Education
BY SHELBIE HAMILTON
Choose McKinney program generates $1M for MISD
“I spend life wisely by giving my very best every day to the thousands of McKinney ISD students, inspiring them to dream big and achieve their best.”
for students within the district. Diving in deeper Intradistrict transfers were offered to select elementary and middle schools based on availabil- ity, Spaulding said. The increased student enroll- ment resulting from interdistrict transfers supports the district through funding received from the state for student attendance, which totaled about $6,200 per student in the 2025-26 school year, Spaulding said. Looking ahead
McKinney ISD’s Choose McKin- ney—a program allowing out- of-district transfer students and facilitating other transfer types— has generated about $1 million in revenue during the 2025-26 school year, district officials said Choose McKinney allows kin- dergarten through eighth grade students outside of the district to attend MISD. The overview McKinney ISD offers transfer options for intradistrict—or resident—students; interdistrict— or nonresident—students; and programmatic transfers. When the Choose McKinney program launched in early 2025, the focus was to attract interdis- trict transfers, Assistant Super- intendent of Communications Shelly Spaulding said. The district currently has about 150 total interdistrict transfer students in the 2025-26 school year, Deputy Superintendent Mel- anie Raleeh said. As the program progressed, Spaulding said district officials saw programmatic transfers increase as students transferred within MISD to access programs such as aviation, health sciences and the Caldwell Dual Language Academy, she said. The program became a “reten- tion tool” for district officials, Raleeh said, offering more options
– Shawn
The application window opened for some transfer
programs Dec. 8, including the Collegiate Academy of McKinney and the Caldwell Dual Language Academy. Applications for other transfer types are expected to be made available at a later date.
That’s how Shawn does it. How about you — how do you Spend Life Wisely? Share your story with us. One of 125 Stories celebrating 125 years of Spending Life Wisely.
“Our out-of-district families, they’re wanting to come in because they’ve heard great things about McKinney ISD, and so they want to be a part of what we’re doing here” MEGAN RICHARDS, MCKINNEY
Join the Celebration
ISD ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES SPECIALIST
2025-26 Choose McKinney transfer applications District officials evaluated more than 1,000 transfer applicants for qualities such as academics, discipline and attendance history.
Key:
Intradistrict transfers
Interdistrict transfers
Employee- student transfers
FirstUnitedBank.com MEMBER FDIC
804
291
171
1,266 total applications
11
MCKINNEY EDITION
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