Coppell Chronicle Vol. 2, No. 15

Stoplight Planned Near Sports Garden • Fine Arts Goals Get Fine Tuned • Block’n Roll Trailer Makes the Rounds • A Story From the Campaign Trail

For the first time in this little publication’s history, one of the articles was written by someone other than yours truly. I was unable to attend Thursday’s community meeting regarding DART’s Silver Line, so I’m going to turn things over to someone who was there — my proofreader, my better half, and the mother of my children, Jessica Koller.

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Stoplight Planned Near Sports Garden

Fellow readers of the Coppell Chronicle, I feel fortunate to have been asked by Dan to fill in for him while he attended his college reunion this weekend. Just know how seriously I took my assignment:

Jessica Koller cosplaying as Dan Koller

If your daily commute requires travel along the stretch of East Belt Line Road between MacArthur Boulevard and the Bush Turnpike, several minutes could be added to your drive. As work on DART’s Silver Line progresses, traffic on East Belt Line will begin to encounter dirt-hauling trucks entering and exiting the roadway by Sports Garden DFW. A new signal is set to be installed at Ledbetter Road, where now there are only yellow blinking lights in both directions. But no need to fret just yet. The changeover to red and green lights isn’t scheduled to take place until sometime in 2023.

The community engagement offered by Archer Western Herzog — the contractor building the Silver Line — blew me away! Meetups hosted in local coffee shops allow anybody to listen to the builder’s construction presentation and get answers to burning questions. Quiet zones? Sound barrier walls? Photos of intersections? Renderings of new stations? Upcoming work schedules? The specificity and clarity from such a large organization undertaking this massive project in our backyard was a breath of fresh air. If someone is unable to attend in person, as I and about 20 others did on Thursday at George Coffee + Provisions, there is a virtual option as well as city-specific updates on the contractor’s website. Here is Coppell’s page along with a fact sheet for residents of Coppell and Dallas, produced by DART.

As I gathered my notepad, Lois Lane glasses, and a second serving of fruit, I shared my sincere appreciation for the informative morning with Thelma Johnson, who had checked guests in at the door. One might guess they hear more complaints than compliments about this complicated project across multiple cities. So she was genuinely taken aback that positive words were coming her way.

I, too, look forward to positive feedback, so be gentle, dear readers. And enjoy the ride.

Back to you, Dan.

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Fine Arts Goals Get Fine Tuned

Thanks, dear! Folks, how about a round of applause for Mrs. Koller?

Speaking of applause, if you think of the eventual establishment of a Coppell ISD orchestra program as a concert, then consider what you’re about to read as the overture.

Gerry Miller, the district’s Coordinator of Fine Arts, recently briefed the Board of Trustees on four goals for his field of expertise: starting an orchestra program, introducing middle school dance classes, building a performing arts center, and creating more rehearsal spaces.

“These are the four areas, when we look at feedback across the board, where our parents — where our community — seem to be focused, ” Miller said during the board’s May 16 workshop.

After doing a deep dive into data provided by other districts, Miller said introducing orchestra classes one grade at a time would be more cost-effective than launching them in sixth through 12th grades simultaneously. He said programs that chose the all-at-once approach took longer to get off the ground in terms of quantity and quality.

“The perception of the younger kids was that the older kids weren’t very good because they had not been through the training yet, whereas if they started with the sixth grade, it built level upon level, so the quality grew with the kids,” Miller said.

Trustee Tracy Fisher pushed back on that a bit, suggesting that Coppell ISD has some high schoolers who play stringed instruments competitively. But Miller said he conducted a survey a few years ago and found only eight such students. He also said a club at Coppell High School for string musicians never had more than 12 students at a meeting. Ideally, Miller said, a competitive Class 6A orchestra would have 40 to 50 players.

“I want it the Coppell way,” Miller said. “Not to be snooty about it, but I want it done to the absolute highest level, not where we’re throwing it out there, and then they’re starting and stumbling.”

One barrier to starting an orchestra program in the sixth grade is the lack of rehearsal space at Coppell Middle School North. The brand-new Coppell Middle School West and the recently renovated Coppell Middle School East have such spaces, but at North, “we’d be crowbarring that in there,” Miller said. However, he said there may be room on North’s campus for expansion.

Once an orchestra is established, it will need a place to perform that can be shared with the band, the choir, actors, etc. The auditorium at Coppell High School holds 800 people. Miller said he would love it if CISD had a performance venue that could seat an entire grade at once. Each grade at CHS is in the ballpark of 1,000 students.

“At most of our concert productions — and I’ve seen all of you at concert productions — you see parents standing along the aisles or sitting in the back in chairs that they find and bring in from the cafeteria,” Miller said.

Because of the limited seating, CISD schedules multiple performances of each play or concert to spread out the crowds. But the auditorium isn’t solely used for performances; it’s also a venue for all kinds of ceremonies and assemblies. Miller said it’s booked on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday virtually every week, plus more than 40 Saturdays each year. In fact, he told the trustees that nine clubs or organizations had tried to reserve the auditorium for the day after his presentation.

Before you suggest in the comments that Coppell ISD should use the city’s fairly new Coppell Arts Center, let me point out that its main hall seats only 440. “It’s a beautiful space,” Miller said, “but it’s a little bit cozy.”

Miller said many districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are building large fine arts venues, and he framed it as an extension of the recent boom in new stadiums. This picture from his extensive slide presentation is worth a thousand words:

Here are a few cost estimates from Miller’s presentation:

• New performance venue: $66.5 million

• New rehearsal space for the band program: $9.9 million

• Renovating the band’s existing rehearsal space for a new orchestra program: $4.2 million

• New dance studio with a locker room at CHS: $4.2 million

All of those numbers will be debated and finalized by the yet-to-be-formed committee that will shape the bond package Coppell ISD voters can expect to see on their ballots next May.

Near the end of Miller’s presentation, Trustee Anthony Hill asked how many CISD students participate in the fine arts. Miller said CHS9 had about 1,000 freshmen in the recently concluded semester, and 915 of them registered for a fine arts class.

“Most districts around us would do anything to hit 65 percent, and we’re sitting at 91.5 percent” Miller said. “We’re definitely lighting a fire at the elementary level that’s connecting kids through middle school and into high school.”

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Block’n Roll Trailer Makes the Rounds

In the Nov. 28 edition, I reported that Coppell homeowners associations, neighborhood associations, and community service organizations can reserve the city’s Block’n Roll trailer by visiting CoppellTX.gov/BlockParty or calling 972-393-ROLL. This fee-free trailer includes games such as ladder ball, bean bag toss (aka cornhole), and a giant Jenga set, plus folding tables and chairs, canopies, and coolers.

I hadn’t heard the trailer mentioned by any city officials since then, until I listened to a recent meeting of the Future Oriented Approach to Residential Development Task Force. The task force is working on a survey, and Director of Community Development Mindi Hurley floated the idea of encouraging participation in that survey by reserving the Block’n Roll trailer on National Night Out for the most responsive neighborhood. During that discussion, Hurley said the trailer was booked for every weekend through the end of June.

Within hours of listening to that meeting, I received an invitation to a party at the end of my street on Saturday night that will feature the Block’n Roll trailer. According to the reservation calendar, the Enclaves on the Parkway Homeowners Association had their turn with it this weekend, and the Pecan Hollow Neighborhood Association will host the trailer in two weeks. Shadowridge Estates, Vistas of Coppell, and Northlake Woodlands each had their fun in May.

If you live in one of those ’hoods and have any helpful hints for me and my Hunterwood neighbors in advance of Saturday’s shindig, don’t be shy.

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A Story From the Campaign Trail

As I have done before when travel time cut into my reporting and writing time, I’m going to pad this edition with an anecdote from my time as a candidate.

When I ran for the Coppell of ISD Board of Trustees in 2018, I got invited to a forum at a mosque in Irving. The guest list also featured candidates for the Irving City Council, the Irving ISD Board of Trustees, and the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Board of Trustees. We were introduced to the crowd in that order, with the Coppell ISD candidates going last. The moderator planned to question us in the same order.

As I looked out at the crowd, I recognized only three people: my then-9-year-old son, who was seated directly in front of me; the husband of Lynne Ryan, who was one of my rivals for the seat eventually won by Nichole Bentley; and Carlos Quintanilla, a resident of the Oak Cliff area of Dallas who has unsuccessfully run for Congress multiple times. The rest of the faces were unfamiliar.

So I raised my hand before the moderator could get things going and posed a question of my own: “By a show of hands, how many people in this room are residents of Coppell ISD?” Only my son and my opponent’s husband raised their hands. Because they were, respectively, not eligible and not likely to vote for me, I then made an announcement: “I’m sorry, but there’s nobody here that can vote for me, so there’s no point in participating. So I’m going to leave.”

That’s when Quintanilla stood up, pointed at me, and said, “Sir, we may not live in the community you want to represent, but we have friends and family who do! And if you walk out of here now, we’re going to make sure they know about it!”

This was an unexpected development. As I stared at Quintanilla for what felt like a minute but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, I did some quick mental calculus on how many friends and relatives he might have in Coppell ISD. I then turned to my son and said, “Come on, buddy. Let’s get out of here.”

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Chronicle Crumbs

• As you may recall from last week’s edition, there was a lot of drama when the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees elected their new slate of officers on May 23. Less than 24 hours later, the Coppell City Council unanimously voted to bestow the title of Mayor Pro Tem on Biju Mathew for the next 12 months.

• If your son or daughter is a member of the Class of 2022 and you haven’t found his or her name on one of the signs throughout Coppell, you have until Wednesday to do so. Here’s a list of all the signs’ locations.

• Because I’ve written multiple articles about short-term rentals and our municipal pools, Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithm has served me ads for a company called Swimply that allows pool owners to rent them out by the hour. Last I checked, that site has no listings in Coppell, but there are residential pools available for lease in Valley Ranch, Grapevine, and Lewisville.

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Community Calendar

Coppell Youth Soccer Association: Fall registration is now open for the youth recreation leagues as well as the adult co-ed league.

Coppell ISD Education Foundation Raffle: You have one more week to purchase a raffle ticket. If you click that link, you’ll be able to tell the foundation which of 12 prizes interests you the most.

Locally Sourced: June 13 is the entry deadline for this Coppell Creatives exhibit that will be displayed from June 21 through July 17

City of Coppell Budget Workshops: You’ll get a free scoop of Marble Slab ice cream (seriously) if you attend one of the budget workshops scheduled for June 16, June 21, June 23, and July 28. Each one will start at 6 p.m. at the Cozby Library.

Coppell 5K: The 13th annual race is scheduled for June 25 at Andrew Brown Park East. Proceeds help Coppell Special Olympics athletes with uniforms, letter jackets, and equipment.

Tie-Dying Workshop: The Coppell Historical Society invites crafters as young as 6 to tie-dye bandanas from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on June 25. Though popularized by the counterculture movements of the 1960s, tie-dyeing has historic origins. All supplies will be provided, but attendees are encouraged to bring extra white garments. The cost per student is $25.