184 hurricane refugees; Walnut Bend, out of all of the Houston-area elementary schools, took the most Katrina victims. Five years after Katrina, however, the population and testing scores of the school have returned to pre-Katrina levels.
