Belton ISD Board Meeting October 20, 2025

001where art meets industry. In these courses, students learn design principles, color theory, and floral techniques from simple bud bases to elaborate arrangements while also gaining real world business skills through campus and community events, deliveries, and a staff flower subscription service. Their skills speak for theirel. Last year, more than 200 students earned Texas State Flores Association certification, proving their talent and career readiness. This evening, our students are going to walk us through the creation of a floral arrangement, explaining their design choices and techniques. Please join me in applauding the Lake Belton High School floral design students and their teachers for sharing their creativity with us tonight. Can I turn this? Does this thing turn or do I have to get my notes out? Hello everyone. This is really fancy. Uh my name is Allison Hall and

002my teaching partner Lori. Um we both teach floral design at Lake Belton High School. We have the Canala sisters here with us, Victoria and Ava, um, here to demonstrate to you guys what we do in our program tonight. So, we would have a few more students with us, but there's a lot going on this time of year, as you all know. Um, we got some sports that a lot of our kids are involved in. We're in the middle of our contest season and then, um, there's a little bit of sickness going around. So, these girls have stepped in to do a great job for us. Um, at our school we have three different classes of floral design. So, we have the intro to floral design, which is your beginner level. Um, which is anywhere, it's

003typically going to be anywhere from, uh, sophomores, juniors mostly, and then some seniors. Um, it is a part of our FFA program, which is the extracurricular part of our um, program. So, any AD class is uh, also considered FFA. um and floral design is in that, but we also have a lot of kids that take it for their art credits. So, we get tons of different types of kids um and we enjoy all of them. So, what they're doing today is they're demonstrating from um a complete arrangement or an unfinished arrangement all the way to a completed arrangement. Um in your basic level floral design class, we do a lot of kind of what we're doing today. Um this is a round arrangement. We actually did a floral design today in class, more of a

004forward- facing arrangement. We did it in cans that the students were able to decorate themselves that were Halloween themed. Um, and we did a an arrangement that was very, very similar to what we're demonstrating today. Um, so we do have the intro class and they basically do one flower arrangement a month um until the end of the school year and they also create a portfolio of all the arrangements that they do as well. Um, and each month we try to theme it to whatever the holiday of the month is. So this month would be um Halloween, next month will be Thanksgiving and so on and so forth. Um and then we have so that's the beginner level class. Um and they learn a lot of the basics of floral design. Um in the advanced floral

005design, which is the second level, they do the same things that all of the beginner classes do, but they also start to um integrate into our um oh, what's it called? Flower of the month. Yeah. Flower of the month, which is our subscription program that we offer to um schools all over town. Um so they will make all of the flower arrangements that we do for the beginner class, but they will also take a step up and do the flower of the month club and design those as well. Um we also do a lot of events. So we've done a lot of banquetss. We did the beef banquet this past weekend. Um we did um what did we just do? We've done two weddings so far this year. Uh family promise, we did that event

006recently. We have another wedding this weekend that we're doing and so those classes do that as well. And then the practicum class um they do all of these events plus they deliver um the flower of the month the month subscriptions all over town. So they get to go out and um actually take the arrangements kind of like if they were to work for a floral shop. They take in a bunch of orders. um they pick out kind of what flowers we're going to use and um design the arrangements before we actually get the hands-on part going. So, that's kind of a little bit about the class. Through these classes, they're also able to earn some certifications like um they mentioned before we came up here. Um so, we do just the basic level knowledge exam.

007This allows us to be able to certify um all of our students that are in the floral design class. They also have a couple other levels of certifications that Miss Hobs has done before. They do have a hands-on portion that the students are allowed to do. Um, but we typically offer this to students who are really really interested in going into the field. Um, the one of the best parts about this program, like I had mentioned before, is it does relate back to our FFA program. Um so in the springtime there is a contest called um floor culture and students actually memorize every single flower you that you could possibly think of and they go out and they judge these flowers. Um so they have to know six no 120 different plants. Um they have

008to know pest and diseases. Um and then they have to do a practicum as well and they place flowers from best to worst. So that's part of the way that we take what we learn in class and use it um outside in our FFA program. Um, we also use it in other ways. I have students that talk about floral design in a public speech. Um, we have students that talk about it kind of like in a radio broadcast. So, this isn't something that just happens in the classroom. It's something that they take outside of school as well and present to people all over the state. Let's see what else can. So, like I said, what they're doing right now is they're creating an arrangement from basic all the way to completed. So, we started over

009here closest to me with some uh arrangements that just have greenery. And so, the basic um part of your container, you have your container and then you have your foam. Um we use what's called wet foam. If you were to use what's called dry foam, then that is for silk flowers, which are fake flowers. But today, we're using fresh flowers. So, we have what's called wet foam. So, you have your container, then you have your wet foam. The first thing that you saw that was closest to me was our foliage, our greenery. Um, which today they're using eucalyptus, a type of eucalyptus. There are many, many different varieties. Um, some of you probably smell it in your bath soaps. Um, but it is a a very beautiful plant that there's lots of varieties of. So,

010they're using that as their foliage today. After that, we have some spray roses that are going to be your focal points. Your focal points are going to be um the biggest and the brightest flowers that you see. So they are using yellow spray roses for that. And then after that your arrangement is kind of tiered. So you have a focal point which is the first flower that you look at. And then after that you kind of have some filler type flowers or secondary flowers. So your secondary flowers that we have in here are purple aster. And then our filler flowers are going to be two different types of chrosanthemums. Flores chrysanthemum and button chrysanthemums. And then baby's breath, which a lot of people know what baby's breath is. Homecoming moms, I forgot those were sitting

011on the table. We just got through with our homecoming week last week. Um, I know BHS's homecoming is this week, so I know that they are probably in the midst of all of this as well. Um, each of our students in class get to make a miniature homecoming mum, which is what you can see sitting on the table. So, Miss Hobbes and I like to pick out a bunch of different types of supplies. Um, and then the students actually get to kind of have free reign after we go over how to make them of what they want to put on them. We require basic things like you need a certain amount of ribbons, you need a certain size of ribbons. Um, you need some trinkets, you need a flower, you need some loops around your

012flower, need something in the middle of your flower to make it look pretty. We we do not sell them. Some schools sell them, but we do not because it has gotten a little outrageous, but the students do get to make their own minimums. And there are a lot of students who are very proud of them and they wear they wore them around school all day. So, that was really neat to see. There's a silver and white one up there um which typically is for seniors. Um like I said, they kind of have free reign to kind of design how they want after we give them kind of the basic standards and how to do it. And so one of the seniors had created her own silver and white one. I think that's it. So we're

013going to gift these to our schoolboard members today. [Applause] We really appreciate you guys allowing us to be here and supporting our program. There are currently over 300 students enrolled in Lake Belton High School's floral design program, which is potentially 300 more than 300 um potential florists. Yes, 38 students and is one of our largest classes. We are very very full. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to be here and hopefully it benefits you someday. Board, if you want to grab your arrangements. Ladies and gentlemen, if you can give us a moment to clear the tables, we will continue with recognition. [Applause] Good evening everyone. Lots of folks here today. Thank you all for being here and for your interest in Belton ISD. I hope you've enjoyed the demonstrations by the

014Lake Belton High School floral design students. Let's give them a round of applause if you will. Thank you guys. Very nice. The time is 6:28 p.m. and the Belton School District Board of Trustees are now convening in a regular board meeting on Monday, October the 20th, 2025 at the Pittinger Fine Arts Center located at 400 North Wall Street in Belton, Texas. A Quora board members is present. Please note for the record that Miss Bass will not be joining us this evening. This meeting has been duly called and notice of the meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. I want to welcome the members of our audience and our live stream viewers to this meeting. As the Belton ISD board of trustees, we are here to

015set goals, listen to reports from the superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, personnel appointments, and make policy for the district. This meeting of the board of trustees is held in public. However, it's not a public meeting. Prior to this meeting, board members received information related to items on tonight's agenda. Agenda items may not necessarily be handled in the order listed on the notice. This meeting is open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed this evening. These proceedings are being livereamed on the on the district's YouTube channel and will be available for review in the days following tonight's meeting. for a video to adequately reflect the proceedings. I respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are on the silent mode. If you would please rise

016for a moment of silent prayer or meditation. Please remain standing as our students from Hubard Branch Elementary lead us in the pledge of allegiance and honors to the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to thee, Texas. One state under God. One and indivisible. >> Please be seated. >> The first item on the agenda this evening is recognitions. We'll turn it over to our communications department to start us over. >> All right. We are so excited tonight to once again recognize our student pledgers. They are from Hubard Branch Elementary School. We have Logan Anderson and Sophia Leolf. Logan's a first grader

017who loves math and science. His friends describe him as as playful and full of energy. And Sophia is a third grader. Uh, she likes working with numbers and wants to be confident managing money when she's older. Her friends would describe her as kind and a little bit silly. And you guys did an amazing job tonight. Thank you for being here to start our meeting off right. [Applause] And next, we would like to recognize again our students from our showcase, our Lake Belton High School floral design students and their teachers. Uh, you got to see their creativity and action tonight. Um, what I thought was truly unique that I learned tonight was that last year more than 200 students earned the Texas State Florist Association certification, showcasing their creativity and career ready skills. And what we

018saw tonight was nothing short of amazing. And we appreciate all your hard work. Thank y'all for being here tonight. And now we want to recognize our Special Olympics botchi ball participants on on Saturday, September 27th at our team competed in the area 12 botchi ball competition in Waco. These champions brought home six gold, three silver, and two bronze medals. >> And we definitely want to recognize their coaches and sponsors, Lauren Marx, Misty Norwood, and Dina Shriner. Shriner. Thank you guys so much for being here and congratulations. [Applause] Outstanding job you guys. Our next set of awards tonight I want to pref preface with kind of an overall um snapshot shot. Tonight we are collectively celebrating 248 AP scholars, 163 big future merit awards and four national merit scholars. This group by campus is Belton High

019School. And tonight for Belton High School, we are recognizing 47 AP Scholars, 17 AP Scholars with honor, 35 AP Scholars with distinction. And if you look on your screen, you can see what students have to do in order to qualify for each of those honors. So, three or more tests at a a rate of three or higher, a 3.2 on all AP exams taken and scores of three or higher for four or more for AP scholars with honors. and our AP scholars with distinction. Those students receive an average score of at least 3.5 on all AP exams and scores of three or higher on all five or more exams. We are running out of room to photograph you all, but see if you can find a window and look over there. Congratulations. Belton High School

020AP honors. And we have a few of you who are also Big Future Merit Award recipients. If you're a Big Future Merit Award recipient, stay put. If not, if you'll exit this way. Uh, all right. Our Do we have any over there that are Belton High School? Y'all come on up. We are also recognizing 63 students in total from Belton High School who have been honored through this college board's big future merit award for their outstanding academic achievements. These awards celebrate students who have demonstrated exceptional academic success in the classroom and on college board assessments, connecting them with colleges and scholarship opportunities across the country. So joining us are our 63 big future merit award recipients. Way to go Belton High School. Congratulations. [Applause] And as Belton High School exits, we will start to welcome

021our AP scholars from Lake Belton High School. We have 74 AP scholars from Belton High School. We also have 25 students who are AP scholars with honor from Lake Belton High School and 37 students who are AP scholars with distinction from Lake Belton High School. And again, if you'll look at the screen, you can see how students qualify for each of those uh special AP scholar honors. As the final students are lining up, please give a round of applause for Lake Belton High School's AP Scholars. And now we're going to add our big future merit award recipients. Let's here. Well, we'll just leave them. Let's just bring these this group up front. Yeah, perfect. You guys come forward. Yeah. So, Lake Belton High School also had 79 students who were who were honored with College

022Board's Big Future Merit Awards. again, giving them opportunities, connecting them with colleges and scholarships across the country. Congratulations to Lake Belton High School. Outstanding job. And as our Lake Belton students exit, we are going to welcome Belton Newekch and their AP scholars. We have seven AP scholars from Belton Newekch, two students who are AP scholars with honors and four AP scholars with distinction. And we're going to add to this to this group. We're going to add our there were 21 total students from Belton Newchek at Westcow who are big future merit award recipients. Congratulations Belton Newekch High School. [Applause] And as these students exit, we are very proud to recognize this evening four outstanding students who are National Merit Scholarship Program Award winners from Belton High School. We have Anita Maltra and Katherine Nickerson who

023have been recognized as National Merit Commended Scholars rank among 50,000 students in the country. And we have two students from Lake Belton High School, Drew. Hey, Drew. And uh Alex, who have been named National Merit Semifinalist, two of 7,500 students in the country so far. And we'll find out later on this year if they if they continue to become finalists. Congratulations to all four of you. Tremendous tremendous achievement. Okay, I got to see. >> Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. I'm sorry. He was mine when he was a little bitty guy. So, yes, I needed to say hi to him and his mama. Um next we have a very special award this evening. For the very first time we're giving a new award um and introducing the journey of a graduate milestone awards which is a recognition

024that's going to honor middle school students who exemplify the district's core competencies aligned to the journey of the graduate competencies. Um we have with us our very first nominee from Lake Belton Middle School, John Hodes and his teacher Sydney McAfee who nominated him. So if you will uh turn your attention to the screens for a quick video that talk about that talk about his accomplishments. [Music] John is an exceptional worker here at our concession stand when we have games going on. He the less than glamorous duty. Sometimes, you know, there's sweeping involved and some spills that happen. He never complains. He is always willing to help. Even if somebody else makes an accident, he's right there to help them. I think John embodies um communication especially. I think he is just such an exceptional communicator,

025especially with our customers. Sometimes it's very loud in here and he never gets nervous, never gets upset, never gets anything. He is just ready to talk to them, ready to tell jokes with them, uh ready to just help them with everything. With the other kids too, he he has such a calming presence that they don't get nervous. It can get pretty busy and there can be a lot of customers in line at times and his calming presence just helps them know that everything's going to be okay. Everybody's going to get served. Everybody's going to get helped. He is such a little adult. It's so funny. He works so well with uh grown people that come to the concession stand. And it's so funny to see him switch between having those conversations with his fellow peers

026and then uh the adults that come to the concession. One thing I've learned is how to be organized. Another thing I've learned is how to organize more stuff. Basically, just a lot of organization plus communication. A lot of Asians in there. Well, it's taught me servant leadership, which is great because it can help with all of my real world experiences. It teaches me how to be good on a level and it teaches and I can teach this to other people to teach them what to do as well. By doing this, I can gain more experience throughout things like college or just more schooling. And I feel like throughout this entire journey, I've learned really essential skills and I think it's going to help a lot in my future. Well, helping out. It's just sometimes breaks

027are good, but other times putting a smile on other people's faces is just again a good thing. I get people happy and I I just walk home or well, I guess I get driven home knowing that I actually did something today. Simple but beautiful. [Music] [Applause] And John, as simple as it may be, it is absolutely beautiful and extraordinary. Um really there were three competencies jump that jumped out to me. Your communication, adaptability, and empathy. All three. And I don't know exactly what um when our team came up with this award and really began to think about this. I couldn't have imagined a better first recipient um than you, John. So thank you so much. I you do have a award in your hand and I do want to mention that that award was designed

028and created by our student uh a student at Belton Newekch along with his teacher Heather Steven. Boris Robinson created designed and created that jog award for you and you were the first to receive it. And I know um let's see, Miss Stevens is here, but Boris wasn't able to be here. But uh again, just an extra special um uh gift from a fellow Belton ISD student. So congratulations, John. Our next award this evening is to recognize our purple star campuses. Total we have seven campuses that are identified as purple star campuses and we are introducing three new campuses that have received the designation for the first time tonight. Chismrail Elementary, High Point Elementary, and Lake Belton Middle School qualified this year, and they are joining existing members, Lakewood Elementary, Southwest Elementary, Belton Middle School, and

029Belton High School. With nearly 30% of Belton ISD's student population identified as military connected, serving those families who serve us so well is vitally important. And we are committed and dedicated to making that happen and making our campuses places where military connected families feel valued and are able to thrive. Congratulations to our three new campuses, but all seven seven of you. We appreciate you going above and beyond. [Applause] And each of the campuses is receiving a banner like the one you saw tonight to uh be able to display at their campus. So, congratulations. We appreciate you guys so very much. And now we are going to recognize our Temple Rotary Educator of the Month. We are pleased to recognize Ashley Meyers who is an outstanding service member at the Delta 18 Plus program. She is

030now in her ninth year in education and her second year with Delta. She brings passion and heart to her work every day. Her principal Tammy Baggerly says that she fosters independence, creates meaningful learning experiences, and builds strong connections with our families. Ashley truly exemplifies dedication and excellence in serving Belton ISD students and young adults. Thank you for all you do, Ashley. [Applause] And unfortunately, our belt and rotary educator of the uh quarter was not able to be here with us this evening, but uh it is Melissa Johnson. Um and she is a uh kindergarten teacher at Southwest and we are very grateful for her as well, but she just was not able to join us this evening. So we will move on to our department showcase and our department showcase this evening in October we

031recognize national principles month and this is a time yeah let's just we'll just clap. [Applause] This is a time for us to carve out time to very specifically recognize our our campus leaders who are the heartbeat of what we do every day. Yeah. Go ahead and give them also always the noisiest recognes every year. I don't know why, but yes, they're just the noisiest. Um, our principles truly set the tone for learning and they build strong relationships and work tirelessly to support our students and staff and families. This year, um, we have a gift for you. uh with Ben and Denise and the communications department, we collaborated to design custom magazine covers for each of you that highlight your unique leadership attributes based on our leadership definition and they include firsthand experiences from your staff

032and students about how you live these attributes each and every day. So each of them is different, each of them unique, and each of them designed just for you. As a reminder that you are the only person that can do what you do for us in Belton ISD, and you matter. And we want to just take time to make sure that you are celebrated, that you feel special, and that you know that we appreciate all that you do. So thank you principles. Happy principles month. And our last recognition this evening, but certainly not least, we would like to recognize our community partners. We have Lena Armstrong Public Library and the Friends of Belton Public Library. In honor of Belton Children's Book Week happening November 3rd through 7th, these partners are bringing our Big Red community

033together through the Big Red Read, a shared reading experience featuring Stuart Little by Eie White. Thanks to their coordination and generosity, each Belton ISD elementary campus has received 20 copies of the book, giving students the opportunity to fully participate in this communitywide celebration of literacy. This partnership reflects the power of community support in fostering a love of reading and learning across Belton ISD. Thank you. We are so grateful to Lena Armstrong Public Library and the friends of Belton Public Library for your dedication to our students and our schools. Thank you. >> Thank you. Please have a seat. >> Thank you. appreciate you. Thank you so much. >> All right, if y'all will join me one more time, I I have to tell you as students were coming up, I was like, I saw your game

034recently. Were you in the play the other night? Like, our students are so involved in so many things and we are so proud of them. Please join me in congratulating all of our students one more time. [Applause] They're like, "Do we get to go home?" >> Yeah. Mine's good. >> Can you hear me now? Oh, there we go. >> I think most of you know that this was principal appreciation month. and we have our principal sitting right here in the middle. Um, I think we'd like to say a few words to you. Uh, Chris, do you want to start us off? >> Sure. >> Yeah. When I came in, I I was a little worried. Uh, I was wondering who got in trouble, right? We got all the principles in here and, uh, Dr. Golden

035said it was me. So, um, you know, happy principal appreciation month. um you know from me right you all are the the keystone in the bridge uh between the board and the implementation in the classroom right the keystone is the really important piece of the bridge right that if it's not there the whole thing falls down right so that is you you all are that keystone uh that really is the bridge um and I think honestly you've got the most difficult job in the entire district um you know you are in a lot of ways the mayor of your attendance zone or or not uh in the case of new tech right uh the the whole Um, so you, you know, you're the mayor of that zone, which means you really have to deal with

036everybody, right? Everybody from the students to the parents to the businesses in the area, uh, to, you know, elected officials sometimes. Um, you know, you've got the whole community, right, is is really knocking on your door. Um, you're the educational leaders on the campuses, right? You are you are the folks who really help make the magic happen and enable the magic to happen uh for the teachers that we have in the classrooms, right? you know, helping to mold that next generation, helping to take that art and that science and put it together um to to to really drive continuous improvement. Um the hours, the celebrations, the tears, maybe sometimes the frustration sometimes. Um and know that we see you, right? We we see you. We love you. Um you are doing an incredible job. Um

037and we just personally I can't thank you enough for what you do. uh what you mean for everybody top to bottom at the district. Um and so just on behalf of you know me and and and really the rest of the board I think feels the same way. Thank you for what you do. We couldn't do it without you. So [Applause] >> trustees, anyone else want to share a few words? Anyone else? >> So yeah, uh yeah, new um coming onto the board. Uh I think that's uh the principles and the the pivotal role that they play in implementing the the vision uh for the district has probably been one of the areas I've I've learned the most about. And so uh from going on to the campuses to to seeing the presentations and the

038meeting, it's uh really amazing what an impact a a great principal has on a school and and we're blessed to have a lot of great principles. So we we sincerely appreciate all the work that you do uh to to take care of our kids every day. So, thank you very much. >> Anyone else? >> Yeah. >> A lot of what both of you already said, but um all of you out here, every time we come on to your campuses, you are leading with excellence and you demand excellence and there's high accountability within your staff and faculty. It's very evident. Not that you're passionate about our students succeeding, but I think every time I come on, you are all beloved. And I think that speaks volumes that you love your children, you love the parents, and

039you love your community. And that just goes to show how far above and beyond you take this job and how seriously it is. And so you can pay someone to do a job, but you can't pay someone to love someone that well. And so I thank you for that. >> Anyone else? Well, okay. Go ahead, Dr. Golden. Go ahead. >> Okay. I I just want to say ditto to all of that. I Yes. I probably am a little biased, but I think we have the finest principles in the state of Texas. And I've worked in many school districts for many years, and I feel very blessed to get to work alongside these incredible educators who it Yeah, it's hard. This is a hard job. Um, leading schools is very challenging and they do it with

040such grace. And I just love you all dearly. and we're glad we can do this little thing to celebrate you tonight. >> Well, I'll end this with just a couple of comments. Um, I've been on the board now, I guess it's been about eight years, and I never did before that never realized how difficult your jobs are. You guys have one of the more difficult jobs that I've ever been around. Okay. It's um it carries an awesome responsibility. Um, and I see that every time I visit, you know, campuses. Unfortunately, I haven't had a opportunity to visit all all of you your campuses, but you are the backbone of your respective campus and collectively in my view, you are the backbone of this district. So, I really appreciate what you guys do. Um, I know

041it sounds just those are words only, but understand it's coming from the heart and you guys are very, very special to this district. And you know, the the difficult thing is that the success of of our district just rests on your shoulders and it's an it's such a heavy burden to carry, but we really appreciate that and just and know that the that the community appreciates you. Um people talk in in in our community about our principles and there's a lot of nice things that are being said about you guys. So, just know that and know that that we really appreciate you collectively as a board. So, thank you very much. Um, with that said, if anyone else would like to exit, you can exit at this time. >> That's awesome. Yeah. Heat. Okay. Next

042on the agenda, public comments. In accordance with policy BED local, we'll take public comments regarding items on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting and comments regarding non-aggenda items will be heard at the end of the meeting to allow board the board to conduct the business of the district. I believe I have one person that's going to make a public comment, but it is on a non-aggenda item. So, we will have to hear that comment at the end of the meeting. So, that will take us to item four on the agenda. Public hearing 2024 2025 first report. Dr. Golden. >> Yes. So, Melissa Laferty, our chief financial officer is coming to the podium. So annually we receive a report an audit from the um Texas Education Agency. This is a report on the financial

043health of a school district. And Melissa is here to provide you with information about um our recent first report and then I know we'll have a public hearing regarding that next. >> All right. Good evening. Tonight we're discussing our 2425 first rating for Belton ISD. This rating is based on the financial data that was audited and submitted to TEA uh last year. The first rating system was designed to hold school districts accountable for the quality of their financial management practices and to provide financial transparency uh to the public for the 2425 uh year. 85% of the 108 districts in the state received an A rating. Um, as you can see from the chart above, um, approximately about 6% have moved from an A rating to a B rating over the last three years. Belton ISD

044is still in the A rating uh, range with a score of 98 and superior achievement. So districts are measured against 20 different financial indicators and they're given points for each one of those indicators. After they've uh given points to each of the indicators, those points are then summed up to get to your overall rating and districts can receive up to 100 points for a rating. out of those indicators. You can see there that indicators one through four is whether or not we uh have a clean audit and submit our fin our audit timely to tea. Did we meet our obligations on time as far as TRS uh IRS and then um also measure how well we made our fund balance. Do we have enough sufficient cash flows um to meet operations and revenues are exceeding

045expenditures? And if they aren't, do you have enough cash flow to continue operating? 11 through 15 are measuring your debt to asset ratios and your ability to make future debt payments. They also measure how how much of your budget is spent on central office or administrative spending and you're scored on that as well. And then finally um after our financial statements are audited through PES we submit that financial information to TEA and those dollar the the data must have the integrity uh and basically tied to those financial statements. And then uh finally, did we meet all of the financial compliance requirements in federal state grants and in even in the accounting standards? In addition to the public hearing, districts are required to distribute what's called a financial management report. And within this report is our

046first rating and the performance rating for each of those indicators that we get from TEA. the superintendent's contract and any payments or reimbursements that we've made to the superintendent and board of trustees uh in the execution of their duties. Copies must be available to distribute to the community if interested and we have copies here if anyone is interested in reading that financial management report. Mr. President, we are ready to open up for public hearing. All right, the time is 7:07 p.m. and we will hold now we will not hold a public hearing regarding the 2024 2025 first report. Becca, do we have anyone sign up for comments? All right, the time is 7:07 p.m. and the public hearing is now closed. Uh, any questions for Miss Laferty? >> Yeah, Chris, first I want to say

047thank you uh to your team, the entire business office for the work that they do, right? I mean this is uh really this is a a crazy environment with uh with with as fast as everything changes right and the the complexity of the work that you do the transparency with with which you do your work um you know is paying off here I think this is what the 14th year in a row 15th year in a row something like that >> um we've been here so thank you for that >> um when just two questions so um always looking to the last two points, right? So, where did we can you tell us a little bit about the the two points that we missed and and a little bit about those? >> So, the two

048points that we lost is in the indicator that measures the correlation between our our debt service local collections and our property values. And so, it's trying to measure your ability to make future debt payments into the future. um districts uh that are fast growth and taking on debt. A you most the average score for those districts that are getting an A is around a 98 to 97 and a lot of it's going to be around you know your bonds and that ability to pay those payments. >> Okay. And then for the the chart the the bar graph where we had uh you know you saw the last three years it is an interesting trend. Um do you know can you speak to the the trend overall or >> No. >> Um figure is that um

049you know as finances are getting you know funding gets tighter um districts you know it's just getting tighter and tighter and financially stressful. Some districts I think are taking on additional debt just because of the growth or facility needs and the lack of that um debt service funding from the state. Um, and so you're starting to see that trend that the financial pressure that districts are facing. >> Thank you again for your your team and all all the work that you'll do. >> Anyone else? >> Thank you, Melissa. >> Thanks. >> That takes us to our action items. Uh, specifically item 5A, consider discussion, take appropriate action regarding school library advisory council recommendation for library materials purchase. Dr. Yes. So, Gabby Nino has oop, sorry, Gabby Nino has joined us at the podium. So, as

050you know, board, we brought to you recently a resolution for implementing a school library advisory council. Gabby's here this evening to share information from their meeting and a recommendation on the purchasing of some library materials. >> Thank you. So, I want to um I want to give you just a preview into um the work that's been happening as we have established our first ever um local school library advisory council following your um your adoption of a resolution to establish one. Um as you all know that you submitted recommendations for families to participate in membership of our um Slack. I'll call it Slack moving forward. um and we had our very first meeting um recently and I just want to kind of overview some of the work that we did together prior to making a a

051recommendation to you all this evening. The first thing um that we did together was really work to understand the implications from Senate Bill 13 that are in alignment um with previous legislation that they built on. We provided our our Slack some resources to help them understand the legislative implications as well as just have conversations around those. We reviewed what the intent and the the duties of our Slack council are, as well as the BISD library collection guidelines, which are a pretty um rigorous set of standards that we hold our materials up against and that our librarians um have used to help in the building of collections and the curating of resources in our libraries. We also reviewed our uh book list which is a very expansive list that I'll explain a bit to you in

052just um just shortly what our ordering procedures have been and what they will be moving forward as well as just looked ahead at um some needs from the slack council what they would need from us in order to feel successful as a part of this group. I want to uh talk just a little bit about um the processes that our librarians have used um in selecting materials for libraries that we reviewed with the Slack committee prior to making recommendations for um book purchase with purchases with them. Our librarians curate resources from many different resources and one of the requirements of them before considering any book to be added to our libraries is to look at reviews um aligned to the standards that are set forth both in legislation and in our own standards in Belton

053ISD. What you see here is a list of professional um sources locations that our librarians um go to to compare any book up to the standards as required by um the legal guidelines and our own guidelines. So, this is just a list to show you um multiple places that they go to visit. Anytime a librarian, I'm going to show you a couple of samples um both elementary and secondary is considering um whether or not to add a book to our collections, they go through a phase of considerations. And the very first thing they consider is why why would I want to add this to our collections? Um and many times it's because there's a new book coming out. Maybe they have um just had an author visit to campus and that generated excitement among our

054students, among our staff. Um and that might be the cause for wanting to add um a book to our resources. Then they consider, think about that list of different places that I just showed you. Um they consider many things that are appropriate or aligned to our guidelines. consideration of age. Um the interest level of books that might be associated with age, yes, but maybe it's an appropriate level for a younger student, but the interest level is around fifth grade. And so they'll look at both age interest and actual reading level interest. Um the maturity, the content, and any connection to learning and curriculum standards. They will also consider literary appreciation. So, does this book add value in the literary context? Has it re received awards of merit um for interest and learning styles? Um how

055are our students represented in the text? Does it encourage critical thinking um and discussion among students? And so, these are just some of the considerations that they look to. I have an example which you can't read and I totally get that it's small print but to just show that they pull multiple different reviews um when considering whether or not a book is added to our collection or recommended and within those reviews they are flagged for those high interest levels like I discussed what's the merit of any book what's an overview of the story and who is represented in it and then of course whether or not the content is appropriate for the students that we serve. I'm going to flip very quickly through this next slide. The first one I showed you was an example

056from an elementary classroom or an elementary library and the second one is an example from a secondary of a book called The Extraordinary Orbit of Alex Ramirez. Go through the same process and considering um whether a text might be added. This one's not from an author visit. This is from a release from one of our recommended publishers. And so it's just another source of information. This book um is tagged for um the engagement of middle school students. Um addresses a young man who is very highly interested in exploring space. Um his own um unique life qualities, characteristics, and traits um make things difficult for him to connect with other individuals. And this book is really about inclusivity of all learners and finding interest for them within our schools. And so it was just another example

057of same process our secondary librarians go through. Um it's very extensive work to pull reviews for every book and hold them up against our guidelines. This was some of the work that we did with our Slack when we came together. We walked through step by step what the process is that our librarians go through. And actually our um two lead librarians are who walked the Slack committee through this process that they go through to something that's really important for you all to know um that comes along with the um SB13 guidelines is that any new book that we're considering for our libraries must go through the process that I just showed you all. But also something that we have to consider is that a any new book with a new ISBN number must go through

058the same process. The reason I have this slide here for you is what you can see is a picture of four different versions of Charlotte's Web. Based on updates or different publishers, that book may have four different ISBN numbers. And so if a librarian wants to add Charlotte's Web to the library collection and it has a new ISBN number, the requirements of Senate Bill 13 would require us to take this book through the review process again even though we have that book in our libraries already. Um the intent of this is to make sure that we are reviewing content in books. So if a book was republished, we would want to make sure that the content still um was appropriate, but it is a challenge that we face in the the new guidelines related to

059Senate Bill 13. our Slack um made the decision um and and added in our our notes that they support our district and if we're adding the exact same title without any changes in content that we would be um permitted to add this to our collections without having to take it to a full approval process and and bring that text to you as a board. I shared this with you because um as I come to you tonight with a book list recommendation, I'm bringing to you a recommendation of 700 books that we would like to add to our libraries. And that's a lot of books to ask for you all to give us permission to add to our libraries. There are repeat books on here because it's our first time and there are books that have

060already been in our system that have repeated ISBN numbers, but they're on there for the first time. The other reason this book list is um so long is because since legislation was in process and has been finalized, we've been working on systems um to align our purchases. So in historical context, our librarians, if if there was a new book out from an author, as I showed you, they could just purchase it immediately from their library budgets. No longer can that happen. And so what we are doing is streamlining the purchases that may have been unique from all of our campuses that would have happened just in time throughout the year will now have to be consolidated. And so you have several months of books um on this list as well as all of our campuses

061combined into one. And so it is a rather large uh list of books that we're recommending. We do not anticipate moving forward that we will need to bring this large of a quantity for um your request request for your permission to purchase. When we walked through the process with our Slack committee, they unanimously recommended that we bring this list forward to you all um with the books that our library team is recommending for addition to our library collections across Belton ISD. And with that, um, our recommendation is that we, um, permit our campus libraries to, um, add these texts to their libraries, but would like to engage in discussion with you all about any questions you have about process so far. >> Any discussion from anyone questions? >> No. Really appreciate the committee taking the

062time to to do this. It's important work and and we appreciate it. >> Yeah. I don't have any questions either. Um the the timeline though it to me has been impressive. Uh the the the slack that we are proactive um as a district as a board and just approving it and instead of waiting for you know some kind of petition like like is going on in other places. We just said let's go ahead and do this because we knew that this is something that's important to our comm uh our community. Um and then that they already got these books approved. I'm I'm I'm happy with that and impressed. Gabby made a point like when these kids get excited about a certain book, um they they want to read and they want to do it now,

063you know, and and if the if we let a year go by or however long it might be, um they could lose interest. So, I'm glad that they they're that we're already, you know, proactive and and approved all of this all these books. So, great job. >> I appreciate that, Mr. Beck. you really did bring up a good point and I just I want to affirm our library services team related to this as well that has been just one of their biggest concerns. Our kids get very excited and about the literature and their role is to build a love of literacy and um so I appreciate your all support and in moving on this promptly. We want books in the hands of kids to get them connected to learning and to feel excited about literacy.

064So thank you for that. >> Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, I should clarify. We I mean, obvious it hasn't been approved by us yet, but and I I said that that it had been approved, but by but approved by the Slack. And so there's several layers and I I am happy about that. There's sever there's several layers. And then there's also the kind of a protective factor that if any parent, just as a reminder, parent or community member gets concerned about any book that that's on our shelves anywhere in the district, it could be put on hold and and in every class in every classroom, in every uh library within the district. So, there's so many uh protective factors that we have in place. So, good job. >> Thank you, Gabby. Okay. Um, do we

065have a motion to approve the attached list of library books recommended by the school library advisory council as presented? Mr. Bzon, Mr. Preston. Mr. Bzon, Mr. Preston, all those in favor, please raise your hand. That passes 620. That concludes our action items this evening. Next on the agenda, reports. Going to item 6A, annual emergent bilingual report. Dr. Golden. >> Yes. So, Gabby's going to stay at the podium. This is an annual requirement to provide to the board of trustees an update on our emergent bilingual services and programming. And so I'm going to turn it back over to Gabby. Great. >> Well, let's start um with this annual report by just um talking about the language diversity that exists in Belton ISD. You have a visualization here of the um highest most frequently spoken languages other

066than English at home in Belton ISD. There are actually over 50 different languages spoken by our students and families other than English. And this visualization just captures the top five being Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Mandarin, and Erdo. There are many o others. You can see in blue primarily the other language spoken than English is Spanish. And so that really informs some of the services that we provide in our district. When a student enters Belton ISD or is already um a student in Belton ISD, there's a a criteria that's deter that determines whether they are considered an emerging bilingual student. And that is based on a home language survey that says, "Here are other languages that are spoken in our house other than the English that's your primary language in schools." Based on questions answered on

067this survey, we conduct assessments and determine whether a student is an English as a second language student or if they are in our bilingual education program. The only language other than English that's served in bilingual education is Spanish. And then all other languages are served um in English as a second language um structures within our um system. And let me talk a little bit about what those are. If a student is by receives bilingual education in preK through fifth grade, they take part in dual language. We across the state have options. We can choose a dual language instructional approach um or we can choose a transitional language approach which is either an early exit or a late exit. And in Belton ISD we have adopted dual language as our bilingual education model. And that takes

068place both in a one-way classroom and a two-way classroom. Um depending on the students enrolled in your campus. If a student has English as a second language and that's their qualifier, um there are different approaches and we employ both in Belton ISD. ESL contentbased and that is specific strategies that our teachers use to support students in the classroom with acquisition of content through just the instructional model. They are specific strategies that are used. And we also have students that are pulled out of classroom, pulled into a smaller group to receive very specific instructional strategies to support them um in progressing academically in the classroom using those strategies in a more direct model um and pull out services. So those are the different approaches that we have and that's quite a bit I realize um but

069I want to give you a picture of um the participation across our system. There are this um graph captures all of the different models that we just discussed and just shows you a visual of participation levels. ESL is at the highest participation levels. And I I want you to think about the reality that there are so many other languages other than Spanish that we serve in our district. And all of those are served elementary through high school in an ESL approach. Anything that is dual language is Spanish and English side by side. And so you can see here um that we do have an increase in the number of students participating in a dual a two-way classroom. The yellow line shows one way and it shows a slight decrease and I'm going to explain to

070you why. Um and then the green is optin. That means that I am an English dominant student. that is my primary language and I have chosen to take part in a dual language classroom where English and Spanish are learning side by side. And then the the very last color coding is purple. It's a denial. There are some families who meet eligibility for either ESL or dual language bilingual services and they deny those services because they don't want their student to participate. I want to uh explain the change in one way. You see a drop in that. That is not because we've had a challenge with students removing or exiting the program. When we implemented dual language um as of today, we only have one-way programming up to fifth grade. We implemented this program um back

071in the 21 school year. And so as it progresses, we have more two-way classrooms emerging and then one way starts to fall off. Does that make sense? So this is really a cohort leaving rather than we've lost students. So that's a change in the data. I want to explain to you why we choose dual language. On the left is a research model that shows you what happens in elementary, middle, and high school um with the different program models that I mentioned. mentioned earlier as an option for us. The two most important to see are up top, the red color. Those are one-way and two-way language models. And what that shows you is that in elementary transitional programs and dual language programs tend to have the same trajectory for growth for students academically. In transitional models,

072meaning early exit or late exit, that means I'm subtracting the Spanish language from the student and prioritizing English. In those models in middle school, it kind of starts to flatline and level out. For students who participate in dual language, they continue to grow academically in both English and span Spanish and they maintain their home language. And then in high school, you can start to see a slight decline in other language models. And with dual language, we continue to see growth. And this research is based on national research norms. But that's what drives why we are dual language as a instructional model for bilingual services over time. The trajectory for students in um both language acquisition, academic sess success and developing into a a an adult who has multiple languages is biiterate um bilingual and bicultural

073is what we want to grow in our students. Um the the visual on the right is really if you see red that is Spanish and blue is English. Just at a glance you can see that's our language allocation model and it shows from prek on the shift in language in how much we prioritize Spanish and English. And by the time students get to fourth grade the red and blue are equal with the goal being that a student is bilingual and biiterate. um in fourth and fifth grade being able to use both languages. Telpass is an English language proficiency assessment that students across the state of Texas um take and it's used to measure the students acquisition of the English language. This data is most meaningful at the individual student level. It is very challenging to

074pull trends from this data for district level because the students do not stay in this data set over time. So I just want to make sure it's very clear that this is most useful at the individual student level. But what you can see here is um K2 kindergarten through 2 grade scores um on this assessment that measures their progress in listening, speaking, reading, and writing of the English language. Um, and you can see from 23 on the left all the way to the right is our most recent data compared to the state. What you see is that in red and blue, those are students who are beginning and intermediate students in acquiring the English language. It makes perfect sense that we have a higher degree of those students in K through two because they are

075just entering our system and we prioritize Spanish at that age range. we do very little introduction of English um in in that age range. As we progress into grades three through 12, they are all combined in this data. So again, individual student, it's it's very helpful to look at this data. It is hard to draw trends when you have everybody lumped together 3 through 12. But what you can see is just stability in comparison to the state. Very little variance. Um we have slightly higher performance in 25 um and the number of students who are advanced or advanced high um than the state. Our performance is slightly higher than them. This data is not stagnant. As a student becomes um advanced high in English language, they then are exited from the data. So they've they

076have acquired the English language and so we are no longer assessing them on Telpass. They are exited from bilingual services. So, it's just important. You're not going to see a ton of change in this over time because that that group of students that is embedded in there um exits as well. On star um you can see on the left is three through five reading language arts and on the right is three through five math. Um these are all of our special um program students in um smaller groups of students to help us measure their progress. Last school year, we saw gains um in reading for our emerging bilingual students and we saw a slight decline in the performance in three through five in math of our emerging bilingual students. And I'm going to talk to

077you a little bit about why I think that is when we look at high school data in our performance at middle school levels very similar to elementary. We saw slight gains in uh literacy or really more of a a flat line and a small dip in math in grades um six through eight in math. In high school, we see the same trend. We see small gains in English language arts, small declines in math. What you see on the very bottom is a biology visualization. And I want you to see that sharp climb in the performance of emerging bilingual students. The reason I have this in here is because I believe it has significant implications for us at all grade levels. That is biology and our standards changed in science two years ago and we began

078implementing new practices in science last school year. The learning model is considered phenomenonbased. It is very handson learning experiences where students um build background knowledge first before they really are learning the content. So students are placed into a phenomenon experience to draw conclusions based on their their thinking. It's an inquiry model driven by questions and then the standards are linked up to it. um for content specific. We've asked ourselves why we see that big change and it really illustrates um an alignment to highly effective ESL strategies and emerging bilingual strategies in giving hands-on based experiences so students have the opportunity to listen, speak, read, and write about what they're learning. And so, um, actually Christy Chandler, who is serving both as our director of professional learning and supporting our multilingual services, is really working with

079our teams on high quality professional learning to ensure those strategies are used across all content areas. Here are some um some key focus areas for us in strengthening supports for emerging bilingual students. One I just me mentioned is through high quality professional learning. Ensuring that across our system both our leaders and our teachers are having really strong experiences and what are the strategies that are most specific to support the students who are emerging bilingual students. Many people will tell you that they are just high-quality instructional strategies. We will tell you they are high-quality strategies that must be guaranteed for students who are emerging bilingual students. We have identified that we need stronger clarity in our secondary schools about how we s serve students. And so Christy and our team are working very closely with our

080secondary schools around direct supports for our emerging bilingual students and high quality instruction. Working very hard to engage our families. We last week had a parents as partner event for our dual language families and there was not a seat open in the house and that was very exciting for us. used different strategies where our students had opportunities to perform brought our families there and we were able to engage them much differently and so we will continue some of those strategies and then resource investment for our teachers. This is the first year that our dual language teachers have had the same instructional resource as our monolingual or our core u English dominant classrooms. they have always been operating out of different resources. And so when we went through the adoption process, we ensured that we could

081get aligned so that they can engage in collaborative um professional learning and planning for students um in partnership with their peers in a different way. And we've gotten some pretty fantastic feedback from our dual language teachers that makes us proud. So with that, that was quite a bit of information about how we serve our emerging bilingual students in Belton ISD. And I'd like to answer any questions that you have. questions for Gabby? Anyone? >> Just want to go back to the math question one more time. So, um, so, so when you were talking about biology, right, you were talking about the the steep incline, steep improvement being really because of the hands-on activities they got to speak, right? you know, sort of immerse themselves in the language in multiple ways. So, so I guess the

082opposite of that is you're saying that those opportunities don't exist in math today. Is that is that what the point was or >> I wouldn't say that they don't exist, but it is a targeted area for improvement for us that we have to have those experience-based learning opportunities. >> The other thing is that the academic vocabulary um is slightly different in math for students in other languages. Um, and so there's got to be an emphasis on the academic vocabulary embedded within math concepts. >> Okay. I think the math curriculum that we approved several months ago, right, had several supplemental materials including manipulatives and all kinds of stuff, right? So, so I would assume then that some of that should potentially help along this direction. >> 100%. And our updates this summer, um, Mr. before with

083our curriculum updates. Um, there was the massive transition last year, but one of the key areas of emphasis this summer was putting differentiated strategies in. And the English language proficiency standards are embedded in all of our documents now, which specifically references what you're using. And then our our resources that we adopted have those embedded supports as well. >> Got it. All right. Thank you. >> No one else. Gabby, I think you're up again. That takes us to to 6B goal five teacher incentive aotment report. Dr. Golden. >> Yes. And she's going to be joined. You see Todd Schiller is moving towards the podium. So as you know board, we um shared with y'all we've had updates on um TIA in the past. Last April we let the Texas Education Agency know that we were um

084moving forward with becoming a teacher incentive aotment district. And so just wanted the team to be able to give you an update on where we are and provide you with some information because they will be back um and Melissa will be working with us in the next board meeting in November on the spending plan for TIA. And so this is just to catch you up on where we are today. >> Good evening board. So as Dr. Golden mentioned, we're here tonight to provide a report regarding the data capture year for the Belvelton ISD teacher incentive aotment. So this year is that data capture year for the 2526 school year. Um TIA requires us to collect two types of information. One of them regarding student growth and we're doing that around assessments from STAR ren and

085we are uh also responsible for collecting teacher evaluation data and we're using our test instrument um that we use for teacher evaluations um for the for that data data element. Um once we collect the data in October 2026, we'll be required to supply that information to Texas Tech University. Um Texas Tech is the dis is the district is the organization that was uh chosen to review the data collected from from school districts in the state to be able to determine its val its validity. And so once we hear back from uh from Texas Tech University or from TEA regarding the uh the TIA validity then we anticipate providing payments our first round of payments in the June 2027. And so this as mentioned in the title of of the uh of the on the agenda

086this is related to goal five. This is about maximizing our financial resources for our teachers. Um we did create a key progress measure surrounding this and it is it is about developing those systems of support um for all of campuses and doing that by May of 2026. And so throughout this presentation um you're going to hear information regarding systems of support and kind of where we're at to date with some of the things that we've created. I want to orient y'all to this slide here. And so wanted to talk a little bit before we jump into the systems of support um just about the the the funding for Belton ISD teachers. And so these numbers that you see here, I want to throw caution to it. This is for 2425 school year. These numbers will

087change every year. Um these numbers are not determined by us. They're determined by um TEA and they're based on the economic um status of camp of students on campus. So the economic disadvantage. So the higher the the economic disadvantage number um the higher the potential dollar increase um that would be provided um if a teacher meets those uh recognized exemplary master criteria. And so when you look at that recognized level you'll see 3201 to 6935. Um that 3201 would be for like a Lakewood Elementary. That's our that's our lowest number of economic disadvantage. And then the higher number that you see there would be for like our south southwest. Um and so that's holds true for that recognized exemplary and masters level. You'll notice that there's a level at the top um that's new for

0882627. So by the time we are ready to provide our first payments that rec that acknowledged level will be a new criteria. Um what we anticipate and can see um is these numbers dollar amount numbers will just shift like so recognized will become acknowledged exemplary will become recognized and masters will become exemplary. There'll be some tweaking of those numbers as well but again um these numbers are just for this school year. By the time we provide our payments these numbers will change. Um and again TEA updates these numbers every year. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Gabby and she's going to talk through the systems of support. >> So, our systems of support for the implementation of um the of TIA during this data capture year really fall into four areas. one,

089our communication plan, um our data integrity and technology supports, a focus on student growth and teacher observation, and what our spending plan is. Based on conversations we've even had this evening in our goal two workshop, you'll hear some overlap um on our work with our teachers and our campus leaders. We have worked very hard to align the practices that already exist in Belton ISD to strengthen those in support of um teachers being identified um for student growth through the TIS system. Related to our communication plan um we have focused in areas of updating our staff and community, how we are informing and engaging teachers and how we are informing and engaging our principles and APS. So far, um, we have worked on a shared aligned presentation that all of our principles, um, were walked through

090and trained in that then they were able to deliver to their campuses so that all of our teachers were informed of the the TIA process and our plans for Belton ISD. We've also built out a website. Our communications team has been very helpful in that. What is currently living on our website is an overview video kind of given the ins and outs of TIA as well as a frequently asked questions page. And so um our staff as questions are emerging can submit those questions and we um will respond to those. There is also a statewide FAQ that is included um that gives some broader um perspective on TIA across the state. And then in addition, I mentioned it, but we have um aligned campus overview presentations that our campus leaders um provided to teachers. Our

091next steps after we have our snapshot day as a district um we will have to go back into our data again to validate that who we have coded as a TIA eligible teacher um is still captured in that data. We may have had um just as an example, as we we level our master schedules, um a teacher may have been added into an eligible group that wasn't in what we originally projected. And so we need to go back after that date to make sure that each and every teacher who is eligible and designated um for TIA gets direct communication with them. And then the the staff will also be provided with a guide book that articulates in a a a handbook style all of the details of TIA implementation in Belton ISD related to data

092integrity and technology. It is extremely important for our systems to be aligned and for our coding to be accurate in order for us to one measure student progress as well as determine designations for teachers. And so this um semester has already been um we have been deeply embedded in studying our data, studying our our coding and making sure that all of that is accurate and assigned appropriately. Um it's been a great process for improvement for us. But this is work that we had started last year as you all are aware of um with our our PES auditing. But data integrity this year is critically important for us in order to validate and ensure that um again that student growth is measured as well as teacher um alignment to that growth is determined. We um in

093this process there has been a verification of course codes with teachers who are assigned to that course code making sure that we are all using aligned coding across the system. Um, and again, like I mentioned before, we may have had teachers who were adjusted in the master scheduling that were not initially a part of the grouping that are now. And so, we have to make sure that all that data is verified prior to submission. Just a reminder for you all, in our phase one um, designated groups, we really asked ourselves which classrooms were ready, which groups of teachers were ready. And when I say ready, I mean we have the tools and resources in place already that would allow us to implement TIA. Um the requirements of TIA are that you have a beginning of

094year a pre-assessment um and then throughout the year you can measure student growth within that classroom. So there had to be a pre-est star ren that we looked at today serves as a pre-EST for us at beginning of year. um a post test could be considered the endofear star renaissance assessment. There also has to be a growth measure. Star Renaissance has a student growth projection embedded in it. And then a teacher must have an annual test evaluation. So the groups that we've designated are kindergarten through fifth grade reading and math including our dual language classrooms. Sixth through 8ighth grade reading and math including modified classrooms. So, a student um who might be participating in modified instruction that is pulled out has the same data available for them in middle school, algebra 1 including our modified

095classrooms, English one, English 2 including both modified and ESOL classrooms. So, these are our eligible teacher groups um in our first phase of TIA implementation um in support and learning for both our our teaching staff and our principles. Um, first of all, we had to make sure that we had our annual assessment calendar outlined with all of our Star Renaissance testing and um, windows articulated um, and that our we are following the practices related to um, high quality assessment implementation. We provided professional learning um, and resources for teachers to strengthen their understanding of Star Renaissance. Um we offer every other Tuesday so far we've offered learning sessions around Star Renaissance for teachers um and have also been heavily supporting our campus leaders and instructional coaches so they can support that work for our um administrators

096um well and our teachers as well. We've provided professional learning um on tests and the evaluation system. An example of that is just last Friday, all of our campus principles in the district came together and did what we call calibration. We calibrate throughout the year in our principal learning, but this was specific to tests. And so they observed videos um all principles and APS did together. They observed videos um at each of the different levels, elementary, middle, and high school. And then they had to rate the the instruction that they observed. And then we went through a process of studying were we aligned in our ratings or did we need to take some steps to come into further alignment. That calibration is critical for the success of TIA. And so that um last bullet was

097what I was talking about for the professional learning for our administrators. All of our principles have also retrained their campus uh team, their teachers in the test evaluation system this school year. So, at this time, I'm going to turn back over to Todd who's going to discuss the splend the spending plan, not the splending plan. I apologize. Yes, the spending plan. So, as mentioned previously, so the spending plan would be coming back in November for board action. It's actually the only element of the teacher incentive aotment that actually requires board approval. Um, so we are planning for that in the month of November at the regular board meeting. What we've talked about with budget committee is a split where we'd have 90% of the aotment dollar amount um go towards uh compensation and then the

098remaining 10% being held back for administrative cost, professional learning and growth assessments. We know that as we continue to grow this and add additional content areas um over the upcoming years because that's our plan is to grow this um that we are going to have more um assessments that need to be developed and those types of things um which is going to cost us um money um in the future. And so to be able to hold that 10% back for those additional costs that's going to come along with the implementation part of this plan um would be our would be our proposal. So with that I'll turn it over to any questions. Any questions for Todd or Gabby? Mr. Beck. >> Um, on the goal portion of that, it mentioned designated campuses. Which campuses would

099not be designated? >> Yeah. So, so every campus there's going to be so every campus. So pretty much all your elementary teachers um and regular a classrooms are going to be um um aligned to that um and and be um be eligible for that um as well as the uh the content areas that that Gabby pointed out with math and algebra and so forth. >> Uh next question is are there any like caps that one could one school really just dominate if that school is just you know does really well? It it doesn't matter. Does it matter at all? Um are there basically are there any caps that can go to any you know the schools or is it just if they meet this criteria they get it? >> Yeah. So if I understand your

100question correctly there's not a cap. um the the goal is that each and every student grows and so this incentive aotment um is designed to support that and so there's not a a cap on the number of teachers that could meet eligibility or could meet that that payout. >> Great. And then just one more question. Uh I wondered about migration. When I looked at that slide, uh when I say migration, what what would happen? Uh the slide that has to do with all with the money, the difference between say $7,000 and $25,000. Uh I'm assuming the the 25,000 the master that would be to the lower economic schools, right? So essentially that that could incentivize teachers to move to those lower economic or are there any what have we looked into that and thought about

101what could happen in our district considering considering that? >> Either one of us I think could jump in on that. We already ha we as a district um do have incentives in place to support uh teachers and recruitment to our highest need campuses. This is an additional and that's absolutely the intention of the structure of TIA to incentivize um campuses that have higher needs. >> That's all. Thank you, >> Chris. >> So, while we're here, I'll just I'll steal a little bit of my own thunder from the budget committee report. Um so, you got to take these numbers with a grain of salt. Okay? So just because a a teacher is may, you know, maybe ends up as a master teacher at, you know, campus with the the highest SCES percentage, right, doesn't necessarily mean

102that they're going to see $25,117 added to their paycheck, right? So there's all kinds of um all kinds of like taxes have to come out of that, all kinds of stuff, right? So So then we're going to have to do a lot of communication. We we talked about the communication level that's going to need to happen especially given what we went through with the latest the latest um compensation uh improvements that came through from the last session and there was some confusion over like how is that going to hit my paycheck right this is what I expect it it's not as simple as just this number and so there there we did ask that there's a pretty robust communication um plan that goes in place to kind of communicate this to our teachers >> and

103Correct me if I'm wrong, but the state will re-establish these dollar amounts every year. >> Every year. >> So, I could qualify in the master's category in one year minus taxes and all those things that come out of a paycheck, but I could get $1 amount and then the next year those dollar amounts are reset by TEA and that could be a different dollar amount. Yeah, I think the dollar amount once you're in, I think that dollar amount stays the same every year. >> So the dollar amount stays the same. >> Become eligible. That'll be the establishment for that. >> So if so Gabby could have gone into it the year prior and it's a certain dollar amount. I come in new the next year. I'm still at a master's, but that dollar amount could

104be slightly different based on what TEA establishes. >> That is our understanding of it. Yes. >> Okay. So one other footnote if you can go to the spending plan slide. Okay. So that one yeah that one is also one that we talked about um in depth in the budget committee. Um so even with even holding back 10% which I think is the maximum we're allowed to do um it still doesn't necessarily cover all the potential costs that would go into um into supporting this. Right. So um you know when you take a look at uh what do we have here like you know the the costs related to the um uh the testing uh star the star ran the uh the interim testing like the beginning and the end of year uh the t support

105the tests um some of the professional learning and development when you take into some of the costs that we expect to have to have even holding back the 10% it doesn't necessarily cover it all it covers a pretty good chunk of it Um but uh but just to throw that out there because initially we had been talking about potentially 100% going to that top line and not holding anything back but going to the 10% like I said I think where we need to go >> I guess with this same slide now I have another question that just came up. So what what this is saying that is please correct me here if I'm wrong but so if the teacher earns that the the our our district is going to retain 10% of those funds >>

106right so the in the example that we were talking about the 2517 so 90% of that would go to the teacher in some way shape or form in if all those conditions are met for that level 10% would come back would we use for the district to to essentially administer and improve and measure um you know for the program. So that's what I said like there's a lot to those numbers and you can't just take like oh my gosh I met that criteria I'm going to see $25,000 more. It's not that easy. >> Yeah. >> Are where are we at uh compared to peer districts regarding that? Is are we about right in line? >> That is a good point. Most districts that have developed this um have been 9010 and those that aren't are

107trying to move towards a 9010 model because of the costs um that are that are that are going into the implementation of this. >> Anyone else? >> I'll just say I'm I'm super excited that we're implementing this. I mean, I think it's >> absolutely >> uh was a a great benefit for for our teachers and um I appreciate all the work that's gone into developing it on an administrative level so that our our teachers can reap the benefit. So, thank you and looking forward to hearing a report in a couple years about teachers getting a lot of incentive a lotment. So, >> anyone else? >> Okay, that will take us to item 6 C. Thank y'all. >> School health advisory council report. Dr. Golden. >> Yes. While Dr. Spearman's walking up, just a quick thank

108you to Gabby and Todd. Um, but Deanna Loveith is also doing a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes on TIA as well as our communications team. Um, Christine. So, there's a whole team working behind the scenes on that. So, thank y'all. All right. Dr. Spearman is coming up to provide an annual report for our school health advisory council. Um, this report typically has been put on consent, but wanted to make sure particularly for new members of our board of trustees to have the opportunity to hear what is a shack committee and um, Dr. Spearman has been leading this work for us and super proud of her. We're going to turn it over to Cassandra. >> Thank you. Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. I am honored to be here tonight to share the

109annual report for the school health advisory council. And like Gabby has Slack, we have Shaq, very similar, but we focus on the health of our students and staff within the district. So, SHA Shaq, look at messing up. Shaq is a group of individuals from various um areas within our district. We come together at least four times a year and we study best practices around school health and programming. we make recommendations to the board for um policy procedures and practices that we'd like to see within our district. Some of the objectives of SHAK is to promote quality health education programs that span over our health services, our food nutrition services, physical education. Um, we also vet curriculum for um, wellness such as um, I'm going to say SEAL, but that's a language, our social emotional learning,

110um, our our child abuse curriculum as well as our um, human and sexuality curriculum. Those are all curriculums that are also um, vetted through SHA and we make a recommendation to the school board. Shaq does have legislative requirements. One is that there has to be a parent as a co-chair and the last two years Miss Lynette Warrick has been our co-chair for Shaq. We are required to have a minimum of five appointed member members. I am proud to say that we have 27 members. Majority of those members must be parents who are non employees of Belton ISD. And so we've been able to maintain a pretty healthy committee. We are required to meet four times a year. When we start planning for the year, we schedule four meetings. However, if the work is not done,

111we add additional meetings to get the work done, whatever projects that we're working on. So this past school year, we met six times. And then we're also required to provide an annual report to the school board. And tonight is the annual report that we're pro required to provide. During the 2425 school year, the SHA committee engaged in several things that we think moved the needle a little bit around school wellness for our students and our staff. One, we worked together to complete a trienal assessment, and I'll tell you a little bit of more about that assessment in just a minute. Um, we updated our wellness plan based on that assessment as well as other input that was gathered from the committee. we participated supported the parents' partners um activities where in October we provided a

112fentanyl and opioid abuse um training and then in April which was virtual um and then in April in person we provided a wellness um session where we had our dieticians food nutri food nutrition come and talk to us about creating healthy snacks at home and the importance of healthy snacks. We had our director of health talk to us about diabetes care and then our um safety team talk to us about the trends that we're seeing with drugs in our area. And then the big work that I'm most proud of is we partnered with our director of counseling, our counselors, and other departments to review curriculum and adopt the um not adopt, we recommended and the board adopted play it safe curriculum for child abuse instruction for students in pre-K through grade 5. The trienal assessment,

113and I apologize for the misspelled word. But I looked at a thousand times, didn't catch it. My apologies. The trienal assessment, we used a tool created by Welssat, which is in our policy. That that would be the tool that we would use. It is a three-year assessment, and it requires us to look through all of our policies and written guidance. It's important. It has to be written within a policy or a procedure or an expectation to determine if we are a meeting all of the requirements whether it be federal, state or local, but also some of the best practices. And so there's two parts to the score. The first part is the comprehensive score. And the comprehensive score requires us to read through every policy that we have and determine whether or not the it

114is even addressed inside of our policies. And so our score was a 70 on a scale of 0 to 100. Our score was a 70 and the national average is 54. So I'm pretty proud of that score. We didn't even know that when we started the process, but it shows that we are doing um quite well considering the national score. And then the second part of the score is the strength score. And that's where you look at your policies and you determine whether it's a recommendation or if it's a requirement. For example, if we were to recommend that teachers not use food as a reward versus say stu teachers are prohibited from using food as a reward. There's a different score if it's a recommendation versus if it is a um requirement. That's the difference

115between the two scores. And so with that being said, we completed the assessment. We brought it back to the shack committee and we reviewed the assessment and I am very um it was very interesting in looking over the assessment because we have several um areas where we had to give ourselves a zero. So a zero was if you don't have anything in policy at all. Remember it had to be written not what we do it has to be written and then a one if it was in policy but it was recommended and then a two if it was in policy and it was required. Well, the first bullet here, availability of water throughout the day. We've been doing that for years in Belton ISD, but it's not written anywhere in any of our guidance documents.

116And so that was lowhanging fruit. We felt recess cannot be taken for punishment. We began this journey last year and now it's legislatively required. We're not able to um withhold recess for any reason, academic or behavioral. And so where that was a zero because it wasn't mentioned in our policy, it would now be a two. If we were rating today, it would be a two. Encouraging physical activity for rewards. Well, we recommend it, but it's not written anywhere in our policies. And so these were easy things. Um addresses substitution of physical education. We addressed that last year. We had meetings and we updated our policies, but it was after we completed the assessment. And so at the time that we completed the assessment, it was a zero. Today, it would be a two. And so

117we found several areas areas on the assessment where we could easily make improvements because some of them we're already doing. We just need to add them to our policies and our wellness plan, which is exactly what we did. We updated after we completed the assessment, we updated our wellness plan to address the items that we were already doing um that just we didn't have them written. And then also other areas of things that we thought that we could also um improve upon. And so then we have recommendations for the upcoming 20 um 2520 2026 school year which begins for the shack after this meeting um to continue to review and update our wellness plan. Um there are quite a bit there were several legislative changes in the 89th um session that impacts wellness within our

118school district. um such as the consent forms for counseling and for health services that our SHA committee will spend quite a bit of time studying and understanding those legislative updates and then um updating our wellness policy and plans. Um, as we better understand the new requirements, we want to continue to partner with um the within the BISD community such as Beller, Scott, and White to offer health and wellness resources to students and staff. One of the main um changes that we made in our wellness plan was to address students and staff, not just our students and their well their well and their wellness. Um and then also to explore additional ways to engage the BISD community in wellness activities. Like I said, our SHAK meetings begin after this annual report and in your consent package,

119you have a recommended um roster of SHAK members. We will start on November 3rd and conclude on May 7th. Um, again, we may add additional dates if the work is not done and we need to add dates to get it all finished. Any questions? >> Any questions for Dr. Spearman? >> Okay. Thank you, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> That takes us to our board committee reports policy committee. Guess Riley, that'd be you since >> essentially we went over the Slack committee, the library committee. So the same slides that we went over tonight, so I won't repeat any of that, but >> Okay. >> Um, that's what we went over. >> All right, sounds good. That takes us to budget committee. >> Do we have an hour? >> No, just kidding. >> Got one minute. >>

120All right. Okay, so we took a look at the uh budget development timeline, right? So, we're already looking ahead towards the 2627 budget planning calendar. Um, so you all should have a copy of this already, but we took a look at this, talked through it, and talked about maybe even pulling some of these items up a little bit earlier by a month or two to see if we can get a jump start on that process. Um, we also talked about uh the idea of setting budget goals. So, you know, for the last couple years, we have set a list of budget assumptions, right? But uh there's some uh conversation coming out of uh the last conference that we went to around also maybe setting budget goals, right, that we can provide to the administration to

121help them um you know, initially put together some um some runs of the budget. So um so think about like you know one goal might be that you know we have to you know establish a budget that is that adheres to the board policy for you know percent of fund balance right like that might be a goal. Um a balanced budget might be a goal, right? There's um so there's some discussion about you know whether we we want to do that and and where we might do that in the process. Um we talked about the uh efficiency audit uh timeline. So in the event that you were ever going to talk about the tax rate on the operations and maintenance side, you would have to have an efficiency audit that was done um you know

122I think within a year. And so we're talking about, you know, do we do should we do an efficiency audit and if we and if we should do one, when would we like to do it? Because in theory, if you're going to do an audit, you want to give yourself some time to also act on whatever the audit may find. Um, so we talked a little bit about that. Uh, we got an enrollment update. Uh, so we're within 30 students, at least at the at least as of the 14th, we were within 30 students of our demographic projection. Uh, so pretty darn close. Um but uh the snapshot day is the 31st. So we're we're coming up on that. >> So 30 students short. >> Yes. 30 students short. Yeah. Uh of the demographic. I

123mean as a percentage of this of the whole it's pretty small but every student counts. Right. >> Right. >> Um and then uh we talked about some uh TS spending plan and so we've already talked about that so I won't I won't get into that anymore. >> Did I leave anything out? No, we just uh we did talk a little bit about the way that we want to evaluate data kind of more taking a deeper dive into and a by campus and by function uh really so that we can get a better understanding of the budget and uh help us set what those budget goals are. You know, if we want to target uh funding towards a specific initiative, then uh just having more data to to figure out where where we plug that in

124will be super helpful. But We covered everything else. Thank you. >> Busy, >> I thought you guys were. Thank you guys. >> All right, facilities. >> Yeah, facilities. Uh, first part of it, we had just went over a 22 bond report discussion. Slowly starting to close out those things such as Delta and the different projects we have going on. Uh, next one was uh request for quotes on the project manager for the storm damage. Insurance is paying for that for us to bring in a contractor to manage it. It looks like we've chosen I believe it's HPM is how we say it. They did the facilities is that correct? Um they did the facilities master plan for us where they walked all of our campuses. They already knew this is one of the services they

125do. It's handy to have. They they know this school. They know every bit about it. Um there'll be more coming in November, but we did talk a little bit about True North comprehensive technology assessment. It's very similar to the assessment that we did a few years ago on our facilities where somebody went in, cataloged everything, told us what we have, when things are going to start aging out. The stuff that we're working on now, facilities, it'd be the same thing from a technology standpoint so that we can get a master list going so that us and future boards know, hey, this is what's coming down the pike uh down the road. And then of course we talked about the Tiger Field reimbursement resolution update on the turf video boards and the replacement of lights. So

126um and the the bid that we're getting in on that. So that was it. Did I miss anything, Riley? >> Oh, sorry. I'm looking right there over there. >> Thank you, Jeff. Well, that brings us to the bosses report. Oh, by the way, happy belated bosses day. >> Yeah, >> I should be saying that to y'all. Sorry about that. Thank y'all. So, it's been an incredibly busy month since we were here last. Now, I'm just going to hit some quick highlights. Um, thank you so much for those who were able to attend our open house for the launching of this amazing Delta program. Um, and in this facility that was specifically designed to meet our 18 plus student needs. And these young adults are incredible. they were very excited to give us tours of this

127facility and so we're just exceptionally excited to have students there and utilizing this great space that was designed for them. Um also this month we did quite a few visits to campuses with our board members. We visited um some of these are just pictures from Sparta, Leyon Heights, High Point, um Charter Oak. We also had a chance to go to the um well those were the campuses I just listed. So these are just board members and I just cannot begin to thank y'all for um giving our principles an opportunity to let them really share with you the focus areas for improvement on their campuses and then get into classrooms and actually see firsthand um what our incredible teachers are doing and our incredible students. And so um more visits are being scheduled for this semester

128and then also for next semester. or so more to come. So, thank y'all so much for joining us. Um, I had an incredible opportunity and I'm just so thankful there's not a video attached to this. Um, but had an opportunity to go be a part of the magic bells. Um, we have incredible dance programs at both of our comprehensive high schools. And these young women taught me one of their routines. And then we just had a great opportunity to talk about um my own story, how I ended up in the position I'm in. Just listening to their stories. They actually inspire me and I'm so proud of them. And so I just a shout out to them and a thank you for letting me be a part of their incredible program. And then we also

129launched our superintendent student advisory council. Our first meeting, these incredible young men and women um came together with us recently. This was our first meeting. Um had the opportunity to um hear from our students what's on their minds, what are the topics they really want to dig in and explore. Um, I will tell you it didn't take a whole lot of team building with them to get them to talk cross campus. Um, sometimes it takes a little proddding to get them outside of the comfort zone of their own campuses. Um, that was not the case with this group. They did an incredible job. Their voices matter. Um, they are going to be helping us also develop a leadership um, profile for students. So just as we did um our leadership profile for principles, we've done

130an executive level um leadership profile also an assistant principal one. They are going to help us actually design a student one that is aligned to our leadership definition. What's important to Belton ISD in terms of building culture, empowering people, pursuing excellence. So I'm super excited about the work we're going to be doing with them this year. And then finally have been doing a lot of information sessions for the upcoming election that is November 4th. Um early voting started early voting started today. It goes until the 31st. Um lots of polling locations and so just getting information out there about what is on the ballot for Belton ISD. And that has been our month. It's been a busy month. >> Thank you Dr. Golden. questions for Dr. Goolan? Well, okay. Thank you, ma'am. That takes us

131to the um consent agenda. Anyone wish to pull an item for discussion? All right. Uh do you have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Mr. Preston? Second, Mr. Norwood? All those in favor, please raise your hand. That passes 620. That takes us to item eight, public comments. I do have one person signed up. Uh, is Mr. Kent still here? Mr. Mr. Kent, as you as you move up to the podium, let let me read some information in the record, but your time won't start until I finish up. Okay. In accordance with district policy beed local, any person wishing to address the board of trustees during public comment shall sign up before the meeting in order to comply with the Texas Open Meetings Act. The board may not respond to comments or otherwise

132discuss or act upon any issues that are not posted on the meeting agenda. Participants will be allowed three minutes for public comments regarding items on the agenda. And of course, you're going to speak to us about an item that's not on the agenda. There'll be a timer that will give you three minutes. Uh sir, if you would please uh tell us your name and then you may begin. >> My name is Dr. Gary Kent. Uh I want to first of all my reason to come here is just to tell you thank you. Thank you for what you have been doing in the community. Well, excuse me Dr. Golden, the rest of the members of the board. You all have been doing a great job. For the past three years, I have been I say doing

133my part in helping with the pushing and encouraging of the education of our children because it's very important to me. Uh I just want to solicit my assistance uh collaboration uh in helping uh come from a background of prior um city council member, retired uh chief of police. So I have the thing I've been substituting for the last three years and let me tell you the kids here are awesome. Uh, I've been like flip-flopping between Colleen here, but I said Belton is the place to be. So, I want to encourage you all to if no one has told you today, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing and let's keep doing it because our children uh deserve it because there's so many things that I could say uh about the experiences that I have

134when I do substitute. And I tell you, I love it because it's nothing like when the light comes on when you're teaching a child. So, uh, that's what I wanted to say. I know that a lot of time the long person that comes up, you're like, "Oh my goodness, what is he going to say?" But I want to thank each and every one of you. That could have been my mindset. But when you see seen me, you greeted me and that means a lot. And I think it and I know it was genuine. So, thank you on that. So, kudos and thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> Looks like I skipped an item. Um, going back to board highlights, anyone wish to tell us about their Oh, Mr. Norwood, >> I do actually have

135some because, you know, everybody knows me. I hate long meetings, so I don't talk about these, but couple quick things. Um, one of them, uh, I know Trusty Flor got there right after I had left, but, uh, Camp Champions was, I guess, two or three weeks ago now, and, um, I encourage board members to make it out there. It was actually brought here by coach cop uh from&m consolidated when he came and you know special ed has has really embraced it alongside with like our special Olympics and just just all the stuff that we do with our special needs population. I really you have to look around at other districts and see that not everybody does the things that that we do. But something I've taken away and I really have two points I want

136to make. One of the things I've taken away in all the years of now doing the camp champions and the um uh special Olympics, you know, we have a number and and the penguin project is is not involved in that as much. But one thing that I take away from that is, you know, these kids are either volunteered or volunte because that's the way the world works. when I have gened kids that are participating, our athletes, our cheerleaders, our people in uh the arts, all that when they do that and what I have learned and what I have loved watching is um you know that's that's that's difficult on these kids because it's something new to them. That's it's almost like watching someone the first time they see a a baby and they're scared to

137hold it until they realize it. And I've watched these kids grow and I've talked to these parents and I'm not talking about our special needs population. I'm talking about the kids that are going out there helping and I've watched these kids grow and the empathy that they have and and talking to them. I talk I know a lot of these kids I talk to them tell me about like well you know first year I did I was so scared because it's different to them. But what they learn is yeah these kids they they they do look different. They they maybe they have special needs. They have things but what they've learned is they're kids just like we are. and you know that we talk about you know what we're trying to develop here and I

138am again I am so proud of our special ed department what they do but the side effect of having these kids at a young age experience this have empathy for people who don't look like them and we're trying to develop leaders well that's the kind of leaders I want um and then something totally unrelated wasn't from a board got to volunteer at a few different things in my non board hat uh kind of like Chris does and some things and just a special thanks um you know I got to volunteer one night with Mr. Alcohoser's wife uh in a concession stand and have got to do a couple other little things like that. Go to these events at our schools, okay? And you know, we're always out in the in the front. We we've got

139our shirts and and people know who we are, whether we want them to or not. The fact is our schools don't have the events. They don't work without all these people behind the scenes that we never see. You never see the people in the concession stand for the most part. But you know what? If they're not there, we don't have food to serve. You don't ever realize who's picking up tickets. These are volunteers. These are parents. A lot of these are also our staff and our teachers who they're not getting paid to be there, but these events don't take place if they're not there. So, I think that, you know, I just a shout out to all those, you know, those those unseen people that were behind the scenes every day doing things that make

140this campus work, but we never see them. So, just, you know, hopefully if one of them are watching this, just, you know, thank you for all that you do out there for this community. You know, Belton is a great place because we have great people that step up and volunteer and that's just the way it is. So, that's it. >> Thank you, Jeff. >> Anyone else? Mr. Bozo just mentioned that uh the Belton Education Foundation had the casino night this weekend and it was a awesome event. Took a lot of hours of uh volunteers by our um planning committee and and they did uh an amazing job. I would say that they always do a good job, but I think this was my the most fun. I really like the casino night aspect of it.

141Great, great job to uh Kim, our executive director, and Ellen, our our president this year, and Alex and Baron, who who led the event committee. So, thank you so much, >> Chris. >> Man, midsepptember through mid-occtober is real. I'm just going to tell you, there's been a lot going on. I mean, amazing Delta opening, right? So, I won't hit that. We already hit that again. I mean, I all I have to say is this. when they get the botchi court in, I want an invite and I want to go play botchi with the kids. Okay, let's go. Um, man, all over the community from a community meeting standpoint. First, first meth the First Methodist Church of Belton, the men's breakfast was an awesome outing. Um, even though Jay Tagert was wearing me out, um, the

142Temple Public Policy Council was also another great meeting. Um, uh, Belton Chamber, um, all of those were were great to represent. um went to the uh second I can't say it's annual but the the second Bronco boil uh to raise funds for project celebration um uh was a pretty awesome event um that also drew some folks out to some of the freshman football games so hopefully hopefully that increased their attendance a little bit um got to participate in the city of Belton's manufacturing day uh so that's a collaboration between the city uh the BEDC uh workforce development and uh so I got to be a teacher. Uh I got to go visit Belton High School and Lake Belton High School, do a little bit of instruction on what it's like to be in the IT

143consulting industry and then uh and then I got to host uh the two two groups of kids uh at my office to then continue on with a panel discussion. So that was uh that was awesome. Uh let's see. Um Bantober, if you've never heard the term bandtober, uh that is definitely real. Uh that is the competition season for our bands. Um and not only do they perform on Fridays, but they also generally go from, you know, finishing up at 11:30 at night to like leaving at like 7 o'clock in the morning to go to an all day competition and not getting back till 2:30 in the morning every weekend in a row. So, um and I got to tell you, congratulate your local band member whe uh whether they are a marching 100 or whether

144they're the Stampede. Um they both um uh they're both advanced out of UIL region. So they're both going to area. Uh they are uh representing our fine arts. Well, uh and then just a plug for our upcoming theater productions. If you haven't gone uh or don't know about it, look for them because they're pretty awesome. >> Thank you, Chriser. >> I'll say a little bit of the same. Um, obviously doing the campus visits is one of the favorite things I get to where we all get to do, but getting to go to High Point and um, uh, Chism Trail, I think is where we were together or Charter Oak. I was Yeah, great. Uh, getting to be in the classroom. Uh, volleyball. Uh, I got to go to my first lake belt high school game

145this year and went with Chris. And you talk about the people behind the scenes and Chris gave me a good behind the scenes look at uh, a lot of the work that goes on for the band and putting together the halftime show and seeing the stampede and uh, that was that was really really fun to go to that game for homecoming this past week. Um, same night was witches and Salem at VHS. I did not get to go to uh, New Tech production. I wanted to but I couldn't. >> It was so good. >> Yeah, I heard it was amazing. I heard some parents. Yeah. Uh, but I did get to see the BHLs production. It was excellent. Really well done as usual. Um, I got to go to walk the halls at Belton High

146School for the tennis team that got to send off to go after winning district for tennis. And, uh, I'd never been to anything like that. And just to see the drum line and the cheerleaders and everyone come through was just excellent. And um and then last night the or a couple nights ago the BEF uh there's I mean you you talked about Ellen and Kim and everyone the leadership there they raise a lot of money for our teachers and our students and our pair professionals. I think they raise around $450,000 that are distributed a year that go right straight into our teachers, our classrooms, our students who are graduating. So um great job again for BEF. Thank you, Rucker Riley. Um, I went and did some campus visits, Hubard Branch, Southwest, Sparta, and Leon Heights.

147It was interesting as we would walk into the room, I was worried we were going to interrupt and and be a a nuisance kind of, you know, being four or five, six of us. And I was kind of pleased to see that we weren't. you know, the the the students were locked in with their teachers and somewhat I guess desensit desensitized to that. So, it kind of showed me that I I feel like our principles are getting in there and and watching what our teachers are doing and our teachers are just engaged with the students and and so that was that was uplifting. Um, I realized just, you know, even more how demanding a teacher's job is, keeping those kids engaged all day long. Um, and again, these were all elementary schools, so it' be

148tough job. Um, there was one of the schools that I went to particularly that just blew me away. Um, during their flex time, they call it wind time. So there there's an hour an hour a day where they're studying English language arts or math. Um and this particular school what they did is they took they they basically um work as a community and they take their kids depending on the level that they're at in English or math and send them to different teachers and different classrooms. And it's the first time that I've ever like truly believed and and seen uh that differentiated learning can happen on a big scale. Um I don't know how teachers can do it with you. You know, we review these stats every day and there's low low performing students and

149there's high performing students in elementary and they're all thrown in together in a class. But the way that this uh particular campus did that as a community um differentiated learning, I mean, it just got me all sorts of just excited and and and hopeful for to see that happen. Um and then just to hear, you know, the actually, you know, from that same campus that they're actually excited about the STAR test, just a, you know, maybe a few points off of getting a a great grade. Um and and and uh so those uh those campus visits were were great to see all the work that's going on and there were the the work that was going on in all four of those campuses was just amazing to see. >> Thank you, Riley. >> Sure. Absolutely.

150>> Um just want to reiterate something Jeff said. You know, I thank you for what you're saying about the empathy with uh our students and and um our general ed students who get to participate us as an adults, you know, working in the real world, not not every single person's the smartest, every single person's the fastest. Um, but if you can have someone who can empathize and see the humanity in somebody else, you can work with that person, you go a long way as an adult on your team and you can move the needle with other people and the community and the world. So, um, thanks for saying that and I'm really proud of our district, too, for um, standing out the way we do. Thank you, Rucker. Um, you know, Jeeoff, when I listen

151to you speak about special need kids, I can see the the uh place in your heart for that. So, it's very genuine and I always enjoy listening to you about that. Um, which brings me to the ribbon cutting for our um Delta Center. Um, it's unique to uh all of Bell County, is it not? Does anyone else have anything similar to us? They they have similar programs. They may not have similar facilities, >> right? And we have >> Yeah. >> All right. No. Yeah. So, we've got um as I understand capacity for 50 and then we already have 40 and then we have other folks that are wanting to jump into the program. Uh beautiful facility. Um as I said during the ribbon cutting, you know, it's just a special place for very special people.

152Um, moving on to what um because Riley and I were on the campus visits when I was driving to the office after that, I thought to myself when talking to these principles and watching these kids in the classroom that what you see in the classroom is a culmination of what all of you administrative staff, what Dr. Golden does and and and it's like putting everything together in the in that one classroom and you see everything everything um it climaxes there. Everything that that that we do we that we do up here and that you guys do it ultimately goes there and you see it in action and it and it makes it worth it, right? uh you see that and it and it and it touches your heart when you see those kids respond the

153way they do. Um did the uh the coin toss with Representative Buckley and he he stayed there until I don't know Ben what did he say almost fourth quarter. Yeah. So Chris came up Oh Chris is one of these behind the scenes guys. Oh yeah. >> Okay. He's back there with the band. Um, so Chris came over when when when Dr. Buckley and I were talking and said, "Hey, you need to watch the band." So he stayed and he had some nice comments about the about the um Bronco band and they are excellent and I I'll get to see them this Friday perform. Uh, but yeah, they are really good. Yeah. >> Weather permitting. >> Yes. Yes. No, but they they it was an excellent show. >> Yeah. >> So So uh thank you to

154Dr. Buckley for for staying and um you know I said well you know I said something about public schools and he said well it looks like things are going good around here you know as he looks up in the stands and sees uh things that that happen here in Belton. So uh he was impressed by what he saw and I was glad uh that he was impressed. He needs to be right. So um with all that said uh that unless anyone else has any other comments uh let's move on to Close session. The time is 8:38 p.m. The board will now go into close session for 9A, student disciplinary matter, Texas Government Code section 551.082, 9B, personnel, Texas government code section 551.074 and 9C. Consultation with attorney Government Code section 551.071. 071. One. Oh, that

155thing's off, too. It's not working, is it? The time is 8:48 p.m. and the board will reconvene in open session. All action items, reports, and consent items for this meeting have been addressed. There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned at 8:48 him.