Pilot Point ISD will soon need to staff its own full special education program.
That’s because the co-op it has been part of for decades will cease to exist in June 2026.
'We do have on the horizon a change coming for Pilot Point,' Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Alicia Bonnett said during the Oct. 8 PPISD school board meeting. 'The Denton County cooperative, which we have been a part of for many, many decades is disbanding at the choice of the cooperative. Districts are just growing beyond needing a coop at this point.'
The district has known about this upcoming change since May, when the co-op board voted to make the change.
'There's been a lot of work that has been done by myself, Dr. Fuller and her team over about the last four or five months, exploring various options,' Bonnett said. '... Beginning in July of 2026, we are going to service special ed students in-house so that we are going to grow our own program.'
That will change the budget for those services, which CFO Brittany Floyd 'built some things into the budget ahead of time,' Bonnett said.
That includes a director of special education in the current budget, which the administration hopes to identify in the fall and an adminstrative assistant for the department in the spring.
Additional staff positions and increased software fees will also be part of the changes in the budget.
Also in the meeting, Executive Director of Administrative Services and Operations Dr. Brant Perry, PPISD Police Chief Eric Dortch and Athletic Director Chad Worrell spoke about the safety protocol for outdoor events.
'When we started putting this together, I started thinking about how long I've been coaching and how far we've come with this, because when I first started coaching, we counted seconds for lightning,' Worrell said. '... Then it went to a lightning handheld meter that ended up being a rule of UIL ... then it became smartphone apps, and then we just evolved that into our designated, specific systems.'
The coaches get warnings about the possibility of storms a couple of days ahead from the athletic trainer and lighting is monitored during the activities.
Worrell also spoke of the Perry Weather System, which alerts during games.
'The UIL rule is lightning within 10 miles,' Worrell said.
Dortch explained the process of evacuating the field and stands in case of a storm at any of the fields.
'If it's Massey Stadium, our designated spaces for the football team is the locker room,' he said. 'For band and any spectators, it's the middle school. For admin staff, we try to get them in here.'
