After months of wrestling over zoning for its new high school, Argyle ISD Board of Trustees voted unanimously against giving re-zoned families the option to keep their freshmen at Argyle High School.
The verdict came down on Monday: If you're a member of the Class of 2030 now zoned to attend Legacy High School — the district's second high school — that's where you'll be for the 2027-28 school year. The first class to attend the new school will do so as sophomores.
The vote followed tensions around the new high school's enrollment configuration, which — for some — compounded years-long criticism over the district's handling of growth and land acquisition.
Courtney Carpenter, the Argyle ISD superintendent, presented her recommendation: The portion of the Class of 2030 re-zoned to go to Legacy will go to the new school. She said it was the most straightforward option to begin the process of moving students from Argyle High, located on Canyon Falls Drive in Flower Mound.
Legacy High, which will use the buildings and facilities where Argyle Middle School is now, is scheduled to open next fall. The district did some renovations on the campus with funds from the voter-approved 2025 bond.
Next fall, the campus will be a dual campus, accommodating grades 7-10 for 2027-28.
The board had weighed the plan it approved against an alternative, which would have re-zoned some freshmen, sophomores and juniors into Legacy with sophomores and juniors allowed the option to stay at Argyle High.
Ultimately, Carpenter recommended the board vote to send eligible students to the new school next year as sophomores, adding a class each year afterward.
"Despite all of our communication and all of our efforts, every stone unturned, the choice option has given unnecessary uncertainty, speculation, confusion," Carpenter said during Tuesday's board meeting.
"We have answered a lot of questions, but then someone talks to someone else who talks to someone else, and then the answers turn into something different. There are a lot of 'what ifs,' peer conversations. So while choice and flexibility sound great, I'm recommending there's not choice and flexibility at this point."
District officials said they held two public meetings for parents and a sent number of emails to families about opening the configuration of Legacy High.
For much of its history, Argyle has been a small, affluent city that maintained a rural feel. But growth surged over the last 20 years and accelerated over the last decade. Growth sent the school district on a building campaign. Today, the district operates four elementary school campuses, two middle schools, a sixth-grade center and Argyle High School.
Growing pains emerged when demography reports and enrollments nudged the district to plan for a second high school. For some Argyle residents, being a one-high-school town was a priority. But state law caps elementary school classrooms — pre-kindergarten through fourth grade — at 22 students. Districts have to apply for waivers to increase the size of classrooms from pre-kindergarten to fourth grade.
Critics of the vote and the re-zoning plans largely said they "get it" that the district needed a second high school. Many said there were configuration plans that were less disruptive to students, especially freshmen who will leave their friends and activities for a new school.
Rich McDowell, Place 4 trustee, said the dialog around giving families options about where their Argyle High School Eagles would end up eventually felt unfair to the students who are affected.
"What I'm advocating for is maybe we don't put 14-year-olds through this process," McDowell said on Monday. "And we stand up and we make a decision. We stand by the decision."
McDowell was the trustee who pressed hardest for his peers to consider leaving a choice on the table and said he thought a lottery for students to stay at Argyle High was worth consideration.
"Just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't do it," he said.
Place 7 Trustee Sam Slaton said "too much choice" can complicate decisions.
"I will not speak for everyone else, but I didn't sit up here a couple months ago thinking 'I'm going to put this in the hands of a 14-year-old' either," he said. "And that's an unintended consequence that it's been put on them."
For some parents who lobbied for choice, statements that teens were placed in a decision-making role were insulting. Heather Miller has two students in the district — one in the Class of 2030 and another in the Class of 2027. She has another child who graduated from Argyle High.
She said she took exception to statements that teens were driving the decision.
"I would ... like to challenge them on that, that families are letting their 14-year-olds make the decisions about where they go," Miller told the Denton Record-Chronicle on Tuesday. "Several of the board members said that [Monday] night, and that's just not true for our family. And frankly, it was a bit insulting."
Miller said Carpenter and the board didn't have a "swear on the Bible" moment that promised families could apply to transfer their students back to Argyle High, but she said parents left meetings believing they would be able to choose between the schools.
Her daughter is a freshman whose three best friends weren't re-zoned to Legacy High. And her daughter is also enjoying marching band and would be an inaugural member of the Legacy band. New programs start without the fundraising heft that established schools enjoy.
"I'd also like them really to look into my daughter's eyes and tell her why she's going to have a different high school experience from her friends because she lives three miles away from where they live," she said.
Miller said her husband had served on a district committee related to growth. She is among parents who understand the need for a new high school and support the district adding a school. She said her frustrations surround what she called "moving goalposts."
"We knew this was coming, but initially, it wasn't going to happen until 2030, which wouldn't have affected my children," she said. "And then it was going to be earlier."
Miller said it wasn't until the spring that they learned their freshman was zoned into Legacy High.
"And all of these changes have been made without adequate notice about the changes, in my opinion," she said.
Bryan Hantes, a resident with two children in the school district, told trustees that allowing Legacy students to transfer to Argyle High "is a huge mistake."
He asked to board to consider the harm that choice could bring to students who stay at Legacy, reducing the participation in sports, fine arts and performing arts.
"Both of my kids are in honors classes and involved in athletics," Hantis said. "The numbers are there if the students just remain where they're zoned. Families have known for a couple of years that this is coming. They could have made arrangements. They could have made plans. They could have decided what's best for their family."
According to Argyle ISD records, the district discussed the configuration in five public meetings between October of 2025 and the latest parent meeting on Sept. 9.
After parent meetings, the district received 48 transfer applications. The applications recorded concerns and reasons for the transfer requests, including:
- Students would be forced to leave Argyle High sports, cheer and dance teams
- Students might not be able to take the same course they do at Legacy, including honors and advanced placement classes, advanced French, electives and athletic training
- Students would graduate in a smaller class
- Greater uncertainty over academic pathways, such as advanced math and continuity in advanced placement courses
- Students would leave friends, teachers and mentors
- Anxiety over transitions
- Students would leave extracurricular programs with history and performance records, including marching band, Model UN, DECA and student council
- For some students who have been re-zoned, Argyle High is closer to their homes than Legacy High
Carpenter and board President and Place 2 Trustee Leigh Ann Artho pointed to their own high school experience, where they graduated with fewer than 100 students but still had varsity athletics and other programs.
Under the approved plan for Legacy High, students will be able to participate in all varsity sports except for football, which is in the middle of a routine University Interscholastic League alignment review. Varsity football should start at Legacy in the 2028-29 school year under the new alignment. The district also expects Legacy to have sub-varsity teams, too, because leaders expect participation to be sufficient. Carpenter said the only reason Legacy wouldn't have the expected teams and programs is if student interest is low.
Miller said she doesn't doubt the good intentions of the administrators and trustees but worries that variables out of the district's control could mean some cherished programs can't be offered.
"I think that they intend for these things to happen, but they give them a lot of qualifiers of 'if we have enough students, if students are interested, we think students are going to be interested,' based off of middle school athletics and fine arts," Miller said. "But those are variables that they can't know, and since school funding follows the students, there's no way that they can make any guarantees that band at Legacy High School is going to look the same as it looks at our school. And I think that's what's hard, too, that the ninth graders see what our high school has to offer. And so they're going to feel any disparity when they go to Legacy if there is any."
There is only one transfer exception tied specifically to the opening of Legacy High. The "sibling exception" allows a student in the Class of 2030 or 2031 who has been zoned to Legacy to apply to transfer back to Argyle High if they have a sibling who will be a junior or senior at Argyle High during the 2027-28 school year.
"District policy would grant the student eligibility to remain through graduation, though they would have to apply each year," a district spokesman said.
But if a campus is at capacity, the applicant could be required to attend their home-zoned campus.
Miller said her family is considering other options that could keep her freshman at Argyle High.
"I wish I could say that we were wealthy enough to move houses and address the problem that way," Miller said. "You know, letting her remain that way by moving to Harvest or somewhere else. But that's just not in our budget, unfortunately. So this is one of those things where we'll coach her through her disappointment and, while we're disappointed, try to focus on the positives that may be there."
