Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 32
School Closure Conversation May Continue • Leaders Make Case for DLI Consolidation • District Reveals Facilities’ Rubric Scores • Pro-Vouchers State Senator Comes to Town
Before we get to this week’s news, please allow me to start with two personal stories that relate to current events.
Story 1: My family’s first home in Coppell was an apartment zoned to Town Center Elementary. When I contacted Coppell ISD about enrolling my son with special needs, I was told he would need to go to either Denton Creek Elementary or Valley Ranch Elementary, because those were the only schools with “structured learning” classrooms suited for him.
“Whatever you say,” I replied. “No matter where he goes in Coppell ISD, I’m not going to be driving him very far.”
Story 2: Five years later, as I was preparing to run for a seat on the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees, I went to lunch with one of my best friends. After I finished laying out my grand plan to win the election (the same plan that led to a third-place finish in a three-candidate race), my friend asked how much I’d be paid if I won. When I informed him that being a school district trustee is an unpaid gig, my very good friend laughed in my face for at least a minute.
The topics that our trustees are tackling are not laughing matters, of course. Please keep in mind that all of them are volunteering their time and efforts.
School Closure Conversation May Continue
Coppell ISD trustees should decide on Monday evening whether or not to close Pinkerton Elementary School. Unfortunately, similar debates may be necessary at other school board meetings in the near future.
During the trustees’ most recent workshop, they received some distressing news: Initial projections from their demographer say the district’s elementary population could drop by more than 600 students in the next four years.
“That’s an elementary school,” Trustee Nichole Bentley said.
Coppell ISD’s administration received the projections from demographer Bob Templeton of Zonda Education on Sept. 20. The trustees saw the numbers for the first time during their workshop last Monday.
These sobering numbers were presented by Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar, who said their impact on the budget could be as much as $5 million.
“The work that the district and the board is being asked to do will not be over anytime soon,” Sircar said. “We’re working on our first step right now.”
The trustees were shocked by the negative outlook.
“Even if half of this comes true, we will be here discussing similar changes multiple times in years to come,” Trustee Manish Sethi.
Superintendent Brad Hunt said the projections were “disheartening,” especially considering the efforts Coppell ISD has put into expanding open enrollment and marketing itself to families within its boundaries.
“The issues and concerns that we’re dealing with now are only going to be magnified in the future,” Hunt said.
Those issues include declining birth rates, increasing home values that price out young families, and stagnant funding from the Texas Legislature, which hasn’t increased the basic allotment to school districts since 2019.
Last Monday’s workshop was the third one in as many weeks to help prepare the trustees for tomorrow’s meeting. During the first workshop, they rejected the option of closing both Pinkerton and Austin Elementary. I wonder if they would have made the same decision if they’d already seen these projections.
If you need to get caught up on their discussions, you can read previous articles here:
Leaders Make Case for DLI Consolidation
If a majority of the trustees vote to close Pinkerton Elementary, the school’s International Baccalaureate program will need a new home.
The administration has recommended moving the IB program to Wilson Elementary, which would necessitate consolidating Wilson’s Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program with its counterpart at Denton Creek Elementary. During Monday’s workshop, the trustees were shown exactly how many DLI students are enrolled on each campus.
Those slides presented by Assistant Superintendent Kristen Eichel show that Denton Creek has three grade levels that each have only one DLI class. If all of Wilson’s DLI students were moved to Denton Creek, the latter school would still have space for at least two English-only classes in each grade.
“There were some questions about whether or not the consolidation of DLI would cause us to have a campus that did not have classes that were not part of that program, and that is not the case,” Eichel said. “There would be room comfortably to have five teachers per grade level. We can go up to six.”
Having only one DLI teacher for a particular grade level on a campus is less than ideal, Eichel said, because that teacher works without a partner.
“Being able to have someone there, you know, hand in hand, on your team, day in and day out — celebrating the highs but also working through the difficulties and the lows — really makes a difference for all teachers,” she said.
The administration has said consolidating the DLI program would lead to a cost savings of $288,000. Trustee Nichole Bentley asked where that figure came from. Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar said it’s mostly personnel, but a bit has to do with duplication of curriculum. Superintendent Brad Hunt added that transportation is part of it too. Stats presented during Monday’s workshop show that 10 native Spanish speakers from the Canyon Ranch and Valley Ranch attendance zones are bussed to each DLI campus. Bussing those 20 kids to one DLI campus wouldn’t cost as much.
Trustee Leigh Walker reiterated her request for examples of how consolidation would improve the program, besides giving the solo DLI teachers access to a partner. Sircar said the program needs more than general education teachers who are bilingual; it also requires bilingual special ed teachers, dyslexia therapists, speech language therapists, and diagnosticians. Having those specialists service two schools is inefficient.
As for whether the consolidated DLI program should be at Denton Creek or Wilson, Assistant Superintendent Angie Brooks pointed out that Denton Creek’s next-door neighbor, Coppell Middle School North, has advanced Spanish classes that would be a natural next step for DLI students.
During the board’s Sept. 16 workshop, Bentley and Walker asked for research on how many native Spanish speakers can walk to each campus. Those stats weren’t mentioned on Monday, but the trustees were told that 26 percent of Wilson’s students were classified as economically disadvantaged last spring, when 15 percent of Denton Creek’s students fell into that category. If the trustees proceed with the administration’s recommendation, those stats would be 18 percent at Wilson and 16 percent at Denton Creek.
“The initial perception was that we’ll be consolidating economically disadvantaged learners in one campus,” Trustee Manish Sethi said. “Actually, it’s the other way around. From the numbers we are getting, we will even that out.”
Nobody mentioned whether those numbers would look any different if the DLI program were consolidated at Wilson instead of Denton Creek.
Walker asked whether there would be room for the DLI program to grow if the trustees opt to consolidate it. Eichel said growth is completely dependent on the number of native Spanish-speaking families who choose to participate.
In case you’re not aware, the DLI program is designed to have equal numbers of English speakers learning Spanish and Spanish speakers learning English in each classroom. That’s why I find some critics’ use of “segregation” to describe this consolidation proposal to be nonsensical. Whether it gets consolidated or not, the program is the exact opposite of “segregation,” as I understand that word’s meaning.
District Reveals Facilities’ Rubric Scores
I’ve encountered the word “rubric” more times this month than I did in all of the previous months in my life combined. But I didn’t see the rubric scores for Coppell ISD’s facilities until Tuesday.
During the Board of Trustees’ three workshops and one town hall meeting this month, parents have been asking why the rubric scores weren’t public. On Tuesday, multiple parents alerted me that the scores had been uploaded to the district’s website. Some of these parents suspected the upload might have been a mistake, but Director of Communications Amanda Simpson told me it was intentional. You can download your own copy of the scores here:
Each Coppell ISD facility was scored on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best) in 10 categories. Six of those categories were collectively labeled “Operational Factors,” and the other four were called “Learning, Environmental, and Programmatic Factors.” Pinkerton Elementary parents who are opposed to the school’s potential closure seized on the fact that its cumulative score of 25 was not the lowest. Cottonwood Creek Elementary had a cumulative score of 23, and New Tech High received a cumulative 19.
The following analysis of Pinkerton’s score is mine and mine alone. If it upsets you, point your slings and arrows in my direction.
Pinkerton’s cumulative score was inflated by its 5 in the “Building Capacity and Utilization” category. This was my reaction to that 5: Duh. Pinkerton is the only elementary with a capacity of 400 students; given its size and its unique IB program, I wouldn’t expect it to have any excess capacity. (By contrast, the eight “footprint” elementaries each have a capacity of 600 students, and the two elementary schools built in the 21st century — Canyon Ranch and Lee — have capacities of 800 and 740, respectively.) Meanwhile, Pinkerton was the only elementary school to receive a 1 in the “Building Age and Condition” category. It was also the only elementary school to receive a 1 in the “Utility and Operational Costs” category.
Those scores were assigned by a Rubric Evaluation Team whose members weren’t publicly named until last Monday’s board workshop. They’re listed in the middle of this slide.
Chief Communications Officer Angela Brown said the Rubric Evaluation Team’s members are all Coppell ISD employees who were selected because they provide different perspectives and experiences, yet they all use data to objectively make decisions on a daily basis. Here are their titles, in case you don’t recognize their names:
Sarah Balarin, Coppell Middle School West Principal
Erica Devould, Director of Accounting
Stephanie Flores, Executive Director of Intervention Services
Eric Lozano, Director of Child Nutrition
Ashley Minton, Canyon Ranch Elementary School Principal
The Facility Evaluation Tool used by the Rubric Evaluation Team was created by the Rubric Development Committee, which was composed of employees, parents, and community members who were also named publicly for the first time on Monday. That committee also developed the Impact Decision Filter used by the Decision Filter Team, aka Superintendent Brad Hunt’s administrative leadership team.
(That slide says two members of the Decision Filter Team resigned during the process: Chief Operations Officer Chris Trotter and Executive Director for Instructional Leadership Mary Kemper. Their former jobs are not among Coppell ISD’s list of openings, which speaks to how the district is trying to save money by not filling all vacant positions.)
“The rubric provided half of the decision,” Brown told the trustees on Monday, “and then the decision filter was the other portion, and served as a lens for us as we examined all of the data and looked at every single campus and every single facility.”
During the board’s Sept. 9 workshop, the administration presented three elementary closure options: close Austin, close Pinkerton, or close both of them. The PDF containing the rubric scores says the Decision Filter Team considered three other options: close Cottonwood Creek, close Cottonwood Creek and Austin, or close Cottonwood Creek and Pinkerton.
On Thursday, a Pinkerton parent asked me why the administration would have preemptively taken Cottonwood Creek off the board. Again, the following analysis is mine and mine alone.
Cottonwood Creek was probably a less-favorable option than Pinkerton due to Cottonwood Creek’s location in the heart of a neighborhood; it’s much more walkable and bikeable than Pinkerton. And Cottonwood Creek was probably a less-favorable option than Austin due to Cottonwood Creek’s location on the edge of town; dividing up Austin’s attendance zone among remaining schools would be easier than dividing up Cottonwood Creek’s.
I’m left to speculate because the administration has been fairly tight-lipped about the Decision Filter Team’s process. I watch every minute of every Board of Trustees meeting, but I learned a lot from the PDF that wasn’t made available until the day after the final workshop.
Despite this new information, I’m not expecting any curveballs tomorrow night.
“I respect all of the time and intentionality that went into the recommendations that are on the table now,” Trustee Leigh Walker said Monday. “And if there were to be any changes and additional recommendations, I would want the same attention, time, and intentionality devoted to that.”
Pardon the Interruption
This is the last Sunday of the month, so I sent this edition to all of my free subscribers. Because you’ve read this far, perhaps you might like to receive this newsletter every Sunday. If so, consider upgrading to a paid subscription for $5 per month or $30 per year.
Despite my laser focus on Coppell ISD lately, I do write about other aspects of this community. Here’s a preview of what I have planned for October editions:
• On Saturday, the Cozby Library and Community Commons hosted a “Fentanyl in Coppell” presentation that included the perspectives of a DEA agent, a police officer, and the mother of a recovering addict.
• In 2021, Coppell and a few other cities sued Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar to block a policy change that would cost them tens of millions of dollars. That suit is scheduled to finally go to trial next month.
• At a subscriber’s request, I’ll provide an update on the hotels that are being built in and around Coppell, including the long-stagnant Springhill Suites project along South Belt Line Road.
• There’s a venue for professional wrestling within Coppell’s city limits. Can you smell what the Chronicle is cooking?
Pro-Vouchers State Senator Comes to Town
Tan Parker is not shy about his support of vouchers, also known as educational savings accounts or ESAs, as he prefers to call them. During a town hall meeting in Coppell on Wednesday, the state senator brought up vouchers before any questions about them could be asked.
“There are a lot of children that are in various pockets in this country, and typically in poorer areas across Texas, that are trapped in some underperforming schools,” the Republican said. “Not an incredible district like Coppell, but there are children in those kinds of situations.”
Parker represents Senate District 12, which includes all of Coppell and most of Coppell ISD. He said eligibility for vouchers would be limited to roughly 50,000 kids across Texas, and about 40 percent of them would be at the poverty level or below. Parker said families that make at least $150,000 annually would not be eligible.
“I don’t anticipate it having any negative implications, to be candid, with high-quality school districts like the Coppell district,” he said.
The statistics he quoted about limited eligibility were news to this reporter. I’ve scanned the voucher-related bills that failed in the 2023 legislative session, and I couldn’t find any references to 50,000 children or household incomes of $150,000. What I did find was language establishing per-child credits worth $8,000 or $10,500, depending on the bill, for parents who homeschool their kids or send them to private school. Either amount would be more than the $6,160 per student that Texas has allotted to public school districts since 2019.
On Friday morning, I emailed Parker’s education aide, Caleb Humphrey, asking him to point me to the figures I may have missed in those bills. He has not yet responded. However, I did receive an email on Friday evening inviting me to Parker’s “Fall Fiesta” fundraiser in Bartonville.
Parker is raising funds to fend off a challenge from Democrat Stephanie Draper, who is scheduled to appear at the Coppell Chamber of Commerce’s office at 9 a.m. on Oct. 9. When I gave Draper an opportunity to rebut Parker’s statements, she estimated that vouchers could negatively affect 5.5 million students.
“The ESA would redirect public funds to private schools, which could devastate public schools by eliminating jobs, cutting school programs, and harming rural communities,” Draper said via email. “It may force struggling districts to shut down, and children with disabilities might not qualify for the program. This voucher scam will not help Texan families.”
The 50 or so attendees who made it to Dallas College’s Coppell Center for Parker’s town hall on Wednesday included Coppell Mayor Wes Mays, multiple members of our City Council, Coppell ISD Superintendent Brad Hunt, and a few of Coppell ISD’s trustees. One of them was Nichole Bentley, the school board’s point person on legislative affairs; I asked for her thoughts on Parker’s statements.
“There may be a world where ESAs and public education can co-exist; however, at the rate that ESAs were proposed to be funded during the 88th [legislative session], and the specific dollar amounts that were proposed to be added to per-student allotments for public schools, that would not have been a financial reality between the 88th and 89th session. ESAs would have been funded at the expense of ISDs,” Bentley said via email.
“Given the financial challenges we face here in Coppell ISD — along with MANY ISDs across Texas — I invite our community to reach out to a CISD trustee to walk through the next session in lock-step, demonstrating to the senators and representatives elected to represent our community that we expect them to vote in Austin in ways that reflect what their constituents most value.”
Parker, who is the father of two Flower Mound High School graduates, said he would like to see school districts’ funding tied to their enrollment rather than students’ attendance.
“Making certain that we get education funding done correctly for public schools is at the top of my list of priorities,” he said.
Chronicle Crumbs
• Apparently, some Coppell ISD parents plan to keep their kids out of school tomorrow as a protest. This ill-conceived idea was addressed in messages from principals that included this bit of wisdom: “As adults and parents, we are tackling tough issues, but it is our role to protect our students from any additional anxiety and stress.” As a reminder, school districts’ funds are based on attendance, so holding kids out as a protest will harm CISD’s budget.
• Early voting in the November elections will begin on Oct. 21. Registered voters from Dallas County can preview their ballots here; registered voters who live in Denton County can do the same here. Oct. 7 is the voter registration deadline. Volunteer deputy registrars will be at Coppell High School on Monday to help teens get signed up. Kids who will turn 18 on or before Election Day (Nov. 5) are eligible.
• The Metrocrest Democrats organization announced last week that its longtime leader, Mary Clare Fabishak, lost a battle with cancer; in 2012, the Coppell resident was her party’s nominee to represent District 115 in the Texas House. We also learned last week of the passing of Diana Raines, a former Coppell ISD teacher who served on the Coppell City Council from 1998 to 2005.
• When J. Macklin’s Grill announced on Sept. 12 that kitchen manager Miguel Lopez had died in a vehicular accident, I suspected he might have been the driver of the truck that crashed into a transformer along Sandy Lake Road on Sept. 7, knocking out power to dozens if not hundreds of homes. A police report I acquired via an open records request confirmed that suspicion.
• Thankfully, the Coppell City Council has been having a quiet month while the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees has had the bulk of my attention. The most notable aspect of Tuesday’s council meeting was Mayor Wes Mays reading a proclamation designating that day as “Chiaka Ogbogu Day.” You can see more photos of the two-time Olympic medalist from Coppell here.
• The New York Times recently published a list of its top 50 restaurants in the nation. The only eatery from the Dallas-Fort Worth region to make the cut was Simply South, an Indian vegetarian establishment along Interstate 635, due west of MacArthur Boulevard. WFAA-TV (Channel 8) has more details.
• The competitors on the season finale of America’s Got Talent included a team of drone operators from Coppell-based Sky Elements Drone Shows. I became aware of this news thanks to KXAS-TV (Channel 5), which published a preview of the finale. A singing janitor from Indiana won the crown, and the runner-up was an Israeli woman who dances with her dog.
(That might be the strangest sentence to ever appear in this newsletter.)
Community Calendar
The Diary of Anne Frank: Theatre Coppell will stage four more performances of one of the 20th century’s most haunting stories. The next show is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today at the Coppell Arts Center.
National Night Out: There will be block parties throughout Coppell between 6 and 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Click that link to find the one closest to you.
Let’s Learn about Trade Careers: Representatives from Dallas College will be at the Cozby Library and Community Commons between 5 and 7 p.m. on Wednesday to discuss fields that are always looking for skilled professionals.
Rotary Club of Coppell: DART spokesman Mario Zavala will discuss the Silver Line when Rotarians gather at 6 p.m. on Thursday at 3401 Olympus Blvd.
Get You in Shape Anniversary Workout: The community is invited to celebrate Get You in Shape’s 17th anniversary by working out at Andrew Brown Park East at 8 a.m. on Saturday.
Dog Days: Fashion Show and Adoption Event: The Coppell Arts Center Foundation will present this free event for VIPs (very important pups) at 9 a.m. on Saturday outside the Coppell Arts Center. Your correspondent was asked to be one of the fashion show’s “celebrity” judges, and when I relayed that request to my son, he insisted on the quotation marks in this sentence.
Canine Stars Stunt Dog Show: The Coppell Arts Center is really going to the dogs on Saturday. This event will happen at 2 and 7 p.m. in the Main Hall.
Latino Hispanic Festival: The Coppell Historical Museum & Society will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with music, dancing, food, and tours conducted in Spanish between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Coppell Lariettes Junior Clinic: Future Lariettes can learn from current Lariettes starting at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday at Coppell High School.
La Poem: The Coppell Arts Center is becoming quite a popular venue for acts from South Korea. La Poem is a group of classically trained singers who will perform at 7 p.m. on Oct. 9.
Coppell Historical Society: The society’s next meeting is scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. on Oct. 12 at the Ihnfeldt House.
Art, Sip & Stroll: The Coppell Arts Council’s annual wine-oriented fundraiser is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. on Oct. 12 at Andrew Brown Park East.
As always, your thorough reporting is enlightening and appreciated. Thanks for the insight regarding CISD news (although I do look forward to reading about other topics in future issues). Also read with great interest the related information about Senator Parker, his message regarding vouchers, and the rebuttal (which sounds much more likely to this reader). To everyone reading this comment…please get out and vote! And when you cast your ballot take into consideration integrity, truth, and decency up and down the ballot.
Thank you for the in depth reporting on the school closure dilemma. These are very difficult choices to make and knowing that there will be more like these down the road makes it even harder. I encourage our Coppell community to vote wisely so our public schools aren’t decimated by vouchers. We’ve always been proud of our schools. We love our schools!
Speaking of schools and education, I was saddened to hear of the passing of Diana Raines and Mary Clare Fabishak, who many knew as Mary Clare Theodosio. Both these women gave of themselves to our children and our community. They will be sorely missed.
If anyone is reading this for free, I encourage you to be a paid subscriber because we need someone to keep us informed about our community.