Frisco ISD will create a priority-based budget committee for the upcoming school year to look at the future of FISD facilities.

During Monday’s school board meeting, Deputy Superintendent of Business Services Todd Fouche said the committee, which will be made up of community members, is being created to determine if the community is still interested in the small-schools model.

“We say all the time that people move here for the small-schools model, and 25 years ago [that may have been what we wanted], but we also thought at the time that there would be less than 50,000 students and eight high schools,” Fouche said. “This year we’ll have close to 58,000 students this fall, and what we need to find out if this is what the community still wants, and we need to look at our building program for what we are right now and not what we were 25 years ago.”

The committee will consist of community members only, and those who served on the committee last year will be guaranteed spots if they want them. The board of trustees will appoint 15 applicants in addition to the guaranteed spots; the remaining spots will be filled using an application process.

The district is looking to fill 36-50 spots in the committee. Fouche said the district will make applications available online by Wednesday.

Board Vice President Chad Rudy said this is a big objective this year that could potentially put a footprint on where FISD will go from here.

“This is a strategic plan for what our facilities will look like in the future, so this is a pretty exciting opportunity and hopefully we’ll have [many] people interested in this position,” Rudy said.