Beam signing Monday for new campus
EMILY TREADWAY
COUPLAND — Proclamations, projects and a construction update on the new campus topped the agenda at this past week’s meeting of the Coupland Independent School District board.
Paying a surprise visit, Mayor Russell Schmidt declared October as “Principal Appreciation Month” and presented Coupland School Principal Brian Booker and Assistant Principal Kate Knapek with framed proclamations.
“(At) the last City Council meeting, we passed a proclamation to recognize these two people. We appreciate you,” Schmidt said to Booker and Knapek.
In related business, Randy Boone, construction manager for Weaver & Jacobs, showed slides and drone footage of the progress on the secondary school rising from the rolling prairie just south of town.
The project began as a middle school but will now include a high school wing. Coupland’s last high school closed in 1946.
“Everything’s moving along pretty good,” Boone said. The project is on budget, on schedule and could be finished by June. It will open for the 2026-27 academic year, officials said.
Coupland ISD will hold a beam signing for the community at the construction site at 350 CR 460 at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20.
“We’ll have a 5- to 6-foot section of tube steel painted for everyone to sign,” Boone said.
Residents and students can also “autograph” columns and the walls for posterity inside the building.
“In a few weeks, we’ll make a video and post it to Facebook of the lifting of the signed beam so everyone can see their names going up into the rafters,” Boone said.
The next school board meeting is 6:30 p.m. Nov. 13 in the school library at 620 S. Commerce St.
