Trustees hold October meeting for CCISD

By Sean Haney

Cove Leader-Press

On Tuesday the Copperas Cove Independent School District Board of Trustees started off their monthly meeting by recognizing all CCISD principals for Principal Appreciation Month. Not only were they recognized by Coryell County Judge Roger Miller, but they were also recognized by Interim Fire Chief Gary Young in place of Mayor Dan Yancey. These principals were recognized for their outstanding work with children of all ages.

After the teachers were done being recognized for their outstanding work, the board moved on to to approve their consent agenda which included five different items to include renewal of Imagine Learning Digital Libraries for $90,750 (Budgeted funds), the renewal of TeachTown $61,210.44 (Budgeted funds), Cyber Liability Insurance $34,794.18 (Budgeted funds), CTE Building Networking and Access Control $87,754.14 (Budgeted funds), and Classroom Technology-iPads $35,300 (Budgeted funds).

Imagine Learning provides CCISD with access to student-paced courses for initial credit and credit recovery, access to CTE courses, and access to test prep courses for STAAR/EOC, TSI, SAT, and ACT. The agreement includes nightly imports, on-site professional development, and Digital Libraries for grades 6-12 for Copperas Cove High School, Crossroads High School, Copperas Cove Junior High, and S. C. Lee Junior High.

The board gave its approval to pay Houston Casualty Company $34,794.18 for $2,000,000 of additional cybersecurity insurance coverage for October 2022 through September 2023.

Premier Datacom has completed the network and cabling installation for all phases of the renovations and additions project for CCISD. This final phase includes the installation of all switches, racks, cabling, ports, and more that are needed for the CTE building.

The order of 100 iPads will be used to fulfill the needs of updated student enrollment. The units will be used at elementary campuses throughout the district.

The board also approved the proposal for professional services agreement for the HVAC replacement at Martin Walker Elementary and Mae Stephens Early Learning Academy with O’Connell Robertson and authorized the district to proceed with schematic design costing $63,000 of budgeted funds.

Impact Aid data was a big focus during the school board meeting as well.

During the past week, students were sent home with a survey.

Each survey helps validate the eligibility of military connected schools to receive federal grants and programs.

The program is designed to assist local school districts who have lost revenue to Federal properties that are exempt to local property taxes.

“It’s focused on the understanding that it’s not just military service members, uniformed service members,” said Superintendent Joe Burns. “It’s whoever is employed anywhere in any shape or form on a federal installation.

“So regardless of whether you think you qualify or not, we strongly encourage every parent to complete the form. We look for 100% return rate, and we do that because we want to be sure we count every kid. You can be a contractor and not be a military associated person at all, just working on the base and make eligibility.”

The Impact Aid money that does come to the school district, goes into Fund 199 which is general funds, and those funds are used for every student in this district.

“That’s how you earn it, but that money is used to benefit every kid in the district,” Burns added.