By LYNETTE SOWELL-STEVENS
Cove Leader-Press
While other school districts across Texas are working on their budgets for the 2026-2027 school year, Copperas Cove ISD is doing the same.
Although the district has not publicly released a draft or a proposed budget as of this time, one budget-related item is known: CCISD will not be renewing its contract with an area nonprofit organization, Communities In Schools, also known as CIS.
The annual contract for the 2025-2026 school year shows that CCISD pays $200,000 for CIS services. In return, CIS assigns one staff member, called a site coordinator, to each of the district’s 11 campuses, with the exception of Mae Stevens PreK campus. The site coordinators have provided a “supplemental” role to what the district does to help students who are economically disadvantaged or at-risk regarding attendance or academically because of a variety of issues.
According to a recent media release in June from CIS, its staff on CCISD campuses had contact or provided assistance in some way to 950 students. That’s a little more than 12 percent of the district’s approximately 7,700-plus enrollment.
The district did not make an announcement that it was not going to enter into a contract for 2026-2027. An individual posted about the matter on social media, upon which discussions followed. Questions and comments came from community members about what the district intended to do to serve students in need.
CCISD Superintendent Brent Hawkins sat down on Tuesday afternoon for an interview with the Leader-Press and answered questions about the reasoning behind the decision, along with the district’s plans for helping students in need.
“We’ve had a long relationship with Communities In Schools, and we appreciate everything they’ve done. We’ve not said that they were derelict in their duty or anything,” said Hawkins. “But what we have said is that for the past 16 months, we have continued to review everything that we do to try to cut out redundancy and try to make ourselves the most efficient as we possibly can.”
Like approximately 70 percent of Texas school districts, Hawkins said CCISD has a “deficit” budget that it is working to rectify, without eliminating any services to students for the upcoming school year.
“We still have federally budgeted money for student clothing. This isn’t a cutting of service. It is a difference in the delivery of service,” said Hawkins.
“It’ll be a different person that the student comes into contact with to get those items,” added Kurtis Quillin, Director of Communications.
Every elementary school campus in CCISD already has a PCOC – a parent-community outreach coordinator, and those positions are federally funded. In fact, there is one PCOC vacancy open in the district now, at Clements/Parsons Elementary.
“We’re paying them to do a very similar job as CIS does. It is part of Title One,” said Hawkins. “For the junior high and high school campuses, it is the counselors.”
Both said that programs will remain in place that have currently been part of the district to provide assistance to students and families.
One example is the annual Stuff the Bus school supplies drive that takes place the first weekend in August annually and is not a CIS program.
After the school supply drive is completed, those school supplies were divided among the district campuses, and the CIS representative would distribute them as needed on each campus.
Another example is the district’s “Angel Tree” program at Christmas time that has continued to grow. This also is not a CIS program but has come under the supervision of Kurtis Quillin in the nearly three years he has been with CCISD.
“Once everybody has chosen whether they’re going to adopt a child off the Angel Tree, those get sent to my office. From my office, all departments and all folks at the central office come down and they choose how many students they’re going to adopt,” Quillin explained. “We also coordinate with local businesses like Intelogix, HEB, Ashley Furniture, numerous community partners.”
On social media, Quillin commented in a community group that the decision was made by administration due to “duplicate” services from CIS. On Tuesday afternoon, Quillin also clarified the term, stating that the district was trying to eliminate any redundancy of services.
The district’s $200,000 that was contracted to CIS does not cover all of the salaries of the CIS staff. Those positions, according to the CIS website, start at $34,000 per year. CIS depends on grants and community contributions for the rest.
Communities In Schools of Greater Central Texas Inc. has contracts with Killeen ISD, Salado ISD, Temple ISD, and Jarrell ISD. Its site coordinators identify issues that students face on each campus and help bring in outside resources to the schools.
Budget discussions will continue next week when the Copperas Cove ISD board of trustees holds a special meeting on Monday, July 20, at 5 p.m., in the boardroom at the district’s administration building at 408 S. Main St. Part of the agenda includes budget discussion. The budget will be adopted prior to Sept. 1, 2026.
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