001our teacher after the pledges are done and put it by the third row that's gonna they're gonna use that for the interview okay good evening ladies and gentlemen for tonight's showcase prior to the start of our board meeting we have the drum line from Lake Belton High School let's give them a warm welcome and you may begin [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] things [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you yeah [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] standards foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign all right here we go good evening everyone thank you
002for joining us hope you enjoyed our student showcase tonight by the lake Belden High School drum line if we get a round of applause please [Applause] the time is now 6 15 and the Belton Independent School District Board of Trustees are now convened in a regular board meeting on Monday January 23 2023 in the pittenger Fine Arts Center located at 400 North Wall Street Belton Texas a quorum of board members presence this meeting has been duly called and notice that the meeting has been posted in accordance with 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 set goals listen to reports from the superintendent approved budgets contracts
003Personnel appointments and make policy for the district it is not the role of the board to make day-to-day operational decisions the management and the day-to-day operations of the district are the responsibility of the superintendent we have policies and procedures in place to resolve concerns and issues this is a meeting of the Board of Trustees held in public this is 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 these proceedings are being live streamed on Belton isd's YouTube channel and a recording of the meeting will be available on the district's website in the days following tonight's meeting for
004the video to adequately reflect the proceedings respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are turned off or in silent mode thank you for taking the time to join us this evening thank you for your interest in Belton ISD please rise for a moment of Silent prayer or meditation thank you please remain standing Communications team introduces students from Tarver Elementary that lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and honors to the Texas flag thank you board with us tonight we have two amazing fifth graders that I've got to sit beside this evening first up we have rain Norvell and then we have tala Ali I oh do I start yeah I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
005which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign honor the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one State under God one indivisible let me tell you a little bit about these beautiful young ladies rain goes above and beyond in class each day to demonstrate respect responsibility and safety she's an absolute Delight to teach and is always encouraging those around her to do their best she leads by example and is destined for great things rain loves challenging the challenge of learning all subjects she likes being able to look back and say wow I never thought of that and outside of school she loves reading and spending time with her family talla's favorite subjects in school are both science and writing because she can't pick just one after school
006she loves baking things from other cultures and doing creative arts and crafts her teacher says that she enjoys reading telling jokes and challenging herself to learn more her friends say that she's funny I think she must be really funny if two people said she's funny and caring and sarcastic she is definitely the foodie of her group and loves making all kinds of foods for her friends thank you girls [Applause] okay thank you very much first item on the agenda and the reason we are here our wonderful students is recognitions yes you'll notice we have a lot of students with us tonight because we have a lot of recognitions and first up this evening well let's give another hand for the Bronco Drumline because they were fantastic so our first recognition tonight and it's so appropriate
007that they're first because this is a first for Belton ISD um the Bronco Esports Apex Legend red team made of Dylan klunk Caden rice and Aiden Scammell placed first out of 82 teams and they are the state champions in Esports [Applause] congratulations next on our recognitions we're going to introduce six different teams members that have been recognized by the Texas High School coaches association academic Allstate so that means these students are great athletes and great students so first up we have from Belton High School the football team Lennox Underwood Junior Aidan King Cole Christman Isaac Jones Isaiah devashir Aiden stock Mason Ram Noah Malaga Zachary Erickson Ethan Sandoval Grant baggerly and Carson Dunn congratulations [Applause] thank you [Applause] from the Belton High School volleyball team we have Charlotte Colleen Paige Champlin and michaelen Perez [Applause]
008from the Belton High School cross country team we have Bryce Roberts Ethan Vasquez Miranda Cole Christman Clayton Oaks Caleb Packard Caitlin McDonald Rayna Smith Karina orona America Villegas Esperanza Leal congratulations guys [Applause] all right moving on to Lake Belton High School members of the football team are Chase Moore Hayden Nix Maria Miller Connor Cruz Brady Johnson Claire Peterson Dominic Simpson Liliana Kata Reed Hill Christian Kuntz Madison combest Caleb Oldham Colin Espinoza Haley Koski kante Williams Bruce onctuary Brinley Jetton Tristan Robin Connor Brennan Evan Roland Jaden Lisa Chase Thorpe Floyd Bristol Jackson Myers and Aaron Tagle congratulations guys [Applause] all right from lbhs volleyball Sydney Cartwright Danica Bingham Paige roll Presley Patrick Brianna Arizmendi congratulations ladies foreign ly from lbhs cross country Delilah Zuniga Erica Dawson Lauren hartsfeld Spencer Mason and Jordan axelson [Applause] it's we
009are really excited that we had uh three teams of students from the Belton FFA competed at the state FFA contest from the broadcasting team we had ulyssa gray Tanner Kastner and Rayna Smith from the public relations team we had Brayden Gutierrez Macy Weber and Cooper Hobson and from the agriculture issues forum team we had Lakin Easton Emma Canalis Victoria Canalis Addison Hicks Cadence Sigler and Trinity Collins congratulations guys [Applause] thank you we're also very proud that we sent eight students to the Texas thespians national competition from Belton High School we had enemy Lopez Rodriguez Addison JoJo Fogle and Courtney Kidd and Brennan Nguyen and from Lake Belton High School we had Liam McCullough Dakota branch Bailey Jenneke and Jonas Dotson congratulations [Applause] I think it speaks to the caliber of programs that we have here
010in Belton that we've recognized athletes and thespians and Scholars got a lot to be proud of and now I'd like to ask our Board of Trustees if you wouldn't mind all coming down in front of our backdrop over here January is recognized Statewide as board appreciation month and we have a fantastic School Board the big red Community has been celebrating our school board all month long because this group of people these volunteers provide vision and Leadership and they serve as advocates they ensure that there is a link between our community and the classroom and they provide help us provide exceptional learning experiences for each and every student and we are internally grateful for their service thank you we have President Jeff Norwood vice president Ty Taggart secretary Manuel alcoser Suzanne McDonald Janet Lee Chris floor
011and Aaron bass thank you all [Applause] so as our board is making their way back up uh to the diocese here I just wanted to say a special thank you I think people in this room know the dedication of these board members is beyond question and there are a lot of boards in the state of Texas but one of the things that impresses me the most about this board is their agenda you know what their agenda is about kids it is all about the kids in Belton ISD and they work tirelessly for that and they averaged over a hundred hours of volunteer work again board positions or volunteer work 100 hours of volunteer work over the last year and that doesn't include getting into our schools and seeing performances and attending events and so a
012special thank you for me as a superintendent in all of our administrative team to our board one for keeping a focus on the kids and two for selflessly dedicating your time to ensuring that our school district and our community is a great place to live so please give them one more round of applause Dr Smith I know I'm all out of order but you know I take me wherever I go I'm glad that you said all that you said that about us because that leads me into what I wanted to share with this team of eight I know the board is seven and we have the superintendent's a team of eight I recently came across this it was shared with me and it just resonates with me because it makes me think of this team
013of eight what we do we make a choice every day in what we do and how we do we can choose to argue debate or dig our Hills in or what we actually choose to do we choose to listen to each other share ideas and unite for mutually assured success I think that's very apropro for this particular set of folks at this diet so thank you all for the work that you do proud to work alongside of you thank you very much thank you to all the board members thank you for the kind words Dr Smith with that we will take a short break to allow the guests as you see most of them already left here that's a big banquet spot you see over there now and here go the rest of them uh
014and also give this time for them to y'all can go ahead and start moving y'all's equipment I know it's a little loud to do that so take your time and go ahead and move it [Applause] thank you [Applause] let's move this out of the way thank you yeah thank you tonight okay perfect thank you guys thank you [Applause] thank you [Music] very much they've never done this before [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey I'm Glory [Applause] well it looks like we got all of the Drumline equipment out of here so now we can yeah it is a little cold based on B well next is public comments based on bed local we will take public comments regarding items on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting comments regarding non-agenda items will be heard at
015the conclusion of the meeting to allow the board to conduct business of the district as of now I don't have any public comments on agenda items is that correct Connie okay then we will move on to the next thing next item on the agenda is the presentation of child safety fee funds from the city of Belton trustees as you know we have a wonderful partnership with the city of Belton and the gentleman that is up at the podium right now is an outstanding leader for our community we welcome mayor Wayne Carpenter to the podium tonight and thank you for your partnership sir thank you what a great night to come to a board meeting we don't have nearly as much fun at City Hall I want you to know that it's a great night last
016year the Bell County registered over 300 automobile registrations and a small portion of that money is directed to the county to the city and we're fortunate to be able to give it back to you this year we have over 25 954 dollars to pass on to you to use for our school crossing guards and we're proud to be able to do that and share that money with you and before I do have this check off I just want to say school board recognition month we do have a great partnership we're so proud of what you all do one of the great reasons that people want to be in Belton is Belton ISD and being a proud graduate breaking in this Auditorium when I was a senior it was brand new hard to believe a few
017years back but we are very appreciative of what you do we're glad you shared this check with you all tonight so thank you thank you mayor Carpenter it is wonderful to have the relationships we have with our cities next item on the agenda is action items the first action item Dr Smith yes I'm going to welcome Todd Schiller our assistant superintendent of Human Resources up to announce an exciting hire for us at Tarver Elementary School all right good evening we have one recommendation for you tonight and that is for Alyssa Curtis for assistant principal at Tarver Elementary Alyssa has a Bachelor's of Arts degree from umhb a master's degree from University of Texas at Arlington and has been within Belton ISD all of her career the full 10 years started out as a Southwest Elementary
018teacher and is currently instructional coach at Sparta Elementary so we are happy to welcome her tonight [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right do we have a motion for the approval of the Personnel additions as presented I have one Miss Lee I have two okay a all in favor all right that passage unanimously thank you very much and we have Alyssa here tonight and I'll have her go over there and we'll take a couple of pictures we will do pictures because we like them let's go thank you very much that's right thank you okay one hour oh looky there I did I jumped right overnight I'm sorry about that let me go back to it now I was excited about that check from city of Belton and then about a new principal so our assistant principal so
019I'll move on so the previous item on agenda because I can't call it the next one would be the Journey of a graduate empathy Dr Smith board just a reminder every month we talk about the Journey of a graduate competencies and as a reminder for our public two years ago in the height of some of the challenges that we were facing Nationwide and worldwide we brought over 100 community members together to define the competencies that we wanted to see that our community wanted to see our students develop is they engaged in a schooling experience in Belton ISD and those competencies have been laid out tonight's competency that we're highlighting is empathy and so if you would trustees please weigh in on what empathy means to you and how you might see it play out in
020our school system so I have seen empathy in real life terms over at Bex whenever a student is out you know the entire classroom is engaged when that student returns to the classroom everyone is welcome and back and hoping that if they feel better and everything's okay so we're teaching at a very young age what that empathy means so I've seen it I absolutely love it yeah and just to piggyback off of that I was I did a tour over there a couple of weeks ago and they were talking about a curriculum that they have with baby dolls where they get to actually talk to the baby and and um you know make sure they take care of each one of them have their own baby and they can talk to it make sure that
021it needs has what it needs and it's just teaching them kindness and caring and empathy and like that baby it kind of represents them as well so you know what would you want if you were the baby it's it's a beautiful thing that they're doing over there just just like Suzanne said and I'm super proud of that work you know most of my comments center around business I think Chris talks about that a lot too but to me this is more of a personal situation where I think it's it's a key to to building lasting friendships and lasting relationships um I think it's a key part you know I got the privilege of of being part of that group for the Journey of a graduate and I do vividly remember some conversations around empathy and
022it was it was very important to the parents that were on there the community members on there even students and and staff and you know I do believe that we were created to be in community with each other that we are to be in relationship with one another and it's important that we value and understand one another doesn't mean we have to agree but I think it's important that we um value someone else's perspective because it may be different from ours and I think empathy played out in in the classroom I think tonight was a good example you know a group of students coming together to make one piece of music they had to work together they probably some of them may not hang out outside of that but they have to understand and value
023one another to work together to create something fantastic like like that was and watching them interact with each other I kind of watch their eyes especially when they got on the drums and it was just really interesting and fascinating to watch them work together and and I could see how it played out there because they they valued each other and they had to they had to work together to make something like that so it's a good one all right it's a good thing my wife's not here uh and you'll understand in a second I'm gonna attack this from from three different angles right a personal angle a Bist angle and then a workplace angle um so empathy the first part of is this is the one I'm glad my wife's not here for right so
024so this is about being able to you know understand the people that you're working with the people who you're trying to help solve problems or the people that you're trying to you know help get through life together right and really trying to understand and meet them understand where they are being able to meet them where they are being able to understand the perspective that they have to to move forward in a productive way together um personally I think I do this really well in the business world I don't think I do this so well in the home front I think I've got situational empathy uh so um and so I'm working on that one personally but it Belton ISD um I see this anytime I'm on a campus each and every time I'm on a
025campus I see this right and I see it um being displayed from our staff members to our students and from our staff members to other staff members right I've not been on a single campus where you know the staff and the administration on that campus can't tell me every single thing about a student that walks down the hall like like there's never been a student walk by that I haven't seen you know the the admin engaged with and really understand you know who is that student where is that student coming from you know where do they live generally not you know creepy the direct address but you know but like where do they live in like what is their story and how does that story impact their ability to learn right and how do we
026meet that student where that student is um so that they can have a successful day a successful school year a successful journey through um through Belton ISD and so I see it every single time I go on campus and um you know it's one of the reasons why we settled here we saw that when we toured campuses and it just made such a Mark um from a business World standpoint um you know I work in the I.T Consulting industry you guys know this already 8 000 times um you know in the Consulting space this is what we have to do like this is important for us because we are trying to solve problems for somebody if you don't understand sort of the background and where the where our clients are right same thing you know
027kind of discuss with the students or the teachers understand that for the students like we have to do that very same thing in the business world for our clients and so it's very translatable into the real world and it's something that um you know it's really hard for us to kind of gauge from an interviewing standpoint right and so the fact that you know we've made this a focus from about ISD point of view to try to build that up um it's just just gonna take our Workforce right to take our students to give them just that much you know more of a leg up sort of against against their peer competition um so again this is one I sometimes struggle with but I think it's so so important and um and so touching I
028think in my experience with Belton ISD Lord I appreciate you weighing in on that and our our definition of that that the committee settled on was a BISD learner demonstrates sensitivity concerned and respect towards others feelings and experiences in Chris's point about being a workplace skill that I think every employer that I've heard is the ability to have dialogue with other people while you may have differing opinions to being able to do that in a respectful manner in a learning manner that helps you helps you move something forward and I'm excited to see that play out in our classrooms and us to continue to grow that in the experience for our students in Belton ISD so thank you thank you all very much next item is reports first report is superintendent's report Dr Smith so
029we're doing a few things out of order this month and I am going to travel down there to that Podium because I got a special guest to help me with the superintendent's report this month and we're also going to let our Tech Team if they would fix something because with all the moving around we had some cables come loose and we're missing our monitor access up here so as I come on down there we're going to let them figure that one out I'll be right back all right board so every month I come to you with a superintendent's report and I go through a slideshow and I provide you the administrative updates of the school district but sometimes we lose the effect of all of this and we thought for school board appreciation month one
030of the most important things that we could do is focus on the student experience and so I have a special guest with me this is Jace ramazar and Jace and I got to have lunch together a couple weeks ago at Sparta Elementary School thanks to our partners at Beef as you all remember at Beef they they had an opportunity for kids and or parents to have lunch with the superintendent and I think Chase just got stuck with me so I I really enjoyed it I don't know how much he enjoyed it but I was totally enthralled with Jason's experience also his ability to articulate the things that matter most to him about his experience in Belton ISD So today we're going to just walk through a couple of questions so you hear from Jason's own
031words about his student experience in Belton ISD and at Sparta Elementary School does that sound good all right so Jace tell us a little bit about yourself what school do you attend what grade are you in what do you like to do Elementary and I'm in fourth grade my and I love soccer what's the best thing about this school year for you I would say probably my teacher Miss fitzger because she lets us get creative we were working on something called The Hatchet project has anyone here heard of the plot Mountain have you heard of that no oh so tell them a little bit about it it's basically an imaginary Mountain for a plot of a book it's like the first part of it which is the beginning then the rising action which is like
032the plot to it and following action which is basically them resolving the problem and we're making one in real life and it's really fun she let us get creative with it and she's letting everybody else make their own projects too so all you English Majors up there that's pretty exciting I get really excited over the stuff like that tell us a little bit about what you like in your classroom activities well I like my teacher most again because she teaches us not just stuff for school for school she also teaches us like how to socialize with other people excellent what spectacular things does your teacher do in the classroom you've shared a few ideas with me like she allows you to do stuff what else does she do well the amazing things our teacher does
033is helping everyone out like instead of just saying well you can't figure it out you can do this she actually does it and she teaches us like I said real life skills and explains race which it stands for restating the question and it restate answer site and then explain which is basically saying like I restate the question what like the amazing things our teacher does is that's restating it and then the answer which is showing what amazing things she does then cite means show your thoughts on it like evidence finally explain um like show your evidence to it so it sounds like you've learned a little bit about how to do that in your fourth grade class this year yes excellent tell me a little bit about an idea you shared an idea with me
034when we got to have lunch together an idea he came with a list it has an idea for some improvements and so I thought he we ought to share his idea for improvement too okay I would love to share my idea about the school is that schools would have an optional after school class and you go to different classes a class different class that you pick like each day and a it should not just be you watching a video for the majority of the class you know how that goes and B and B it's not just gonna be tests because again you know how that goes it's not the best so it should be from 305 to 4 o'clock in the subjects that I would say it should be is Art writing Ela reading math
035and mindfulness and so this would be like an after school activity so if you wanted to go you'd have an opportunity to choose the things you'd be interested in yes you remember what you told me about why it shouldn't be soccer oh because because people were too rough with it and we're not letting that happen again so we had a we had a good conversation about it's got there's got to be some parameters around stuff to be able to make it an enjoyable experience for everybody finally our last question is really about the group sitting up here in front of me so this is our school board and you and I talked a little bit about our school board before our school board volunteers their time to do great things for kids and to focus
036on the experience that you have is there uh anything that you would like to share with our school board as we're recognizing them this month I really appreciate for sure no you don't get paid this is this is a big deal for us students it's just thank you for everything so I think you can tell why I wanted Jace to come present with us tonight this is a fourth grader and I asked him I said hey if if I do this do you think you could come speak in front of everybody if you kind of cocked his head and thought for a second he's like oh yeah I got this and so please give Jace a round of applause to tell us a little bit about his experience at Sparta good job buddy thank you
037for being here wait I see a camera going over there let's see is he following you oh okay wow well Jace thank you for the best superintendent report we've ever had just want you to know that next will be the temple reinvestment Zone update board I am honored to welcome John Kila here today I feel like we've taken a lot of pictures maybe he wants to take a picture with us too you never know John is the Belton ISD representative on the temple uh reinvestment Zone board and we're excited to have him here we were talking earlier today I think it's been a few years since we've had this report so John thank you for being here tonight thanks for having me I'm glad to report to y'all uh Dr Smith uh president uh and
038board it's been a long time since I've been here and I give this a report about five times a year and it is usually an hour and a half and 178 slides so when miss Connie told me to send it to her I was like how do I do that I'll have a little empathy for you and try to blow through this thing and respect your time but you have to understand how unimportant function the RZ is in the city of Temple and for Bell County and I am honored to have represented you for so many years I am the project chair and I'm in charge of actually vetting all the projects trying to get them started so I'm gonna go through it for real quick we we do Master plans about every five six
039years this was for 2020 or 2030 we already are blowing through this and getting ready to update this so one of our functions is we have to have a master plan this last last master plan we really concentrated on four items you guys Prosperity the place making connectivity public well-being we took those as categories that we want to do as a zone for our community for Bell County so we kept those four principles the actual zone is the areas in Gray so it represents the area around the McLean company all the industrial park the airport the t-med area and then an East Temple and very short uh explanation of what the zone is is that when you buy the land we lock in the tax rate at that anybody who comes into that area we
040capture the increments what it's called so we capture the tax value and it um it it is taxed uh we're collecting bisds tisds County Temple College largest pair into that that is tisd and then it is made whole by the state the state pays the taxing entity back so in those areas once we moved into it we locked them down one of the biggest things in the prosperity that changed the Zone y'all was when the panda power plant on the east side came it was a 1.5 billion dollar plant which made our increment go from about three million dollars to 14 million and that has given us a lot of energy to go there and put a bunch of other infrastructure on the ground so in the last five years since I really reported back
041to you we did 595 million dollars worth of projects in the industrial part if you have any questions you can stop me if not I'm just going to blow through these pictures the key to this right now is we got 158 million dollars worth of projects on the books right now so as a uh unpaid employee like you all I spend a huge amount of my personal time in trying to organize vet and push 158 million dollars worth of projects through the city of Temple in the next five years we will move that to 272 million dollars we've got 35 million of increment per year that comes into our coffers it takes about 15 million to pay debt operations so 20 million per year that number is going to accelerate X potentially in this next
042five year period because of what we have been doing Place making just a quick example we're totally reading due down town Temple we do Master plans we meet with everybody they come in I follow the master I follow the plan we work and I just go through the projects and we vet them all so you've seen a lot of these we redid the stuff in front of Santa Fe Plaza both with tisd E.D and and the plaza we are making a hike and bike trail going all the way to 14th Street to the east so we did and every one of these projects we vetted designed got the engineering done and paid for them so as I'm going through this this is what the Zone has done through the city who is our uh part
043is our managing partner but the zone is a standalone board that handles every one of these projects you know underneath the bridge down there by trino's you can see that we go from design and turn it into an actual project that's how they all go this was the design for the Han Arcadian if you've been there we've now done the garage it's going to be there and it's real close to having that we're calling it City Center it's 25 million dollar project and we'll drastically change what's happening in the in the downtown the the Torino's First Street that just shows you the sort of a streetscape that we will be doing in all of downtown and in that parking lot right now if you go down there they're building another three-story parking garage there to
044look like this you know the uh again just Master planning we are going to drastically convert the downtown Temple into a uh a real Power Center and so we're redoing it piece by piece uh you know again I'm blowing through these each one of these slides has 10 slides where I could explain exactly what we're doing to do it but I'm just giving you a quick picture of what we are doing and so these are pictures of what we are hoping to do in the downtown most of these properties we already have bought and and taking old buildings down and getting ready to replace them with new ones this is our Festival fields and heading east this is on Avenue C and as far as you can see to the east we are moving through
045a MLK and we're going and spending close to 12 million dollars in the east side of temple that that's the festival feels the beginning of sea and is very much we've bought it and secured a place for playing in downtown that won't have buildings for and it is actually Four city blocks and so totally uh set aside for festivals and Fields the um this is down Henderson again East Temple we are spending uh really close to 20 million dollars to the east big story there we felt that there's no way we can just build downtown go build new factories without making sure everyone in the community so we are spending a ton of money in East Temple to uh to bring new infrastructure roads and housing to the uh that east side of town we
046are moving from downtown in every direction we're heading to West Temple to t-med to the east this is the third street going towards uh the gmed so we'll be doing that we took the whole Gateway of Temple Texas on the atoms and Central and have spent a ton of money there we did a lot of work in front of the high school bought the old Johnson's Brothers Ford took all that owned the land did a master plan and you got an entryway and have it together we're doing a full Gateway on Adams in central uh good seven million dollars having a visual arts we're doing Arts throughout the town now as far as The Monuments and so we'll have them on on both sides of the street public well-being very important we got the hospitals
047in Temple Texas in Bell County and one of the things that this community needs to do is to focus on the health and the well-being of the people who are moving in here and so we are spending dollars in that we pretty much designed and bought and uh paid for the the Crossroads Park really successful it's used by a lot of the citizens and I believe uh quite a few BISD kids are on that side it's so successful we are taking across the street from Prairie View and we'll be putting another five fields in and an indoor facility and making sure that we can concentrate on growing the park in that area hiking bikes very important yes sir sorry quick question on that on the crossroads part because I knew y'all put it in and
048this is just for information so that I can know so that operates they have the tournaments and all that so does the money that's generated there go back to the city of Temple or does it go back to the reinvestment on the park they had a bond election it was 23 million and I think we spent 23 million and they definitely on the park are operating it so the money goes back to them it is an independent that manages it for the city of Temple so it is a huge venture to try to maintain Mo if you go there and look at that it is close to 80 acres groomed and it's constantly a a nightmare taken care of to be honest with you so I I would say that there's probably not enough money
049coming in from those tournaments to manage that field if you talk to Kevin beavers I'm sure he would tell you that but we've pushed really hard in the city of Temple to focus in on the parks they've got a new master plan that was just approved and we are really focusing on multiple hike and bike trails connecting every Business Center with another business center and so all of those are taxpayers dollars going to them one of the really good things that we concentrated if you go all the way back to our original document that quality of place we we focus Conley place to bring the salaries up and we're trying to to Really balance so we had we had a huge amount of people at the hospital and huge amount of people out and aware
050house district we've concentrated on jobs to try to bring that average salary up and it is incredible we just ran the numbers uh the new numbers from the Census and West Temple it's it's amazing I believe that they're like at 150 is your household income there and that is considerably different than we've had in the past so allows taxpayers dollars to you know pay for that kind of facilities because it is a lot of money John when while I have a pause real quick just to clarify on this too because when I first moved here not every every uh Community has a reinvestment Zone and John helped me understand this but the reinvestment Zone like for some of these projects these aren't right in the reinvestment zone as long as it goes to the city
051of Temple or is in the city of Temple The reinvestment Zone can help with those projects I think we can actually spend the money in Bell County any in Bell County I believe that is to be true excellent definitely in the city of Temple but it does not have to focus inside the zone so some of these uh projects we are doing are definitely outside the Zone East you know East Temple all of that is not in the zone The Zone important zones is where panda is in the North Area both of those zones where we call it the original and that was where we captured the school tax from tisd the t-med airport area it was after school Finance reform and on your caption is is a county and City so thank you again
052hiking bike trails throughout the town you know moving to t-med it is our you know 50 of GDP in the city so one of the first things we did was worked with Temple College doing First Street we just got a grant from the government 10 million dollars two pieces to redo veterans and so we'll be taking that First Street all the way down connecting it with the downtown on one of the slides I showed you where we're coming towards teamed so we'll be connecting the whole Hospital District with the downtown district showed you that slide before where we're doing the down the Gateway and so we're moving ourselves across the uh railroad tracks and heading west also so that we can connect the whole Community together this is what the Veterans Boulevard will look like
053when we're completed it is currently under design probably should start in the next year year and a half what we did Avenue U which connected uh Temple the hospital Scott and White with the VA we currently are will be putting in that art piece the art piece was bought by the biosciences District in the zone is is putting in the whole landscaping and so we'll be seeing that you will see that over the next three years we will have considerable amount of public art we've gone out and found various artists to make this a stainless steel and paint and it is 30 foot tall so these are major facilities you'll be seeing throughout the city of Temple again just really the concentration on the hospital the dollars that are made there we've done a lot
054of work around there about 10 slides but that's the one slide I'll show you just because it's too much the Zone took this if you don't remember this mess in front of Temple College where you didn't know how to get over to the loop we have worked on it made it an intersection but the frontage roads are ready for the i-14 as you know it's been designated for i-14 they are currently working on this section from Fifth Street past the loop so that we can then begin to actually redesignate it as 14 so very important for the city to have a two highways to uh Federal highways airport we always tell everybody that the people who are coming into our community to invest this is how they get here it is very important that our
055airport is in top shape if you go out there at any given point now you'll see five or six fairly large Jets out there we had a master plan to put in hangers for corporate jets that were supposed to last through 28 and they're almost all full so really most of your companies that move into here or are are in Bell County are using this airport as their their way to get in and out it's their Gateway if you're out there right now we are building a brand new FBO fix based Wing operation which is where these individuals come their pilots can go in there they're sleeping quarters that's how they file their flight pan plans it is when they're flying in your Pilots stay here usually so they're able to stain do their work
056while whatever business is happening an industrial park or Hospital whatever and then they leave it was really important to me and to the group that if you've ever been out there we have a children's hospital and we have a huge hospital and a lot of people are flown out of this airport because of injuries and if you've ever been on this runway in the middle of summer and watch them transfer someone from a ambulance to a plane or a medical travel takes about 45 minutes it's just you're sad to watch it so we pushed really hard to make sure we could cover that to make it a lot easier because again a lot of light flights a lot of medical flights in and out of our airport you know connectivity is just real important we
057are connecting the power centers you know I think what's really wonderful is what happened on 317 317 is connected West Temple to to Belton it's the same thing with 2305 now airport the airport or the Veterans Boulevard and so throughout the community we're making power centers making sure those power centers have housing the live workplace that's what this actually talks about wherever there is someone you need the business you need the housing and you and you need to make sure you got the public facilities that creates a power center you connect that power center to other power centers and that's what a healthy community long story short these are all the power centers we know them we've identified them and we're trying to not just work in one area we're trying to take that 272
058million dollars and make sure everyone in Temple gets a piece of the pie and we connect everybody that they have a healthy living that they have a chance for public services for a chance for retail and housing in in all sectors and again 175 slides I'd show you each individual power but again just in the sense of time outer loop you've seen that we are taking our leap from I-35 to I-35 on the west side it's 100 percent funded we're getting ready to finish the last section to the north and to the South the South sections held up because there's no Dairy there and if we do the overpass over the track that that shade from that overpass would put a shadow on that Dairy that was there in 1870. that's the kind of stuff
059you guys deal with and we deal with so we're waiting to figure out how do you unshadow a piece of dirt with no Dairy that's what the loop looks like very important to make sure you can go four to six Lanes in the future and travel around our community getting from one place to another we are very much concentrating on the East Loop now be down by heidenheimer all the way up to where uh Cargill is up to the north and so we've pretty much flown the whole thing have our layouts and our buying the necessary right away so that we can begin the East Loop I take 10 years to do that the first section really from heidenheimer over to the plant that's where this is It's Over by Lorraine Drive I don't know
060if you ever get in there but that little red square to the top is green data it is a a data plant a billion dollar plant they make Bitcoin actual Bitcoin you know it's not the currency so as you can see Bitcoins are finally on their way up crazy that we got a Bitcoin operator here but that is that plant and it's massive and is a huge thing for the this community to be bringing this kind of data plants here because of the stream that it'll bring the pipeline that the data that it takes to run then so really interesting what those are you know it's just a big old computer do you guys know what how they make a Bitcoin it's really crazy it's really crazy I had to learn this it's they got
061computers and they're answering a arithmic question in the computer and the whole time it takes to answer the question with these massive computers when they are done it creates a blockchain Bitcoin that's just crazy so that's just that's all they are it's big big old computers out there creating finishing an answer to a complex question and that by doing that it creates a chain and I'm I'm looking at the I.T guys they're saying pretty close pretty close but it is a real crazy thing that's happening to Central Texas with this I don't know if you've seen this out west it's almost complete now and it's the Revel greens it's a lettuce Factory huge huge facility uh great for us so again just having that facility in Temple Texas up to the north you know East
062Penn a battery plant Niagara both of these collectively are close to two billion dollars in investment so as they both just now are coming online probably at about five million dollars to our increment per year this will be the first year on both of those that they hit the tax the one to the north Niagara is in uh Troy so I met with Troy about five years ago when we did that master plan they said we had no tax base well now they've got about two billion dollars worth of facilities coming to them and then now have a little easier way to build schools and so you're going to see a lot of people moving uh to the north in the city of Temple very similar like Belton where a huge part of Troy school
063system is in the city of Temple and so the infrastructure that we've put in for these are also feeding that whole quadrant out there so you will really begin to see a multitude of subdivisions going up there and they Troy will be going through the same thing you all have which is hey now we've got a tax base in office and we've got a bunch of houses FedEx 215 employees you know each one of these 250 employees high paying jobs bring bringing in construction workers bringing in a tax base we take their tax base we go and build more when we build more and more people come in we're only taking the chat uh the people who have the higher jobs that way we're raising the vet you know raising the average salaries as you
064raise the salaries up you you actually have lifting the boat and as we lift the boat we go spend it throughout the community meta we've all heard that this is the H design if you've ever seen the H Design This is almost 15 years old and this is their data plants they got them all over the world the center of the H is the actual office and control center the two legs of the H is where all the computers are at the old design it pushed the cold air through the computers down to the basement and I really believe that with chat GPT and everything else that is just recently hit the marketplace to where AI is taking over this was AI this was fermented this was moving us into that world that they realized
065very quickly that they had to change the GPU for their facilities and they actually stopped them worldwide and they have three designs they're just moving away from this it's a 15 year old design uh cost them a little bit to hold we've been assured we're released the water sewer project that this is just a three or four month hold to pick which one of the three designs take down the H's that they got out there and start over the water I can't remember the real number but I'm gonna make this number up don't don't quote me on it I believe it's about 4 MGD that this plant took high water user and one of the things that that meta is doing green dad and all these people that's why we got all the solar plants
066they're the ones funding and solar plants solar plants come in they buy the power and that's why they can say they're green because they really aren't using solar energy the Energy's put on the grid they've already bought it they've already put it in so they're very much power conscious now they want to be water conscious this was going to be a one and a half billion dollar data first phase with the redesign of this it'll probably be a 1.5 to 2 billion dollars half the size half the water they didn't give the water back because they're really excited about the fact that they can double that so for us we're going to end up with a five or six billion dollar plant five or six billion dollar plant will equal somewhere in the 20 million
067dollar range for increment on top of the 30 we already have it's this pyramid just keeps on pumping out we take the money pump it back into our community that's the site if you've been out there there's takeaways just real quick why is this happening everybody always says this you know it's the number one question that they asked me why are you guys having to build scores why are all these kids coming what's really happening that's making this happen this is one of the engines that's making it happen which is why I appreciate you give me the time to talk to you about it and allow me the time to represent our school system BISD temple on this Zone because we worked really hard to make sure we do both raise the salaries get good
068jobs pass that across the whole genre of our community and it is just making us grow that is one thought we have water and we got quite a bit of water it's we're not using it um and we need to keep on using it so we're using it so that we can do it we've got a lot of water underneath us the you know the blue is actually the uh Edwards more importantly is that maroon stuff to the East there's a ocean of water that starts about Cameron and so at some particular point if we run out of water above ground we'll be going underground we just have to move to Cameron and we'll figure out how to do that when you got 40 million dollars a year coming in an increment Temple if you'll
069notice that we are doubling the size of our plant we're at 20 MGD I think we're going to 40 so we will be ahead one of the things when you do you put a lot of water you got your water you got to use it you got to build a plant you can manufacture the water so we can ship it big problem is is you got to then go pump it somewhere you're going to have a pump station in between multiple areas and you've got to have elevated storage tanks and ground storage tanks so we're spending a ton of money there we're spending about 35 million in the next three years transferring the water so that we can get it to those places around the city that's what the Zone's done it's really helped us
070you won't be hearing about impact fees because we've taken that pressure off of the system allows the city to use their fees to go out there and help the developers home builders retail tale restaurants and they're not having to do an impact fee which keeps our taxes down and allows us to grow one other thing we all know this is happening California is moving to Texas I mean that's just what's happening it's been here over the years but you got you know Google who bought that building down there they're going to take less space than when I gave this presentation last but they are still moving there you this is unbelievable this one announcement will affect us more than anything that's happened in Texas which is the Samsung plant is that have you guys seen
071the Tesla when you're going to the airport Samsung's plant when it's done will hold nine of those they've got they've announced 17 billion right now the numbers closer to 500 somewhere in that number we're reassuring that's where we're going to be buying our chips we won't be waiting for a Ford truck or a Chevy truck ever again we're not going to do that to our society therefore the government spent a bunch money past the bill said you can do it Texas jumped on it we're building that Samsung plant right now if you fly over it's happening from my subdivision in Heart hearttrick Ranch it is 35 minutes to that plant Samsung today has buses coming into Bell County to take employees there if you've been to San Francisco you understand that because in San Francisco
072Amazon's got thousands of buses all over the place taking their employees if they're going to get employees they're going to be our employees they're people we are teaching in our schools there are us they're going to come here you go to Austin you can buy your million and a half dollar house you come to Temple you can buy your 250 000 house right that's the person who works that's the one we're educating those are the people we got to take care of that's where they're going to be working John's opinion again tetsl just announced they're going to double the size of their plant microns and Taylor are going to do the same thing right interesting thought it's just a thought provoking you got i-14 going over to Houston so we can move stuff from one
073area to another you know you got SpaceX sitting up here it's the only way we're getting the space everything is going to everywhere is coming from from him I mean it's how we get to the space station he's building the Rockets we all get to hear it every night all right so you got that happening meta is going to happen it's going to be twice as big as it used to be you know Disney's an interesting and we spend a lot of time on that if you're not looked at this so this will be the third largest city in 15 years in Bell County this this is unbelievable they were smart they couldn't get the water met with a judge what are we going to do we're going to do that they just put a
074pipeline over to that little maroon line I was talking about there and he got their water and they're like boom here we go 20 000 people in 15 years pretty close to us and that's the old Solana Ranch if you you know so it's just crazy you know I got Samsung we've already talked about you know you got Tesla Google Facebook every major company has moved there right Elon in case you know if you've ever spent the time Google the old Alcoa plan 35 000 acres and he bought it got a power plant sitting on it and two data we're sitting right on it you look at that you look where Temple is you look where BISD is and you say why is it growing I'll tell you one thing it's not only gonna grow
075it's going to continue to grow we have to be Randy we they're they're gonna come right your Micron so I I would tell you one thing I just recently was talking we we have had uh Dr uh dotzer coming to Temple Texas he always talked to us he's the Texas A M real estate Guru and he comes and tells us he's been spot on we've had him talk to us I'd say for 15 years about what's happening he predicted this a year ago what we're in I just watched a podcast from his from December and he has said we are in a recession I mean there's no question if you're in any business we're in a recession he said there's only one thing different Texas isn't going to partake he said it's just not going
076to partake there's too much coming in he said all the projections the population that he had are going to miss they're going to miss they're going to go higher they're moving from the East they're moving from Pacific West faster at a more accelerated rate than pre-recession because we're not going to partake so for us we've noticed it you know there's a Slowdown people in readjusting to the interest rates but to you all the work that you're doing uh Mr Morgan and the others to prepare for these next set of schools don't adjust your protection and if you do project them up because this is going to happen everything that you've seen is happening the dollars we have we have we're going to spend it thank you for allowing me to represent you thank you Mr
077Keela uh open it up to any questions start here start here I'll go down uh Chris I want to thank you um you're like the Energizer Bunny and uh you are everywhere right I mean what you personally do for the community around the community and everything that you've got your hands in to make sure that this community continues to rise like the bigger Community right not just Belton not just right but the whole area here in Central Texas um thank you for what you do um for this um you know I think I'd say something I told the city manager from Temple when she was here um you know we're gonna we're gonna rise and fall together right and and we are we are linked uh whether we like it or not um you know
078I think great things are going to come when we stay close together like Belton ISD and the City of Temple the city of Belton the city of Morgan's Point uh we've got to stay connected and we've got to continue to have conversations like this um to go forward um I would be interested at some point to bend your ear a little bit to focus in a little bit to understand a little bit more about West Temple specifically um because there's I mean there's great things going on here but I really I don't I'm missing a couple of the the a couple of little little pieces of the picture around West Temple specifically and kind of where it overlaps with Belton ISD so I mean we certainly don't have the time to do that here but
079but I would love it I promise yeah you know when when Connie told me 10 minutes and and I said oh 10 minutes I've never done anything in 10 minutes this is an hour an hour presentation 175 slides that dives in yeah to if you drive down Hillyard right now now that is 60 million dollars worth of investment that is going into that one little piece and so it just doesn't stop and I know Mr Morgan and it has a great group of people who are trying to get that picture I've constantly pushed the superintendent to make sure that you can begin to see these because the plans that are happening aren't on paper now if you drive down Hilliards you can see it coming out of the ground and it's just not going to
080stop and so how do we control that I've broadened my view a little bit to Troy Little River and and in real terms that 93 Corridor all the way down to Taylor y'all it's I mean it we I removed one slide that says what's happening we are the new Round Rock our prices are Round Rock it's it's where they're coming it's how it's felt we sell a ton of houses and the people only say my God it only takes me 35 minutes to get to Georgetown you know and there I got an employee that drove four hours to work and back because the people who work for us the people who we know the people who are educating don't buy a million and a half dollar house we don't have a lot of those in
081Bell County and so most people work for me they're just good solid people on land to drive four hours and they're happy to think that they're going to be able to either go down 93 or I-35 and are only an hour away from the work you know we that is something we didn't think in the past and now we are a bigger community and so there's no question that that thought you know you've moved it this way and you can really broaden that out to be prepared for it one last thing that's real important you know all three of my kids I had you know I was on this stage with my son when he got those Awards when they were Junior High here three Masters all three of my kids graduated BISD they're all
082here and they came here it's a good place yeah yeah so we do a good job educating them maybe maybe one of the things we can do is we can maybe later in the spring we can have you for a workshop and we can just talk about the West Temple BISD portion and dive in a little bit more but I think that'd be good to know and understand how it impacts Belton ISD and what we can do to be good partners because we want to be good partners for our entire community and do what's good for our taxpayers and the students that we serve and so definitely looking forward to talking to you more and we appreciate you being here tonight John thanks a lot appreciate it I want to Echo what what Chris was
083saying John thank you for coming here today it's a wealth of knowledge and I I would like to hear your full presentation at some point I just can't you gave me a lot of food for thought tonight um and there's got to be some way that what you do in Temple is going to benefit us here I mean it's it's uh and and just like Matt said I I would love to have have you come and conduct a workshop for us I'd be more than happy my time's yours all right thank you thank you thank you Mr Keelan all right next is go one parents as partners report trustees just as you know through workshops and board presentations we update you every month on our progress toward goals that you've adopted as a school board
084in goal one talks about engaging our community Jen Bailey and others from our team are going to walk you through our steps to work on engaging parents in Belton ISD good evening Board of Trustees Dr Smith it is my pleasure to present to you tonight goal one and parents as partners our reports the purpose of our presentation tonight is to update you all on the actions that we've taken which strengthen our Partnerships with parents and the areas of operations human resources and Communications and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr Mike Morgan thank you board we've had a since the last time we've visited this topic we've had several opportunities I think for some meaningful dialogue with parents and some uh some really good contributions to some of the big work
085we've been doing so if you'll remember back in December we'd we completed a process around school name selection and we had multiple parents involved in that process and really thankful that they that they took the time to be thoughtful representatives and and to be part of our school naming process attendance boundaries has been something that we've been working on since September we did have a parent a tennis boundary parent thought exchange as prior to our parameter work that we also took on in December and we had almost a thousand or almost 900 participants 228 thoughts and almost 7 000 ratings that came out of that and that has influenced the work that we've been doing and then we also have upcoming in the next few weeks we will have a tennis boundary Community feedback sessions
086we will have a digital option for that and then we will have some open houses where parents and staff can come in and interact with with our staff and ask questions and and give us feedback on their thoughts on the tense boundaries so those are some important work uh we we are very thankful that we have parents willing to contribute and look forward to some of the things coming up in the next few weeks good evening again so we are doing our best to increase the number of volunteers that are able to get into our schools and we're doing that one way we're doing that is utilizing a group called Education Connection that is a group that's located south of us and what they do is they help coordinate volunteers they gather them through churches
087Community organizations and businesses and they put them through a training to get them involved in our school systems to come in and read in 30-minute sessions typically 15 minutes each kind of 30 minutes during the week time 30 minutes per week and get them to come into our elementary kids Elementary campuses and read to our students and so we are we're kicking those off they've come in and spoke to our faith-based leaders they come in and talk talk last month to our leadership team including our principals and it looks like we are in a good spot to uh there's a lot of excitement around it with our elementary campuses and we're in a good spot to to move forward on this and take our next steps and and work with our faith-based leaders and hopefully
088be able to assign them to support a campus and then Education Connection from there will come in and they'll take it from there they'll coordinate the volunteers assign them to a campus and put them through the training and get them ready to go I just had a quick question do they do background checks we they background checks will be run through the human resources department we'll have a part in our application volunteer application where they'll select Education Connection as part of the application process it's a brief application we do the background checks and then we turn them over to them and they Orient them and get them ready good question thank you so in the area of communications BISD has been hosting meetings with parent groups most recently we hosted our PTA and PTO volunteers
089on January 6th several several of y'all were with us that day and you could feel the energy of that group you could see them all wanting to work together to provide for all of our students in our district it is really great we hope to have some more meetings the rest of the year we sent them a survey that day to see how we can serve them better and facilitate their development another thing that we the communications department has worked on this year is making information accessible we developed a parents as partner web page to direct our families to District level volunteer opportunities we developed a military families webpage to make us a it easy for our military connected families to find the resources that they need and we've also hopefully you've noticed on our
090bi-monthly e-newsletters we have a get involved section so that all of our parents all of our recipients of our newsletter know how they can get involved and support our students in action we've also strived to have parent-focused communication this year and that includes parent testimonials that you can see on our website we've spotlighted volunteers and multiple media Outlets we've had it on our Facebook page and then in our spread with the Belton Journal in the fall we send out multiple Communications you probably remember about our safety enhancements and we're trying to bring information to our parents that would be of interest to them and we've also developed or are developing a call to action success rate so we can tell people that read our messages in our e-newsletters or on Facebook how many of those
091folks are clicking back to our website and actually like responding to the information that we've sent and that's very important as we measure how we get people involved getting them the information that they need um moving forward into the spring we want to continue to partner with our parents and gather their input and feedback so that that can be a piece of our Improvement efforts and so as you remember last year we surveyed our students and our staff this year we want to broaden that include our include our parents so on the consent agenda tonight there is a a mention of Gibson Consulting Group they are the folks that did our student survey last year and they can incorporate our parents this year and then have all of that information on the same dashboard so
092be very helpful for us looking to see where any discrepancy May lie between a student's perspective versus a parent's perspective and then I'm also pleased to say that this year we're planning a half day in-person conference probably on a weekend and it will be designed to equip families with beneficial information that supports their child's success we'll be looking at partnering with Community organizations that have beneficial information to offer and we're still in the development stage of that but I am very excited about that I know that that's going to come together so our KPM for goal one as you know is each campus in central office will Implement two or more new targeted strategies to increase Partnerships with parents by May 2023 so you've heard tonight about some of the efforts that we've been doing
093at the district level at the campus level they campuses have reported back that as you know they've many of them have implemented Watchdogs some have hosted parent University they've hosted coffees with the principal they've invited parents to be mystery guest readers or guest speakers they've opened their campuses back up to parents having lunch with their child during the day they're hosting steam nights Math and Science nights literacy nights they're having a campus showcase and inviting parents in so that's a hodgepodge of what's going on throughout the district so by my calculations based on what I know from what the campuses have reported I would say that we are about 88 percent com have completed this KPM and so I have no doubt that we will be at 100 by May of 2023. what questions do
094you have I have just a comment and a couple of questions first comment to say it I'm really encouraged by the strides that you all are making to um this parents for partners and so that the comment that I have for the Education Connection is that something that will be starting next year it's and I know that y'all are still probably in the logistics and then we went to the training and I correct me if I'm wrong this this may or may not be at every campus depending on the Partnerships yeah I think our hope is is to get it out to as many campuses as possible and if we get them to all campuses that'd be great um hopefully we're going to try to Pilot this um pretty quickly with the campus later on
095this spring and if we can get more campuses on the road by the end of the year we'll do that if not we hope to be full blown as we enter the upcoming school year yeah I'm just really excited about something like this because at you know as being part of a PTA this is It's hard for a PTA to pull off volunteers to come in and read with kids because there's just so many moving parts and and so I'm just really thrilled to see something like this come in and then I I got on the parents uh the website that was created and played around with it and I would love it I think it would be great if we could really promote that a lot more um I don't know how new it
096is but I if I'd be willing to bet if I asked several of my friends they may not even know it existed so I think it's good that you all are promoting it but I think they're they're not nothing beats hearing it from your principal and your teachers that hey this is out there please check it out because that page is really phenomenal there's a lot of things that parents really I think would be really encouraged to know well that thank you for that comment and absolutely and that helps go back to the the measurement the call to action success rate and we can look at the metrics on that page and now we've got we know where to shoot for and to get more visits to that page but yes we've tried to make
097it as robust as possible so thank you if I could just talk to some of the um like the first bullet on that communication slide hosting meetings with parent groups um I know several of us maybe all of us have been involved in one of those in some way shape or form I've had the privilege to um I guess participate in some of the faith faith-based leader groups and then also the PTA group um and those I think those have been so impactful um so positive um yeah such positive interactions with the folks that have been there you know particularly around the education connections piece of it like the energy around people in the community wanting to volunteer and be in the schools like that's what we need right um and so that was an
098amazing experience kind of sitting with that group I think with the ptas in particular I think it was so empowering for the ptas they were so excited to be there we talked to them a little bit about like the role of like what would what does the school board even do right I mean there's a lot of misconception I think there um but then I think there were a lot of great ideas shared between those ptas and there was even a small group of us that continue the meeting afterwards a little bit we hijacked the room for a little while later just because the idea is just kept flowing um and and you know the energy there I think it's so important for us to continue that in some way shape or form so I
099really do I don't want to I don't want this to die out right like we've started something really great the train has left the station and and it just needs to continue to move even faster right particularly for the ptas I mean I think just by reading that room and the folks we were talking to like if we can pull off that PTA meeting like two or three times a year I think the ptas would come I mean that that meeting was so I think impactful to everybody in that room so so thank you for putting that together I think it's you know exactly what we are looking for right that to kind of help us reach out in this area um and for me personally like I I really got a lot out of
100that event um helped connect some dots for me that I didn't think I needed to connect but but it helped me form some some new connections um so thank you you're welcome thank you oh back on the PTA meeting um one of the things discussing in that meeting was how that they could get information to us as board members to come to events on campuses and we were all over it we were so excited about being more informed on like the day-to-day activities that are happening on each individual campus so I would like to pursue that as we go forward too with this absolutely yes we're working through a process that is least cumbersome on everyone but yeah we'll definitely have that for you anyone else okay well just thank y'all for the hard work
101you're doing and I will say this it started with the the Journey of a graduate where we Suzanne's been on the board longer than the rest of us but we really opened everything up to the community and said we really want your input and you have to be careful when you do that because you're going to get it and we have and I would say in the past few years we have engaged our parents and our community members more than at any other time and this is coming from someone who was a parent in the district long before I was on the board but just reaching out and saying no we want to know we want you in the schools we want to know what you want what do you think and it would have
102been real easy to put the Journey of a graduate up and then push the community part aside which is what you see a lot of people do kind of like mission statements but we haven't and that puts a tremendous amount of work on all of you I mean we get up here and we talk but that was just something that got added to your job and and we didn't add a new position to say hey you're now the coordinator of Journey of a graduate so get all the community that's on top of the jobs you were already doing so just thank you for doing that um you know I see this stuff on Twitter and Facebook and the the parents that we're having involved now and it's so nice to see parents back in the
103schools which we can finally do that again but it's also nice to see a lot of different parents in the schools and that's what I'm encouraged to see that we're seeing more and more of parents that you know haven't always been involved and they are involved now and it's just going to make us better so thank you all very much for all that hard work I know it's hard we greatly appreciate it all of BISD does so thank you thank you next one is mid-year update goals and key progressing measures Dr Smith so board I'm going to ask all of our cabinet members to come on up each of our cabinet members has a role to play in this discussion coming up they're going to go through real quickly our mid-year check-in as you all
104recall we adopt key progress measures every year those are annual targets that we want to hit because we believe they were are the most impactful work under each goal statement that you adopt and so our cabinet members are going to walk us through one by one how we're progressing in our key progress measures this year this is going to be a brief presentation because we'd present to you every month on this and so this is just a mid-year check-in to recap some of the things that are going on one of the things that when we talked about this in our team of eight training over the summer a board member made a comment I sometimes don't know where we are in the process for improvement I know what the goals are and I know where
105where we're trying to go but I don't know exactly where we stand so these monthly reports in this mid-year check-in or to help us know where we are in the process to that Improvement effort Jen's going to get us kicked off with Goal one and I think you heard a little bit about it already go ahead Jen yes as you can see it's marked as in progress on goal one and we have a lot of initiatives going on at multiple levels of the district at the campus level as I've said at the district level within different departments and I'm very confident that we will meet our KPM by May of 2023. I'm here to talk about goal 2 and I recently had an update with you all and gave you a lot of our data
106we are in progress in all three of our goals and on on track what I do want to talk about is the dedication that we've had from about 30 of our teachers around math instructions specifically and what we want math instruction to look like in our classrooms and they did some intensive research and some learning on some State research around the best instructional practices so they're research-based instructional strategies RBIs is what they're known for and they've developed a math framework for what we want math instruction to look like and this is from the work of our teachers and so now we will be as is starting tomorrow we'll be unpacking that with our principals so we can start to establish a strong look fors in our classrooms and then we'll have some professional development coming
107up at recharge around that best practices and math for our teachers that's our goal to on goal three our key progress measure for that is 80 percent of our world-class employees will establish and pursue learning goals by June 2023 and we are in progress on that we asked at the beginning of the year we asked all employees to complete a goal setting form and they listed out the learning goal that they wanted to achieve and they had some conversations with their supervisors about pursuing that goal and so the recharge session that Dr Love Smith just mentioned is a is a is going to help us fulfill that goal for many employees there's over 220 sessions that are going to be offered on February the 20th for our staff and so that will help them fulfill
108those goals so we're excited about that we don't we don't think we're gonna have any problems meeting that goal so our um our key progress measure for go4 revolves around the development of a behavioral framework uh we we mentioned this in a workshop a couple of months ago about how feedback that we had gotten from last year from staff primarily teachers from parents and from students this is one of the areas where we feel like we could get better so the behavioral framework we've had a cross-department team uh working on this for months now it's going to it's going to focus around prevention intervention discipline professional development we want something that is clearly and well communicated that's consist it's based on consistency and implemented with Fidelity that's student-centered and is proactive and something we can
109all be pleased with so work's continuing on this uh we do feel like we're in progress on it and we do feel like it's going to be something that is uh stakeholder informed and is going to make our whole system better when we're ready to roll it out and last but not least goal five so this is also in progress um and so we since June we've had Staffing staff committee meetings and we've met oh several times since June and looking at maximizing the efficiencies in our staffing models and have met meeting with stakeholders and principals and getting feedback from them as we kind of look into to that and then of course HR and the business office are kind of working hand in hand we're doing analyticals on our employee management which is our
110position inventory looking at that to help maximize our budget and then I am just starting to begin to roll out the campus and departmental budgets and we'll be taking a very deep dive into our informational technology renewals that we have we have a bunch of those throughout the district and looking forward economies of scale and how we can maximize the dollars just in those licenses and some of that's going to be forced because of a new gasby pronouncement that I'll have to implement but going to try to knock that out with both of those simultaneously and so we're still working and we'll be working throughout the budget process so board our our cabinet members are each leading multiple efforts under each one of these goals the key progress measure again it's just one measure under
111each goal that we report out on to you on a regular basis as Melissa said we're going to actually take a deep dive with you on goal five coming up in the February Workshop that we have for our Board of Trustees is going to be on goal five and we'll talk a little bit more in depth about budget and Staffing at that time as we plan for the spring and eventually bring you a budget to adopt in August so that'll get the budget season kicked off during the next Workshop are there any questions for myself or any of our cabinet members on the mid-year check-in excellent thank you all we appreciate your support thank you very much next is facility committee report you don't look like Mr Taggart but you're going to fill in I'm
112not Mr Taggart but uh Ms Ms Bass and uh Ms McDonald can probably help me out a little bit in this but we had an outstanding report for our facilities committee this last time we went in uh a lengthy report on the status of each one of our bond projects right now and how they're progressing and um we're really proud of the work that's going on I think there's when you when you pass a bond like this there's a lot of design work and a lot of prep work that gets going and when we finally start seeing things go vertical is is Mike talked about for elementary 12 or Burrell Elementary School it's starting to feel like oh yeah these things are really coming to life and so it's a good feeling but they were
113able to detail the amount of work that's gone on on each one of these projects and I think it's pretty spectacular what's been achieved in a short amount of time Aaron and Suzanne anything else that you would add great you did a good job I I want to point out to Mr Taggart that I think my report was more brief than his was so he won't believe it you did a very good job uh Mr alcos or policy committee report okay this is from our meeting on January the 9th and this is a continuation of the policies that were addressed back in March of last year when we had the policy review and these policies are all beginning on page 61 or 64 of the consent agenda for a second reading some of these policies
114were deleted for example be a local legal board legal status powers and duties that was deleted why was it deleted because it's covered in legal uh let's see Student Activities FM local one thing that was added there was that uh well no no that was also um let me back up a little bit um fmg local Student Activities travel that was deleted because it's covered in the handbook we had some discussion about dce local Employment Practices other types of contracts I think it's chapter 21 of the education code right dealing with employment contracts well in that particular provision I had asked why why do we have to have a um grievance procedure for someone that is not a chapter 21 employee and I think the answer is because since we're a school district it applies
115to all employees and my question was well if a term ends then why should we even talk about you know having a grievance procedure after that if their contract ends well because we're a school district and all employees are covered by that so that answered that question uh the others uh we deleted fee local because it's covered in student handbook FM local one provision was added you cannot limit an eligible student's absence related to participation extracurricular activities makes sense oh and the other one was DH local employee standards of conduct if you recall obviously it's you can't you can't possess a firearm here on the campus or some other type of weapon but there is an exception to that an exception to that is employees that we approve as a board that can carry a
116weapon on campus and that was added as a as an exception one other thing Chris remember the meeting beforehand you had asked to review the form the transfer form the enter and and interest transfer form um I think we're still waiting on a couple things because of the uh boundary change we're going to make form hasn't changed any uh there may be some change because of the boundaries but other than that it appears the same um anything else Jen I think that was it right any questions no okay all right well thank you all for the reports next item on the agenda is a consent agenda does anyone wish to pull an item for discussion okay okay do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented Miss bass do I have a
117second mostly all in favor I want that past unanimously thank you all right board members at this time are there any requests for new information or reports from the administrative team no okay as a reminder we have the following upcoming events you have the calendar there in front of you actually quite a bit of things coming up right now going into that time of year all right we will now proceed with public comments regarding non-agenda items as mentioned earlier in order to comply with the Texas open meetings act the board may not respond to comments or otherwise discuss or act upon any issues that are not posted on the meeting agenda participants are allotted three minutes for public comments regarding non-agenda items we have a timer on the screen that shows you a lot of
118time a sound will occur at the conclusion want to call your name please come to the podium state your name and city of residence for the record the first person is Janet Brown and the person on Deck will be Hilary hickland good evening I'm Jana Brown and I'm a resident of Morgan's Point Resort I'm also a great great grandmother I'm soon to add another great to that so it's amazing as I have another grandchild soon to arrive so it's astounding that we still have to speak with the board of school trustees on values and morals to protect children we've been called book burners Liars those religious nuts and one of my all-time favorites the far far far far right people to refrain saying and also to refrain from saying the word grooming why because we
119know that sexually explicit obscene pornographic and pervasively vulgar books that are available for minors they should not be available to them in our school libraries because our schools are meant for education and these type of books serve no educational value as stated you Belton ISD Board of trustee members Suzanne McDonald Chris floor Janet Lee Aaron bass Ty Taggart Manuel alcoser Jeff Norwood and superintendent Matt Smith are responsible for this smear on Belton Community Values the buck stops here with Hugh even as the unpaid people that you are it stops with you have you read these books will you read these books because if we want to review them we have to read them would you let your child read or even look at these books you received another handout tonight we only passed these out
120to the parents because we're very protective of the children we don't want the children to see these pictures one of the books that's featured in here is by an author the book was already pulled it was challenged and it was pulled but we found another book by the same author with same graphic pictures in it in the library in Lake Belton High School library so there's still issues here your policy and actions are not protecting the children of Belton everyone has a choice to do the right thing chances are they know what that right thing to do is the books will be your legacy not a name on a building or a school but over sexualized books that each of you allowed to be available to children we call them minors but they are children
121I pray that God softened your hearts and pours wisdom into your minds and the strength of spirit to do the right thing thank you next up is Hillary hickland there we go there you go Hilary heckland from Belton um thank you for your support I am definitely engaged I have the opportunity to review the Wellness Plan and I really like it it raises a standard for health and it puts limits on harmful materials provided to our students by the school this policy is based on a federal nutritional standards and it requires food and beverages to meet smart snacks and their requirements the district then monitors the types of food and beverages made available to ensure that each campus is in compliance even a hundred percent of the snacks advertised on the exterior of the vending
122machines must be of smart snacks thank you it could be said that snacks have been censored or that students rights to sugar is being violated however this policy elevates a standard for students and I'm grateful now let's apply that same standard to books we already know that safeguarding students access to sexually explicit material is necessary tonight the board approved a contract for goguardian for 82 thousand dollars that places a filter on Chromebooks and yet all our students can find books with filthy graphics and narratives in every secondary library in our district I gave you a handout for the FCC guidelines consider the Federal Communications Commission the FCC regulated a standard of decency for Public Broadcasting that has been upheld for decades and overcome challenges all the way to the Supreme Court you will never be
123exposed to ex to obscene material on public television or radio the FCC goes even further and between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 pm there's when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience they are pro they also prohibit indecent and profane content with the two books that have been removed Belton ISD has acknowledged the presence of obscene material in our libraries how many more would be indecent or profane why would public broadcasting have a higher standard of decency for our children than our schools please you have as you have done with nutrition Elevate the standard for our schools and protect our children from harmful materials it's my recommendation that the board audit our libraries and remove all obscene indecent and profane material from District circulation this is beyond a
124parental rights issue the state has a vested interest in protecting children if this local governing board will not this issue is not going away thank you thank you all right the time is now 803 the board will now go into closed session for consultation with attorney Texas government code section 551.071 discussion of district-wide intruder detection audit report findings Texas government code section 551.089 and Personnel Texas government code section 551.074 foreign