Frisco Independent School District, once a poster child for rapid growth in North Texas, is now facing a new reality: it is landlocked, built out, and experiencing declining enrollment. In the July 9 episode of The Building Texas Show, host Justin McKenzie sat down with two-term Frisco ISD Trustee Stephanie Elad to discuss the implications of this inflection point for teachers, families, and taxpayers.
Elad, a corporate HR executive reelected last year to a term through 2028, traced her entry into public office to a controversial moment at an April 2021 board meeting. The board president at the time stated, “this is our meeting, not the community’s,” a comment that triggered a standing ovation and statewide press coverage. Elad recalled, “That just did not sit right with me. I didn’t like it. And so I was sitting waiting for my turn to talk, and I realized that what I really wanted to talk about at that point was what he had just said.” That moment spurred her 2022 campaign for the board.
With her HR background, Elad has focused on improving teacher retention. She brought a confidential, third-party employee engagement survey into the district to gather honest feedback from staff. “Tough conversations with staff and parents have never really been foreign to me because I’ve just been doing it for so long,” she told McKenzie.
The conversation also delved into workforce readiness and the stigma around trade careers. Elad noted that a neighbor who owns a plumbing business clears a couple hundred thousand dollars a year but cannot find apprentice plumbers. She argued that Frisco high schoolers should be able to enter apprenticeship programs earning $60,000 to $70,000 within a year or two of graduation, without debt or a four-year degree. The district is building plumbing, electrical, and HVAC apprenticeship pathways alongside existing CTE tracks like medical terminology, legal assistant work, and e-gaming.
McKenzie connected this to his advisory work with the startup Founding Up and to PTECH welding programs in the San Antonio area, where students graduate with as many as 60 college credit hours through community college partnerships. Elad emphasized preparing students for careers that AI cannot replace and urged families to vote in low-turnout school board elections.
Elad also expressed renewed optimism about the district’s new superintendent, hired roughly a month before the taping, and the next chapter for Frisco ISD. The episode is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
