Coppell Chronicle Vol. 5, No. 26
Lakeside May Close, or School May Expand • New Tech Will be Moved Inside Coppell High • 200-Foot Tower Planned Near Cities’ Limits • Council Votes to Limit Speakers’ Tomfoolery
Lakeside May Close, or School May Expand
You’ll have to excuse Lakeside Elementary parents who feel confused. Last Thursday, school district officials discussed possibly closing the campus. This Thursday, city officials will discuss possibly expanding it.
Nearly every seat in Lakeside’s cafeteria was occupied on Aug. 14 for a discussion inspired by empty seats in its classrooms. Many attendees wore matching T-shirts identifying them as members of the Lakeside Longhorns Carnival Committee. This event was a “community dialogue meeting,” the first in a series of five that Coppell ISD has scheduled this month at the five campuses that are candidates for closure at the end of this school year.
As of Aug. 12, Interim Superintendent Doug Williams explained, there were 1,266 empty seats across the district’s 10 elementary schools. Lakeside and the other “footprint” elementaries around Coppell were designed to have a comfortable capacity of 600 students apiece. As the district tries to chip away at a budget deficit, it can’t afford to operate so many inefficient schools.
“I know what a difficult process this is,” Williams said. “Not one person wants to close one campus.”
Williams said half of Coppell ISD’s elementaries are being left out of the closure discussion. The three campuses outside of Coppell’s city limits (Canyon Ranch, Lee, and Valley Ranch) are exempt because they serve the portion of the district that’s adding young families. Two others, Denton Creek and Wilson, are off the chopping block because they offer special programs — Dual Language Immersion and International Baccalaureate, respectively.
That leaves Austin, Cottonwood Creek, Mockingbird, and Town Center in the same boat as Lakeside. But Lakeside is unique among that group because plans have been submitted to the city regarding an expansion of the school.
Before big drops in both enrollment and demographic projections made closing multiple campuses a possibility, a majority of Coppell ISD voters in 2023 approved a bond package that called for refreshing, renovating, or expanding every elementary school in the district. The trustees have chosen to proceed with those projects because each building will still be an asset, even if it doesn’t host students. Mockingbird Elementary was refreshed in 2024, and Town Center Elementary got the same treatment this summer.
(See “School That May Close Will be Refreshed” in Vol. 5, No. 2.)
The schedule of bond projects calls for Lakeside to be renovated and expanded in 2026. On Aug. 21, the Coppell Planning and Zoning Commission will conduct a public hearing on plans that would increase the building’s square footage by more than 25 percent.
The City Council will consider those same plans on Sept. 9. Four weeks later, Coppell ISD’s trustees will decide which school or schools to close. The district wants to have the plans approved by the city just in case Lakeside is spared. If the trustees opt to close Lakeside, those plans will be moot.
The Aug. 14 meeting at Lakeside began with about 20 minutes’ worth of presentations on the district’s financial woes and its declining enrollment. (All of the stats presented should have been familiar to faithful readers of this newsletter.) During the remaining 40 minutes, attendees were asked to discuss a series of questions in small groups and then submit written responses via QR codes. Those questions included “What should Coppell ISD consider in the elementary planning process?” and “What do families and staff need from the district to feel informed and supported?”
Similar meetings are scheduled at Cottonwood Creek on Aug. 18, at Mockingbird on Aug. 20, at Austin on Aug. 21, and at Town Center on Aug. 28. After the final meeting, the district will share the five sets of attendees’ written responses with the trustees and the public.
Some of the people who attended the Lakeside meeting were upset because they didn’t get a chance to address everyone in the room at once. I’ve pointed out to a few of those folks that anybody who wants to speak their piece into a microphone — in front of the trustees and the entire community — will have opportunities to do so during the school board’s meetings on Aug. 25, on Sept. 22 (when the closure recommendation will be revealed), on Sept. 29, and on Oct. 6 (when the trustees’ decision is expected).
New Tech Will be Moved Inside Coppell High
This will be the final school year for New Tech High @ Coppell as a standalone facility. One year from now, it will be “a school within a school” on the Coppell High campus.
On Aug. 11, a 5-2 majority of the Board of Trustees voted to follow through on Interim Superintendent Doug Williams’ recommendation to relocate the school. The dissenting votes came from Anthony Hill and Leigh Walker.