Coppell Chronicle Vol. 5, No. 45
CISD Expands Open Enrollment in Irving • Dream House Listed for Nearly $7 Million • Demolition Underway Near City Limits • Some Doors Closed in 2025 as Others Opened
Because this is the final edition of 2025, this week’s fourth article looks back at a year’s worth of journalism. If you run into a paywall after clicking any of the links in that article, then you may want to consider upgrading to a paid subscription, which will cost you either $5 per month or $40 per year.
CISD Expands Open Enrollment in Irving
Coppell ISD will expand its limited open enrollment policy next year, welcoming students from three additional subdivisions in Irving.
When the policy was created in 2011, only families who resided in the parts of Coppell outside the district’s boundaries were eligible to participate. About five years ago, a few Lewisville subdivisions and one apartment complex in that city were added. A couple of years later, students from two Irving neighborhoods — Hackberry Creek and the Villas at Mustang Park — were welcomed.
On Dec. 15, the district’s trustees were briefed on a plan to expand open enrollment to three more areas of Irving. Two of them, The Bridges at Las Colinas and Emerald Valley, straddle Coppell ISD’s boundaries, so this policy change will allow all residents of those neighborhoods to enroll their children in the district’s schools. The third subdivision, Avadene at Las Colinas, is still under construction, well outside the district’s boundaries.
Coppell ISD welcomes students from nearby neighborhoods because it has seats to fill and because the state bases school districts’ funding on their average daily attendance. The basic allotment to districts is $6,160 per student, so the 255 students denoted on this chart added $1.57 million to Coppell ISD’s bottom line.
This policy change, which takes effect for the 2026-2027 school year, will cover 231 homes in Emerald Valley (where 93 properties are within the district’s boundaries) and 23 more in The Bridges at Las Colinas (where 375 are zoned to Coppell ISD). The Avadene at Las Colinas is expected to have 70 homes upon completion. Based on historic yields, those 324 additional homes (231 + 23 + 70) should produce no more than 24 additional students.
Trustee Nichole Bentley asked whether the administration had considered adding any of the Valley Ranch neighborhoods on the east side of MacArthur Boulevard. Superintendent Leanne Shivers didn’t directly answer that question, but she said her team has identified close to 1,900 homes that could be options for open enrollment.
“At this time, we just wanted to do a very conservative number,” Shivers said, because this initiative is concurrent with the district’s efforts to recruit families who reside within the district’s boundaries but choose other options such as charter schools and private schools.
(See “Open Enrollment Policy Has Had Limited Effect” in Vol. 5, No. 35, and “Coppell ISD Seeks ‘Cowboys United’ Champions” in Vol. 5, No. 40.)
Although Board President David Caviness said he is “fundamentally ... not keen” on open enrollment for various reasons — with the primary one being that he doesn’t like the idea of Coppell ISD taxpayers subsidizing students from other districts — he said the policy makes sense in certain cases.
“In this case, I do think being, you know, kind of just cautious in how we expand — and where we expand to — makes sense,” Caviness said, “so thank you.”
Dream House Listed for Nearly $7 Million
Headlines about homes for sale are rare in this newsletter; unless memory fails me, this might be the first one. But listings for nearly $7 million are few and far between in Coppell, and the news cycle tends to slow down during the holidays. So here we are.
A “for sale” sign was recently posted in front of the estate at 234 W. Bethel Road, and the asking price is $6.9 million. That’s three times higher than the price of the second-most-expensive listing in Coppell, which we’ll get to in a moment.
The 10,641-square-foot house on Bethel features five bedrooms and eight bathrooms. It sits on a 2.78-acre property. The estate is gated, but the photo at the top of this article approximates the view from the road when the gate is open. Here are a couple of other photos that caught my eye as I perused the gallery supplied by Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.
A few photos from the second-most-expensive listing in Coppell raised my eyebrows even more. The asking price for the home at 524 Carter Drive is $2.3 million. It also features five bedrooms and eight bathrooms, but the house is about two-thirds the size of the one on Bethel, and its land occupies less than an acre. It does, however, boast a Ferrari in its gallery’s lead photo.
The listing’s narrative says the house is bookended by a pair of garages, one with space for six vehicles and another that holds three. The six-car garage “opens on both ends for a more fluid drive-out experience.” If a Ferrari isn’t your speed, then maybe you’ll dig the Trans Am shown in that space.
Here’s another aspect of the Carter Drive listing that I found interesting: “If you need a true getaway, escape to the exclusive retreat tucked upstairs … inclusive of 7 TVs.” Seven televisions? Once I read that detail, I had to find a corroborating photo.
The listing for the Carter Drive property doesn’t mention an open house, but the Bethel Road home has one scheduled for Jan. 18. See you there?
Demolition Underway Near City Limits
A few people have reached out lately to ask whether I know anything about a demolition project happening right outside Coppell. A few buildings are being knocked down along State Highway 121, between MacArthur Boulevard and Lake Vista Drive.
As it turns out, I do know something about it. The July 27 edition of the Chronicle Crumbs included this blurb:
“On July 21, the Lewisville City Council approved a zoning change for the vacant office park at the intersection of State Highway 121 and Lake Vista Drive. The Trammell Crow Company plans to raze two office buildings and two parking garages formerly occupied by the Mr. Cooper corporation and replace them with three buildings that could be used for distribution, manufacturing, or showrooms.”
Documents attached to the agenda for that meeting show how the three buildings will be laid out and what they will look like.
During the July 21 public hearing, City Council Member Kristin Green expressed concerns about truck drivers exiting the development and cutting across the frontage road to access the U-turn lane at Lake Vista Drive. Scott Krikorian, a senior managing director with the Trammell Crow Company, assured her that truckers will be much more likely to use Lake Vista as their exit, given its lack of traffic. There was a brief discussion of adding language that would prohibit trucks from leaving the development on the frontage road, but city planners said there was no way for them to regulate the flow of traffic between a private drive and a road controlled by the state. So the proposal was unanimously approved with no language added.
The buildings are being constructed speculatively, with no specific tenants in mind. Their sizes will range from 65,600 square feet to 126,360 square feet. Forms filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation in September indicate that construction should be complete by next Halloween, with the project’s total price tag estimated at $27.2 million.
Some Doors Closed in 2025 as Others Opened
As I look back over the past 12 months’ worth of journalism, it’s clear that school closings were this newsletter’s predominant theme in 2025.
In late April, I covered Pinkerton’s Last Rodeo, an event that allowed families to reflect on the elementary school’s legacy a few weeks before it stopped hosting classes. That closure was the result of a vote that the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees took in September of 2024.
In October of this year, the school board considered a similar recommendation to close Town Center Elementary in 2026; that recommendation was rejected by five of the seven trustees. But in August, five of them approved a plan to end New Tech High’s era as a standalone campus and make it a school within a school at Coppell High.
• Coppell ISD’s competition increased this year. The Saint Constantine School of Dallas began educating students at the Church of the Apostles, and one of Coppell’s charter schools, Coppell Classical Academy, expanded its reach by welcoming sixth-graders for the first time.
• Coppell ISD is among several school districts in North Texas that have been closing or consolidating campuses. But other governmental organizations celebrated openings in 2025, and I’ve been advancing a few of them for years. Coppell firefighters began answering calls from Fire Station 5 in July, and the city’s new Veterans Plaza was unveiled in November. A few weeks before that, DART welcomed passengers aboard its Silver Line trains.
• Coppell restaurants that closed in 2025: Arunachala, The Biscuit Bar, Black Walnut Cafe, Fropical Frozen Yogurt, Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken, JC’s Burger Bar, Paradise Biryani Pointe, and Subway.
• Coppell restaurants that opened in 2025: Artsy Cakery, Falafel Ave, Grain & Berry, Jason’s Deli, Kuppanna’s Thiru Kuppusamy Unavagam, Melt Creamery, Playa Bowls, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Pure Green, The Silk Road, Sushi Box, and Zaky Zayn.
Hellos and goodbyes
• In April, Brad Hunt announced his retirement plans after eight years as Coppell ISD’s superintendent. Five months later, the Board of Trustees named Leanne Shivers as the lone finalist to replace him. In the interim, the school district was led by Doug Williams.
(When Williams and I met for coffee, we figured out that we’d crossed paths in the 1990s, when I was a sportswriter in Sulphur Springs and he was a football coach in nearby Winnsboro. Right before an October town hall meeting began in the Town Center cafeteria, he shook my hand and said, “This is gonna be a lot tougher than playing Mount Vernon.”)
• Jonathan Powers joined the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees in May, besting Julie Waters in their competition for the seat that Manish Sethi vacated. In that same election, Leigh Walker won a fourth term on the school board by defeating Sheri Hill, and Anthony Hill won a seventh term automatically because he was unopposed. (In next week’s edition, I’ll detail all of the local offices that will be up for grabs in 2026.)
• The Rev. Tom Palmer retired in June after 12 years as the senior pastor at Coppell’s First United Methodist Church. He was succeeded by the Rev. Owen Ross, who had been the Director of Multiplication for the Horizon Texas Conference.
• Ellie Braxton retired in April after seven years as the President and CEO of the Coppell Chamber of Commerce. She was succeeded by Robyn Aguinaga, who had been the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Grapevine Chamber of Commerce.
• We said final farewells to two Old Town merchants whose businesses happened to be across the street from each other. Local Diner founder Frank Brightwell died in August, and Bethel Road Barber Shop owner Joe Shirley died this month.
Disputes and grievances
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Coppell ISD in March, when he accused the district of teaching Critical Race Theory. (The lawsuit was inspired by remarks that Evan Whitfield, a former district administrator, made while being surreptitiously recorded. According to his LinkedIn profile, Whitfield has worked for Frisco ISD since July.) Paxton’s complaint was resolved less than two months later, with both sides claiming victory.
• Dozens of residents of South Haven, an Irving subdivision within the boundaries of Coppell ISD, opposed Oncor’s plans to build a 200-foot tower right outside their neighborhood. Unfortunately for those Irving residents, the electricity provider’s land is in Dallas. All but one member of the Dallas City Council signed off on Oncor’s proposal in October.
• Also in October, I wrote about a dog-related dispute in the Peninsulas of Coppell subdivision that led to filings in three Dallas County courts. The inciting incident was a leashed dog belonging to Heather Burton biting an unleashed dog belonging to Lisa Howerton, the president of the neighborhood’s homeowners association. I’m told Howerton is now the HOA’s vice president, with Jay Ashworth elected as president in November.
Fun and games
• The Coppell Cowgirls soccer team won a state championship in April, and that was Coppell High School’s first team title in a UIL sport since the girls cross country runners won it all in the fall of 2018. Before April was over, the Cowgirls golf team had captured their own state crown.
• In other sports news, Coppell resident Kaley Medina won a national tournament hosted by the U.S. Tennis Association in April, Coppell High School graduate Ryan Agarwal returned to the Dallas area with his Stanford basketball team for a February game against SMU, and Coppell native Hannah Bilka is a professional hockey player who will be on the ice at the American Airlines Center today.
• My favorite Chronicle story of 2025 was sports adjacent. It was about how the Plunger Boy tradition keeps flowing at Coppell High School.
Chronicle Crumbs
• On Dec. 18, the Coppell Planning and Zoning Commission endorsed a proposal by the owners of the Lakeside at Coppell apartment complex to turn the second floor of its clubhouse into an apartment. Commission Chair Edmund Haas asked whether this unit would be occupied by an employee, but a representative for IRT Living said anyone would be able to rent it. The Coppell City Council will host a public hearing on this matter on Jan. 13.
• Last August, I published an article called “Big Project Envisioned on Sandy Lake Road” that mentioned Steve Taber’s plan to convert the former Sandy Lake Amusement Park site into a new home for his Southwest Wholesale Nursery. A form filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation this month says that work will begin next March and last until August of 2027. According to the form, the project’s estimated price tag is $15 million.
• 7-Eleven, which is based in the Irving portion of Coppell ISD, announced that CEO Joe DePinto will retire after more than 20 years in that role.
• The Texas A&M University volleyball team won the NCAA championship last Sunday, when their roster included Emily Hellmuth. Although she graduated from Highland Park High School, I’m told she and her parents used to live in Coppell. Since last week’s championship match, Hellmuth has announced she plans to transfer to Louisiana State University to play beach volleyball.
• On Christmas Eve, my wife/editor/muse tried to make the upcoming festivities a little more festive by picking up spirits at the Goody Goody liquor store on North Belt Line Road in Irving. That’s when she found out that store has been permanently closed. Does anybody know when that happened?
Community Calendar
Ohio State Marching Band Rehearsals: The Ohio State Buckeyes will play the Miami Hurricanes in the Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year’s Eve. In advance of that game, the Ohio State marching band will rehearse at Coppell High School’s Buddy Echols Field from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 29 and at the Coppell High School Ninth Grade Campus’ Lesley Field from 10 a.m. to noon on Dec. 30. The public is welcome to attend.
Noon Year’s Eve: If don’t want to stay up until midnight on Dec. 31, then you may want to attend this party scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to noon at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
Coppell Senior & Community Center: Coppell residents who are at least 50 years old are invited to learn more about the city’s senior center during an open house scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon on Jan. 3.
Coppell Youth Soccer Association: Jan. 6 is the registration deadline for the association’s spring leagues, including its new co-ed adult league on Fridays for players who are at least 40 years old.
How to Take Your Medications and Supplements The Right Way: Clinical pharmacist Nicholas Ladikos will be at the Cozby Library and Community Commons at 2 p.m. on Jan. 10 to discuss the dangers inherent in taking medications and supplements incorrectly.
Stomp: The international percussion sensation will perform twice at the Coppell Arts Center on Jan. 11. Shows are scheduled for 3 and 7 p.m.
Coppell Lions Club: The club will host an open house for prospective Lions from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Jan. 13 at 591 Lake Park Drive. Snacks and drinks will be provided.
Gazillion Bubble Show: This all-ages show promises “mesmerizing bubble magic, immersive lights and lasers, and high-energy music.” Performances are scheduled for 1 p.m. on Jan. 24, 7 p.m. on Jan. 24, and 1 p.m. on Jan. 25.
Robotics Camp: Registration is open for the Coppell ISD Education Foundation’s camp that will happen on seven consecutive Thursday evenings starting on Jan. 29.
CORRECTION: I've been informed that the Ohio State marching band’s Dec. 30 practice will be at the Coppell High School Ninth Grade Campus’ Lesley Field from 10 a.m. to noon.
Thank you, Dan, for another year of great reporting. Your articles are timely, informative, pertinent, concise and objective. Everything one could ask for in local journalism. I just have one other comment to make concerning the report on the CISD. I am greatly saddened and disappointed that the District is clinging to the flawed philosophy that open enrollment, that only serves to keep otherwise unnecessary infrastructure in operation, is beneficial to the educational needs of the resident students of the district. That thinking not only deprives neighboring school districts of some of their rightful students, but also causes unnecessary financial burden on the taxpayers of CISD as the state allotment does not cover the entire cost of a student's education (notably I&S funding). More school campuses do not necessarily translate into providing a better education. The CISD is not a "for profit" business nor a "private" institution and its only real responsibility is to educate resident students of the CISD. Having fewer students does not automatically translate into lowering educational opportunity or quality thereof, but, obviously, less students require less funding. CISD is not losing any money actually required for education by smaller enrollment other than by trying to maintain resources which are no longer necessary and ignoring demographic realities. This issue has always been about controlling expenses and having a realistic and fiscally responsible budget.