Quick Answer: Pflugerville Independent School District (PISD) serves more than 28,000 students across Pflugerville, northeast Austin (Travis County), and surrounding areas. The district operates four comprehensive high schools, Pflugerville HS, Hendrickson HS, Weiss HS, and John B. Connally HS, and is home to one of the Austin metro's few International Baccalaureate Diploma Programmes. Homes within PISD boundaries typically range from $280,000 to $480,000. Critically, a large portion of northeast Austin, including homes with Austin addresses, falls within PISD, not Austin ISD. This guide covers every aspect of the district for 2026 relocating families.
District Overview: PISD in 2026
Pflugerville Independent School District occupies a unique position in the Austin metro's educational landscape. It is simultaneously a suburban Pflugerville district, a northeast Austin district, and a regional institution serving one of the most culturally diverse student populations in Central Texas. With more than 28,000 students, PISD is one of the larger districts in the region, and one of the most frequently misunderstood, particularly by buyers unfamiliar with the boundary dynamics of northeast Austin.
The district's official boundary extends well into Travis County, capturing neighborhoods that carry Austin mailing addresses. This creates a common misconception: buyers assume an Austin-addressed home in northeast Austin feeds into Austin ISD. In reality, a large portion of northeast Austin, particularly zip codes 78660, 78754, 78724, and portions of 78725, falls squarely within PISD. This matters enormously for families who are comparing school districts while shopping for homes.
The Four PISD High Schools: A Complete Breakdown
Understanding the differences between PISD's four comprehensive high schools is essential for families with high schoolers or for those planning ahead. Each campus has a distinct identity, program mix, and geographic service area.
Pflugerville High School
Pflugerville High School is the district's flagship campus and its most academically distinguished. The Panthers are home to PISD's International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, the crown jewel of the district's academic offerings. The IB Diploma Programme at Pflugerville HS is one of only a handful of programmes in the Austin metropolitan area, recognized internationally as one of the most rigorous pre-university curricula available.
The IB programme is open to students across the district through a competitive application process, meaning families in Hendrickson, Weiss, or Connally zones can apply for their student to attend Pflugerville HS through the IB pathway. This makes the campus especially attractive to high-achieving students and families with academic ambitions oriented toward selective colleges and universities.
Beyond IB, Pflugerville HS offers a robust Advanced Placement (AP) course menu and participates in dual credit agreements with Austin Community College. The campus's location in the heart of Pflugerville gives it strong community ties and a well-established alumni base that contributes to an active booster culture.
Hendrickson High School
Hendrickson High School, home of the Hawks, serves the western and northwestern portions of the PISD footprint, including a significant share of northeast Austin's residential communities. The campus is widely regarded as PISD's strongest athletic program and has consistently produced UIL 6A playoff teams across football, basketball, and track and field.
Hendrickson is also distinguished by its performing arts program. The campus's fine arts offerings, including award-winning orchestra, theater, and visual arts programs, rival those of much larger independent school districts. Families prioritizing a well-rounded campus with both athletic excellence and strong arts programming often find Hendrickson a compelling destination within PISD.
The campus feeds from several northeast Austin communities that carry Austin addresses, including portions of the Walnut Creek, North Lamar, and I-35 NE corridor neighborhoods. This is one reason buyers in that area frequently assume they are in Austin ISD when in fact their home feeds into Hendrickson.
Weiss High School
Weiss High School is the district's newest comprehensive campus and serves the district's fastest-growing edges. The Wolves draw from newer residential developments in the northeast and eastern portions of the PISD footprint, including the Stone Hill community and adjacent master-planned subdivisions. As a newer campus, Weiss benefits from modern facilities, updated lab spaces, and fresh classroom technology infrastructure.
The campus houses one of PISD's primary STEM academy tracks, building on the district's investment in project-based learning and computer science pathways. Weiss is also developing its dual language program capacity, reflecting the demographic profile of the communities it serves. Athletically, Weiss is building its UIL profile rapidly, the expectation is that within another few years, the campus will be competitive across major team sports.
John B. Connally High School
John B. Connally High School serves the district's northeast Austin population most directly, communities in and around the Pflugerville-Austin boundary near Highway 290 and Rundberg Lane. The Cougars have a strong athletics tradition and a growing CTE program with pathways in health science, automotive technology, and business.
Connally's student population reflects the profound diversity of northeast Austin, a mix of long-established Austin families, recent immigrant communities, and working-class households who have called this part of Travis County home for generations. This diversity is not a liability; it is one of the most authentic and valuable educational experiences a student can have, preparing them for careers and communities in an increasingly interconnected world.
Elementary and Middle School Highlights
PISD operates multiple elementary schools across its geographic footprint. Below are some of the campuses most relevant to buyers in 2026's highest-demand areas.
Stone Hill Elementary School
Serving the Stone Hill master-planned community and surrounding neighborhoods, Stone Hill ES is one of PISD's more sought-after elementary assignments. The campus benefits from a newer facility and strong parental engagement from the Stone Hill community's demographic profile, a mix of tech-industry families, Samsung employees, and first-time homebuyers who tend to prioritize school involvement and enrichment activities.
Park Crest Middle School
Park Crest MS serves a broad swath of central PISD and feeds primarily into Pflugerville HS and Hendrickson HS. The campus participates in Project Lead the Way (PLTW) engineering and computer science courses at the middle school level, building the pipeline for high school STEM and IB pathways. The school's demographic mix is one of the most diverse in the district, reflecting PISD's overall character.
Kelly Lane Middle School
Kelly Lane MS serves northern PISD communities and feeds into Weiss and Connally HS. The campus has been investing in its fine arts programming in recent years, with an expanding orchestra program and visual arts curriculum. Middle school enrollment trends suggest Kelly Lane will continue growing as residential development in the northern PISD footprint accelerates.
PISD's Diversity: One of Austin Metro's Most Inclusive Districts
Pflugerville ISD is consistently cited as one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse school districts in the Austin metro area. The student body reflects the full spectrum of northeast Austin's communities, Hispanic and Latino families, African American families, South Asian and East Asian families, and communities from across sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, many of whom have been drawn to Austin by the technology and manufacturing sector.
This diversity is not incidental; it is structural. The communities PISD serves were shaped by Austin's housing economics over the past four decades, with northeast Austin and Pflugerville absorbing a large share of the working-class and middle-income families who were priced out of Austin's westside neighborhoods. The result is a school district that, at its best, offers young people exposure to a breadth of human experience that more homogeneous suburban districts simply cannot match.
For families relocating from major metros like Seattle, San Jose, New York, or Chicago, many of whom arrive in Austin as Samsung, Tesla, or tech sector employees, PISD's diversity is often seen as an asset rather than a concern. The research on diverse school environments and their long-term benefits for students is robust and worth reviewing before making any assumptions.
The International Baccalaureate Programme at Pflugerville HS
The IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) at Pflugerville High School is one of the district's most important differentiators and deserves detailed treatment here. The IB Diploma Programme is a two-year pre-university curriculum designed for students ages 16 to 19. It is internationally recognized, with transcripts accepted by universities across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, and beyond.
The programme requires students to complete coursework in six subject groups, language and literature, language acquisition, individuals and societies, sciences, mathematics, and the arts, along with the IB Core: Theory of Knowledge (TOK), the Extended Essay (a 4,000-word independent research paper), and Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS). Students who meet all requirements earn the IB Diploma, recognized globally as a mark of academic achievement.
The programme at Pflugerville HS accepts applications from students district-wide, meaning a family residing in the Weiss or Connally attendance zone can apply for their child to attend through the IB pathway. Application typically opens in the spring of a student's eighth grade year, with a selective admission process that considers academic record and teacher recommendations. Families should contact PISD's Advanced Academic Services office well in advance to understand the current application timeline.
AP (Advanced Placement) courses are individual college-level classes offered at most PISD high schools. The IB Diploma Programme is a comprehensive two-year curriculum requiring a holistic set of academic, research, and service requirements. Both earn college credit if minimum scores are achieved, but the IB Diploma carries additional weight in selective college admissions as it signals depth of preparation rather than course-shopping. PISD offers both: IB at Pflugerville HS, and AP courses at all four high schools.
Dual Language Programs Across PISD
Pflugerville ISD operates dual language programs that reflect the district's demographic reality. The programs offer instruction in both English and Spanish, serving both native Spanish speakers and English-dominant students who want bilingual education. PISD's dual language campuses follow a structured immersion model that progresses from early elementary through middle school, building genuine fluency in both languages by the time students enter high school.
Enrollment in dual language programs is through an application process; not every campus offers the program, and slots are allocated by grade-level capacity. Families interested in dual language should contact PISD's Multilingual Education department during the preceding spring to understand application deadlines for the following school year.
STEM Academies and CTE Pathways
PISD has invested significantly in STEM education across its campuses, recognizing the district's proximity to major technology employers including Samsung Austin Semiconductor (whose massive plant sits within the PISD footprint in north Austin), Apple's Austin campus, and numerous tech-sector employers in the Domain and northeast Austin corridors.
At the elementary level, select PISD campuses participate in Project Lead the Way (PLTW), introducing engineering and computer science thinking to students as young as kindergarten. At the middle school level, PLTW pathways in engineering, computer science, and biomedical science are available at several campuses. At the high school level, CTE pathways span computer science, health science, manufacturing technology, automotive, business, and digital design, with Weiss HS housing the district's most concentrated STEM academy program.
Samsung Austin Semiconductor and the PISD Connection
One of the most consequential facts about PISD's geography for relocating families is the Samsung Austin Semiconductor plant in north Austin, one of the largest semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the United States. The plant sits within or immediately adjacent to the PISD footprint, and a significant share of Samsung's workforce, including engineers, technicians, and senior managers relocated from South Korea, New York, California, and internationally, have made PISD communities their primary residential destination.
This Samsung community connection has had a measurable effect on PISD. Samsung employees tend to be highly engaged educational advocates. Their presence in PISD neighborhoods has contributed to a culture of parental involvement, strong STEM interest, and growing cultural diversity that enriches the district's educational environment. For Korean-American families specifically, PISD's northeast Austin communities offer cultural resources, Korean-language churches, grocery options, and community networks that make the transition to Austin significantly smoother.
From a real estate perspective, proximity to the Samsung plant, clustered around the Pflugerville-Austin border near Highway 290 and FM 1325, creates its own micromarket. Homes within a reasonable commute of the plant, particularly in the Stone Hill, Carmel, and Commons at Rowe Lane communities, trade at a consistent premium within the broader PISD price range.
The Northeast Austin / PISD Boundary: What Every Buyer Must Know
This section addresses what I consider the single most important practical fact for any buyer evaluating homes in northeast Austin and Pflugerville in 2026: a very large portion of northeast Austin, including homes with 78660, 78754, and portions of 78724 and 78725 zip codes, feeds into Pflugerville ISD, not Austin ISD.
The boundary between PISD and Austin ISD runs through northeast Travis County in a non-intuitive way. Several neighborhoods that physically appear to be contiguous Austin neighborhoods are split by the district boundary, with one side feeding into AISD and the adjacent block or subdivision feeding into PISD. This is a boundary reality that surprises a significant percentage of northeast Austin buyers, including those working with agents who are less familiar with this corridor.
Before making an offer on any home in this corridor, verify the school district assignment using two independent methods: PISD's online boundary tool at pfisd.net and Travis CAD's property detail at traviscad.org. The Travis CAD record will list the school district associated with the parcel. If there is any discrepancy between the two, contact PISD's planning department directly before proceeding.
78660 (Pflugerville), 78754 (northeast Austin near Cameron Road/Howard Lane), portions of 78724 and 78725, all frequently PISD, not AISD. Homes with Austin addresses in these zip codes are widely assumed to be Austin ISD by buyers who have not done the boundary research. Do not assume. Always verify.
Home Prices Within PISD: The 2026 Value Case
The $280,000 to $480,000 price range characterizing most PISD communities reflects one of the best value propositions in the Austin metro for families who are willing to consider the northeast Austin and Pflugerville geographic corridor. Let's break down the submarkets.
Pflugerville proper: Master-planned communities like Carmel, Falcon Pointe, and Commons at Rowe Lane offer new and near-new construction in the mid-$300,000s to upper $400,000s. These neighborhoods typically offer HOA amenities, pools, trails, recreational centers, that compare favorably with much pricier communities in the Austin core.
Stone Hill area: One of PISD's newer and most active growth corridors, Stone Hill community homes trade in the $340,000 to $470,000 range for new construction product. Samsung employee demand provides a consistent floor to prices in this submarket.
Northeast Austin (PISD-zoned): Resale homes in northeast Austin neighborhoods within the PISD boundary often trade at a modest discount to comparable properties on the Austin ISD side of the line, typically $15,000 to $40,000 less for similar square footage and lot size. For buyers who do their research and are comfortable with PISD, this differential represents genuine opportunity, particularly given access to the IB programme.
| Factor | Pflugerville ISD | Round Rock ISD |
|---|---|---|
| Enrollment | 28,000+ | ~50,000 |
| Home Price Range | $280K – $480K | $350K – $600K+ |
| IB Programme | Yes (Pflugerville HS) | Yes (multiple campuses) |
| Diversity | Very high | Moderate-high |
| Dual Language | Yes | Yes |
| State Accountability | Mixed-to-good | Consistently high |
| New Construction | Active | Competitive / limited |
| Samsung Proximity | Direct (plant in PISD) | Adjacent (N. Austin) |
| Austin Core Commute | 25–45 min | 30–55 min |
For budget-conscious families who want IB access, cultural diversity, and reasonable commute times to the Austin tech corridor, PISD can match or beat neighboring districts at a lower price point. Round Rock ISD's premium is real, but so is PISD's value proposition, particularly for families who engage deeply with what the district actually offers.
Fine Arts: PISD's Underrated Strength
Hendrickson High School's fine arts program is frequently cited as one of the stronger performing arts programs in the Austin metro for a district of PISD's profile. The orchestra program has produced UIL Sweepstakes winners, and the theater program draws competitive entries at regional and state levels. Visual arts instruction at multiple PISD campuses has produced students who go on to art school, architecture programs, and design careers.
For families where fine arts engagement is a priority alongside academics, PISD, and Hendrickson HS in particular, deserves consideration. This is a dimension of the district that is frequently overlooked in the standard metrics-and-ratings framework that dominates online school research.
Athletics in PISD: Competitive at the 6A Level
All four PISD high schools compete in UIL Class 6A, the highest classification in Texas athletics. This means PISD student-athletes compete at the top tier of the state's high school sports ecosystem, a significant consideration for families with students who have collegiate athletic ambitions.
Hendrickson HS has been the most consistently successful PISD campus in UIL competition, with playoff appearances in football and regional success in basketball and track. Pflugerville HS's football program carries a strong community following, and Connally HS's athletics have produced scholarship athletes in recent years. Weiss HS, as the newest campus, is building its program from a younger baseline but has shown competitive results rapidly given its strong feeder community.
Key Resources for PISD Research
- pfisd.net, Official PISD website; boundary lookup, campus information, program details
- tea.texas.gov, Texas Education Agency; state accountability ratings and campus report cards
- traviscad.org, Travis CAD; property tax assessments, school district verification by parcel
- greatschools.org, Independent campus ratings and parent reviews
- recenter.tamu.edu, Texas A&M Real Estate Center; market statistics for Pflugerville and northeast Austin submarkets
Frequently Asked Questions About Pflugerville ISD
What cities does Pflugerville ISD serve?
Pflugerville ISD serves the city of Pflugerville, large portions of northeast Austin within Travis County, and portions of eastern Travis County. Many homebuyers are surprised to learn that significant swaths of northeast Austin, including areas with Austin addresses, fall within PISD, not Austin ISD. Always verify your specific address at pfisd.net or traviscad.org before purchasing.
How many students are enrolled in Pflugerville ISD?
As of 2026, Pflugerville ISD enrolls more than 28,000 students across its campuses, making it one of the largest school districts in the Austin metropolitan area. The district serves a highly diverse student population and operates four comprehensive high schools: Pflugerville HS, Hendrickson HS, Weiss HS, and John B. Connally HS.
Does Pflugerville ISD have an International Baccalaureate program?
Yes. Pflugerville High School hosts the district's International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme, one of only a limited number of IB programmes in the Austin metro region. The IB programme is open to students across the district through an application process and offers a globally recognized rigorous curriculum for high-achieving students. Applications are typically accepted in the spring of a student's eighth grade year.
How do home prices compare inside Pflugerville ISD boundaries?
Homes within Pflugerville ISD boundaries typically range from approximately $280,000 to $480,000, representing excellent value relative to Austin ISD properties just miles to the west and south. Master-planned communities like Stone Hill, Falcon Pointe, and Carmel in Pflugerville price in the mid-$300s to upper $400s for new construction. Northeast Austin homes within PISD boundaries often trade at a modest discount compared to AISD-zoned homes of similar size in the same corridor.
How does Pflugerville ISD compare to Round Rock ISD?
Round Rock ISD is larger, more established, and consistently earns high state accountability ratings. RRISD generally commands a home price premium of $30,000 to $75,000 over comparable PISD properties. However, PISD distinguishes itself through the IB programme at Pflugerville HS, a highly diverse student population that prepares students for global environments, strong fine arts programs at Hendrickson HS, and competitive home prices. For families where price-per-square-foot and diversity are priorities, PISD is often the stronger fit.