There is a sense of comfort built and maintained in a safe and isolated community that creates a rose-tinted worldview conducive to privileged complaints.
In Coppell, where the median home value is $650,000, extraordinary circumstances become accepted as normal. Let’s face it: the majority of our city is upper-middle class, with a median income of $140,000 annually. Residents pay a property tax double that of the average in Dallas County, and in turn, those taxes build our city.
Coppell’s extensive funding is reflected in the nature of our school district. According to Niche, Coppell ISD is ranked best in Dallas County, top five in Texas and top 100 nationally.
At a time when teacher shortages are forcing some districts to lower teaching qualification requirements, CISD continues to have highly-qualified staff. We have up-to-date iPads, MacBooks and desktops with capacities far higher than the technology of other districts.
We have a new fine arts building and consistently updated career and technical programs and curriculums. We have well-funded and high-performing arts and co-curricular programs like Vivace, KCBY-TV and The Sidekick. Even with budget constraints, we are not severely lacking in anything we need.
But walk through the halls of any Coppell school campus and you are sure to hear countless complaints: the Wi-Fi is too slow, lunch isn’t good enough, certain classes are too difficult and some teachers are unfair.
No school is flawless, but our tendency to critique what we have reflects how normalized our exceptionalism has become. The things that so many students at Coppell High School critique would be seen as points of success in other high schools.
When a district provides as much as CISD does, expectations are bound to rise. Students begin to assume that advanced courses, new facilities and experienced teachers are the standard. Opportunities we view as ordinary, like access to internships, a full IB diploma program, or one of the most competitive fine art departments in the state, are luxuries that thousands of students across Texas do not get to experience.
Growing up surrounded by high-achieving peers, highly-qualified staff and a community that values education reduces awareness of how privileged we are to be in this environment. We enter the paradox of privilege: the better our circumstances become, the less we recognize them.
This is why it is so important to acknowledge everything we have. We must appreciate the foundation we have been given. CISD’s academic and extracurricular excellence is the result of consistent investment, high standards and the economic advantages of our location. Every student in our district benefits from a system providing the tools and opportunities we need to succeed.
Recognizing our privilege grounds doesn’t diminish our effort, it grounds us in reality. Appreciating what we have pushes us to be even more dedicated.
So respect what you have: clean up the lunch table after you eat, return everything you borrow from the library and thank your teachers.
Take advantage of every opportunity you are lucky to have: apply for programs like iLead and summer internships, enroll in dual credit to attend classes you never could otherwise and participate in school activities beyond attendance.
We owe it to the resources that build our success to be aware of and use them to their full potential.
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