001it turns on thank you foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign [Applause] thank you [Applause] um [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause] about it [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] anyway [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] very much [Music] thank you [Applause] thank you very much [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you yes thank you [Applause] exactly because yeah okay foreign [Music] thank you [Applause] again [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] I'll do it today [Music] [Applause] thank you so [Applause] um thank you all right [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] let's do it good evening everyone thank you for joining us I hope you enjoyed the student showcase here Belton High School Floral Design the time is 6 15. and the Belton Independent School District Board
002of Trustees are now convened in a regular board meeting on Monday September 19 2022 fit into your Fine Arts Center located at 400 North Wall Street Belton Texas Quorum of board members is present note right now that board member Taggart is not present at this meeting this meeting has been duly called and a 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're here to listen set goals listen to reports from the superintendent approved budgets contracts Personnel 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
003operations 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 the meeting board members received information related to items on tonight's agenda a general 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 bisd's YouTube channel and a recording of the meeting will be available on the district's website in the days following tonight's meetings for the video to adequately reflect the proceedings respectfully ask that you refrain from talking while others are speaking and the cell phones are turned off or
004in the silent mode thank you for taking time to join us this evening you're interested in Belton ISD please rise for a moment of Silent prayer or meditation okay thank you please remain standing as students from Belton High School lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and honors to the Texas flag leading Us in the Pledge of Allegiance is canvas Utley and in the Texas pledge is you Juliana Rodriguez 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 allegiance to the Texas one State under God one and indivisible allow me to tell you a little bit about these two BHS Junior Campbell Utley is a member of
005the varsity volleyball team the National Honor Society and the Belton tiger lilies After High School she would like to attend Texas A M University whoop and major in kinesiology and Miss Yuliana Rodriguez is also a junior at BHS and she's a member of the varsity basketball team HOSA and the Belton tiger lilies after graduating she plans to attend the University of Texas and major in medical science thank you ladies [Applause] okay the first item on the agenda is recognitions good evening Board of Trustees and Dr Smith it's my pleasure to host our recognitions for this evening let's give our students showcase another round of applause the Belton High School Floral Design we sincerely appreciate y'all being here so our first recognition today is the UIL All-State journalism staff which is ulyssa Gray she's a junior
006at Belton High School and was recently named the UIL All-State journalism staff and she Advanced to state in headline writing and we are really proud of her congratulations [Applause] thank you and our next recognition is just fantastic Belton ISD had 149 students receive honors for their scores on the advanced placement exams last spring we had 90 qualify for the AP scholar distinction which means they scored a three or higher on three or more AP exams that's that's something so congratulations guys it's a big group [Applause] parents feel free to Snap photos too stand up if you need to it's a lot of students we're so excited for them there you go yeah that's great we're really proud of these guys so I'm glad y'all are getting pictures foreign one more good job guys foreign [Applause]
007Scholars with honors and we had about 20 students received this and that means they scored at least a 3.25 on all of their APA AP exams with scores of three or higher on four or more of these exams which is really challenging congratulations guys [Applause] [Music] as you know the AP program prepares kids for the rigors of post-secondary education so it really says a lot about Belton ISD that we've done so well on this is that it what one more give them one more round all right and finally we have 33 students district-wide that earn the AP scholar with distinction so listen to this they scored at least a 3.5 on all of the AP exams taken with scores of three or higher on five or more of these exams congratulations [Applause] all right thank
008you AP Scholars we are super super proud of you all y'all done an amazing job you should be very proud of yourselves parents you should be proud okay and for our department showcase this evening we are recognizing technology these guys do so much to keep the district running it's led by our new CTO Shad McGahey and assistant director Rachel Starnes they have 15 Tech members and three teams personnel and they offer service with a smile they're fantastic to work with they have a can-do attitude and we are just really grateful for them and all that they do for Belton ISD laughs thank you technology [Music] thank you guys so much that concludes this evening's recognitions okay that's it for the recognitions um if you all would like to stick around for the board meeting they're
009really exciting but there we go if you don't want to I understand that as well we'll give you a chance to leave and then we'll start the meeting back [Applause] thank you foreign [Applause] foreign absolutely thank you okay in accordance with bed local adopted by the board as member meeting in December 13 2001 take public comments regarding items on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting currently we do not have any public comments on agenda items we do have public speakers uh they are speaking on knowledge into items so that will be covered at the conclusion of the meeting [Applause] now the next item on the agenda is item four journey of a graduate Dr Smith trustees it's an honor to be here tonight we wanted to focus foreign thank you foreign hello oh
010there we go Chris testing testing Chris we're up and running okay you know what I know we heard you but Suzanne can you speak again I don't just make sure everybody can hear what you said opportunity for another Mike absolutely yes so adaptability we are adapting in this situation so as BISD people look at us adapt to the fact that we almost weren't able to speak to the people covet taught us that we can adapt we can overcome we started doing learning on Zoom we started doing learning just uh the teachers were very creative I've heard of all kinds of ways they got information out so uh I'm just we'll use that as just one set example of how we can adapt and we did adapt yes the you know to Echo a little bit
011of that the hope and prayer is that this would be the most adaptable generation in a hundred years all right that they can that they can work through and manage through very complicated things and come out the other side you know when I very first thought about this concept um what came to mind is that I'm of a generation of parents who have tended to well there's this word helicopter right and there's also another word lawnmower where we get in front of them and we mow everything down to make it easy make their path easy for them and so um overcoming parents like me and others has would be complicated sometimes when it comes to schools because it was difficult we noticed when when our boys went to college they were very bright they knew
012how to get good grades but when it came to the linking factors in between how to get from here to there and when things got hard who do you go talk to and nobody's going to do that for you and how do you go figure that out some of those skills were lacking for them and I take full responsibility for it but um so let you know I say this to as a word of caution for other parents but also to to say that we need to recognize this in schools as well that there there are some things we need to teach kids some of those soft skills about how you go in and look for the next steps and go go find out on your own and do that without any adult help some
013of those things are very complicated for kids and I'm hoping that we can train up a generation that's a little bit better foreign as I look at all these adaptability collaboration communication and so forth adaptability really plays into all of them and I think I've said this before I remember when I took freshman biology starting College when I was looking at the syllabus the professor had at the top of the syllabus she's put in their um nothing's constant but change so I mean we see it as adults and as trustees on the board just you know doing the policy thing um gosh if kids can learn can learn some skills with adaptability in being able to you know go with the changes man that's that's just going to breed success um and of course we're
014talking about mainly in in the workforce um I mean I see that just in the stuff that I do every day and um gosh you have to be able to do that have to be able to do that to be successful so I think it's a it's a wonderful thing that that we're focusing on that here in this District you know I that was one of the first thoughts that came to my mind is that when I've looked at adaptability it really can kind of lend itself to all the other things I feel like not that one is more important than the other but adaptability is something that each and every student will face from pre-k to K to 12 from gen Ed to special ed to the the sports the Fine Arts everyone is
015going to face challenges that you're going to need to be flexible with and so um I think it's probably not the most important I think they're all very important but you know we're also about promoting um things that positively impact student outcomes and while we have the the concrete skills that we've got to teach them and but these are skills that also positively impact student outcomes because these are skills that they need for ever and I know we've probably all got lots of Parental experiences I know I we had one earlier actually it was last week and it was a change in routine in the morning and boy did it set the trajectory of of that day a lot differently but when I followed up with him later in the evening that was the issue
016he could not adjust to not waking up on time his clothes weren't clean and you're gonna make me late so um we had some really great conversations and while I think teachers we want them to help with these but it is it is parents we have a role too and helping with these skills as well all right so I'm going to attack this from the complete opposite direction uh from the name from the employer side all right so um you know I work in the IT consulting space where there is no black there is no white my whole world is gray um and you know very seldom is the first time is the first problem that somebody reports very seldom is that the actual problem um there are also lots of cases where you come
017up with the best solution in the world that absolutely meets the challenge but for some reason or another you can't do it maybe there's not enough money to do it maybe there's some oh there's some other requirement that then changes the game on you um that you know the world that we we work in in the Consulting space is completely gray and and you're constantly getting turned on your head and so out of all of these things right I mean I think they're all important but from an employer standpoint what I try to look for from an interviewing standpoint right is is how well can you adapt how well can you you know adjust to something going off the rails um you know and coming in like that skill by itself is almost greater to
018me than any hard skill um so adaptability I love that it's part of the Journey of your graduate I think for us as a educational institution in the learning experiences that we're trying to create for kids it's important to note that these matter the skill development the competency development Matters from pre-k through 12th grade so it's a Continuum of learning throughout their experience it's not a check box to say you've proven to be adaptable and you can you can move on to something else this is something that we want to continue to focus on in our system because we know just as Chris just pointed out employers are going to need something different out of this generation than I think we can even imagine sometimes so thank you to our board for weighing in on
019with your thoughts tonight thank you all very much next item on the agenda action items first action item is to do you want to introduce it here can I go ahead and read this I can go ahead and take care of it if you'd like me to so our first uh one is Mike Morgan coming up to talk to you a little bit about construction manager at risk services for three of our projects from our bond election um I had a pleasure to come to you tonight last month we asked you to approve a construction manager at risk as the delivery method for our next range of projects off the 2022 Bond additions and Renovations at Belton High School additions at Lake Belton Middle School and additions at Southwest Elementary after going through an evaluation
020process of the request for proposals that were submitted our evaluators came with a score and tonight we stand here to recommend Core Construction as the construction manager for the three projects we believe that having a construction manager involved in the design process will not only help speed up a delivery but should help us get best value and pricing and in systems that we choose for the system so appreciate your consideration tonight and we would like to recommend Core Construction as our cmar sorry because I I've skipped over this part and I need to read this and that is considered discuss and take appropriate action regarding RFP number 2208-905-290 for construction manager at risk services for the 2022 building program for the following Bond projects which you had alluded to Belton High School additions and Renovations
021Southwest Elementary School editions and Lake Belton Middle School editions at this time open this up for discussion and questions okay having no questions uh do we have a motion to approve Core Construction as a construction manager at risk for the three Bond projects as presented Miss Bass Miss Lee all in favor all right that passes please note again that Mr tiger is not here to vote thank you next we'll move on to reports it's my honor to welcome Ms Gabby Nino and Ms Julie Manley to the podium tonight we're following up on a request from a board member to present on our campus Improvement funds campus Improvement funds were a budget line item that we instituted last year for the first time and Gabby and Julie are going to walk you through a little bit
022about what the campus Improvement funds are and how they were used last year and what kind of results we've been seeing good evening Mr Norwood and Board of Trustees I am very excited to be able to share this update with you all this evening the whole purpose of this presentation is really to just update on the impact of the campus Improvement funds that were initiated last year just like Dr Smith said in the 2021-22 school year for the very first time ever you all approved a hundred thousand dollars to be devoted to supporting campuses with unique Improvement efforts beyond what their local budgets would cover and it was a seed um of dollars to help them really start dreaming and innovating together we had seven campuses that engaged in this process this last school year
023and so I'm going to give you a few highlights and updates and just talk about the impact that our campuses saw because of this effort and support from you all so again the the in the purpose of these funds that were allocated were to support their unique efforts um yes aligned to their campus Improvement plans but those things that they saw above and beyond that they wanted to take some risk and some step forward with we really wanted to encourage Innovation and just invest in that culture that we value of continuous Improvement we like I said had seven different campuses that engaged and I want to give you high level descriptor of some of the projects that they initiated on their campuses was very open-ended but as we reflect on the process we see that
024some themes started to emerge with the efforts that they were getting started on their campuses one of those was Technology Innovation at both Bex and at Southwest the campuses started exploring some interactive technology and so they invested in interactive touch screen panels that allowed their teachers and their students to interact with the content differently in the classroom you could go into a Beck's classroom and see children who were in there traveling themed classroom taking a virtual trip to the streets of New York and learning about the sights and sounds that might be there and so our students just had some experiences that they may not have right here locally for them so that was an example of Technology Innovation that we saw emerge both at Southwest and at Bex we had two campuses that considered
025the spaces that they have on their campus and invested in some transformation to create new learning spaces for their students and staff at High Point they took some what were previously their science labs and they converted it into a steam Learning Center where they provide professional learning and students get to come and have some different integrated learning experiences in that space the goal is not for those steam experiences to just happen in the lab but really a place of inspiration and getting them to try out some new things in those spaces at Sparta Julie converted her foyer into saber cat alley and I'm going to leave it at that because Julie's gonna dig a little bit deeper on the impact at her campus in particular the other area that we really saw a theme emerge
026is just in the academic enhancements we had three campuses that took their approach to learning and just wanted to build on them one in particular is Miller Heights you may have heard of their learning leagues I think we got to do a campus visit during learning leagues one day and what that means at Miller Heights is that school-wide every child has the opportunity in their school day to have choice and they have multi-age groups focused on different experiences beyond the typical classroom experience and so they choose and they go and they take those courses in learning leagues weekly and they have rotations and cycles of those and these funds supported launching that at Belton Middle School we had teachers and students extend the learning day and so they provided opportunities for learning to happen beyond
027the school day and were able to support staff and students in that and at South Belton Middle School they were able to provide some instructional resources into tools for students who are new to the United States and working with language acquisition and so you can see that while it was wide open we did see some themes emerge in the campus Improvement efforts that our teams wanted to engage in and those were again Technology Innovation and learning space transformation as well as enhancement of academics I want to step aside a little bit because it's one thing for me to describe what happened and to get to observe it but Julie in leading at Sparta really engaged in this process and and went through some space transformation with her staff and students so I'm going to step
028aside and let her share about that just a bit many though good evening thank you for this opportunity to speak before you tonight and give you an update about the exciting things going on in our schools we'd also invite you to stop by whenever you can we'd love to have you at Sparta or in any of our schools so Gabby mentioned that these were this idea was born from the work on our campus and it definitely was you also just touched on journey of a graduate which we it was also a springboard when you think about critical thinking in particular and collaboration and so um it has I've been at Sparta now 10 years this is year 10 and that four-year area has always bothered me because it is this Bright Beautiful large open space
029but underutilized just um you know just never utilized and so in thinking about our school goals for we were really working on critical thinking and making our thinking visible we ask students all the time show your work in essence well you need space to show your work and then also when you're working on collaboration if you're working collaboratively collaboratively you need space to do that and so we turned our foyer which had been pretty outdated and we purchased those large portable easels three of those and then you can see on the wall There's a sticky uh it sticks to the wall a large white board the tables themselves are white boards and able to be written on and then erased the stools were probably not the best purchase because they raised up really high and
030they wobble the kids manage it very well this the adults do not but and then chairs of course and then on the other side of that foyer is some flexible seating that is more couch-like and so offers really a unique learning space and if you come to Sparta you will see individual classes working out there you will see combined grade levels it could be fourth grade and first first grade combined and they have the space out there to work together on writing or reading together sometimes it's just small groups that need a quieter place in their classroom with one-to-one technology they often have projects where they need to record themselves and they need a quiet space to do that and so they can do that in saber cat alley and sabricat Alley the name itself
031was born from students we took nominations for what we thought this space should be named and the students then voted on SaberCat alley and so that's what it's called and teachers sign up for it and it has like as mentioned sparked curiosity and inspired Innovation and our our staff love it it's very well used and it was also I wanted to mention in this a springboard for a collaborative space for our staff and so we kind of took this idea and thought if our students love this and want this we need to create this same environment for our staff and so we love a good name so that's called The Den a place where our staff can come and collaborate and plan together and have comfortable space where they can get their creativity going so
032thank you for supporting our ideas our dreams and just following through and we I appreciate getting the opportunity to update you on that thank you are there any questions for principal Manley oh yeah yeah actually as for Gabby I was curious if you could if you could tell me some of the core from today yeah there's a wide range and so I always fear minimizing and not including some of the the greats but one that you all got to visit last year that um we're super proud of and it's based on partnership with our B foundation too that we're so grateful for is we have um two we Miller Heights has two Lego robotics leagues that are and I wouldn't call it leagues yet but they're they're using their Lego robotics for engineering design and
033they're connecting that to the writing process as well what I'm really proud of there is that it's not just clubs they've really oriented everything that they're doing to academics so they're using that Lego tool that was supported through beef and then they're pairing that with expository writing and the writing process so that's one that stands out we have art enrichment clusters or art learning leagues where they're studying different artists writing about those reading text where author illustrators emerge and they're studying that art style they have photography clusters that are happening um there's a wide wide range and it's very special to see the multi-age groups happening and some of that leadership and peer support developing I do want to clarify real quickly not all of you went to visit at Miller Heights last year there
034were only a couple of you that were on and you were doing the beef handout for the awards I believe that we went in there but just want to be clear that not everybody was when Gabby says that you all got to visit last year not everybody was there yeah some did and there was there were during the beef handouts it happened to be at learning League's time and then also when you all deliver gifts to staff around the holidays it also happen to be during that time and so it is a pretty special time at Miller Heights to see their kids all over the building interacting with each other and content in unique ways so go ahead Mr Floor uh so for Sparta how long is this how long has saber cat alley been
035in operation so um probably the final we had a Furniture delay as you know and so we were up and running though by spring break and so fully in the spring up and running and then of course into the fall this year how are we how are we capturing Lessons Learned right so it sounds like there's a lot of great stuff that's happening with saber cat alley but hey maybe if we do this again somewhere else we don't want to get the same stools right so so how do we how are we capturing that and feeding that in so that this you know if this catches fire and moves on yeah right we continue it continues to get better and better yeah um one of the key steps in the process that campuses went through
036was to identify how they would measure impact and so we have had some collaborative conversations with our principals about what's the impact what's happening are you able to measure it I will tell you that we got great feedback from our principals and Julie's actually speaking about it a little bit of it now we rolled out the process in the fall last year and so there were some delays in getting access to her her resources that they planned for we've had similar feedback from other campuses around those delays um so the collaboration with the principles is one of our primary ways to say what are our lessons learned another big one is we want to expand the people who are part of the planning process so I can speak specifically to Southwest and Bex as we
037rolled out new technology we could have strengthened our partnership with our technology team because they've had some delays with that as well so the big feedback that we've gotten so far is around timing in our rollout and making sure that the most important voices or a wide variety of voices around the table to ensure that there's not delays in Project implementation okay did we just have seven I shouldn't say Justin yeah did we did we only have seven schools submit or was it paired down to seven it was paired down so originally we had 11 that submitted and seven were selected in that process and coming back to your question about Improvement efforts um one of the things that we really would like to improve is expanding people engaging in the process right and so
038our principals gave us great feedback around how that might happen and giving some job alike some collaboration time with principals to share their own impact stories from their projects to spread the word um as a reminder this is the first time ever we took a risk with this and so we have some great results we have some lessons learned and so the more we can start talking about it and that collaboration we hope to see spread yeah okay now this is great I mean let's not be afraid to fail right I mean we want to fail gracefully but let's not be afraid to fail right we take some risks with this um you know and let's also think about like schools that don't submit right what do we need to do differently at the schools
039that don't submit right you know I play in this a couple rounds further right but now this is great it sounds like an awesome space I got to see if I can find some way to get over there so yeah Julie's done a great job you know from our lens I get um she can talk about at the ground level implementation but I'm super proud of what's happened at each of the campuses in particular what she talked about you can see the seed idea spreading on her campus you can see in her classroom some of our teachers really taking on this visible learning and transformation particularly in her math classrooms riding on the walls a lot more getting kids up moving and really talking around their instruction and they're thinking about other spaces to transform
040so very excited about what we're seeing any other questions the ideas uh for the projects did they come from you may have answered this question on your during your presentation but did they come from the I know the saber cataly came from the principal but what are the what are the other ideas come from so for the most part came from their campus leadership teams and and Julie Julie can talk about the information process with her own ideas and what they proposed but they brought their campuses together their teams together um and each one had a unique approach but really reflected on what were their campus Improvement plans and the things that they were wanting to impact and each submitted a different idea for that okay thanks for the reports very informative thank you all
041Miss Bass Chris took my question about asking um about the seven campuses but I think just to kind of to continue off of what he's talking about is would it be worthwhile that we get not periodic not every month but just throughout this year to see how it's going because I think this has sparked some great stuff at seven campuses and it could be more so just to hear because you know we don't get to always go to campuses to see these things but I think it would be great to just periodically get an update as to how it's going but for more campuses now do they get to do it again the seven that have done it do they get to do it again every year or apply yes every year we will launch
042the application process again and the the vision right now is that annually they would have the opportunity to apply and she's already got some ideas going [Laughter] I think what we can do Aaron to answer your question I think either uh written report or at a board meeting we can make sure that we're following up not on an annual basis but a little more frequently I want to see like Shark Tank where these are pitched like [Laughter] thank you very much we appreciate it thank you all the next is a review of the sr3 continuity of services plan Dr Smith uh our CFO Melissa Lafferty will come up and talk to you a little bit about Esser our next steps and what continuity of services plan really means all right good evening tonight we're just
043here to briefly review and discuss our continuity of services plan and that plan is basically Belton isd's plan for continuing to provide services to students throughout the pandemic um we basically call it our covid-19 response plan and um it's easily found on our website so if you go to our home page and you click on the covid-19 response heading from the home page it will take you to our continuity of services plan do I have the can I take you to that website sorry I got ahead of myself and it will take you to this page which has got a ton of information about our how we basically communicate our protocols our strategies and scenario levels in response to Active cases and changing pandemic situations this is basically a federal compliance requirement and it's one
044of the Esther requirements and so every six months we are required to review our plan and receive public feedback on the plan in addition to considering any significant CDC guidance and then making any revisions that we see that need to be made at that time so that's basically what we're doing tonight and over the last several weeks we've been receiving some of that public feedback in the form of a survey um and so we ran a survey from August 17th through September 3rd and there were 694 people that responded to the survey and as you can see from the survey results 88.9 percent are pretty much satisfied with our plan and 11.1 percent weren't necessarily satisfied some of the primary concerns because in the survey there were a couple of sections where you could make
045comments and so there were a handful of people that gave us all kinds of concerns and some of them didn't really kind of fit within the plan but some of them were scenario levels they wanted them to kind of align with the counties scenarios of course continued cleaning practices which is something we already continue to do um Mass spreading events and then about eight to ten people um were concerned about the covid leave policy which we had I believe a previous year ago and now has expired so there were basically about 10 people out of the 694 that voiced a concern about the employee leave policy so overall based on those results we feel like our current plan fits within CDC guidelines and of course our Public's concerns are there any questions all right any
046questions board uh Mr Floor um just on the covet employee leave policy right with like was that feedback geared towards wanting to have more like a more robust employee leave policy or was it that we shouldn't have the employee leave policy like what um I base I think just some generic responses of giving employees covet leave continuing okay any other questions no okay thank you very much next item is 2022 Bond projects update process for naming new facilities and Elementary attendance Zone process future Dr Morgan is here presenting to you all and we'll walk you through uh those items real briefly there are a couple High interest items for our community when you talk about naming facilities and attendant zones so there's important work coming up for Belton ISD moving forward that Michael highlight for
047you um thank you for letting me back up tonight uh yes we are really excited to bring you the first update to the full board and tonight we're going to focus on something a little different than than a construction projects and bus purchases and things of that nature we're going to talk about our school naming process we're going to talk about attendance boundary process so tonight I'm here to uh to give you an update on these two processes kind of taught to you of some work that's been done with our facility committee and kind of next steps and what you and the community should expect here in the next several months naming process for elementaries 12 and 13. it will be so nice to actually be able to refer to them by name and not
048Elementary 12 and 13. here in a little while but it's Guided by our board policy CW local which is our policy that guides naming of facilities that is if you'll recall some work that that we did with our policy committee over a year ago and it has it has definitely given us a good process by which to come up with names for new campuses and for other District facilities this committee will have 12 committee members that will representing the entire Bist community this this committee will go through several meetings over the next two months or so and we'll come back hopefully with two to three recommendations for each campus brought to you to the board we are going to strongly encourage members of our community to make nominations so if people feel that they have
049a name that that fits within our policy and would be appropriate way to represent our community then they're going to be encouraged to make those nominations for consideration by the committee and so we'll have an orientation meeting coming up we'll have a meeting to discuss and and for the stakeholders to the the committee members to go back out into the community and get feedback we'll have a second meeting to consider discussing consider nominations they'll have another opportunity to go back out and gather feedback and then we'll have a meeting prior to the November board meeting and the November facilities committee meeting where we can come back and and kind of discuss that process and make the recommendations brought forward by the committee ready the second process that we'll be undertaking this fall there will be
050a slightly lengthier process as the 2022 attendance boundary process we created this graphic to show some of the different levels and layers of input that will be attained throughout this process so the yellow boxes are opportunities that the Board of Trustees or board facilities committee will have to either give feedback or input into the process the silver boxes are some of the a couple of the key Milestones that that Belton ISD staff will need to attain and then the red boxes are when we're going to have some opportunities for Community input so we'll be in the full swing of this process once we receive our full demographic report next month so we'll have a full report to the facilities committee and then an update to the board in the October meetings we will have already
051done some legwork in the process prior to that but it really kick into full swing when we get our updated demographic data closing out October we'll continue to refine the process November will be a busy month we'll have a facilities committee we'll have an opportunity to give us input on the initial data we will take it and have discussions and prioritization exercises with our long-range facilities planning team we'll come back in December with a facilities committee input and feedback based on the on the data that we collected and the input we'd gotten and then a border update and most likely in the form of a workshop in December we'll have Community input sessions in January along with another round of input and feedback from our long-range planning team some final work based on all of
052that feedback to come up with some final recommendations that we'll discuss with the facilities committee and then bring recommendations to the board for uh for a full review and hopefully for Action in in February there's going to be um a very impactful round of attendance boundary processes when you discuss and look at implications of opening two elementary schools that are large elementary schools and the additional capacity that will be created at Southwest Elementary through that Edition project we do anticipate that this will be a little more involved it will be based on the data that we get and and kind of where the construction is going where our where our growth patterns where we're seeing the most growth and it will go through a process where we maximize the use of our facilities while also
053being kind of considered to families and letting them know months ahead of openings on Water tennis boundaries are likely going to look like a question may be do we anticipate these attendance boundaries could Impact Middle School and High School and at this time we'll still need a lot more data before we get to that but there will be several rounds of updates before we would come back and ask you guys to make any type of decision based on recommendations um I would open up for a discussion at this time either questions uh needs for additional information or just things that we would like to talk about as a group tonight where did this end Mr Ford do you have anything Miss Bass so you mentioned that it the potential to affect middle school and high
054school but for elementary this has the potential to affect all campuses right and we talked a little bit about that in our facilities likely um with with having five elementary campuses that are currently closed for transfers due to being at or over capacity uh some of the new growth that has come up since we since the last time we looked at its in its boundaries in 2000 uh prior to the opening of Charter Oak in 2019 so we have seen some some changes in in growth patterns in the district and we do have some campuses that are at or over capacity so it should likely impact the majority of our elementary campuses yeah and just a comment to say I'm glad we're talking about this early and you said it you know parents want to
055know way ahead of time so I and we're being transparent about it I I love that you're already being very thoughtful that the timeline is um is is just great and so I appreciate that because that's um our community needs to know how how we're going to do this this far in advance thank you on this end no okay thank you can I point something out real quick sure I do I want to make one note on this too obviously the opening of new facilities and the attendance boundary process you want to line up so the attendance boundary process takes effect at the same time of the opening of new facilities I share that with you just along the way everybody knows August of 23 is our is our goal for Elementary number 12 to
056have that one completed if for some reason due to construction backlogs things like that that wasn't completed we'll update you along the way about when the appropriate attendance boundaries would need to change as well but I want to make sure everybody understands the opening of facilities and the attendance boundaries got to go hand in hand for us just capacity wise as a school district thank you Dr Smith next item facilities committee report I believe Dr Smith is going to handle that so I'm going to also rely on Suzanne and Aaron if there's anything that I miss along the way uh I know that I cannot do uh the same Justice that Mr Taggart does to his facility committee reports but I'll do my best in our last facilities committee meeting that we held on September
057the 12th we started by talking about what we call the Blair Street buildings is our facilities here in Belton ISD Blair Street obviously is on this campus for the central office and those have been facilities that have been talked about for quite a few years regarding the status of those and how we might be able to use those differently about 2019 or 20 we press pause on talking about those for a while and we brought those up again as we continue to take a look at facilities for new Tech High School and specifically for funds that were allocated in the bond election for new Tech High School our facilities committee began talking about transformation of some of those spaces so that we could use them for student experiences in the future that discussion is more
058to be held in the future but we want to make sure we begin bringing that one up because we do have some space needs that we're going to have at new tech this next part we talked about the naming facilities I think might cover that very well y'all are aware CW local was adopted by our board a little over a year ago now and that is the policy that guides Us in the naming of facilities and then finally we went over an update on all Bond projects and where we stood on the bond projects we have some notification items in there that will will be able to tell you when something's in construction or in design so that you have a clear understanding of where it stands we're also working diligently to make sure we
059have a website that shows that to our community so that our community can see that and track that along the way as well and I believe Aaron and Suzanne anything else that I had to I had to cheat and look at the agenda as well but I I appreciate you saying I nailed it but I think that covered our our facilities committee meeting okay well now it's you again as superintendent now I now I can really talk and not have to read off of that uh agenda so the for the superintendent's report for the month uh obviously we're well underway and uh purpose of this is to make sure I'm keeping you updated with some administrative information as we continue to move forward in Belton ISD one of the highlights of my last month was
060Patriot Day events and it just so happens that Julie Manley is here tonight I got to go to parade at Sparta Elementary for Patriot day but we had multiple Patriot Day events going on throughout our school district at our campuses this typically is a day right around September 11th where we celebrate the great work of our community in the great work of some of our First Responders so at Sparta Elementary we got to have a school-wide parade where we had people from Fort Hood there we had local law enforcement there we had fire department there the kids kept telling me how cool the fire truck was and they were able to show their appreciation to Our Community Partners into our Public Service Partners and it was honestly outstanding thank you Julie for inviting me and
061thank you to all our principals and campuses for hosting those events Belton new tech has some facility improvements I think many of you have been able to see those so far but we're really proud of the spaces that were designed for our kids at new tech to explore some of those programs and we've been able to see those in action over the last month obviously you saw the recognitions tonight for our advanced placement Scholars I know it felt like there were a lot of kids here but there's a whole lot more that were actually earned that recognition as well so that's exciting for our school district I want to point out a couple of academic and operational improvements that we're working on as well we have some professional learning that is going on with our
062principals but also with teachers regarding math math is a focus area we're going to be talking to you more about for the upcoming year or for the current year excuse me but our principals have been engaging in some professional learning regarding how we can help support our teachers to improve math performance for our students and I think it has the potential to be really powerful for our system in conjunction with that we have a new assistant principal professional Learning Academy going on we have some new assistant principals to our school district and we want to make sure that we continue to work on not only the operational practices that they engage in but also the values the beliefs and the culture that we want to create in Belton ISD and so special thanks to Gabby
063and Arturo Jennifer Ramirez is the entire team of executive directors that are working really hard with those assistant principals and I I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Cassandra Spearman as well they're doing an outstanding job with our new assistant principal Leadership Academy safety training I've mentioned to you all before we went through day-long threat assessment training with numerous administrators in our school district in the last month and we spent great time talking about how we continue to get better is a system districts around the state are continuing to focus on threat assessment training and we're thankful for our partnership with region 12 that helped us through that training last few things are upcoming items as you all know I'm a part of the Future Ready superintendent's leadership Network that's focused on talking about what
064we want school to be for students and we're in the midst of planning an experience coming up in October for those Future Ready districts across the state and we're planning and focusing in on a topic that is I think near and dear to your hearts as board members that we discussed in our team of eight training and in depth and that's how we create the conditions for teachers to thrive in public schools and so that's the focus of our October meeting coming up that we're in the throes of planning right now and then finally I'm really excited for the upcoming tasby conference and that you all as board members are willing to present with me along the way we have two great presentations that we're all involved in and then I'll be speaking on a
065panel as well with Battelle for kids Battelle for kids again was the organization that helped us do our journey of a graduate and so I'll be on that presentation panel as well and that concludes our superintendent's report for the month we're excited about the work that's going on and excited about what's coming up any questions or clarifications for Dr Smith no I do have a question Oh Mr alcozer the leadership academy I mean how long does it last uh how many sessions right now who conduct some yeah so it's our executive directors that have taken the lead Gabby and Arturo is our uh as our principal supervisors and also Cassandra is our executive director of student services Jennifer Ramirez has been involved as an executive director in charge of special programs as well goal is
066until we host those after school hours usually 4 30 I believe is when they start and we work to to try and make sure that they know and understand the operational practices that we have as a system because they do vary by school districts so the way somebody might have done something in clean ISD might be very different than the way we do it in Belton ISD and so it's ensuring that there's knowledge and understanding of those practices but also the ability to talk about some of the challenges that they're facing as new administrators as well within our system because some of those experiences can translate across the group so when I've stopped in there I've seen them engaging in small group discussions about different topics that are important that they're dealing with some of
067them might be custody issues some of them might be how they how they've handled certain issues that have popped up on their campus another one was uh Jennifer had spent some time when I poked my head in talking to him specifically about special programs in Belton ISD in what processes we need to follow along the way is they help families Educators and others out with art process with 504 process Etc and so those are right now we're invested in those in the afternoons after school and we'll continue to do those as long as they they're fruitful for our new administrators it's it's important to note too that we have some brand new administrators but also some very experienced administrators who are just in a new position in in that role and so we're working hard
068also to differentiate some of that learning and to help them along the way with that thank you very much next item on the agenda is the consent agenda does anyone wish to pull an item for discussion no do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented Mr McDonald do we have a second Miss Bass okay all in favor okay that pastors thank you very much board members at this time are there any requests for new information reports from the administrative team no okay next calendar of events you have that in front of you of course for this week remember Wednesday September 21st we have groundbreaking for the soon to be named Elementary School number 12. hope you can all make that and of course tasby we're all on where we're going to
069be then so next we will proceed to public comments on non-agenda items non-agenda items are covered in public comments at the conclusion of the meeting in order to comply with the Texas opened 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 it shows you a lot of time and a sound will concur at the conclusion when I call your name please come to the podium and state the name of your city of residents for the record the first person is Riley cotton and Madison Layton you are on Deck hi I I live in Temple so I just want to like I
070wanted to talk about the books that were being banned at like button high school and were being taken off of the shelves so um when I first heard about the books like being banned I didn't really think anything of it because it was like I thought it was being books like Catcher in the Rye that are always been controversial have been controversial for many years but then when I heard that the books that were being taken off the shelves were books that I've read and that I've enjoyed myself it was a little contradictive to the community standards that is on your uh beltonisd.net for each and every student so I just wanted to you know talk about how it's it's a these books aren't being taken away from like parents perspectives of them being like
071racially motivated or they're like pornographic or sexually explicit when there's other books that are like that but they're only targeting the ones that have lgbtq references in them or references that are not Christian so it's not you're not conforming to each and every student when you're only conforming to one certain uh group and uh so the Bill of Rights says that you can't uh it protects the speech and of the press and so when you take away books that's you're taking away people's press and their speech and you can't ban it from a library and people say that it's you can't have that in a library that has students of like 14 to 17 year olds but we are the next voting wherever the next voting age and if you want to hide things from
072us you can't do that that you can't hide things from us that are becoming in the next few years so we just I just wanted to make sure that we uh weren't getting our books hidden from us because as someone as a part of the lgbtq if you ban books that are lgbtq resonated you're Banning me you're Banning part of the school you're Banning people of the community and you're not allowing the community to have to have their representation if only books that are being taken off of the shelves are representing them so thank you for your time thank you next Madison Layton with Taylor deneve on Deck please hello my name is Madison Layton I reside in Temple Texas I am a senior at Lake Belton High School and I am here to speak
073on behalf of the students at my school and their right to read I do acknowledge the efb local that was passed on September 15 2022 and I understand and respect each dimension of this policy my primary goal today is to reiterate how essential books of all content including lgbtq racism sexualness explicitness and profanity is to each student who makes up our student body according to our built and ISD values and beliefs it states that we believe each and every student deserves exceptional experiences according to their unique needs and passions by censoring students choices rights and interests in in reading material we are making the school an unsafe space for students searching for identity as a high school student I know that high school is a place of identity um crisis where students are constantly surrounded
074by peer pressure body image issues social norms and wake up calls thus our students are trying to find content that is relatable to them a way to connect and a way to avoid isolation in a world full of labels and the pressure to belong parents and community members who are challenging these novels should be aware that not all students are white not all students are straight not all students go home to trauma-free environment and not all students go home to parents books that have certain pictures that the place display sexual acts such as genderqueer which is an autobiography focuses more on the protagonist's experiences and obstacles faced during adolescence rather than the sexual acts themselves I respect a parent's right to regulate what their children read but that does not give them the right to
075regulate and censor what other parents students read by erasing the history of one person or child we are saying that only one type of child is worth protecting instead of their own child sorry racism violence sexual conduct and lgbtq plus is a common sight in the halls of our school on social media television and across many other platforms these issues will not disappear when our books do therefore it is pivotal that books that may contain content such as this remain accessible for each and every student I appreciate your time respect the passing of the efb local and want to end the sentiment with an all a sentiment from author Jason Reynolds books unite us censorship divides us thank you thank you Taylor Denise testing hi there my name is Taylor geneve and I'm currently a
076senior at Lake Belton High School and I will also be discussing the topic of banned books and also the reconsideration of books I would like to start off by providing a definition of what a Banned Book is from the American Library Association who hosts the annual banned books weeks that banned books are quote targeted for removal or restriction in libraries and schools end quote and that the purpose for a Banned Book Week it attempt as to celebrate the freedom and to read and spotlight's current and historical attempts to censor books and libraries and shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas even though some consider it or unorthodox and unpopular end quote nowhere to the definition say that banned books should not be read nor did they say that they should be taken
077away from the public banned books are simply books in which their content or underlying theme was challenged and deemed to not be enforced in school curriculum however these books are crucial to educate on sensitive matters as well as serving a lens into history the following are deemed banned To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee a classic of American literature that follows the children of a man Atticus who defends a black man who is falsely accused of rape as well as the Diary of a young girl famously known as The Diary of Anne Frank has been banned from school curriculum because she detailed the atrocities she faced as a young Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Holland these are just a few of the many influential pieces of literature that are being censored from the American school
078system essentially works that Define history itself and impacted high school students in which way they view the world these are crucial for the public to access especially teenagers my age and by aiming to remove them from the school library it not only ensures the Erasure of a significant part of history but violates the very thing United States founded on which is the freedom of speech which can be defined from the US Constitution as Congress shall not make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press this amendment has been interpreted to protect individuals and Society by forbidding the government to censor books magazines and newspapers that do not include libel obscenity nor slander granted the action of banned books does not operate at a congressional level but regardless these books are not deemed
079unconstitutional furthermore solidifying that banned books should be protected and remain accessible to everyone I understand that recently many have become concerned with explicit themes and language in our library and I and many students hear concerned however I present the following solution instead of removing books from the library in its entirety if if it's preferred by a parent or Guardian the library system will flag books of specified content in the library that will prevent the student from checking them out of the library this course of action allows those concerned to make the decision to censor these for their own child however not stepping over the rights that all students are granted to at our library as a librarian Aid myself I wholeheartedly stand by the fact that books are a key component to education a functioning
080society and a vital right of democracy and that by aiming to censor content to the entirety of the school will do more harm than good I would like to close out my speech but the following statement that there is no enemy in this situation and there's no intent indoctrinating students or forcing an agenda thank you thank you very much and that concludes public agenda or public comments on non-agenda items I would like to take this moment and just and I'll speak for the board here we've had students speak over the past several years and I don't know if y'all's parents are here or if they're watching but we have always been impressed with the students that speak you are respectful you are knowledgeable and you should be very proud so thank you all very much
081you do a great job and we're very proud of you so thank you next uh the board will go into closed session the time is 7 28 in the board will now go into closed session for personnel Texas government code section 551.074 consultation with attorney Texas government code section 551.071 and security Texas government code section 551-076 Deanna will you follow up with them yeah to let them know that they're not being I'm over here um okay the time is 8 25 and we are back in Open Session there being no further business we are now closed meeting adjourned all in all done