New Community Based Accountability System dashboard supports Coppell pillars

Sannidhi Arimanda

Coppell ISD Board of Trustees approvs the District’s School and Health Advisory Council (SHAC) new curriculum material on Monday. The Board of Trustees meet on the fourth Monday of each month. Photo by Sannidhi Arimanda

Anushree De, Advertising and Circulations Manager

Coppell ISD passed a recent security inspection, chief operating officer Dr. Dennis Womack shared to the Board of Trustees at Monday’s meeting.

In light of school safety, which has been an ongoing topic in previous Board of Trustees meetings, Chief Operations Officer Dr. Dennis Womack presented the intruder detection auto report. 

“Last month, we gave you a security and safety update. I came back tonight to focus on the intruder detection audits,” Dr. Womack said. “Before an audit, investigators don’t tell us which campus they’re going to and what time. They call [Superintendent Dr. Brad Hunt] at the beginning of the month. When they actually do come out, they will try to get inside our building through three random buildings. Then they’ll complete a sweeping investigation of all of our doors.”

According to Womack, CISD passed the inspection. 

“During the month of September, we did one inspection,” Dr. Womack said. “We would have gotten an A+ because we had two staff members that called out the inspector as they tried to inspect the facility.”

In addition to the security inspection, CISD Board of Trustees took a vote to consider approval of the District’s School and Health Advisory Council (SHAC) which, if approved, would convene in order to recommend curriculum materials for human sexuality instruction and curriculum materials for child abuse, family violence, dating violence and sex trafficking instruction.

“An important component of the members are that they are parents who are not employed by the school district,” assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Dr. Angie Brooks said. “SHAC is responsible, per the state, for making recommendations to the board for the specific areas as you can see in the Texas Education Code.”

The motion passed, 7-0.

Chief communications officer Angela Brown updated the board on a Community Based Accountability System (CBAS).

“On Sept. 12, we launched our first community-based dashboard,” Brown said. “What’s great about this is that some of this is real-time data. Even recently, we’ve changed some pieces. We’ve talked to schools around us, and we’re the only one with a dashboard. We truly believe this is community-based. It’s with our community and for our community.”

Brown elaborated on future plans for CBAS, mentioning that she will publicize the dashboard to several schools in CISD. Brown highlighted plans to launch a CBAS moments podcast produced by a student communications intern. 

Trustee Leigh Walker supported the dashboard.

“I want to contain myself, but I’m having a hard time because I love this. I remember the first time we introduced CBAS, someone was like will they teach fishing,” Walker said. “I love the accessibility. I love the colors. And most importantly, I love the community feedback piece. I’ll be interested as we roll out and continue our feedback of what our community wants to be assessing. I’m glad we’re on the forefront of this.”

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