Coppell Chronicle Vol. 2, No. 20
If You Want to Adopt a Rabbit, Hop to It • Initial City Budget Includes 3% Raises • Some Parents Not Comfortable with Surveys • Carnivorous Plants Available for Rent
If You Want to Adopt a Rabbit, Hop to It
If you’re looking for a fluffy companion, now would be a good time to call Coppell Animal Services. The facility has been overrun by rabbits.
Shortly after 5 a.m. on June 25, Coppell paramedics responded to a medical emergency at an apartment on South MacArthur Boulevard. Before long, Coppell police were called out to deal with a larger problem: There were 41 rabbits in the apartment.
(I would have been unnerved by seeing just four rabbits in one apartment. Multiply that by 10, and I’d have expected some of the critters to start talking because I’d gone through the looking glass.)
Police Officer Kelly Luther said nobody is facing criminal charges for having so many animals in their home. When I asked if the rabbits were removed because of the aforementioned medical emergency, she delicately said, “It was determined that the bunnies would be better cared for at Animal Services.”
Luther confirmed that the 41 rabbits were the most animals that Coppell Animal Services ever took responsibility for in one day. She said six bunnies had died by the time we spoke on Friday morning, leaving 35 rabbits that need new homes. That’s in addition to the 14 dogs and five cats that were up for adoption as of Friday morning.
“Rabbits are great pets but do require more care than a hamster or gerbil,” Coppell Animal Services said in a Facebook post that features pictures of the bunnies, “so please inquire or read up about their social, medical, and dietary needs if you think you might want to adopt.”
If you’re not willing to adopt one of the rabbits but still want to help, consider buying an item on Coppell Animal Services’ Amazon wish list.
Initial City Budget Includes 3% Raises
Like most businesses in America, the City of Coppell is hiring. When the City Council got together last month for a budget workshop, there were 23 open positions listed on the city’s website.
“For a workforce of over 300 FTEs [full-time employees], that doesn’t necessarily sound like a lot of vacancies right now,” Deputy City Manager Traci Leach told the council during that June 21 workshop. “However, there are areas within our operation where the concentration of the vacancies has had a service impact.”
For example, Leach said, a third of the Finance Department’s positions were vacant. A year ago, four employees were helping the council through the budget process; this year, two of them are handling it. Leach said the Parks and Recreation Department’s operations team was down the equivalent of an entire crew, and there were only two technicians maintaining a fleet of more than 200 vehicles and other pieces of equipment.
“The ability to absorb new projects and expanded scopes of work is no longer a proposition we can guarantee,” Leach said.
In an attempt to remain competitive, the initial proposed budget for fiscal 2023, which begins Oct. 1, calls for raising most employees’ salaries by 3 percent. Employees in the public-safety sector would get 3.5-percent raises.
Leach said Coppell’s compensation plan was compared to those of 17 cities throughout the region. At the moment, Coppell is in the bottom third of that cohort. She said the proposed raises would move Coppell to the top third.
“It’s almost like every time I turn around, I’m finding another city employee has left to go somewhere else, whether it’s Lewisville or Flower Mound or somewhere,” Mayor Wes Mays said. “Are we comfortable that the proposed budget is going to take us where we’re not seeing our turnover be so high?”
Leach’s response: “We’re comfortable that the adjustments that are in the proposed budget will be competitive. Now, can I guarantee that we will not have employees leaving for other opportunities? The answer to that is no.”
The City Council is scheduled to approve the final budget and tax rate on Aug. 9. To comply with a state law, the city had to make the initial budget available to the public 30 days prior. That document was posted online on Friday afternoon, but I didn’t see it on the main budget page. To find it, I had to visit the City Secretary’s webpage, then click “Public Documents,” then click “City Secretary,” then click “03 – Central File,” then click “Budget,” then click “2022,” then click “FY22-23.” You, however, can simply click here.
That document says budgeted expenditures will go up 7.61 percent. During the June 21 workshop, Leach said the budget is up by just 3 percent if you discount some transfers related to fleet replacement and information technology upgrades. As we are all painfully aware, the inflation rate is higher than 8 percent.
“I’m really proud of the budget that is before you tonight,” Leach said, “just knowing the environment in which this has been developed.”
Besides inflation and COVID, that environment includes the looming threat to Coppell’s sales-tax revenues. The city has been budgeting as if Comptroller Glenn Hegar will get his way and be able to shift sales taxes for online transactions from the seller’s city to the buyer’s city. If that happens, Coppell would lose an estimated 18 percent of its annual revenue. (By the way, City Manager Mike Land told the council on June 21 that the first hearing in Coppell’s lawsuit against Hegar has been delayed until January.)
The initial budget calls for raising the maintenance-and-operations tax rate by 3.499 percent, which is the maximum hike that wouldn’t trigger a referendum. Director of Finance Kim Tiehen told the council that residents’ tax bills would actually go down due to a reduction in the debt-service tax rate as a result of a recent land sale near North Lake.
Under the initial budget, Tiehen said, the owner of an average Coppell home with a homestead exemption would see their tax bill lowered by about $10. The average senior who benefits from the additional over-65 exemption would see their tax bill lowered by about $100.
The city will get certified property values from the Dallas and Denton appraisal districts on July 25. Three days later, the council will conduct its final budget workshop, and all who attend will get a free scoop of Marble Slab ice cream (seriously). The final draft of the proposed budget will be available to the public on Aug. 5 — in a more prominent location, hopefully — and the council will vote on it on Aug. 9.
On June 21, Mayor Pro Tem Biju Mathew asked how well the budget for the current fiscal year was being met with three months to go. Land said, “In the most general sense, our expenditures are running under the amount budgeted, and our revenues are exceeding projected revenues, in the most general sense.”
The council will hear specifics on all that this Tuesday. In the meantime, revenues are exceeding expectations and expenditures are lower than expected? That’s what we should all aspire to regarding our household budgets — in the most general sense.
(“At ease, gentlemen!” — Gen. Sense)
Some Parents Not Comfortable with Surveys
Four people signed up to speak at the most recent meeting of the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees, and this wasn’t the first rodeo for any of them. Before reciting the legalese that begins every edition of “Open Forum,” Board President David Caviness said this: “I know we don’t have to read this for you guys, but I’ve got to read it, so just bear with me.”
All four speakers have issues with the student surveys that Coppell ISD conducts with the help of a firm called Panorama Education. While referencing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, the speakers expressed concerns about how the survey data are collected and stored, and they worried that it could be sold. One dad said Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has issued subpoenas to seven school districts over such surveys, and he predicted it’s only a matter of time before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton does the same.
(I was not familiar with Schmitt. When I cranked up my Google machine to find the article linked in the previous paragraph, the first hits were more recent headlines about a judge tossing a lawsuit that Schmitt filed against China over the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems that he and Paxton are indeed birds of a feather.)
A mom told the trustees that her son took a survey last fall, at the beginning of his freshman year; based on two of his seven answers, she said, he was told to “consider speaking to a trusted adult and follow up with professional psychological help.
“The survey never mentioned that he should speak to his parents,” she said. “We have a great relationship with our son, so he came home and immediately shared his worries about what happened. He had spent the whole day worried that something was wrong with him, and all because he wasn’t getting enough sleep and was more tired than usual. Where is the context with these questions, and where are we sharing context with these students?”
It’s possible that these parents are conflating Panorama with other surveys. Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Angie Brooks said the district screens for suicidal thoughts, as mandated by the state, via a survey labeled Signs of Suicide.
Brooks was at the microphone to brief the board on the district’s improvement plan. Panorama is mentioned in the Superintendent’s and Board of Trustees’ joint goals, and Trustee Tracy Fisher asked Brooks to discuss how Panorama benefits the education process.
Brooks compared Panorama to the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Measure of Academic Progress. “It is one of those tools that has helped us not only in our day-to-day classroom instruction but also, too, to get to know our students better,” she said.
Brooks said Panorama is able to provide data on the entire school year — beginning, middle, and end — as opposed to the data obtained from end-of-course testing such as STAAR, the SAT, and the ACT. She said it asks students to answer questions such as:
“How are you feeling today?”
“Are there things that are exciting you about school?”
“What is something that might be making you sad about school?”
Campuses can then dig down into the data on a classroom level, Brooks said, and assess whether their teaching methods are truly engaging their students.
Brooks added that teachers are also surveyed about their feelings and emotions. She then got a little choked up before saying, “While social-emotional learning is a very hot topic in the world today, I also, too, as a district, want everyone to understand that the meaning that we’re trying to get to is trying to ensure that we’re not just having an academic focus for our kids, that we are digging deep to know that we want to care about them; we want to build relationships with them.”
The “Open Forum” speakers had an ally in Trustee Neena Biswas, who said many of the questions — including “how are you feeling today?” — are objectionable.
“A child is still a child, and not an adult that can discern, ‘This is what this person’s asking of me,’” said Biswas, who also said the surveys include questions about gender. Brooks countered that she’s not aware of questions about gender on any survey used by CISD. Brooks also said asking students how they’re feeling “is an important part of our practice.”
This was not Biswas’ first complaint about surveys. As you may recall from the June 12 edition, she had concerns regarding a parent survey conducted by Gibson Consulting Group. (By the way, the deadline to participate in that survey is July 22; I completed it in less than five minutes yesterday.)
During the June 26 meeting, it was made clear that parents can opt their children out of Panorama and other surveys. Biswas said that’s not enough; parents should have to opt their children in. She also said schools should be focused on academics more than mental health. In response, Brooks pointed out that mental health is part of the state’s mandated curriculum, as reported in the March 13 edition.
The only trustee who spoke up in support of the surveys was Fisher, who said: “It helps teachers look at the kid in a way that’s more about a relationship than a ‘here’s the stuff, read it, and move on,’ or whatever. To me, that’s huge. It makes people want to go to school.”
Fisher and Caviness both asked who owns the data collected from such surveys. Brooks said the district does, and Superintendent Brad Hunt said CISD seeks assurances from all vendors about the security of such data.
“We want to make sure that we’re transparent with our community,” Hunt said. “If we’re hearing from people that we’re not [transparent], then clearly we’re not, and we need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make sure that our parents are a part of this with us.”
Carnivorous Plants Available for Rent
When I learned that Theatre Coppell was going to stage a production of Little Shop of Horrors, a musical about a carnivorous plant, my first thought was, “How does that work?” Is our little community theater company going to build a puppet to play Audrey II?
As it turns out, such puppets are available for rent. Theatre Coppell is using a set that belongs to Dallas Puppet Theater. Yes, a set of four puppets is required, because Audrey II grows larger as the show progresses — as plants will do, whether you feed them water or blood.
Pix Smith, the founder and director of Dallas Puppet Theater, told me the organization has two sets of Audrey II puppets. Interest in renting them is cyclical.
“We might go two or three years with no one renting her, and then have a couple of theaters in one year all of a sudden,” Smith said via email.
When I asked what the going rate was for a set of Audrey II puppets, Smith kept things vague: “We try to keep our rentals affordable, and within the budget of any theater that we work with. As a nonprofit, we understand those challenges, and always try to accommodate as best we can.”
When I dropped by the Coppell Arts Center on Tuesday, the Theatre Coppell cast had more than 20 rehearsals under their belts, but that day’s practice was their first with the largest version of Audrey II, which is about 6 feet long and 10 feet in diameter. I watched as puppeteer Kae Styron stepped inside it for the first time.
“A lot of people assume that the puppeteer has to be strong, but flexibility and stamina are really more important, as well as the ability to ‘feel’ like a plant, and to create life in the puppet,” Smith said. “Almost anyone can move her, and get her to work properly, but creating the idea of thought and independence in something when you really can't see anything, and you are covered in a giant carnivorous avocado, is the real challenge.”
Styron has experience handling puppets up to 18 feet tall for City Dionysia, a production of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project, and she helped build a set of Audrey II puppets at the University of Texas at Dallas.
“I’ve had a hand in making all the stages of the plant, but I’ve never been the plant,” Styron said.
While Styron inhabits the puppets, Audrey II’s voice will be provided by Brad Bowden. This will be his fifth time performing the role, but his first time working in concert with Styron.
“I just try to sing it the same way every time, or at least I try,” he said. “And whenever I ad-lib, she does a pretty good job of catching me.”
Eagle-eyed patrons who have seen the photo at the top of this article will be able to catch Styron and Bowden playing winos in the show’s opening number. Their faces won’t be seen otherwise until curtain call.
Performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. on Sundays for the next three weekends. Click here to get tickets.
Chronicle Crumbs
• This picture of yours truly and my partner in crime was snapped during the Parade Down Parkway on July 4. It’s from an album of parade photos that the Coppell Parks and Recreation Department posted on Facebook.
• Due to this hellish heat, the City of Coppell is asking all residents and businesses to conserve water. Otherwise, the city may have to institute watering restrictions and/or raise our water rates. Meanwhile, Reliant sent its customers an email asking us to conserve electricity through Monday.
• Congratulations to FC Coppell’s semi-pro team, which secured their division championship on Saturday night with a 1-0 victory over Texas Spurs II (not to be confused with Audrey II). That win also earned them a promotion to the United Premier Soccer League’s premier division.
• For the second week in a row, I learned via Twitter about a new head coach at Coppell High School. The @CoppellSoftball account announced on Tuesday that Kim LeComte is succeeding Ashley Minick, who led the program for only one season. No word on why she left, but I noticed she hit the “love” button under the tweet about her replacement.
• As you may recall from the June 26 edition, the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission didn’t have much love for a plan to convert the former Fry’s site along Interstate 635 into a “compact neighborhood” of 200 townhomes that would be zoned to Coppell ISD. The hearing on that request was delayed until the commission’s meeting on Tuesday, when it was announced that the request had been withdrawn altogether.
• The Irving City Council recently approved alcohol sales at Tupelo Honey, a Southern restaurant that will soon open near the intersection of State Highway 114 and State Highway 161. The North Carolina-based chain’s only other Texas location is in Frisco. Anybody been there yet? If so, sound off in the comments. What I’ve seen of their menu has my tummy grumbling.
• A friend who recently moved to Seattle gave me a juicy bit of gossip while telling me that he plans to remain a subscriber. When taking his dog on morning walks through Duck Pond Park, he routinely found evidence of sexual activity in the park, by way of condom wrappers [clutching my pearls as I hit my fainting couch].
Community Calendar
The Four C Notes: If you love the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, you may want to check out this tribute group’s performance at the Coppell Arts Center at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
Summer Music Workshop Series: The Coppell Community Chorale is offering a series of classes billed as “everything you ever wanted to know about singing but were afraid to ask.” They will happen on four consecutive Mondays, starting on July 18.
Crash Course: Basic First Aid: This class is designed to teach sixth-through ninth-graders about basic ailments and treatments. It’s scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. on July 18 at Life Safety Park.
Teen Trivia: Tell your bored teenagers to meet their friends at the Cozby Library and Community Commons at 2 p.m. on July 18 for a Family Feud-style trivia contest.
Firefighter Show and Tell: Preschoolers are invited to Life Safety Park between 1 and 2 p.m. on July 20, when they will read a fire safety book with a firefighter and practice the exercises described therein.
Success with Cactus and Succulents: Dallas County Master Gardener Gina Woods will discuss five important growing conditions — water, light, fertilizer, air circulation, and soil — at 2 p.m. on July 23 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
Our kids are in the midst of a. mental health crisis the likes we've never seen before. It was going on before COVID, but COVID sure brought it to the forefront. How many kids will we lose?? The fact that some of our board members (I'm looking at you Neena) are-- well I don't even know what word to use here. Her comment above makes it obvious to me that she does not think children are human beings capable of their own emotions. It's like she sees them as data points to be manipulated. I hope someone steps up to run against her.
I enjoy your writing and look forward to reading your community news after I finish The Dallas Morning News 😄🤩👍🏻