With Frisco ISD increasing by 60 schools and and approximately 51,000 students since 1993, construction of new schools and consequent rezoning is a common occurrence in the district. The 2016-2017 school year will see the opening of Lebanon Trail High School, Nelson Middle School, Miller Elementary, and Vaughn Elementary, with the rezoning drafts being announced at the school board meeting Monday night.

“The October board meeting is where we present the administration’s recommendations for all of the rezoning that needs to occur, both for new schools but also for rezoning current schools in order to handle the growth and prevent overcrowding,” FISD Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Lyon said. “All of this is driven by demographers, both internal and external.”

The new Lebanon Trail school zone takes students from this campus along with Centennial, Frisco, and Independence in order to relieve these campuses, all of which are above 80 percent capacity with this campus and Centennial at 99.2 percent capacity and 97.1 percent capacity respectively.

“It’s an expression of that growth over the last 22 years, going from four campuses to 64 campuses,” Lyon said. “It’s also an expression of that decision by families to move to Frisco to take advantage for their children of the small school model.”

Frisco ISD is committed to keeping all Frisco high schools at the 5A level, requiring new schools to be built frequently. The district has built four middle schools in three years, and have three new high schools on the calendar. Lebanon Trail will be the ninth high school, closely followed by Memorial High School in Fall of 2017, and an unnamed high school with an undetermined opening on the east side of the district.

“There is a notion that [all districts] are dealing with rezoning, and we’re all dealing with fast growth, and that’s certainly true,” Lyon said. “But there’s something said with a chuckle among educators: Nobody does rezoning like Frisco does rezoning.”

In Texas, Frisco is ranked second in student growth, beat only by Houston Independent School District. However, HISD has a population of 200,000 students compared to FISD’s approximately 50,000 students. As for surrounding districts, Prosper is considered a high growth district according to Dr. Lyon, but Prosper’s growth of 4,000 students is slight in comparison to Frisco’s induction of 16,000 new students in the same amount of time. While other schools districts deal with high growth by building modular, or portable classrooms, Lyon does not want to see that in Frisco ISD.

“We’re selling bonds from our 2014 bond program that was $775 million,” Lyon said. “That was approved by this community by a 77 percent approval rating, which is a clear expression that this community doesn’t want portable classrooms. They want new schools.”