2026-2027 UIL Realignment

[Debw]

4 hours ago, Bandfan107 said:

Thoughts on Keller Central possibly moving to 5a?

Not going to happen if cutoff is truly 2250. They reported 2397 on snapshot day. 

[LostChoirGuy]

Latest rumors are that the cutoff is actually more likely between 2220 and 2230.  With that being said, Wakeland is very likely going to be 6A, along with the 3 Leander ISD schools and Aledo (all who were in 5A finals).

I can't wait to see what 5A will look like next year.  Even without Wakeland, Area B will likely be dominant, but I could see some new faces creeping in to finals and maybe even some of our 4A groups that are moving up. 

 

[BugWub24]

9 hours ago, LostChoirGuy said:

Latest rumors are that the cutoff is actually more likely between 2220 and 2230.  With that being said, Wakeland is very likely going to be 6A, along with the 3 Leander ISD schools and Aledo (all who were in 5A finals).

I can't wait to see what 5A will look like next year.  Even without Wakeland, Area B will likely be dominant, but I could see some new faces creeping in to finals and maybe even some of our 4A groups that are moving up. 

 

I could see 5A Area E have a couple of changes. Foster and Hightower are within that small range, and depending on what the cutoff is could both be moving down to that area. Not to mention Freeman moving up, as well as the new LCISD school Tomas, the entire area would be at 40+ bands, with at least 35 of those bands getting 1s this season.

[BugWub24]

After doing a little math, I got a rough estimate of the number of 6A and 5A bands for the upcoming cycle: 230 and 245 respectively. These estimates were assuming a 6A/5A cutoff at 2,250.

If UIL wants to keep things roughly even between 6A and 5A (it was 249 and 252 last cycle), the cutoff is definitely going to be lower than 2,250, and maybe even closer to 2,220.

[Toasty]

Have the McKinney schools finally posted enrollments? I checked the snapshot days websites and they seem to be the only district I can’t find enrollment numbers for?

[TrenBS]

2 hours ago, Toasty said:

Have the McKinney schools finally posted enrollments? I checked the snapshot days websites and they seem to be the only district I can’t find enrollment numbers for?

They are having to close multiple elementary schools and redraw their borders severely due to wonky rosters and weird growth/stagnation clusters in the city, so its taking them a while to post numbers

If I were to make a guess with the estimates I was provided (North=2370, Boyd=2550, High=2804), 2026 should look like this (High and Boyd have very small senior classes so population will also uptick):

McKinney North: 1950-2050, 5A

McKinney Boyd: 2650-2850, 6A

McKinney High: 3000+, 6A* (7A if UIL ends up adding another division. The district wants McKinney High to be in the largest division no matter what, while McKinney Boyd remains as the “middle size school”)

It is just guesswork of course, but the district board is persistent on the claim of taking from the McKinney North side and redistributing to Boyd and High, along with their feeders.

[RoRogg]

I heard from my band director that Smithson Valley is also likely to go up to 6a

[Toasty]

7 hours ago, TrenBS said:

They are having to close multiple elementary schools and redraw their borders severely due to wonky rosters and weird growth/stagnation clusters in the city, so its taking them a while to post numbers

If I were to make a guess with the estimates I was provided (North=2370, Boyd=2550, High=2804), 2026 should look like this (High and Boyd have very small senior classes so population will also uptick):

McKinney North: 1950-2050, 5A

McKinney Boyd: 2650-2850, 6A

McKinney High: 3000+, 6A* (7A if UIL ends up adding another division. The district wants McKinney High to be in the largest division no matter what, while McKinney Boyd remains as the “middle size school”)

It is just guesswork of course, but the district board is persistent on the claim of taking from the McKinney North side and redistributing to Boyd and High, along with their feeders.

Ok thank you, that’s very interesting, I’m very interested in how north managed to cut 500 students in just one year… I saw a post last year on the McKinney isd website saying north had over 2500, so it’s interesting to see how the rezoning took such huge shape. Thank you!

[TexasStrangers]

Here is a link I found that has a pretty good idea where schools may be going to and those that are on the bubble. 

 

https://texxas5asports.proboards.com/thread/10399/2026-snapshots-realignment-thread

[TrenBS]

On 11/14/2025 at 8:47 PM, Toasty said:

Ok thank you, that’s very interesting, I’m very interested in how north managed to cut 500 students in just one year… I saw a post last year on the McKinney isd website saying north had over 2500, so it’s interesting to see how the rezoning took such huge shape. Thank you!

This is what I think the alignments for the high schools will end up being (red=Boyd, green=North, purple=McKinney)
It takes some from North, but lets them keep all the new growth up North, and prepare for their own dedicated Middle School (Trinity Falls), while giving Boyd the rest of Cockrill, being mutually beneficial in the long run. McKinney High gets a cluster since they also have new growth out east.

[TrenBS]

This is McKinneys projections for the schools, and the current numbers are pretty shocking all things considered, but solidifies my ideas on how the projections will go:

Boyd will get the rest of Cockrill, their classes are about 400 students large and is split mostly 50/50, Boyd goes to 2,766 and North down to 2,417

McKinney High gets a large chunk of the Eastern new growth and the Evans/Faubion schools get extended boundaries, class sizes are 500 which High will get about half of, and a chunk of 100 from the sustained population in the center, making McKinney High 2,750 with new growth and North 2,067 with less growth, keeping them 5A with enough time for the next realignment to slowly adjust borders (prediction from here) for a new high school way up Northeast to avoid the 20-35+ minute travel times to the schools

 

[Toasty]

49 minutes ago, TrenBS said:

This is McKinneys projections for the schools, and the current numbers are pretty shocking all things considered, but solidifies my ideas on how the projections will go:

Boyd will get the rest of Cockrill, their classes are about 400 students large and is split mostly 50/50, Boyd goes to 2,766 and North down to 2,417

McKinney High gets a large chunk of the Eastern new growth and the Evans/Faubion schools get extended boundaries, class sizes are 500 which High will get about half of, and a chunk of 100 from the sustained population in the center, making McKinney High 2,750 with new growth and North 2,067 with less growth, keeping them 5A with enough time for the next realignment to slowly adjust borders (prediction from here) for a new high school way up Northeast to avoid the 20-35+ minute travel times to the schools

 

Wait so these are still just projection numbers?  Not anything official yet? And also hasn’t the deadline to submit numbers passed, so how do we still not know numbers yet.?

[TrenBS]

37 minutes ago, Toasty said:

Wait so these are still just projection numbers?  Not anything official yet? And also hasn’t the deadline to submit numbers passed, so how do we still not know numbers yet.?

Orange is current numbers, and they know 2026 numbers if nothing changes, this is all preliminary information until the official alignment drops.

Im only using this and next years numbers as they are the only official numbers we can use for predicting how they will realign them

[bike4hamburgers]

On 11/18/2025 at 12:58 PM, Toasty said:

Wait so these are still just projection numbers?  Not anything official yet? And also hasn’t the deadline to submit numbers passed, so how do we still not know numbers yet.?

McKinney is still in the process of rezoning.   Nothing will be final until mid-December.

[TrenBS]

On 11/18/2025 at 12:58 PM, Toasty said:

Wait so these are still just projection numbers?  Not anything official yet? And also hasn’t the deadline to submit numbers passed, so how do we still not know numbers yet.?

They recently dropped their drafts for the new borders, and McKinney North will 1000% be 5A.
McKinneyISD EFAC

Go to meeting 6 for the drafts, but it essentially has each high school having 2 full feeder middle schools and North has 1 with traces from 2.

Its going to make McKinney Boyd and High WAY stronger band wise since they get 1 great feeder and an ok/good one each, while North gets weaker rosters since theyre still improving their main feeder, which currently is the weakest band wise. But this should benefit every high school in the long run.

 

[wtxbd02]

Davenport lists 1,254 on their website for 2025-2026.  It's not their official snapshot number and I am not sure when that's from but it would keep them 4A more than likely.   

New cutoff numbers should be release this week!  

[TrenBS]

I came up with a prediction for if area J gets dissolved since that's the most likely outcome, but it essentially boils down to putting regions 2 and 25 in C and 24 in B and putting Northwest in area B as well.



Looking at this, I get it. Area J makes complete sense from a logistic standpoint and competitive with the current area format. I think theres some merit to this with raising the bar for area finals, but I think itd be better to balance what we have, and probably have a medalist rule or change the amount of area bands needed to add a state slot.

[flutelolbro]

3 hours ago, TrenBS said:

Looking at this, I get it. Area J makes complete sense from a logistic standpoint and competitive with the current area format. I think theres some merit to this with raising the bar for area finals, but I think itd be better to balance what we have, and probably have a medalist rule or change the amount of area bands needed to add a state slot.

I don't think we need a medalist rule for UIL. However, for changing the amount of area bands needed for a state slot, I think we should decrease in from 5 bands to 4 bands. Anything lower than that would lead to too many state slots.

[BugWub24]

We are just a few days out from learning the official enrollment and cutoff numbers. From what I can tell, the 6A/5A cutoff being somewhere between 2,220 and 2,230 is looking like the most likely situation.

Here are some last minute numbers before we reach the big day:

Comal ISD has all of the enrollment numbers on each school's website. Pieper is at 2,243 and is likely to make the jump to 6A, Smithson Valley will stay in 5A with 2,109, and Davenport will likely stay in 4A at 1,254.

With the opening of Creek View HS next year in Medina Valley ISD, Medina Valley HS will drop to 5A for the time being with around 1,900 students. Creek View should be somewhere around 1,300 students, putting them right on the 5A/4A bubble.

[TexasStrangers]

On 11/30/2025 at 4:50 PM, flutelolbro said:

I don't think we need a medalist rule for UIL. However, for changing the amount of area bands needed for a state slot, I think we should decrease in from 5 bands to 4 bands. Anything lower than that would lead to too many state slots.

I am perfectly fine with keeping it 1 band for every 5. I don't think you want to lower it to 4 because then you would be looking at around around 6-7 bands at least not making it to State from each classification. I realize the 6A/5A contest has a lot of bands and it pretty much a huge contest but that is because there are a lot of great bands who are deserving of competing for a State Championship not to mention at least having the experience of going to State which a lot of kids never get to have. 

[Toasty]

11 hours ago, TexasStrangers said:

I am perfectly fine with keeping it 1 band for every 5. I don't think you want to lower it to 4 because then you would be looking at around around 6-7 bands at least not making it to State from each classification. I realize the 6A/5A contest has a lot of bands and it pretty much a huge contest but that is because there are a lot of great bands who are deserving of competing for a State Championship not to mention at least having the experience of going to State which a lot of kids never get to have. 

I highly disagree with that to an extent, since it’s not fair people from more competitive areas who are deserving of competing at state will never get that experience becsuse of how limited their state spots are. Look at 5A area B all 4 of their state advancing bands placed top 6 at state and I’d argue all of the area finalists bands in that area would place very high at state, with maybe a couple also making finals. Those kids deserve a chance to make their program known.

[TrenBS]

11 hours ago, TexasStrangers said:

I am perfectly fine with keeping it 1 band for every 5. I don't think you want to lower it to 4 because then you would be looking at around around 6-7 bands at least not making it to State from each classification. I realize the 6A/5A contest has a lot of bands and it pretty much a huge contest but that is because there are a lot of great bands who are deserving of competing for a State Championship not to mention at least having the experience of going to State which a lot of kids never get to have. 

I think you misunderstand or I don't follow what you're trying to say. If you lower the amount of area qualifiers to a state slot from 5 to 4 it increases the amount of bands who advance to state per area.

For example, Area J has 20 bands (22 but it wouldn't matter) with 4 bands advancing to state because 20 bands divided by 5 (for every 5 area qualifiers) is 4, its a 5:1 ratio for area:state, this proposal lowers that ratio to 4:1 which would add a slot at area J since 20/4 is 5

The issue with this pretty exclusively is with logistics, since we would add about 7-9 slots (area I and D skew this heavily), there should reasonably only be 45 slots at most and we would be looking at 48 slots at MINIMUM. The only way I could think to balance this rule is maybe combining it with the medalist rule that got proposed and had no action (not dead, just no action).

Maybe the rule could look like this: For each area with a state medalist the ratio of every area qualifier to state qualifier in these respective areas gets lowered from 5:1->4:1.  and for every additional medalist to an area another slot is added. (not certain about this one)

Little too technical for UIL, but this could be the best solution for this medalist rule that accounts for district monopolies while not giving a bunch of areas free slots they didn't need (area C, F, A, and G for example since they don't suffer the same issues as H, J, and D)

 

[flutelolbro]

4 hours ago, TrenBS said:

I think you misunderstand or I don't follow what you're trying to say. If you lower the amount of area qualifiers to a state slot from 5 to 4 it increases the amount of bands who advance to state per area.

For example, Area J has 20 bands (22 but it wouldn't matter) with 4 bands advancing to state because 20 bands divided by 5 (for every 5 area qualifiers) is 4, its a 5:1 ratio for area:state, this proposal lowers that ratio to 4:1 which would add a slot at area J since 20/4 is 5

The issue with this pretty exclusively is with logistics, since we would add about 7-9 slots (area I and D skew this heavily), there should reasonably only be 45 slots at most and we would be looking at 48 slots at MINIMUM. The only way I could think to balance this rule is maybe combining it with the medalist rule that got proposed and had no action (not dead, just no action).

Maybe the rule could look like this: For each area with a state medalist the ratio of every area qualifier to state qualifier in these respective areas gets lowered from 5:1->4:1.  and for every additional medalist to an area another slot is added. (not certain about this one)

Little too technical for UIL, but this could be the best solution for this medalist rule that accounts for district monopolies while not giving a bunch of areas free slots they didn't need (area C, F, A, and G for example since they don't suffer the same issues as H, J, and D)

 

If you want to keep it as a ratio, you could do something where if one band from that area gets a medal, you could change the state qualifier ratio from 5:1 to 4:1 for that area (even if 2 or 3 medalists are from the same area that area will only have a ratio of 4:1 but could add 1 or 2 extra spots if more that one finalist is in the same area to show off more competitive areas). This makes it so there are maybe 3-7 more state spots which I think is fair.

[TrenBS]

3 minutes ago, flutelolbro said:

If you want to keep it as a ratio, you could do something where if one band from that area gets a medal, you could change the state qualifier ratio from 5:1 to 4:1 for that area (even if 2 or 3 medalists are from the same area that area will only have a ratio of 4:1). This makes it so there are maybe 3-5 more state spots which I think is fair.

Thats... What I said?😅 Is that not specifically what I said in bold? the underlined portion in the original proposal is  extra and not completely necessary but I specifically said "for each area with a state medalist the ratio of every area qualifier to state qualifier in these respective areas gets lowered from 5:1->4:1"

[oddlynormal]

Nothing should change in terms of advancement.  UIL MUST stay 5 for 1 at Area.  We do not need to make things harder.  

I fear with bands moving up to 6A in larger 5A areas dumb decisions may get made.  Back in 2019 UIL split Houston up and royally messed over a few groups in 5A across the city.  They recombined back to larger areas and things have been great since.  If anything all 5A/6A areas need to still be a minimum of 20-25 potential bands when possible.  

Bands that get first divisions will continue to do so.  However, messing with Area allotment can really hurt.  The process is already nuts in Texas.  I love it, but we need to keep our Areas on the larger side ESPECIALLY in 5A.