Parents and students urge McKinney ISD trustees to pause three elementary closures, cite data errors

Dozens of parents, students and community members pressed the McKinney Independent School District Board of Trustees on Nov. 17 to pause a plan to close three elementary schools, arguing the district’s analysis used the wrong capacity metric and misrepresented campus utilization.

At the public-comment portion of the meeting, fourth-grader Sydney Renee Scott of Wilford Elementary asked simply, “Why Wilford has to close,” and parents followed with detailed objections. Parent speakers said the district presented design-capacity figures (a building’s theoretical number of rooms) rather than functional-capacity figures (which account for special-education rooms, intervention spaces and pre-K) when ranking candidates for closure. “When you redo the math, Edens has 385 students … functional capacity is 474 at Edens, making us 80%,” said Tamara McClendon, who urged trustees to place a motion to reconsider the closures and to use the industry-standard functional-capacity metric.

Multiple parents offered campus-specific numbers they said the district’s own Q3 FY25 report shows: “Edens at 81%, Wolford at 82%, and McNeil at 65%” by functional capacity, Carrie Garcia told trustees, adding that those figures contrast with the design-capacity percentages presented in the closure slides. Several speakers said the discrepancy—about a 25-point swing in some cases—changes whether a campus appears under-enrolled and therefore a closure candidate.

Eric Brzezinski and other speakers said rezoning maps shared so far split neighborhoods, forcing students to cross major roads, and argued the district’s plan did not preserve cohorts of students most impacted by moves. “There’s only one map that divides Wolford and Edens in half,” Brzezinski said, urging trustees to pause and “relook at the data.” Alex Wright said the community had less than 24 hours’ notice for a special meeting and described a perception that the decision was “instantaneous and appeared to be preconceived.”

Some speakers linked the capacity question to special-education services. “When you ignore the special-education programs, you erase the very students who rely on them,” McClendon said, pressing trustees to account for DISC and dyslexia rooms in capacity calculations and warning that rezoning may cap enrollment and strain special-education placements.

Other public commenters raised separate topics. A McKinney High senior, Anwar Danier, asked that the district restore the German-language program across high schools and noted the program’s local competition successes. Jennifer Poston, a parent of children with type 1 diabetes, urged the board to permit remote monitoring of continuous glucose monitors on district iPads, saying the current MISD health-services practice that prohibits remote monitoring is “dangerous” and that CGM alerts have prevented emergencies for her family.

Board members did not announce a pause or a formal data review at the meeting. The trustees recessed into closed session after public comment and later returned to continue agenda business. The board’s agenda and staff presentations were available for review on the district’s public materials.

Trustees did not vote on the closure plan during the session; the public-comment concerns were entered on the record and several speakers said they had submitted documentation and data packets to the district for inclusion in the public record. The district’s next community input session on the facilities plan is scheduled for Dec. 4; trustees confirmed the next regular board meeting for Dec. 15.