Mission school district extends open enrollment to Pre-K

The Mission Consolidated Independent School District’s open enrollment policy has been extended to include full-day Pre-K classes.

Joel Garcia, the deputy superintendent for business and support services, said the district already had an open enrollment policy but will now include day-long Pre-K classes.

“The changes will allow us to serve students, of course, outside of the Mission CISD boundaries,” Garcia said. “It will allow them to attend our really wonderful Pre-K programs here at the district. I know that there may be some other districts or charters that don’t offer Pre-K and we do. So we want to make sure that if they’re interested in coming to Mission and being part of a Pre-K program that they do so.”

The barriers to qualify for the grade levels were removed. Non-district residents need to either be employed by the district or have a sibling enrolled to qualify for enrollment for the district programs.

“We really wanted to expand access to our high-quality early childhood education programs,” he said. “I think that was a driving factor. We believed every child should have an opportunity to get a great education, and so we wanted to remove those barriers that were there.”

Last fall, the district’s Pre-K program had 1,371 students. In total, the district had 14,068 students.

The Pre-K program is offered on every elementary campus.

“We typically try to accommodate all our parents but for those campuses where the enrollment may be already tight … we can recommend another one of our campuses but for the most part, we try to accommodate the parent with the first campus of choice,” Garcia said.

Parents interested in the program can visit the Mission CISD website, contact the student services department at 956-323-5578 or stop by the Student Services Building at 1103 Pamela Drive.

“Our team is ready to provide any information about the enrollment process and how our programs can meet their child’s educational needs,” he said.