Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 51
Coppell ISD Simplifies Elementary Rezoning • Burnt House’s Owner Gets New Deadline • Flood District’s Board Works Through Noise • Unique Retail Shop Clears Zoning Hurdle
Although I grew up in Dallas, I’m a native of the City of Brotherly Love. My two brothers (whom I love) and I were raised as Philadelphia Eagles fans by our late father, a longtime season-ticket holder. Fingers crossed that we have many reasons to sing “Fly Eagles Fly” during today’s Super Bowl.
Coppell ISD Simplifies Elementary Rezoning
Three weeks ago, I published an article about a plan to extensively change Coppell ISD’s attendance zones. That scenario would have impacted all but one of the district’s elementary schools within Coppell’s city limits, and more than 775 students would have been affected.
Well, never mind what that article said. On Monday, the Board of Trustees approved a simplified scenario that will alter only a few attendance zones and affect fewer than 500 students.
The administration was able to devise this simpler plan after digesting feedback from the families impacted by the upcoming closure of Pinkerton Elementary and the consolidation of the district’s Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program. Assistant Superintendent Kristen Eichel said those families’ choices aligned with the administration’s best-case scenario.
“Most students are making the decision to follow the program that they have been a part of,” Eichel told the trustees.
Because Pinkerton is closing, its International Baccalaureate (IB) program will move to Wilson Elementary. This year, there are 181 students in kindergarten through fourth grade who are zoned to other schools but attend Pinkerton because of IB. Nearly 80 percent of them are opting to transfer to Wilson.
Wilson’s DLI program is being consolidated with its counterpart at Denton Creek Elementary. This year, there are 195 DLI students in kindergarten through fourth grade at Wilson. Nearly 78 percent of them are opting to transfer to Denton Creek.
Based on those stats, the attendance zone changes under Scenario 2 are largely limited to dividing up Pinkerton’s dissolved zone. The portion west of Denton Tap Road will be reassigned to Wilson’s zone, and the smaller portion east of Denton Tap will be absorbed by Austin Elementary.
Scenario 2 involves one other change that has nothing to do with Pinkerton, IB, or DLI: The Cypress Waters apartment complexes that were assigned to Cottonwood Creek Elementary last March are returning to the Lee Elementary zone.
(See “Apartments Rezoned to Cottonwood Creek” in Vol. 4, No. 2.)
“We don’t want to play, kind of, ping-pong ball with any neighborhoods or apartment complexes,” Eichel said, “but we feel very comfortable and confident that it’s the right thing to move those students in those areas back.”
The district’s elementary enrollment is projected to be about 1,200 students lower than the 10 remaining schools’ combined capacity. “Clearly, there’s still some discussions and decisions that need to take place,” Eichel said. That’s why the Coppell ISD Efficiency Review Committee is meeting monthly through April.
If that committee recommends closing another school in 2026, and the Board of Trustees follows through on such a recommendation, Trustee Leigh Walker was worried about former Pinkerton students having to change campuses twice. But on Monday, Walker said Scenario 2 “feels responsive” to the issues she’s raised.
“Obviously, I’ve been concerned that, as we move forward, we’re going to impact the same families multiple times,” she said, adding that Scenario 2 “addresses that in a way that we can control, so I really want to applaud that.”
That said, Walker was the only trustee who voted against Scenario 2 on Monday, because she wanted to give the community time to respond to it. The rest of the trustees agreed with the administration that the sooner a decision could be made, the better.
Regarding that timing: All three of Coppell’s public school districts are expected to close campuses at the end of this semester. Coppell ISD’s trustees made their decision about Pinkerton on Sept. 30, and Lewisville ISD’s trustees voted on Dec. 9 to shutter five elementaries. But Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD’s trustees weren’t presented with a set of closure recommendations — three elementaries in Carrollton plus one middle school in Dallas — until Thursday. Their vote on those recommendations is scheduled for March 6.
Burnt House’s Owner Gets New Deadline
The owner of a burnt and neglected home has made enough progress to satisfy Coppell officials, even though the property’s neighbors remain frustrated.
The house at 407 Greenway Court, which has been in a state of disrepair since a fire in May of 2022, was the subject of a hearing before the city’s Building and Standards Commission on Thursday. The point of the hearing was to determine whether owner Keenan McCarty had complied with an order the commission approved in December.