The Board of Trustees discussed and debated some pressing issues, chief among them being the new 2023 and future bond packages in its Feb. 13 meeting.

The board reviewed each proposal line by line approving proposals B and D which cover athletic facility updates and technology/security updates. Proposal A which covered renovations and updates to all CISD schools was reviewed leading to a discussion on whether or not the fine arts updates should be aimed at middle schools as opposed to Coppell High School and New Tech High @ Coppell. Some lines of proposal A were approved while others will be further reviewed by the trustees.

“It would be great if all nine schools were renovated,” Coppell resident Julie Waters said. “The district is always talking about being equitable and to serve the district as a whole and to be equitable you would need to serve all of the schools under the renovations.”

The renovations approved in proposals C and D include resurfacing Buddy Echols Field, replacing the turf in the field house and updates to the tennis facility which will include additional locker rooms and resurfacing courts which are set to increase the size of the facility from 2,400 square feet to 10,000 square feet.

Mary Kennington reviewed the TAPR (Texas Academic Performance Report) with the board members. TAPR is broken up into eight sections which analyze the district’s performance in each category during the past school year.

Once the review was completed, trustee Dr. Neena Biswas took a look back at the section 5 report claiming that there were not any violent or criminal acts in the past school year and questioned why an incident involving an Indian American middle school student at a CISD middle school campus on May 16 was not reported.

“How we are reporting these incidents matters,” Dr. Biswas said. “There was an international outcry and letters from Congress about this. If cases are just going to continue to be knocked down and not even put on the report, then we will continue to get an A rating, but what did we do to protect the student?”

In addition to the bond proposals and revisions, payroll for hourly and contracted district employees during the week of Jan. 30 – Feb. 3 was discussed and approved during the meeting.

The next meeting of the Board of Trustees will be a special meeting (meetings that are held on an as-needed basis) held on Feb. 22 at the Vonita White Administration Building.

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