The overview
Called Harmony Science Academy-Leander, the school is set to open for the 2025-26 school year. The school will accept students from pre-K through sixth grade during its first year. A new grade will be added each year, and an additional school building will be built to serve students through 12th grade, according to a May 9 HPS press release.
Once fully built out in the 2027-28 school year, the 26-acre campus located at 3250 Hero Way, Leander, will include two buildings, a soccer field and a football field.
“This campus will be home to many scholars, who will graduate from Harmony and lead their communities as some of the best and brightest,” HPS-CTX Superintendent Mustafa Altindag said.
With more than 60 campuses across the state, HPS’s curriculum specializes in science, technology engineering and math—or STEM—education, according to the release.
“I’m so thrilled that we are here today to celebrate the opening of Harmony because those students could potentially be working at places like Samsung in the next 10-20 years,” state Rep. Caroline Harris Davila, R-Round Rock, said at the groundbreaking. “I'm really grateful for all of you being here and helping us look forward that far and helping us build up this community to be an even better place for people to come and set their businesses up.”
Also of note
HPS’s new Leander campus will open the same year as the system’s first Georgetown campus, which broke ground in late March.
These new schools come as both Leander ISD and Georgetown ISD are seeing an increase in the number of students transferring out of the district—the majority of whom are enrolling in charter schools, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
In the 2023-24 school year, 3,216 students transferred out of LISD, with nearly 2,700 moving to charter schools. Of those students, 681 enrolled in Harmony Public Schools, which has campuses in far Northwest Austin.
“I'm a firm supporter of public education, and the fact that we are going to have even more options available to our students and to our families in Leander is hugely important,” Leander City Council member Na’Cole Thompson said in an interview with Community Impact. “We've been one of the fastest-growing cities for a long time, and because people keep moving here, they are looking for different alternatives for education for their children.”
