After seven years at CHS9, Dr. Cody Koontz is moving onto bigger things. On May 13, the Lewisville ISD School Board approved the hiring of Dr. Koontz as principal of Flower Mound Marcus High School, taking over in 2024-25 for current Principal Will Skelton who has been named LISD Chief of High Schools.
“I would never leave here unless it was the perfect opportunity,” Dr. Koontz said. “That’s what’s neat about what’s happening is it really is the perfect opportunity for me.”
Dr. Koontz initially applied for the position in April after viewing it as a potentially good fit.
“I applied for a couple of reasons professionally,” Dr. Koontz said. “It is an opportunity for me to continue growing as a leader to take over a 10th through 12th grade campus at the 6A level which is important to me. On the personal side of things, we live in Flower Mound, so my wife and my kids are part of Lewisville ISD. Having the opportunity to be in the same district with my family was also really important to me.”
Upon accepting the position, Dr. Koontz scheduled a meeting to inform the CHS9 staff.
“There’s only so many of those roles so my first reaction was excitement,” CHS9 assistant principal Nathan Harvey said. “I know that that’s a goal of his and he’s such a good human. That’s something that we miss a lot when people are moving jobs is that it’s one person to move to the next [thing], but it’s a human being and he’s got goals and aspirations and dreams and feelings and it meant a lot.”
In CHS9’s seven-year history, Dr. Koontz has served as the first and only principal of the campus.
“He built it,” Harvey said. “Not literally with his hands, but everything that you see on the walls, every teacher that was hired here, he had his hands in. His literal handprints and footprints are all over this building.”
When Dr. Koontz became the principal of CHS9, he had a clear vision of what the school could be. Since he has spent every day striving to make that vision a reality.
“We cast a vision when we started that we wanted to create a family and we wanted this to feel like a family,” Dr. Koontz said. “We want our students to feel at home. I love it here and I’ve been very blessed to have had the opportunity to open CHS9.”
Saying goodbye to CHS9 also means saying goodbye to many of the relationships he’s built in the past seven years.
“He cares so much about everybody in our building,” Harvey said. “Whether you’re a student that goes here, a staff member here, a principal or assistant principal, counselor, nurse, whatever, he cares so much about every single person in the building and how they’re doing. To me he’s ultimately going to go down as the one guy in my journey that gave me the first shot at being an administrator. No one else had given me that shot.”
While many note the impact Dr. Koontz has had on CHS9, the campus and staff have made their impact on him as well.
“I think it should be really hard to leave somewhere because it means that you invested and you built relationships,” Dr. Koontz said. “When something means something to you, then it’s hard to leave that behind. At the same time, there’s a lot of excitement for a new challenge ahead and being in a community where I live is really special.”
Dr. Koontz has made efforts to attend most events over the past seven years. However, his favorites have made permanent marks in his memory.
“Cowboyfest is the culminating event for our school year and then graduation is the culminating event for our students’ high school career,” Dr. Koontz said. “Those two things have been really special to me. I’m excited that this year, the last day of school will be my last graduation here in CISD. It’ll be a great way to end that time.”
Though there has been an outpour of support, excitement and love, the gravity of this change has not fully sunk in yet.
“I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet that I’m going to be leaving,” Dr. Koontz said. “I could have never guessed what a blessing being here would be not just to me professionally, but personally for my family. It’s going to be really weird to think about my life without CHS9 in it and it’s going to be really weird for me to think about CHS9 without me in it. It will probably hit me like a ton of bricks when I drive away from here for the last time but I’m very proud of what we’ve done.”
Dr. Koontz’s replacement will be named this summer.
“We’d be looking for somebody that can continue the things that [Dr. Koontz has] done and continue to serve our school and lead our school in the ways that he has,” Harvey said. “You’re never going to replace him, the person. It’s about having that growth mindset and never feeling like you’ve reached whatever the goal is. We’re always trying to move forward and be better and I think whoever fills those shoes and takes that role will be hopefully really good at embodying that and have that vision as well.”
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