Trustees unanimously approve adding grade levels
COUPLAND - The town is getting a high school again after nearly 80 years.
Coupland Independent School District trustees June 12 unanimously voted to add grades nine through 12 in incremental steps to a middle school now being built, turning the facility into a joint middle and high school.
“Not an additional penny would be needed to build this facility,” said Superintendent Ed Parcell to allay fears of mounting costs.
For now, Coupland School ends at the eighth grade, with students moving on to other districts. The new middle school under construction is expected to debut in time for the 2026-27 academic year.
With the opening of the new building, Coupland ISD will include a ninth grade.
The following year, the school will add a 10th grade. By 2030, Coupland will see its first graduating class since 1946.
Parcell first broached the idea during a May school board meeting, telling trustees the new structure could expand to be used as both a middle school and a high school.
A survey registered that parents and community members worry about higher taxes.
However, according to Parcell, the new school building is already paid for with bond money.
His strategy calls for utilizing space at the middle school with the possible addition of a portable or metal building.
Trustee Andrew Gonzalez questioned the finances involved for the portable or metal building, but Parcell directed the board to review a construction spreadsheet in their packets showing the district still has an unused portion of bond money.
“We can build this metal building with the interest,” Parcell said.
Depending on the needs of the school district, bond money can be used for land acquisition, school-building renovations, construction and purchasing school buses or technology.
“We can’t use that money to buy football equipment because that’s bond money,” Parcell said.
Nor can bond money be used on school supplies, equipment, salaries or other operating costs.
The funds, however, could be spent on a metal building, which Parcell prefers to a portable unit because “it will be a permanent structure.”
The board also discussed naming the combined middle school and high school, rebranding the schools’ mascots and logos and the high school curriculum.
According to local historians, a previous high school in Coupland shuttered in the late 1940s.
Coupland ISD’s enrollment during the 2024-25 school year stood at more than 320 students, with a graduating class of 33 eighth graders.
