Coppell Chronicle Vol. 5, No. 13
Coppell ISD May Close More Schools • New Tech Likely Moving to Coppell High • Preservation of Pinkerton Property Promised • Who’s Ready for Some Good News?
Most of this edition concerns last Monday’s Coppell ISD Board of Trustees workshop, and I’m going to be honest: I struggled with how to sum up the information presented that night without straining the limits of my subscribers’ attention spans. I think I captured the most important parts.
Coppell ISD May Close More Schools
One of Coppell ISD’s 11 elementary schools will close this week. Two others could be shuttered a year from now.
During Monday’s workshop, the Board of Trustees was briefed on a multi-year plan to address the district’s deficit. That plan involves closing two elementary schools in the spring of 2026 and moving New Tech High to Coppell High as “a school within a school” by the fall of 2026.
Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar said the district would need to implement every option in the multi-year plan to achieve a balanced budget.
“We are at a point where we have got to make these hard decisions,” Sircar told the trustees. “We have been avoiding making hard, hard decisions until this past summer.”
Last September, a majority of the trustees voted to close Pinkerton Elementary School at the conclusion of this school year. One month later, a majority opted to consolidate Wilson Elementary’s Dual Language Immersion program with its counterpart at Denton Creek Elementary, so Wilson could absorb Pinkerton’s International Baccalaureate program.
“That was hard; this is gonna be harder, but we have to do it,” Sircar said. “If we don’t do it, I don’t know what to tell you, but we can’t not do it.”
Sircar said the draft budget for 2025-2026 includes a $12.7 million deficit, and that’s before any action is taken by either the trustees or the Texas Legislature regarding pay raises. She projected deficits of $15.8 million and $18.8 million in the two ensuing school years.
Coppell ISD is expected to have 1,215 empty seats in its elementary campuses this fall. If all of the schools remain open, there would be 1,634 empty elementary seats by the fall of 2028. Closing two elementary campuses in 2026 would trim about $3 million from the district’s budget. Nobody mentioned specific schools in relation to this proposal.
Later in the workshop, Trustee Leigh Walker asked for some clarity on what hard decisions were left to be made; are the two closings a foregone conclusion, and the trustees just have to pick the schools? She pointed out that only the first two options on this list begin with the words “Board Action.”
I didn’t hear an administrator directly answer Walker’s question, but some of the other trustees discussed it. I thought this statement from Trustee Jobby Mathew was the most pertinent: “If you don’t do these things, what else can you do? Because no matter what, we’re in a financial hole that we have to address.”
The board will get together again on Monday, when one of the action items on their agenda is approving this School Consolidation and Boundary Realignment Timeline:
The agenda for Monday’s meeting says they may also accept Superintendent Brad Hunt’s resignation letter and take action regarding the employment of an interim superintendent. Additionally, the board has scheduled three special meetings this week — two on Tuesday and one on Thursday — regarding the search for Hunt’s successor.
New Tech Likely Moving to Coppell High
Tomorrow’s Board of Trustees meeting will also include a report on the reimagining of New Tech High. Spoiler alert: That reimagining will involve moving New Tech to Coppell High School.
During last Monday’s workshop, Trustee Nichole Bentley asked whether the “school within a school” would share instructors with Coppell High or would New Tech be an “isolated pod” in its own hallway. She was concerned about how the district would serve the kids who chose New Tech primarily because it’s so much smaller than Coppell High.