After nearly 44 years in public education, including nine years as superintendent of Frisco ISD (FISD), Mike Waldrip, Ph.D., has announced his retirement, effective June 30, 2026.  The Board of Trustees plans to begin the process of identifying candidates for the next superintendent in the coming months.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve the students, staff, and families of Frisco ISD,” Waldrip said in a district news release Monday. “Every accomplishment over the past nine years has been the result of collaboration, dedication, and a shared commitment to doing what’s best for kids. As I look ahead to retirement, I do so with tremendous gratitude for this community and confidence in the continued success of the district.”

During his tenure, Waldrip oversaw district operations, long-term planning, and school openings as FISD expanded to meet the growing population. 

“Dr. Waldrip’s leadership has been marked by integrity, vision, and a steadfast focus on students,” Frisco ISD Board of Trustees president Mark Hill said in a district news release. “He has led our District with care and purpose, always keeping students at the heart of every decision. The Board is deeply grateful for his service and lasting impact on Frisco ISD.”

Before serving as FISD’s superintendent, however, Waldrip was a Redhawk himself, opening The Nest up as principal in 2006, an experience he says was one of the most challenging and rewarding of his career.

“Just being able to put a complete staff together, open a high school brand new and set the vision and course for what the school was going to be like,” Waldrip said in a FISD news release when he was initially named superintendent in 2017. “I always said I wanted Liberty to be a place where kids enjoyed coming to school and teachers enjoyed coming to work, and that’s what we tried to focus on to create that type of environment for everyone.”

For principal Stacey Whaling, that environment and motto has continued to be handed down from principal to principal, shaping The Nest well beyond Waldrip’s time on campus.

“I think that when I talk to students that are here now and have been here before, they’re proud that they got to go to Liberty and that they’re a Liberty student,” Whaling said. “Every single principal has been promoted from within here, so after Dr. Waldrip was Dr. Burdett, and then Mr. Warstler, and then Ms. Rainwater, and then me, and we all worked at Liberty for a time before becoming principal here. So I think what makes this place special has continued because of the way the principalship has kept evolving over the years.”

Several of Waldrip’s original hires as the school’s principal are still working on campus, with Waldrip’s retirement announcement a bittersweet moment for social studies instructional coach Jeff Crowe.

“I’ve worked with Dr. Waldrip in multiple campuses. I worked with him at middle school and then I opened the building here at Liberty High School with him,” Crowe said. “He gave me my first teaching job at the high school level in 2007. So I will be forever grateful for that. The thing that I’m probably gonna miss the most about Dr. Waldrip is having somebody in the place of superintendent who really listens to educators. I think his legacy is he has guided this district through some very turbulent times, but has made it a destination district for families all over the world really.”

Teacher Kandy Stevens echoes a similar sentiment, looking back at Waldrip’s instrumental influence in shaping both The Nest and the district as a whole. 

“It came as a complete surprise, but I think it’s a well-earned point in his life,” Stevens said. “He’s dedicated 41 years of his life to education, and he’s going to be truly missed… Here on our campus, he established these really high expectations, high standards, and he set those for staff and students alike. And through the years, we’ve risen to those and met those expectations. When he came back and started serving as superintendent, he had those same expectations. And so his legacy is he expects a lot, but he also gives the support, the encouragement, and the resources to make those expectations successful.”