Mold Remediation in Lewisville, TX

Lewisville ISD board members voted Monday night to close five of its elementary schools, a cost-saving measure officials say the district needs as student enrollment continues to decline and state funding for schools is uncertain.

It was a highly emotional meeting, with more than a dozen people taking to the lectern during the public comment section to beg elected leaders to delay a school consolidation plan. Some speakers joined board members in directing rage at the state Legislature, accusing politicians by name of starving public schools and hurting neighborhoods. Gov. Greg Abbott, state Sen. Tan Parker and state Reps. Ben Bumgarner and Mitch Little were all named as bad actors.

Parents wept, and then, before casting the votes to shutter B.B. Owen, Creekside, Garden Ridge, Highland Village and Polser elementary schools, many of the elected leaders wept and begged the visitors to “stand with us and take this passion to your state representatives,” as school board member Michelle Alkhatib said.

The elementary schools chosen for closure were from each of the district’s five high school feeder patterns.

Two schools in particular appeared to have the most community support. Parents and students from Garden Ridge Elementary gathered in matching green T-shirts, and Highland Village Elementary families sat together wearing their purple T-shirts. As the votes came down, one after another, people representing Garden Ridge and Highland Village gasped, cried and shouted at the board.

“You didn’t listen to us!” a man shouted.

In a November work session, Lewisville ISD reported that its longtime demography research partner, Zonda Education, forecast a declining student population that experts say will settle at about 45,000 over the next decade. The district is already seeing the effects of the trend. Enrollment peaked in the 2015-16 school year with 53,396 students, according to the district’s recently published School Retirement & Boundary Proposal.

“Right now, our school buildings have room for 62,508 students,” Superintendent Lori Rapp said in the proposal, “which means many of our classroom seats sit empty each day.”

Rapp noted that the Plano, Richardson, Coppell and Irving school districts have announced closures as enrollments decline.

The eroding enrollment rate, when paired with state lawmakers’ hesitance to increase the six-year-old per-student allotment, has sent fiscal shockwaves across Texas school districts. After deadlocking over vouchers in 2023, the 88th Legislature opted not to increase the per-student allotment.

But it did hand down millions in an underfunded mandate to put armed security on every Texas school campus. The security legislation, known as House Bill 3, came in a special session after a shooter murdered 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Like its sister school districts in North Texas, compliance has cost Lewisville ISD millions.

One mother, Melissa Adams, who said her son attends a campus that wasn’t tapped for closure, told the board she didn’t blame them. She put the blame on Texas lawmakers and the governor.

“This crisis wasn’t born in this room,” she said. “It was created in Austin, and reinforced by decisions made right here at home. Mitch Little, Tan Parker and Greg Abbott have systematically starved our schools. They pushed voucher schemes disguised as choice, diverting public funds into private pockets while leaving districts like LISD to struggle for for survival.”

Ryan Ritter, a father of two Highland Village students, said “right-sizing” elementary campuses to eliminate unused space would just encourage state lawmakers to continue underfunding schools.

“It will send the wrong message to Austin, and one I fear they will use to justify their own delinquency,” Ritter said. “This is the same group of people that claim public school funding was voted down while conveniently leaving out that the bill required vouchers. Vote no tonight and delay this decision for a year. You will never have a more engaged group for advocacy than you will at this very moment.”

One speaker suggested closing the district administrative building instead of closing campuses, and urged administrators to travel between campuses like some teachers are required to. Another parent said she worried about how the disruption might affect students, especially those served by special education services.

Board members shared their agony over the austerity prescribed for Texas schools, and the consolidation they said is the best way to keep from bankrupting the district.

School board member Allison Lassahn said she understands the district’s challenges and needs, but cast the sole vote against closing Highland Village. She recalled her own experience with one of her children, who was a special education student in the district. Now as a board member, she represents District 1, which covers all of Highland Village and Copper Canyon and parts of Flower Mound and Lewisville.

“I have spent countless hours thinking and praying about what the right thing to do is. But because I represent specifically the Highland Village area, I believe I am elected to vote the will of the people of my district. And the will of the people at this time is not to close Highland Village. ... Please know that if any of these schools do not close by vote tonight, this may be only a temporary reprieve.”

As the meeting neared its end and the board accepted a financial audit that showed the district’s ever-thinning budget, board member Buddy Bonner shared his frustrations.

“In two hours and 30 minutes, we are looking at the two things that are driving this district into the gutter,” he said. “Right now, we’re looking at dropped enrollment and no money. Zero. We planned to give our a raise to our teachers this year after the audit came in. Once we had a better grasp on where our finances would land, and what that resulted in this year was a thousand-dollar one-time incremental stipend. ... There is no confidence that there will be any compensation or revenue to the district.”

LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.

LEWISVILLE — It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner, but at Motor City Pizza in Lewisville, every day feels like the holiday. They've taken Thanksgiving dinner and turned it into something you can hold in your hand—a Thanksgiving pizza.

Owner Greg Tierney, a Detroit native, opened the shop four years ago to bring authentic Detroit deep-dish pizza to Texas. But recently, his creativity led him to an idea that's as festive as it is delicious.

"Imagine everything you have on your Thanksgiving table, putting it on a pizza," said Tierney.

That's exactly what he's done.

The Thanksgiving pizza is a combination of freshly roasted turkey, his mom's dressing recipe, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, fried onions, and a drizzle of gravy—all cooked from scratch.

"We're roasting our own turkeys and making our own dressing," Tierney said. "It reminds me of home, my mom, and my family sitting around the Thanksgiving table."

Once assembled, the pizza is baked to perfection.

The Thanksgiving pizza is only available through November, but Tierney said if it's popular enough, he might consider keeping it around.

"It's unique and different. We don't often get a chance to try things like this, so give it a whirl!" he said.

If you're looking for a fun and festive twist on a simple takeout pizza, Motor City Pizza will be serving its Thanksgiving slice at least until the end of November.

Nicole Nielsen

Nicole Nielsen joined the CBS 11 news team in June 2020. Born and raised in Keller, Nicole is a North Texas native who is thrilled to work for the station she grew up watching.

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Brady Smith, owner of Lake Dallas RV Park, said he has multiple camera footages of a mountain lion on his property in late October. (Brady Smith)

Brent Blackwell has seen his share of coyotes, rabbits and skunks near his neighborhood by Lewisville Lake. So when he saw a large feline with a long tail in his security camera footage, he knew something wasn’t right. “That’s when I got the chills,” Blackwell said.

Earlier this week, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department confirmed Blackwell’s November footage of the mountain lion, the first documented sighting in Denton County.

On Friday, the department said it had confirmed another video of a mountain lion on the west side of Lewisville Lake in late October. The two sightings, which happened less than a week apart, are the first for the county, according to the state wildlife department.

Because of the rarity of mountain lions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Texas wildlife officials said they believe both sightings are of the same animal. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has asked residents to contact the agency’s biologists to report any additional sightings.

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Related:What to do if you see a mountain lion in North Texas

”It is likely that this mountain lion is just passing through and will not stay in the area for an extended period,” the department said in a Friday news release.

On Thursday, an urban wildlife biologist for the department said state officials are monitoring the situation.

“The animal has only been observed walking through the area, and no interactions with people or pets have been reported,” the department said.

Blackwell, who provided measurements to biologists from the state parks and wildlife department, said the mountain lion looked to be nearly 3 feet tall.

He wondered what led the mountain lion into his backyard and noticed a rabbit hiding behind the swimming pool equipment while reviewing footage with the state wildlife department.

“Funny enough, another motion went off like 10 minutes later at like 4:45 a.m. in the morning,” he said. “I didn’t see anything in the picture, but I zoomed back in where the rabbit was, and it was still sitting there.”

Blackwell said his neighbors have had mixed reactions to the mountain lion — some people think it’s cool, others are scared about their animals and young children. He plans to be more careful when letting his dogs out when it’s dark outside.

“I don’t think a mountain lion has a predator in this area,” Blackwell said.

Brady Smith, who submitted the October footage to Texas wildlife officials, shared the video with The News. Smith said he opened the Lake Dallas RV Park on the west side of Lewisville Lake about three years ago.

About two years ago, he said one of his employees and a guest reported seeing a mountain lion. They, however, didn’t have video evidence. “One of my guys, we were moving a mobile home, and he was like, ‘There are giant eyes under there. I’m not going under there,’” Smith recalled.

A short time later, a resident reported seeing a mountain lion, Smith said.

There were no more reports of mountain lions on the property until the Wednesday before Halloween, Smith said. One of his park guests told Smith they had a video of a mountain lion. Smith said he warned guests at the park about the sighting.

After he saw a WFAA-TV (Channel 8)news report about the mountain lion sighting in Frisco, he reported it to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He started going through his own security camera footage from around the property and found more videos of the feline.

“I hope it’s not living behind my park,” Smith said. “There are deer there and other food sources.”

Although it is true that Lewisville Lake has animals that mountain lions prey upon, Sam Kieschnick, an urban wildlife biologist for the state parks and wildlife department, said he thinks it is unlikely that the animal lives in the area.

“If he or she — it’s probably a he — sticks around, it’s going to be a lonely bachelor that would have no chance of reproducing,” Kieschnick said. “One of the reasons mountain lions roam is they roam around to find a mate. In Dallas-Fort Worth, we don’t have any evidence to show there’s a population here.”

The Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife confirmed and is investigating the rare sightings.

LAKE DALLAS, Texas — Wednesday night, WFAA aired a video of a confirmed mountain lion sighting near Lake Lewisville in Frisco. Viewer Brady Smith saw it, and could not believe his eyes.

"How did that cat get across the lake!" Smith explained in an interview with WFAA Thursday night.

Brady owns Lake Dallas RV Park on the opposite side of the lake, nearly twenty miles from where the cat was caught on camera. Six days before the mountain lion was seen in Frisco, one of the guests at his park, Heith Mayes caught it on his camera too.

"I’m like there’s no way it crossed the lake that fast!" Smith said.

"I just knew it was a big cat," Mayes told WFAA. "I noticed it was bigger than a bobcat."

Mayes sent the video to Brady, who emailed it to us, and also to the Department of Parks and Wildlife when he saw our story. The department quickly sent urban wildlife biologist Rachel Richter to survey the scene.

"It is extremely rare," Richter said of the sighting. Since the 1990's when the state started tracking mountain lion sightings, she said, "This is the first confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in Denton County."

It’s not certain, Rachel said, but very likely that the mountain lion in Frisco is the same one seen in Lake Dallas. She said the department is monitoring its movement and behavior and suspects it won’t stay near the lake very long.

"They’re a large animal, so if they want to get somewhere else, they can get somewhere else."

The department asks you to report all mountain lion sightings to Richter at Rachel.Richter@tpwd.texas.gov. The department added the following instructions on what to do if you encounter a mountain lion:

• Pick up all children off the ground immediately.

• Do NOT approach the lion

• Stay calm. Talk calmly and move slowly.

• Face the lion and remain in an upright position.

• Do not turn your back on the lion. Back away slowly.

• Do NOT run.

• Do all you can to enlarge your image. Do NOT crouch down or try to hide

• If the lion is aggressive, throw rocks, sticks, or anything you can get your hands on.

• If the lion attacks, fight back. Fighting back can drive off lions.

The Brief

Budget cuts are forcing another North Texas school district to consider closing campuses.

Lewisville ISD will hold "listening sessions" to get feedback from parents before making a decision.

The district projects a $4.5 million deficit and nearly 10,000 fewer students in the next decade.

On Monday night, the board reviewed the recommendations from a community efficiency committee and narrowed the list of schools facing changes.

Another DFW school district may close several schools

A multi-million dollar budget shortfall may cause Lewisville ISD to close 5 schools. The board expects to have a final decision by December 2024.

The elementary schools up for closer are B.B. Owen, Creekside, Garden Ridge, Highland Village, and Polser STEM Academy.

Boundaries could be adjusted for eight other elementary and middle schools.

"Tonight, I should be volunteering as a baseball coach for my two HVE Vikings. Instead, I’m here hoping my words will save their school and, frankly, all five elementary schools that were on that board from retirement," Lewisville ISD parent Ryan Ritter said during public comment.

"Pulling out a STEM school, closing Polser affects 10% of the entire LISD STEM program. That’s a program that took years in the making. Polser has established national recognition. I mean, their resume of accolades is impressive," another parent said.

The district said it will continue to monitor enrollment trends and is hopeful for more funding from the Texas Legislature.

"I wish that we had the relief that we needed from the legislature, but as you mentioned that is not the only challenge. This decline in enrollment, these empty seats, 20% to over 30% is a lot," said Lewisville ISD Trustee Dr. Staci Barker.

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Budget issues have prompted the Coppell Independent School District to close an elementary campus, despite dozens of parents trying to stop that from happening.

"We will emerge from this a stronger and more united one LISD," President Jenny Proznik added.

The board expects to have a final decision by December.

Changes will take effect for the 2025-2026 school year.