Coppell Chronicle Bonus Edition: School District Governance 101
Friday is your deadline to participate in Coppell ISD’s Superintendent Search Community Survey.
Howdy, folks! I’m making a rare weekday appearance in your inbox, because this bonus edition of the Coppell Chronicle concerns something that can’t wait until Sunday.
On Wednesday evening, Coppell ISD hosted a town hall meeting about the search for the district’s next superintendent. By my count, there were 14 people in the room:
3 members of the Board of Trustees (David Caviness, Jobby Mathew, and Ranna Raval)
1 district administrator (Chief Communications Officer Angela Brown)
2 representatives of JG Consulting, a firm hired to help facilitate the search
8 other people, including your correspondent
You might assume that anybody who would show up for an event like this would be fairly plugged in to the district and how it works. But that would be an incorrect assumption, based on a couple of questions I heard on Wednesday.
One of my fellow attendees asked who will interview applicants for Coppell ISD’s top job and choose the district’s next superintendent. JG Consulting President and CEO James Guerra gestured toward the empty dais behind him and told her, “The board.” She then asked, “Is the board one person?” This was my internal reaction to that question:
Another attendee pointed at the dais and asked whether any of our elected trustees are expected to apply for the superintendent’s gig. I struggled to keep a poker face so as to not react like this:
It seems some people need a refresher on how public school districts in Texas are governed. So I slapped together this organizational chart:
Our district is governed by seven unpaid trustees. They are elected on a staggered schedule, which means Coppell ISD can have an election every May, depending on how many candidates step forward. Places 1, 2, and 3 were on the ballot this year. Places 4 and 5 will be up for grabs next year, followed by Places 6 and 7 in 2027. Each trustee is elected at large, which means every voter in the district has a say in choosing all of the trustees.
Despite everything else they do, the trustees have just two core responsibilities — they approve the district’s budget, and they supervise the superintendent. The superintendent is the only district employee who reports directly to the trustees. Everyone else who works for the district ultimately reports to the superintendent.
At the moment, the district’s top job is occupied by Interim Superintendent Doug Williams, who was the head honcho in Sunnyvale ISD for 16 years. He took over for Brad Hunt, who announced his retirement in April and officially stepped down at the end of May. Williams will stick around until the board hires his replacement.
(See “Hunt Will Soon Retire From Coppell ISD” in Vol. 5, No. 7, and “Board Takes Steps to Replace Superintendent” in Vol. 5, No. 14.)
Although Coppell ISD is not yet accepting applications to be its next superintendent, Guerra said he has fielded many emails, phone calls, and text messages from people interested in what he called “the most coveted position in the state of Texas.”
So why couldn’t this edition wait until Sunday? Because Friday is the deadline to participate in Coppell ISD’s Superintendent Search Community Survey. Guerra said there have been more than 350 responses so far, but that’s just a fraction of the district’s population.
The results of that survey will help inform a leadership profile that Guerra will present to the Board of Trustees on July 7. I’ll have a report on that presentation in the July 13 edition of the Coppell Chronicle, and that edition will be sent to paid subscribers only. If you’re a free subscriber, please consider upgrading.
Thanks, Dan.
Survey filled out and sent to others ! Thanks Dan