(469) 302-7830·2550 Wilmeth Road, McKinney, TX 75071 A campus of McKinney Independent School District
Serenity High Recovery High School · McKinney, Texas
Serenity High graduates on stage with faculty during the commencement ceremony

Est. 1999 · A campus of McKinney ISD

Where your student gets to be a student again.

Serenity High is a small public high school in McKinney. Students take real classes, earn a fully accredited Texas diploma, sit in small rooms with teachers who know their names, and graduate. Since 1999 we have helped students coming home from treatment stay sober and earn that diploma at the same time. More than 300 have graduated from here.

See if your student qualifies Look at the academics

1999

Serving Collin County students for more than twenty-five years

10:1

Students to teachers — small enough that nobody gets lost

9–12

Grades served, with rolling enrollment including mid-semester

300+

Graduates since the school opened — the oldest recovery high school in Texas

Start here

Where are you right now?

Most families arrive somewhere in the middle of this. Pick the one that sounds like you.

My teen is in treatment

Credits, absences, and what to ask the treatment team before discharge — while you still have time to ask it.

What to handle now →

My teen is coming home

School is the next decision, and it is the one most likely to undo the work treatment just did. An honest look at all three options.

Read about the options →

We are thinking about homeschooling

What it genuinely solves, what it quietly costs, and when a recovery school is the better fit.

Compare the two →

Working in a school or a treatment program?

Referral information and a one-page summary — for counsellors, therapists, and treatment professionals.

DAEP and recovery: two different questions — for district administrators and DAEP coordinators.

What this is

A high school. Not a program, not a placement, not a facility.

Your family has probably spent the last year or two inside a world of intake calls, treatment plans, and progress reviews. This is not more of that. This is fourth period, a locker, a research paper due Thursday, and a diploma with the state seal on it.

Serenity High is a small public high school inside McKinney ISD, accredited by the Texas Education Agency. Students take the courses Texas requires, sit the same end-of-course exams as every other public school student in the state, take college classes through Collin College if they are ready, and walk at graduation.

What is different is the scale and the company. Classes run around ten students to a teacher, so a kid who missed a semester can catch up without repeating a year, and a kid who is quietly struggling on Tuesday gets asked about it on Tuesday. And every student here is in recovery, which means nobody has to spend the school day managing a secret.

That last part matters more than any single feature of the school. Students here are not the kid with the reputation. They are just students.

More about the school →

What students get

Four things, and the fourth one is what makes the first three possible.

Plenty of schools do one or two of these well. A student in recovery needs all four in the same building, on the same day.

A teacher working through a problem beside a student at a desk

Real coursework

The full Texas curriculum — English, math, science, social studies, electives — plus dual credit through Collin College. A student who lost a semester can recover those credits without losing a year.

Academics & curriculum →
A teenager reading at a desk between library shelves

Teachers who know them

Ten students to a teacher. Work gets checked as it is written, questions get answered the same period, and an adult notices the difference between a bad day and a bad week.

Meet the team →
Students walking together toward a school building, seen from behind

Somewhere to belong

A lunch table, service projects, trips, milestones worth marking, and a graduation your family sits through. Friendships form here that outlast the diploma.

Student life →
A counselor taking notes while listening to a young person

Support inside the day

Counseling, groups, and meetings happen during school hours, not stacked onto an already exhausting evening. It is part of the schedule, the way a study hall is.

How support works →

Who Serenity is for

A student who is coming out of treatment, wants to stay sober, and can say so in their own words.

Not a student whose parents want them sober. The desire has to be theirs, even if it is new and even if it is shaky.

If your teen is not there yet, call us anyway. We will help you find the right next step, and the door stays open when they are ready. Read the full answer →

A staff member listening and taking notes with a young person
Replace with a photograph of Allie Long, or of Allie with students at graduation

A note from our campus

You can just call and ask.

Most of the families who reach us are exhausted. They have been through something hard and they are not sure what comes next. Before anything else, I want you to know you can just call and ask. It is a conversation, not an application, and if we are not the right place for your teen I will tell you that and help you find what is.

Allie Long
Assistant Principal, Serenity High
(469) 302-7830 · allong@mckinneyisd.net

Students walking and talking in a sunlit school hallway

A day here

It looks like school, because it is school.

Advisory in the morning. First period. A block for catching up on the credits that got interrupted. Lunch. A group session or a campus meeting. Afternoon classes or a Collin College course. Activities, then the bell.

Parents sometimes expect something more clinical — a schedule built around treatment with a little schoolwork attached. It is the other way round. The day is a school day. The support is woven through it so a student does not have to choose between the two.

  • 10:1 student to teacher
  • Self-paced coursework
  • Recovery support daily
  • Frequent random testing

A chemical-free campus with a calming centre, weekly community service, and group activities. Attached to McKinney North High School but entirely separate from its student body. Early graduation is possible. Relapse is handled individually — a student is not expelled for having a substance use disorder.

What a week looks like Academics

The schedule

Small enough that nobody disappears.

A student at a 2,500-person high school can go three days without a single adult asking a real question. That is not possible here, and it is the entire point of keeping the campus this size.

The schedule below is a representative day. Exact bell times and course blocks are set each year against the McKinney ISD calendar.

“The one-on-one teaching and the little meetings we would do as a group” were what made the difference, one Serenity graduate told The Dallas Morning News. Reported in The Dallas Morning News, July 2023
8:15 AMAdvisoryA short start with the same adult every morning — what today holds, what is due, what you need.
8:40 AMFirst blockEnglish, math, science, or social studies, in a room of single-digit size.
10:20 AMCredit labTargeted work on the specific credits that got interrupted, with a teacher at the elbow.
11:45 AMLunchOn campus, with the people they will still be texting in five years.
12:30 PMGroupA facilitated session or a campus meeting — part of the timetable, like any other block.
1:30 PMSecond block or dual creditIncluding Collin College coursework for students carrying it.
3:00 PMActivities & life skillsService projects, employment readiness, college applications, the practical stuff.
3:45 PMDismissalWith a note home about how the day actually went — the good and the hard.

After the diploma

Students leave here with somewhere to go next.

The diploma is the point, but it is not the finish line. Staff plan the year after graduation as deliberately as the years before it.

College, with a head start

Dual-credit hours through Collin College transfer with the student. Several graduates continue at Collin or move on to four-year universities, and staff work through applications and financial aid with them.

Work and trade paths

Certificate programs, apprenticeships, and employment. A local job where an employer knows the situation and is willing to mentor is worth more than most electives.

A plan for the first year out

A campus with no sober community is a known risk point for a young adult. Where the meetings are, who the people are, and what the first hard week looks like get worked out before graduation, not after.

A group that stays

Graduates stay connected to the students behind them. That is not sentiment — it is the accountability that keeps working once the timetable stops.

Enrollment

Four steps from first phone call to first day.

You do not need paperwork in hand to start the conversation. You need a phone and about fifteen minutes.

  1. Call and talk it through

    A conversation, not an application. We will tell you honestly whether Serenity High is the right fit for your student right now, and what the alternatives in Collin County look like if it is not.

  2. Visit, with your student

    They see the classroom, meet the teachers, and say in their own words what they want out of this. Enrolling is a commitment a student has to make themselves — a parent cannot make it for them.

  3. Transcript and transfer

    We coordinate with your home campus and district, pull the transcript, and map exactly which credits are banked, which are partial, and what the realistic graduation date is.

  4. Start, with a plan already written

    A student begins with a graduation plan, a support plan, and a named adult responsible for both. Nobody starts here as a stranger.

Who can attend

Students come from across Collin County.

Serenity High is operated by McKinney ISD and accepts qualifying students from partner districts across the county. Placement is decided case by case and the details vary by district, so if yours is not listed — or you are not sure your student qualifies — call and ask.

  • McKinney ISD
  • Allen ISD
  • Anna ISD
  • Blue Ridge ISD
  • Celina ISD
  • Community ISD
  • Frisco ISD
  • Lewisville ISD
  • Melissa ISD
  • Pilot Point ISD
  • Plano ISD
  • Prosper ISD
  • Tioga ISD
  • Wylie ISD

A word about eligibility

Serenity High is not open enrollment. Students have to qualify, and placement runs through an approved district transfer and a decision made case by case — not a registration form you fill out and submit.

That sounds like a hurdle and it is, but it exists for a reason: this campus only works when everyone in the room is genuinely in recovery. The first phone call is where you find out where your student stands.

Districts and communities we serve

Life at Serenity

Commencement, on our own campus.

Every one of these students came back from treatment and finished. More than three hundred have done it since 1999.

Five Serenity High graduates in purple caps and gowns at commencement
Serenity High graduates on stage with faculty during the commencement ceremony
Serenity High graduates with campus staff after the ceremony

Photographs supplied by Serenity High · McKinney ISD.

Current students & families

The links our families use most

District links point at the McKinney ISD campus page until the direct URLs are supplied.

Five Serenity High graduates in purple caps and gowns at commencement

Next step

Your student can finish high school and still be a kid about it.

Every year we talk with families who waited because they were not sure they qualified. There is no wrong time to call.

Start enrollment Schedule a visit