COPPELL (WBAP/KLIF News ) – Parents of students at Pinkerton Elementary in Coppell ISD will be meeting tonight to voice concerns about possible changes at the school.
They’re angry over a proposal, to either close or repurpose the campus as part of a bond package that would be put to a vote in May 2023.
Ted Emrich’s child attends the school and said the lack of transparency from the district is frustrating.
“Are students just going to be dispersed to other elementary schools around the area? What happens to Pinkerton Elementary? Does it turn into a Pre-K center?” he said.
Julie Waters leads the Pinkerton Parent Coalition and said the timing of the potential change couldn’t be worse as students are just finding their groove after suffering learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a small school with amazing teachers who know all the kids. We’ve already had kids coming home crying. They’re worried. They love their school and love their friends,” she said.
Waters said at this stage of the process, parents have more questions than answers.
“The bond proposal regarding Pinkerton makes no sense financially. Do taxpayers want to pay $162 million or more for Pre-K expansion? Is that a high priority for the citizens of Coppell? Why spend hundreds of millions and close down a beloved school when you could fix Pinkerton for just $6 million? They keep telling us, the parents, to attend the meetings, but no answers are given at these meetings,” she said.
WBAP News reached out to the district, who issued this statement:
“CISD is currently in a preliminary bond planning process with a Bond Committee, which serves in an advisory role to assist the district and the Board of Trustees to assess and prioritize district needs. CISD is being very transparent about this process and giving our community several opportunities for feedback, including surveys and a community dialogue session to rank program and facility priorities for a possible bond.
While discussions regarding the possibility of specific campuses may be occurring in conjunction with the bond committee’s assessment and prioritization of district needs, such as what about this? or what about that?, any final decision regarding the closure of a particular campus will solely be made by the Board of Trustees and would be separate and apart from the need to hold a bond election in the future.
To be clear, any future decision to close a particular campus would be made by the Board of Trustees, only after examining the district’s needs, operational inefficiencies and the need to balance the maintenance and operations budget of the district. These discussions are not taking place by Trustees currently, as the Bond Committee’s work is still in progress.
For some context, among the Bond Committee’s work are discussions about the possibility of upgrades and investments to nine of our “footprint elementary schools.” (We have 11 total, and 2 are newer — Richard J. Lee opened in 2014 and Canyon Ranch in 2019.) Another possibility being discussed as a potential option is a separate early childhood/pre-k center due to the growth in this area, which could be a new facility or the refurbishment of one of the nine footprint elementary schools. Not one of these nine schools has been named specifically for closure. Final decisions about what may be part of a potential Bond package will ultimately be made by the CISD Board of Trustees.
What is taking place right now is community feedback opportunities on facility and program priorities. All this information is available on the CISD website at www.coppellisd.com/bond. We have encouraged parents with concerns to participate in the community dialogue and survey opportunities to prioritize the district’s facility and program needs. They also will have an opportunity to participate in another survey to rank these priorities. “
The Coppell ISD Community Dialogue meeting is being held in the Coppell High School cafeteria at 6 p.m.
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