A New Campus Takes Shape on Old Glendenning
Drive past the Cross Creek neighborhood on Old Glendenning Road these days and the building is impossible to miss. Steel, glass, and brick spread across a footprint that dwarfs anything Celina ISD has built at the middle-school level before. Workers are still putting finishing touches on the interior, but the structure itself tells you exactly what kind of statement the district intends to make when students arrive on August 12.
That date — the first day of the 2026–27 school year for Celina ISD — is also the first day the new middle school opens its doors to kids.
By the Numbers
At 212,002 square feet, the campus at 1305 Old Glendenning is the largest middle school the district has constructed. To put that in perspective, a standard American football field, end zones included, runs about 57,600 square feet. This building covers roughly three and a half of those.
The scale is intentional. Celina has been one of the fastest-growing communities in the entire country for several years running, and the student population has climbed accordingly. A building designed for the community Celina is becoming — not just the one it was a decade ago — had to be large enough to absorb real enrollment pressure from day one.
What Students Will Find Inside
The square footage alone does not tell the whole story. The campus was designed around three distinct program areas: modern academic learning spaces, advanced fine arts facilities, and state-of-the-art athletics areas.
The fine arts component is worth noting specifically. Middle school is the window when many students decide whether music, theater, or visual art will be a serious part of their lives. A program housed in purpose-built spaces — proper acoustics, dedicated rehearsal rooms, real stage infrastructure — sends a different message than one tucked into a converted gym. Celina ISD made a deliberate choice to build that environment from the ground up.
The athletics areas reflect the same philosophy. Celina High School’s Bobcats are stepping into Class 5A competition this fall, a milestone that reflects how much the community has grown. That culture starts before high school, and the facilities in the new middle school are built to develop it.
A Location That Connects to the Broader District Build-Out
The site near Cross Creek places the campus in a part of Celina that has seen significant residential growth over the past several years. Families who moved into that corridor specifically because of the school district’s reputation now have a middle school within reasonable distance of their neighborhoods.
The location also fits into a larger construction picture across the district. Celina ISD is simultaneously opening Vasquez Elementary School — a 101,271-square-foot, two-story campus in the Parks of Wilson Creek neighborhood — for the same school year. Beyond that, three additional elementary schools are under construction as part of the district’s $2.3 billion bond program, including a campus in the Uptown neighborhood north of downtown with a guaranteed maximum price of $52.07 million, and a second in the Green Meadows community priced at $50.75 million.
Put it all together and Celina ISD is adding well over 500,000 square feet of educational space in a compressed span of time — a construction pace that reflects just how quickly this city has grown and how seriously local voters have chosen to invest in the schools driving that growth.
What It Means for Current Families
For parents who have children entering the middle school grades this fall, the practical reality is straightforward: their kids will spend their formative years in a building that was designed with current educational standards in mind, not retrofitted to meet them. That matters for daily instruction, for performing arts participation, and for after-school athletics.
For families who moved to Celina specifically because of the school district — and there are many who made that calculation explicitly — the opening of the Old Glendenning campus is a confirmation that the district is building infrastructure to match its reputation.
And for anyone who has watched this city grow from a quiet Collin County town into one of the most talked-about communities in North Texas, the building going up near Cross Creek is one more concrete marker of that transformation.
The first bell rings August 12.
