001good evening everyone thank you for joining us hope you enjoyed the performance by the belton high school marching 100. i left off drumline on there sorry i jumped ahead of myself time is 6 15. i'd like to go ahead and call this meeting of the belt independent school board of trustees to order a quorum of the board is present meeting has been duly called a notice of the meeting has been posted in accordance with texas open meetings act texas government code 551 we're excited to have members of the public join us tonight respectfully ask you to refrain from loud disruptive comments during the meeting in accordance with the ed local policy please rise for a moment of silent prayer or meditation all right please remain standing communication introduces students lakewood elementary will be leading us
002tonight good evening trustees yes tonight we have with us chance parker and emma shirley chance is going to lead us in the american pledge and he's a fifth grader at lakewood elementary chance says his favorite subject is english language arts and reading because he loves to use his creativity and writing his after-school activities include playing football and showing steers with the stampede creek 4-h in his spare time he loves spending time with his family and playing with his dogs he prides himself on being a good friend and a polite kid he is confident he wants to attend tarleton state university like his mom and dad but isn't sure what he wants to do just yet good thing he's got a few years to work on that he's thankful for this opportunity to help guide the
003pledges and pay his respect to our flags and then a little bit about em emma she is a second grader at lakewood elementary emma says her favorite subject is everything because she says everything is fun in some way what a great attitude emma emma's after school activities includes a singing class and gymnastics during her spare time she enjoys hiking with her father looking for fossils and when she isn't fossil hunting she enjoys swimming and imagine play emma describes herself as a friend to anyone and kind of funny she enjoys reading about dinosaurs her favorite dinosaur would be all of them because she isn't just picking one so so grateful to have emma and chance here with us to say the pledges tonight chance you're up first i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united
004states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible liberty and justice for all i'll know that texas right one [Music] texas one state under god one indivisible [Applause] all right [Music] yes sir we are so grateful that the marching 100 drum line which includes brian little grayson necessary gage cushman jordan hussonga diago diego sanchez sam father gold vera oliver grant cushman brennan lanham caden van cleave and colder bothell were all here tonight this group is under the direction of ian smith right here thank you so much ian and shannon gill great job marching 100 drumline [Applause] huh they carried those drums out of here a little differently than our pearl rock stars did last month didn't they with their buckets and their sticks okay next up on tonight's
005recognitions the college board has named 116 beltoni by belton isd high school students as ap scholars for their college level achievement on advanced placement exams taken last spring the awards are divided into four categories ap scholars ap scholars with honors ap scholars with distinction and national ap scholars this group includes many who graduated last year as well as students from all three of our high schools before us this evening in this first group we have our ap scholars these are the belton isd students who receive scores of three or higher on three or more ap exams qualifying them as an ap scholar in total we had 72 students that qualified for this honor congratulations to these ap scholars [Applause] okay we're going to pause a little bit we still see a lot of parent cameras
006feel free to take pictures parents [Applause] still recognizing our ap scholars this next group of students received an average score of at least a 3.25 on all ap exams taken and scores of three or higher on four or more of these exams qualifying them as an ap scholar with honor in total we had 16 students from belton isd qualify for this congratulations to these students [Applause] okay ladies coming for their picture now we have our ap scholars with distinction 29 belton isd students received an average score of at least a 3.5 on all ap exams taken and scores of three or higher on five or more of these exams qualifying them again as ap scholars with distinction congratulations to this group of students [Applause] great job standing there as kids while we let our parents
007keep taking pictures of seeing no more cameras good job [Applause] our final recognition this evening is going to one of our district departments the texas department of agriculture awarded our nutrition services department a best of the bunch award nutrition services recently received this statewide recognition for participating in the tda's springs farm fresh challenge the district joins schools and child care providers from across the state to eat local teach local and be social from april 12th to may 14th of this past school year as a part of the challenge belton isd students ate local foods and learned about texas agriculture while staff shared their success on social media for its efforts the nutrition services department earned the best of the bunch award the highest awards here available to school districts congratulations to george don and shelton
008and the team we appreciate all that you do [Applause] all right let's have one last round of applause for all those great kids okay the next items values and beliefs community engagement trustees thank you for being here tonight and i just want to make a note for everyone we know it's warm in here and we're working on that so i appreciate your patience and all that it's warm for everybody everybody remembers we have adopted values and beliefs in belton isd those values and beliefs were adopted on april 19th the goal was to be able to articulate those things that matter most to the big red community to keep us special because we know belton isd is a special place and we want to make sure that we continue to do that as we grow if
009one of our trustees would take a look at community engagement and read that for us and then a few of you just note the things that stand out to you regarding community engagement sure we believe that the learning experiences of our students are enhanced through the engagement of our community nothing gets done without community support so with uh with community partners including um local businesses and partners through our cte programs and partners through our education that we do here in belton isd i think we can enhance our education for our students because we'll know what they need we'll know what to prepare them for in the future so a couple of things came to mind um i was went to a leadership network event yesterday and it's several uh network uh nonprofits in our area
010they get together and together they can do more good for more good that's not political but that's not it didn't sound right sorry but they do more when they work together and so when we work with our community we can get more accomplished we can get more things done but i thought the learning part is enhanced um because we're also broadening our horizons on our perspective on things we might not know and so then that made me think of our journey of a graduate with uh empathy and collaboration and communication so simple but impactful again we read these every month just to reinforce the things that um what these mean to our board of trustees as a administrative team we continue to work with these through our system so that we can leave these out
011and make sure belton isd remains the place we want it to be for the future appreciate you all taking part in that okay next item on the agenda is public comments we do have them so i'm going to go over just a few things here in accordance with the district policy bd local any person wishing to address the board of trustees during public comments must submit a public comments form which i'll have located in the lobby the board has elected to permit comments on any subject but ask that the comments do pertain to public education issues 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 agenda i do want to mention this i
012know we have a number of our students who will be commenting tonight thank you for coming uh and for anybody else who's new here the board doesn't interact it's not a dialogue we're here to listen by law we can't have that discussion i don't want you to feel offended i don't want you to get angry that you're speaking we're not we're here to listen we can't respond but we are hearing what you're saying i just don't want anybody to take that the wrong way there's an equal opportunity timer that will go off when your time is up based on the amount of people that we're going to have we will be limiting it to three minutes also if comments address a matter on the meeting agenda the board will defer discussion of that issue until
013it appears on the agenda the board will consider complaints that remain unresolved after they have been addressed through the proper administrative channels and when they have been placed on the agenda in accordance to the board's operating procedures speaking to the board in a disrespectful or threatening tone is unprofessional and counterproductive when i call your name please come to the podium and when you come up there please state your name and address for the record and again don't be nervous we're just here to listen so we look forward to your comments the first one oh and i put your names a lot i apologize before you get up here uh miley hammonds [Applause] hello my name is miley hammonds and i'm a resident of belton texas and a junior at belton new tech high at wasco
014my class has been through a lot our freshman year was cut short by pandemic our sophomore year was full of restrictions and now our junior class is dealing with the change of our school the idea of new tech becoming a stand-alone school is great but the timing certainly isn't this change would affect our senior year immensely after our class has been waiting for normalcy for two years our campus doesn't have the space staff or time needed to give new tech the electives it would need as a standalone school at the end of our sophomore year we signed a contract pledging that we would attend new tech until our graduation we made a commitment to new tech as we knew it then and we want the district to hold up their end of the deal new
015tech culture is centered around togetherness and diversity we have students ranging across all sports and fine arts becoming a stand-alone school without a transition period would mean dividing our campus as a student heavily involved in orchestra instead of focusing on academics this year i am worrying about choosing between my friends and hobbies or the school i love by making us choose between our electives and new tech our athletes musicians singers and actors all of whom make new tech a well-functioning and multi-dimensional campus would leave new tech erasing our student culture this is why a transition period is so important we have proven that it is possible with lake belton high so our students deserve an equitable opportunity please allow the current new tech students to continue with both new tech learning and electives at bhs
016this is academically and emotionally important to our students please provide us with information going forward the talk of a split has not been made available to students until very recently and we feel like our voices should have been listened to adequately from the moment a split was brought up provide opportunities for student input and put your students first thank you all right next on the list is megan hammonds please step forward with the name and address good evening that awesome kid was mine my name is megan hammonds and i live in belton and have a junior at new tech and a 7th grader at belton middle school i am currently in my 20th year of teaching and it's my 18th year in belton isd i currently teach 7th grade ela at belton middle school i'm
017here this evening to express concerns over the handling of the impending changes at belton new tech high at moscow the need for new tech to be a stand-alone campus apart from belton high school is understandable the two campuses function very differently and each can only thrive when free to meet their own needs and the ways best suited to them while the need for change is understood the methods employed for moving forward have been unfathomable i do not recognize my bisd students and their families were kept in the dark until the public rumor mill gained traction and forced a public acknowledgement the lack of transparency to the green degree necessary has been deeply disappointing and eye-opening i urge our leaders to hold themselves to the ideals expressed in our journey of a graduate our new tech
018students have excelled in demonstrating perseverance and adaptability the junior class alone had a freshman year cut dramatically short by a pandemic a sophomore year full of restrictions and began their junior year hearing that the school that they love the way that they know it is disappearing the senior year they've worked for and planned for is feared to be gone i urge our leadership to move forward with great empathy for our current students with critical thinking employed to solve complex issues to collaborate with those most affected and to move forward with a communication style that stifles rumor mills and leaves our community feeling confident in the path that we take thank you for your time and i appreciate each one of you aaron echols please state your name and address for the record good evening i'm
019erin eckles i live in temple texas i am also employed with the district i teach kindergarten at pearl elementary but most importantly i'm a mom and i am a mom to macy a junior at new tech beckett an 8th grader at lbms and henry a first grader at purdle i'm speaking tonight on behalf of my daughter all the students um at new tech presently and those who could have been there in the future macy has attended new tech since her freshman year she's been in the top 10 and most recently the top five percent of her class she's involved in many clubs and has made a place for herself in this community she's also a tennis player she's played in the top six at bhs since her freshman year she's one of the hardest working
020people i know she has tennis until late and then comes home and works until 11 30 or 12 on her homework she's also very involved with our church she's on our youth praise team she mentors our younger girls in our group and meets with her peers to learn more about jesus and how to share him with her world i say all of this to say that new tech is a special place it's made up of so many unique students just like my daughter it's a place where students are challenged to think outside of the box they're challenged to speak publicly about things they're passionate and things that they are learning they're challenged to work with their peers not a small thing teamwork and collaboration with people who don't see the world the way you see
021it is not easy but it's prepared my daughter and all of these students to go out into the world to make a difference so now macy and all of many others will have to decide between two things things that she loves a lot her senior year will she choose new tech and all that she loves about learning or will she choose tennis something she loves and hopes to pursue in college it's an impossible decision this entire process has not been kind or clear and it has not been unifying dr smith this has been your motto since coming in march of 2020 kindness clarity and unity of purpose the decisions that have been made without any discussion or collaboration with the people it affects the most will quite honestly destroy all that new tech has stands
022for my son an 8th grader at lbms has already just had chosen or wanted to go to new tech next year but now he will choose lbhs where we're zoned for because he loves tennis and he loves to play in the drum line two things he would not be allowed to do if he chose new tech i venture to say he's not the only one who will have to make these tough decisions the beauty that new tech was will be no longer quite honestly will there even be enough students that will choose new tech to even consider having it remain open i end tonight i feel like built-in ic has let me down i feel like you've let our children down and i feel like you've let our community down i know nothing we say
023here tonight will probably change decisions that have already been made but i do hope you guys will think and after you've heard all of these things then and think about how you're going to proceed moving forward kindness clarity and unity of purpose thank you and this is the proof we don't put anything in order greg hammons so good evening my name is craig hammons and i'm a resident of belton i live on red rock drive and i've been here for almost 20 years now which is hard to believe i'm a fellow educator and i want to first and foremost thank each of you for your service your work is extremely important i believe that we can all agree that a stable environment is good for kids that's true both at home and at school teachers
024are trained to create a stable learning environment in the classroom they seek to accomplish this through a variety of approaches which includes establishing routines and rituals and procedures as an educator i can say with confidence that an unstable classroom is not a good place for a kid the state of texas recognizes the importance of stability in school systems through their employment agreements something you all know well for example teachers are not at will employees they work under a contract while this does provide them some protections it more importantly helps to reduce teacher mobility therefore stabilizing the learning environment if a teacher fails to fulfill their end of a contract the state can revoke their teaching certification stability is that important throughout covid educators in the district have done amazing work but certainly we recognize that
025kovi created a substantial disruption to the learning environment i don't believe anyone here would describe the high school experience of our juniors and seniors as stable most all disruptions and changes through covid have been outside your control you simply did the best with what you had change is unavoidable how we change and when we change at least regarding changes at new tech is within your control a recent email i received from district leadership regarding possible changes to new tech stated and i quote i want to acknowledge the impact that these these decisions can have on all of our students and our upper upperclassmen in particular we are exploring every possibility to not alter their experiences i would argue that strong words are best followed by strong actions i ask that the district takes strong actions
026and with this transition that they provide a pathway of stability for our upperclassmen i thank you for your time thank you [Applause] michael morgan please step forward the name and address good evening my name is michael morgan 15 bending branch morgan's point resort i'm here to discuss my concerns about mask and inappropriate material in the school library first i'll start off with addressing my concern of the two physicians that advocated for implementing masks mandates against again at last month's meeting my response to the physicians is i recommend they have some courage and the moral decency to stand up against their medical governing bodies last year i allowed the school district to abuse my child by wearing masks never again if anyone recommends my child wear a mask then they have lost my respect and trust
027this is america and we have rights and freedoms and my children have the right to breathe the fresh air of liberty freedom-loving americans are not asking people to do things against their will if this board makes the decision to implement masks again i will disenroll my two children immediately from the belton schools as they no longer will have the trust and confidence have my trust and confidence i'm willing to bet there are more parents that may do the same moving on to my second topic it has come to my attention that lake belton middle school has a book available to students titled the lawn boy not sure if you've heard of it if not maybe you research reach out to leander school district just down the road i'm sure some of you are very familiar
028with leander i recommend you do the research and get it removed immediately as it might just fall in line with pornography if i was a school board member i wouldn't want to be associated with supporting distribution of pornography to minors i don't think you would either i recommend you do some soul searching and check your moral compasses and come up with a plan to scrub this type of things from the schools the school has restrictions on its internet connections i believe it gives a parent a false sense of security yet they can get this type of garbage from the library remove the book from the school many of your board members might be wondering why this increase and there's an increase in attendance at board meetings it may have something to do with the job
029performance if you're a board member that agrees with me then start speaking up it's time to show courage and be and be real leaders in our community if you think my comments are ridiculous and unwarranted you might just get voted out next election we the people are not going to allow this type of things anymore thank you for the opportunity to speak that much is appreciated [Applause] thank you [Applause] okay noah mccarthy hi my name is noah mccarthy i live on river place drive in belton texas i'm a student beltoneutech high at wascow and i play varsity tennis for belton high school there's been three major things that i would say have contributed to my growth in high school my first is my faith the second is the school as a whole dalton new tech
030and the third of sports my purpose in speaking this evening is to convey my concern for the future students and culture of new tech based on the current plan the culture of new tech is something different and i know we've all heard that phrase but let me tell you what the culture we talk about really looks like it means going about above the expected to achieve excellence it means relationships being built and enhanced through project-based learning new tech has created a culture of pushing past the typical teenage high school norms such as popularity pyramids due to the diversity and opportunity we encounter on a daily basis my classmates and i always seek to strive for academic excellence and part of that drive stems from our many passions outside the core curriculum such as band musicals
031dramatic performances orchestra and team sports and many other areas of involvement that's what makes a well-rounded diverse student student body the new tech students feel that the faculty and staff are also truly partners in our educational journey and that's what makes the culture the culture of new tech project-based learning is designed to thrive on diversity it is about teaching students to work together in a variety of combinations without diversity in our student body such as different backgrounds passions and talents in our classrooms we will lose what makes the culture of new tech great my feeling and the feeling of many other students at new tech is that the proposed change on its current trajectory will not just will not allow it to thrive in the near or distant future i asked the school board meeting
032school board to recall the july board meeting where it was made evident that paramount in this exploration was to preserve the culture of new tech and even see it grow i believe this plan does neither of these things because it eliminates the diverse culture of new tech making students choose between extracurriculars and their learning environment thank you for this opportunity to address you i know this topical is difficult and i pray you were able to see how passionate we are in preserving the future of new tech thank you thank you candace ozark hello my name is candace ozark i live in belton um i am a student at new tech um i came up here to talk about well for the like like for the side of my peers that for me personally i've had
033to see my friends and other peers having to make a big decision of choosing between a school like new tech and like a thing that like sports or uil or agriculture which it seems just like an elective like right it's just something you do in high school but these are things that affect our like us outside of high school some people are having to give up stem program stem endorsements college opportunities scholarships like a student shouldn't have to choose between continuing tennis and having to give up a scholarship of going into sports in a college and going into a school like new tech because new tech provides opportunities such as volunteer volunteering working with others because me personally i have when it comes to like volunteering and working with others i have greatly benefit from
034that it has shaped me to the person i am today and honestly with the opportunities i've given on newtek i'm very proud to say i am a new tech student and that that's that proud that proudness of being able to go here shouldn't be stripped away from my peers because new tech is a great school and it can be and with the with these decisions that are being presented to us i feel like though that promise is going to be stripped away why why would i be proud of such a of a class but not a class why should i be proud of a of a school that won't even let my friends do sports that they really want to because oh we just can't we can't fit it in that that is unfair i
035believe if some things were changed these decisions can be great the way new the way that you are seeing new tech that it can be it can grow it can prosper new tech will be great for this like if all i all i think is that if the decisions were revised new tech can be great it can be a school again that i i can say that i am proud of but as of now i don't think i can thank you for your time thank you [Applause] carol dishon hi my name is carol deshaun i live here in belton my husband and i just moved here in november of last year we moved up here to be closer to our grandkids who will both be a part of belton school district our granddaughter began kindergarten
036coming to belton everything we heard about it it was like the ideal mayberry neighborhood come on in bring your christian values with you it was neighbors helping neighbors we're all one big family when harold and i came to the school board last month which was our very first one to attend we were really excited and then i got up here and all these parents were saying please make our kids wear a mask and i'm like do what i have this god-given immunity system that my creator made me with my little five-year-old granddaughter she knows if you're in the hospital or if you see a doctor and they wear a mask it's because you're sick but we're not sick we weren't sick so i was really disturbed by that and i was like oh my gosh
037i should have spoke last month because as a parent as a grandparent i have a say with that i was so proud to look at the website i went to the i've been checking the website all along and i look to see where you have this dashboard and for any parent who is not familiar with that it is a super informative piece of material that shows you the statistic-wise i also saw where the masks were still they're highly recommended but it's a parent's choice if you want your child to mask up and i'm just so thankful that the school board i appreciate each one of y'all coming together and allowing parents grandparents to make that choice for our kids a great piece of knowledge that i saw on that elementary which affects my granddaughter it
038was 0.46 students as of the 19th that had 35 of them were a confirmed case of covid 28 were a probable case y'all that's like .46 that's not even a whole kid you know so i was like okay great this is wonderful so i thought well let me see what he's doing in the high school our high school kids as of 9 19 it was .55 of the population had active cases so i guess my whole deal is with the mask i hope that you'll consider to continue to let it be a parent's choice a student's choice that it's not something you will mandate on us allow our children to develop that immune system that god gave them i appreciate each one of you and in the work that you do and how you serve
039our community and serve our students and uh just hope you'll continue i'm sure y'all aren't familiar with the dashboard if you're not i made copies for everybody it's like i don't know if you've seen it but it's great so any parent out there check out the dashboard they're put in belton county is putting out great information for all of us okay thank you thank [Applause] you madison gregory my name is madison gregory i am a resident of belton texas and a junior at belton new tech i am here tonight to tell you why i think the splitting of built-in new tech and belton high school is not a good idea i'm a theater kid and have been since my sixth grade year joining belton high school's theater program has been one of the best decisions
040i've ever made theater has become an essential part of my life and has helped me grow as a person over the past three years i have changed considerably freshman me was terrified of meeting new people and working with them but now i strive to make new friends and interact with my peers my theater department has constantly built me up whenever i've been down and has raised my confidence levels and given me a place to grow without judgment the past three years have not been just a class they have formed a family and that and i now have a place i will always call home i am blessed to be given the choice to continue theatre for my last year of high school but my fellow theater family who are underclassmen do not and this devastates
041me i already consider them the part of a theater family and the thought of them losing the chance to stay without a choice angers and sadness me this is not just about theater this is about band choir sports agriculture classes and more these are not just classes that can be reformed and implemented in a new way there are families in our homes the experiences in these classes are essential to my peers and my mental health the bonds we have formed are everlasting and cannot be lost and all underclassmen that deserve the experience that as well tonight i want you to know this is not just taking away classes electives or uiville this is taking away family ladies and gentlemen of the board thank you thank you [Applause] all right i'm going to butcher this name
042i do apologize i even asked dr smith and he didn't help me um [Applause] sorry about that hi i'm shibangi oja um and i live in temple and i'm a senior at belton new tech okay as i begin my speech i'd like to direct everyone's attention to the four apples on the podiums on stage in those apples it says belton isd and underneath that is belton isd's famous slogan every kid is a winner i'm sure everyone in this room has heard these words countless times every kid is a winner and yet with this new plan with so many students and parents asking about the conditions of new tech students in the near future about negative impacts of such a big change so quickly many of the answers that we've been given are around the lines
043of this isn't going to be easy for every student or not every student can get what they need or students are going to have to make sacrifices so what we're getting from all of this is in belton isd every kid really cannot be a winner can they these are hundreds of students that we are talking about hundreds of students whose high school education may be negatively impacted by this change hundreds of students whose future lives may depend on the final outcomes of the split and we truly do understand that for the district this decision is not without reason and definitely not without a vision however although there may be a fantastic future result for the students of new tech in the long term maybe four or five years from now what about the juniors sophomores
044and freshmen currently enrolled at new tech do these few hundreds of students merely become the collateral damage of a drastic change i should probably clarify we're not asking for a perfect solution that will appease everyone because that is realistically impossible we are simply asking for better communication and more urgently time more time to meet with students and teachers and parents more time to answer the questions of tons of people in the district more time to carefully ponder the pros and cons of the split this lack of proper communication along with the pressures of a quickly ticking clock makes everything seem so rushed and it's creating panic in the minds of people all across our campus making us feel like decisions are being made so quickly by the district with little consideration of the opinions of
045the very students whose education is being most affected by this change why are the students of new tech having to make the sacrifices for this what happens if the plan doesn't work what can we do to prevent this from being new tech's downfall these are the tough questions that many concerned parents and students are asking but they're not getting any solid real responses it just comes to show that before jumping into this plan in the next one or two years we yes we not just district level administrators but also everyday students teachers and parents need to stir more communication consideration and preparation in the discussion of this beloved school's future thank you for your time thank you melissa jones please set your name and address for the record hi there i'm melissa jones i'm a
046resident of temple i'm also a mom in the district and i just want to start my time with a definition of respect it's called it's stated as due regard for the feelings wishes rights or traditions of others i want to speak a little bit about the messaging around the high recommendation for masks i think that's great tell them that they're highly recommended my issue is with the do your part to me that's not respect and that's something that you as a school district said when you started the school district masks would be the decisions of the families would be respected to me that's shaming someone or guilt-tripping someone in essence they're not doing their part if they're not masking so i would ask i would ask that you consider changing your messaging to simply stating
047we're highly recommending masks i think that's more respectful and less divisive i also have an issue with the fact that my child sent me a screenshot of her schoology today and i have tried to address this with the campus i've visited with one of the counselors and i have emailed i have not yet seen an email back just because i understand short time frame but i didn't want to let this slide for another month when we're talking about vax clinics my minor child should not be approached by a teacher telling them about this mask or i'm sorry the vax clinic that's something for me to address with my child with our physician not for a school teacher to tell my child about i believe that you're encroaching on the rights of the parent whenever you
048do that so thank you thank you [Applause] kylan berger [Applause] so hi my name is kyla bergen um and to start off i am a resident of temple and i do attend bisd so i'm here to speak on the numbers about this situation that's happening at new tech to start i am the head editor of our media club at new tech so i did conduct a survey with the student and i found some percentages 42.9 percent of students surveyed so that they would leave the school if it were to switch 19.6 so that they would stay 37.5 so they are unable to choose between their extracurriculars and academics then to start on what extracurricular extracurriculars they are in 26.8 so that they are in m100 25 so that they are in uil athletics 10.7 are
049in theater 8.9 percent are in choir and 25 do not participate in uil athletics 3 are undecided with this data it shows roughly 75 percent of new tech students currently at new tech will be faced with the impossible question within the next few months should they value their school and academics or their extracurriculars more to be blunt with you i don't know i don't have an answer for that question and no one has the right to tell them their answer except for that student so we have a request we as the students at new tech would like to be grandfathered into our new new tech program all we request is opportunity to finish the school the way it was originally promised to us so let's work together to find a better solution that appeals to
05075 students we can use our collaboration skills to show empathy for each other staff and students alike look at the bisd values and beliefs let us use these as a guideline how to handle the situation let us help each and every student by using innovation to work for continuous improvement this means we need to look at the students and think about the good for each and every student and work for what they need through an innovative solution as students at a project-based learning school we understand projects have massive barriers however it's in this project-based learning learning model we learn to rely on our peers teammates and instructors for advice and guidance so before making the final decision take our plea to grandfather in and treat us with the same trust same respect and same responsibility
051as to us new tech students thank you thank you wait [Applause] those are the responses [Applause] [Music] hi my name is zeke payne i am at 2510 twin ridge court and i am a junior at new tech i spent my first year at the nine what is now bms and i knew within the first month that it was not for me in no way am i saying that it was not properly run but a school is designed for as many different types of people as it can fit i was in the minority that didn't thus i started searching for other options it wasn't until several weeks later in spanish too i realized what i was looking for mr carpenter was my teacher and he supported a refreshing take on his class creativity and freedom within
052that creativity we still learned everything we needed to know but i found myself looking forward to a class that i would have dreaded otherwise i knew that if i had an environment where that type of teaching was the archetype for the entire school i would flourish and i found that at new tech i've been welcomed with opened arms i found the classwork i was looking for but i found so much more i've made friends built skills in leadership and public speaking case in point and grown more confident in myself as a person i'm telling you all this so you understand where i'm coming from my story is unique but not unlike most of the students at new tech to this very day people who felt like vagabonds misfits and outcasts in the typical atmosphere new
053tech is not only a school but an oasis all i found all that i want to do is ensure that while that oasis might change it still serves its purpose for everyone i've told you my story with hope that in the coming times you will not look at our names as numbers but and not as stats but instead as people it's easy to get caught up in the arising possibilities for new tech and trust me i'm excited for that too but in order to supply these amenities my class is taking the brunt the senior year we've looked forward to since freshman year is being foregoed new tech has a saying trust respect responsibility all that i ask is that as we have followed this motto for years you do as well trust providing mutual trust
054that from what that we have been promised and work towards tirelessly will not be thrown to the wayside for future classes respect respect towards the contract we signed when joining new tech and the respect deserved of anyone part of bisd not allowing easy solutions to bypass empathy and responsibility the responsibility to provide the best possible learning environment for each and every student as shivangi pointed out so eloquently as long as these ideals are maintained just as our school has done for years the best outcome is certain but as is a parent by my attendance and the attendance of my peers we as a student body do not feel these ideas are being preserved we understand that this is a difficult situation and thus has no ency answers but making student and teacher opinions the cornerstone
055will make not a perfect answer but at least one that involved the input of those who it will affect most thank you [Applause] lily flores david hello my name is lily flores david i am a sophomore at baltic at high school i am a junior rotc cadet in february 2020 i had no idea what belton high school was and by september of 2020 i was a student there i was accepted into the culture that was with what that was accepted to me with white arms the atmosphere that i was accepted into was amazing the teachers were able to give me an education that i've never seen before i was homeschooled for seven years before coming into public school so it was definitely a new experience i wanted to say that the shuttles was one of
056the coolest things that i've ever experienced because as a homeschool student you're at home you don't do anything so whenever i first stepped on the bus i was like a whole new world what is this so it was so amazing getting that experience and as zeke said i was one of those vagabonds not knowing anyone and i feel like as of right now the best change is no change as you see so many students and even parents have come here to advocate for new tech to not switch as an rotc cadet it's very important to me so i have a future in becoming in the air force and being one of those people that could possibly change the world i hope that you make the right decision for us and your thoughts are in my
057prayers thank you thank you janet brown good evening and great to see you and i do want to tell you first before we do get started my name is janet brown and i live at in morgan's point i do want i do appreciate all the work that you do i've seen you in a committee meeting and also here and so you're very valued i do want to tag on to melissa johnson's conversation about the messaging that is going that's happening in our school because sometimes we don't realize how that messaging is being received and how it's how what's perception is even though you know it's like okay this is what we have to do so i did have handouts so you should have handouts for you uh first i did want to point to you
058about the power wheel i talked about that several meetings ago when we were talking about mass so when we say have that messaging about you know wear masks you know it's very intimidating it's very you know it can be uh emotional you know we don't know where that student is so be very cognizant of how you're delivering this type of messaging people know that it's a choice for them to take care of their health whether that's to have a vaccine or to have a mask on so they are aware of that they need to be empowered with this type of messaging rather than you're going to hurt others you're going to you know and affect others by the by harmful choices that we're perceiving that they're harmful and as schools you're mandated reporters so you
059have a even bigger responsibility to ensure the safety of of our of our students as they're growing up for them to have that security as you're looking for those signs of abuse that may be happening outside of the school system so just please be more aware of how that messaging is presented to your student body and how it's also relayed from our staff because sometimes they just don't realize the picture that's on the back here that is a picture that a kindergarten from austin isd drew and that was his perception of being told to wear a mask so it's very very very descriptive of of that messaging you know what am i doing it right pull it up no i don't want to hurt anybody so just we just need to be more aware have
060a kinder message and just also an empowering message to our student that also filters down from our staff our teachers our educators and also our administrators thank you very much thank you [Applause] all right i'm gonna butcher another name i do apologize isabella zap nick [Applause] you did get it right my name is izzy zapnik i'm a resident of temple texas and i'm a current junior of new tech william brendan hudson kyrah corbin william reece jordan shelby caleb casey william victor ian kaylee kiley miguel christian ashley madison greg celeste humza chase tyler josh emily madeline michael tuesday clark dennis shindu daniel ezekiel cole ezekiel isabella sam logan charlie amaya michael brady julian kirsten alyssa nick lizzie brianna allison lucas corbin sydney shane bailey royal john the names i just said are the names of the
061students who are staying at new tech next year based on the new tech media team the percentage of kids leaving is 52.78 based on surveys held by the media team these kids are leaving either through known uil affiliation friends possible lost scholarship opportunities etc so about 65 kids are for sure leaving letting new tech only have a 59-person graduating class sure 59 kids is still a good number considering how small our school already is but going from 124 kids to 59 is really a jump people are most likely leaving due to the new tech being something they no longer signed up for the students who are who are staying even with uil affiliation or friends leaving or anything are saying because of their mental health being forced to choose in one year without clearance no
062discussion no anything will and has destroyed new tech i've held crying friends about having to make this decision i've been held while crying by friends due to having to make this choice will i ruin my mental health amplify my anxiety disorder when it comes to crowds to stay with friends to be able to choose uil if i want to or will i choose to stay to save myself from a senior year of confusion and figuring out a new school my last year but lose people i love and know graduation will be the last time most of us will ever see each other let's be real after high school relationships are hard to keep up so graduation or a 20-year reunion is probably the last time you're going to see your friends but because of the
063split we probably won't even have that if even if we do have a graduation together my friends who are leaving will have bhs on their diploma and not new tech anymore thank you thank you void lay shimanot good job my name is boyd lecheminer i live in belton and i want to thank you for the opportunity to say some words i came here with the military in 1971 and when i got out in 73 i said this is where i want to live and that's a long time ago and through this period of time i have told parents to come to me and said where should i send my kids to school we said hands down belton has a place to go and my wife and i raised five kids brought them through this through
064both an isd and yes we had some hiccups along the way but the important thing for us is we could come to you and to the teachers and we could voice our opinions and we always worked out the situations i saw what happened in round rock earlier where the doors were closed not allowing the parents to come in that won't work here and i'm i'm listening to these students and how well they they talk and how well they speak and that they are willing to stand up for themselves and so i want to say good job but i think that this country and this town is up for a greater battle down the road much greater than i think any one of us realized and i was here my wife and i came here just
065before the summer break and i thought man i needed to have some combat gear when i came in that door because there were angry parents and i'm here to tell you that when you have angry parents especially the mother bears you got to take care of their children so it's a big job and a big responsibility what you are doing for us and you might think well why am i here because i have no more kids in school i have no more grandchildren in this school but my first priority in this world is the god of the universe and i listen to him when he speaks to me and he said boyd watch over my children and so i come to you to tell you that he wants you to watch over his children also
066and anytime that that door is closed where we cannot walk through and talk or we can't go talk to a teacher that's a different that's going to be a different ballgame so i just want to commend you when i was here before summer break i thought i wouldn't want to be up there i would have wore a mask too one over the eyes because that was a tough thing to listen to these angry parents and i just hope that that unity that i heard spoken of comes through that you never forget the parents and they're responsible for those children thank you thank [Applause] you the lancaster [Applause] hello i'm theo lancaster i graduated new tech class of 2020 and i went on to college in new york which i was a swimmer at and i
067can say through my experience at new tech i was really adamant about wanting to go to new tech because of the project-based learning and how it implements technology which is quite different from what's in the main and because of new tech structure i was able to learn a lot of skills that have helped me greatly in college like i because of new tech and when it's taught me i'm able to present to put things together and just all of really useful skills especially in presentations which is really relevant because i'm a political science major and i can also say that having newtek um with the ability to do uil activities as well so i swam three out of the four years last year i swam club it helped me to get a scholarship which greatly
068helped me go outside the normal like to go outside of texas go outside of state schools because of the scholarships of activities that i did outside of new tech but i wouldn't want to sacrifice the skills that i got at new tech and i think that's an ability that people should be able to do with attending new tech and it really gave me the ability to go really far and to continue into college so for that reason i think it's very important for new tech to include uil activities and if it is divided to give a gradual time for that so that everybody is able to adjust and so that is really the message i wanted to convey tonight because it really helped me in college and i believe that the structure of new tag
069and the things that are taught there are really valuable and people shouldn't have to choose between a type of learning that is very helpful in the future and doing activities they love because i probably would have chose swimming and had a very different high school experience so that's about all i have to say thank you [Applause] all right well that concludes the public comments i'd like to thank each of you for coming out and especially i'd like i think i can speak for the board for our new tech students that spoke you represent very well and we are very proud of you and thank you okay next on the agenda is action items the first action item uh let's consider a discussion take appropriate action regarding the employment of administrative employees mr president members of
070the board i'm excited to welcome todd schiller up to the podium tonight to go through our administrative employee recommendations good evening board tonight i am recommending jennifer holmes for assistant principal at lake belton middle school jennifer has a masters of education degree from lamar university a bachelor's degree from university of mary hardin baylor and she has seven years of experience and she's been with belton isd for two years as a teacher that is the single recommendation for tonight [Music] oh miss lee miss bass all in favor all right that passes unanimously thank you and i will have her come down and well i think we'll take a good we like pictures [Applause] pass the gun down if you want hey [Applause] hey oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] right [Applause] oh my gosh [Applause] um [Applause] well
071that was mortified check next item on the agenda is consider discuss take appropriate action regarding the adoption key district key progress measures and campus objectives i'm going to hand this over now mr president members of the board as you know we over the past two years have brought to you goals for adoption and also key progress measures for adoption this is all part of a process to ensure that we have alignment between the goals that the board adopts our uh how we measure our progress along the way and influence into our district and campus improvement plans tonight dr golden's going to go through this very briefly with you so you know how we got to this point and what we're recommending to you good evening so yes we're here to discuss and possibly approve key
072progress measures for district goals as well as campus objectives i wanted to start with this because while legislatively it's a requirement of boards to annually consider and hopefully adopt goals and campus objectives really our main purpose for being here is tied back to our values and beliefs first and foremost we believe in continuous improvement and so we know that we want to continuously improve as a school district and our campuses and so we went to work looking at various sets of data really reflecting on last year both at the district and campus level as well as going through our strategic plan work as well as reflecting on the goals that our board has adopted and so through that work we've identified key progress measures and at the campus level objectives that we've sought feedback on
073both from our campuses but as well as d-wick i'm super proud of our district-wide educational improvement committee for doing a swot analysis on our goals and giving input into this process as well so this evening and certainly a couple of weeks ago we shared and shared with our community in the posting of this meeting the key progress measures aligned to our goals you'll see some are in red and others are in black text red is to indicate a new key progress measure or a slight revision to one that you adopted last year so you revised goal one so you see a new key progress measure for goal one which just emphasizes that two-way communication other than changing some dates you see some similarities in our key progress measures for goal two three four and goal
074five we have two new key progress measures and that's because we completed our facilities assessment and work from last year as well as our strategic plan also we've included our house bill 3 goals you saw those in the district improvement plan you'll see those are in the area of reading math and college career military readiness also included you saw each campus you saw their campus goals aligned to our district goals and objectives and we also included the district improvement action plans and campus plans while you don't approve those action plans we included those for you because those are really the way in which we bring our goals to life and those will be publicly on our website and so with that wanted to see if you have questions all right have any questions out here
075all right i have a motion by ms mcdonald to approve as presented do i have a second mr floor all right all in favor and the opposed all right that passes unanimously thank you okay thank you thank you to all those that did all the work to bring this to you tonight so thank you thank you next item consider discuss take appropriate action regarding adoption of district key oh you know what i should have put my ex on that one there we go sorry about that everyone the next consider discuss take appropriate action regarding an order authorizing the issuance of belton independent school district unlimited tax refunding bonds series levying attacks and providing for the security and payment thereof providing for the award of the cell thereof in accordance with specified parameters authorizing the execution
076and delivery of documents and agreements in connection therewith approving the preparation of an official statement and enacting other provisions relating thereto oh good and so i it's my honor to welcome jennifer ritter after that mouthful of an agenda item wow there's a whole lot to cover in all of this and jennifer is gonna get us kicked off tonight you all know jennifer one of our financial advisors here so thank you jennifer for being here tonight thank y'all we also have glenn opel who's your bond attorney with us as well and there's nothing like bond items to clear out the room so we're always always excited to be here so this is a good news uh item for you guys as we did last year um we we kind of look at what you've got outstanding
077in terms of your existing bond debt to see if there's any opportunities to refinance for savings so this is one of those opportunities so as you can see here this is the graph that we show all the time this is a 10-year history of municipal bond interest rates we're on the far right-hand side so you can just kind of visually look at that and see that interest rates are a lot lower today than they were 10 years ago when we sold the bonds that we're talking about refinancing that box there in the upper right hand corner says that 95.4 percent of the time interest rates have been higher than they are today so obviously that's a good interest rate environment to sell into so the meat of the presentation here what we're looking at refinancing
078is your series 2012 bonds in your series 2013 refunding bonds those have call dates that occur in february of 22. so as you'll recall call the irs now does not let us call these bonds in advance of the call date but they do give us a 90-day window prior to that so really the earliest that we can take advantage of this would be in the november time frame to be able to call this what we call a current refunding so those bonds are outstanding in the amount of about 20.2 million dollars they have interest rates ranging from three percent all the way up to a 3.625 percent by comparison market interest rates for the same term would be about a 1.9 percent so the savings are being generated by taking a three to a 3.6
079percent interest rate that you're currently paying and replacing those with a 1.9 percent current market interest rate and the savings there that you can see on the far right hand side i know it's small for the group here but you have it hopefully in front of you you can see the savings run from 23 all the way out to 2039 about 3.4 million dollars in savings that we're looking to save by doing this refinancing this is a delegation so there's no cost to you to do it what we would bring for you tonight is to to look at it and see if the opportunity is there and if it makes sense to the board to move forward if it doesn't and you take action tonight there's no obligation to move forward so we'll talk about
080that in a moment on the next page here let's see we show the sources and uses just to let you know that this is not a no-cost transaction and of course there's only fees that are generated if the actual deal works but there are cost of issuance of about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars one additional thing i want to point out to you is you've got a contribution from existing debt service funds of 1.396 million on your source of funds up there the last line transfers from prior debt service funds that's money that you're generating through the tax rate this year that can be used to actually downsize this refinancing which adds just even more to the savings so that's kind of a win-win for the district to have that money to be able
081to transfer into the refinancing and increase your savings by that much as well as not issue that much in bonds so you're basically just taking this issue and paying off 1.4 of it immediately on the day that we close the transaction so you're not amortizing it over the period that it would have otherwise been amortized in terms of the timetable here what we're looking at doing is obviously getting authorization tonight for the delegation which i'll talk about on the next slide there because you're obviously in the middle of doing a cfo search and miss land was obviously very helpful in this too so so credit to her as well because you're in the middle of searching for a new cfo we want to give that person a little bit of time to get up and
082running so we are going to push this a couple of weeks which doesn't cause any problems whatsoever we're still able to close it this year but just to allow that person to hopefully get up and running and be able to participate in the rating calls with the rating agency so that'll be very helpful so we're trying to target all that to happen in november and then actually sell hopefully the bonds the first week of december assuming that interest rates look good in the market which will put us in a position i'm going to make the your bond attorney work very hard but selling two weeks before we close the goal there is just to make sure that we close it in 2021 that just preserves all your bond capacity for 2022 should you have not
083just bonds that you want to potentially sell but also if you want to do any leases or things of that nature that gives you a little bit more flexibility because a lot of those tests for the irs are on a calendar year basis so that's why we're trying to rush it and get it closed in 2021 just to keep some optionality for the district so assuming that you decide to move forward tonight with looking at this it's not again not obligating you to do it but looking at it so you'd be designating price pricing officers would be the superintendent or the chief financial officer when that person's in place so what we're doing is because the market moves every day it may not be a good day in the market you're essentially saying superintendent we
084trust you dr smith to go out and get the best deal for us we're going to designate some parameters here if those parameters are met you can price without having to price on an actual board meeting date so that's the way we've done the last couple of years it gives us a lot more flexibility with time means to time the market best not your board meeting date best so in that case the parameters themselves say that we can't exceed 20.19 million that's the amount of the bonds that are being paid off we're not going to issue more bonds to pay off less bonds so that's being in the in the parameters here of what we can and can't do it says it must produce a net present value savings if not less than three percent
085current savings are actually 13 so we're well in excess of that three percent but we usually just kind of put in a trigger or target there of three percent you can certainly raise it if you want to but we're not going to do the deal if it starts to get much below that 13 that we currently are this is good for six months so you know for some reason it starts to drop will come back and ask for permission for a lesser amount and then that the final maturity of the bonds would not be passed february 15 to 2039 that's when they would have paid off anyway so we're not extending the term of this to make it look like their savings we're not stretching out the payment period these will pay off on the
086same date they would have paid off before for the old bonds that are being refunded so happy to answer any questions obviously this is a good new situation as interest rates move to be able to save money and let the community know that you're doing what you can to keep that tax rate in check i can answer questions or i can turn it over to mr opel to talk about the order you have in front of you if i may just add one thing along this process so that timeline that jennifer shared with you all that is assuming that we have a cfo in place if we don't have a cfo in place then we'll continue to work in partnership with jennifer and glenn and make sure that we're doing what's best for belton isd
087along the way we trust them they've been doing good work for us for a long time here and 13 savings is pretty uh pretty good for us to take a look at for our taxpayers in belton isd so i appreciate jennifer and glenn for bringing the information to us tonight do we have any other questions no okay so now just go ahead matt glenn did you want to say anything thank you dr smith uh just real quick glenn oppa with bryce will the district's bond council i think jennifer has laid it out pretty well the action item that you have in front of you is the adoption of the order the order authorizes the issuance of the bonds in accordance with those parameters that jennifer set forth it is it is an action that gives
088you a time horizon of up to 180 days to effectuate the uh the refunding if you got past that we would we would come back and reauthorize and that's just that that's under a provision of state law happy to answer any questions about the order if you have them and i'm responsible for that mouth full of an agenda item so just in my getting close to five years of being on the board every time i see your name jennifer on the agenda it makes me smile because i know we're gonna save some money so thank you so much for for what you guys do for us and uh watching our back and watching the taxpayers back so okay are there any other questions okay if not i will accept a motion on what has been
089presented mr taggart mr floor all right all in favor pastor damsley thank you very much thank you all very much okay reports i'm excited to ask jennifer to come on back up jennifer's going to walk us through a little bit of information for us regarding debt capacity as you all remember you commissioned a bond exploration committee and as part of that bond exploration committee with our community as partners we're going to be talking about how to manage growth how to manage aging facilities for the future and we wanted to make sure you as a board of trustees had information on our bond capacity at this point and jennifer is going to take it from here thank you again um this is always an exciting time when the district is looking at facilities needs and you
090know kids and families moving to the district and looking at how much you can afford to to be able to do for the community in terms of your facilities and needs that you've got so as a reminder i know that you guys are kind of experts in this now but as a reminder for the community as well in terms of what school districts can do for capital needs meaning buildings and infrastructure of that nature you really don't have any options other than going out to the voters to ask for a bond election so that's pretty much under state law the only thing that you can do there is something called a maintenance tax note that can be used a bond that can be issued but that has to be for renovations of existing facilities it
091can't be for new construction so obviously when a district is a fast growth district like belton there's probably not a lot that you can do with the maintenance tax note so that's traditionally why you see bonds going out for bond elections bonds have to be approved in the may or november general election we can't do it any day of the year anymore like we used to be able to do they repaid from the ins or the interest and sinking portion of the tax rate that's obviously the portion that goes back to your existing debt is not subject to rollback the bonds would qualify for the permanent school fund guarantee which is where the state of texas attaches their aaa guarantee to it and gets you the best interest rate it also qualifies for state assistance
092but you actually are becoming under the state's eyes more property wealthy and starting to lose all the state assistance that you've had for a number of years on your bonds so we're not counting on any new state assistance so that's just a kind of let you know ahead of time once there's a bond election assuming that you wanted to move forward with the financing it takes about three months after a successful bond election if we wanted to quickly go out and issue bonds usually you've got architects and design and things that happened before a lot of the you know bond construction stuff happened so you may do a smaller issue and then come back later with a larger one so there's some timing that goes in but if you were in a big hurry to
093get started and knew what you wanted to do three months would be about the quickest we could do so for example assuming a may bond election is about july august when we be prepared to sell okay so the big the big meat of the presentation here is your new financing capacity um so assuming that we go up to the 50 cent or the 50 cent test and i'll kind of explain the difference between the 50 rate and the 50 cent test for the attorney general but assuming that we want to go out and ask the voters for the maximum amount that the district could afford to borrow on one issue you've currently got about 39 cents of ins tax rate a little over 39 cents or just under 40. if you wanted to ask the
094voters for the maximum that you could borrow we're currently projecting that for a may of 22 election you could ask for 185 615 000 so call it 186 million if you wanted to wait a year and go out in may of 23 it would increase a little bit to 207.5 ish or 207 460. the difference there is it's probably going to be a little bit higher in 2023 but we're pretty conservative in our assumptions in terms of tax-based growth so we are projecting a little bit of growth which is why you get a little bit of a benefit from waiting until 2023 but probably not significant for your needs this would be the maximum that you could borrow under state law and so the capacity is determined by those four factors there the interest rate
095on the bonds we talked about at least presently interest rates are extremely low we don't know what's going to happen going forward and certainly there's a lot of concern with the debt ceiling out of washington and what that may do to bond interest rates hopefully that will be resolved here in the near term but people are watching the markets pretty closely right now your existing debt profile which essentially what that means is do you have a lot of bonds that are paying off is there sort of a stair step down in terms of existing bonds that we could fill in in your case your payments are pretty level for the next 19 years so there's not any sort of decrease that we can fill in to get more capacity state assistance you're basically declining at
096such a rate that we don't believe that you'll be getting state assistance on your bonds past the next two years so at this point that's not going to be a lot of help it used to be 10 years ago we could issue bonds for belton isd and if we issued it in a biennium year or an odd year we would actually have much less of an increase because we got picked up on the eda the state funding when we had our first payment that's not the case anymore unfortunately and then the taxable assessed valuation of the district it's increasing pretty significantly as you know so that's going to be the biggest driver of our capacity and so the assumptions here that we that we're talking about um your freeze adjusted values grew by 15 this
097year that's the number that we use for the attorney general you probably don't look at the freeze adjusted values you probably look at the total taxable assessed valuation but the freeze adjusted value is the total value minus those frozen properties for the over 65. so that's the number that the attorney general will make us use so that's the figure that we're looking at so what you see in our presentation is going to be slightly different than probably what you've seen so i just want to point that out because it's a little bit different but those values did grow by 15 so for future years we're assuming seven and a half percent growth for the next three years it's important because we're projecting future capacity so we had to project future growth so that's where that
098comes in so seven and a half for the next three years and then five and then three percent thereafter so obviously very conservative well not very conservative but i call it conservative um it's not typical that you guys grow more than 10 in a year so we don't want to just go out and assume 15 for the next three years what would happen is if we tell the voters that we don't hit it all of a sudden we're looking at a tax increase so that's why we're assuming conservatively here in that next bullet there you've always planned conservatively and traditionally you've been in a position where we tell the voters one tax rate and you come in less than what we tell them so you know our goal is to hopefully kind of keep that
099up uh within reason and so the interest rates that we're assuming is for a may of 22 election we're assuming a 3.39 percent for 30 years a little bit more for a 23 election of a three and a half percent and they're also assuming that you actually do the refunding that we just talked about for savings those are incorporated into this as well in terms of the interest rates now if we were selling the 30-year debt today it'd probably be two and a half percent somewhere in there so that 339 actually does have some cushion built into it so probably the the most important thing here to look at is that the capacity would be um let's see this is showing you i know it's probably terribly small to look at up there on the
100screen but this just kind of shows you how we arrive at 185 million for a may of 22 election or 207 million for the may of 23. kind of goes through your existing death evaluation growth in the tax base and then we do assume frozen collections you can see on there on the far right hand side we never actually hit 50 tax rate we we end up at a 46 74 and then start to drop thereafter but because the ag is making us use that freeze assessed value and they don't let us add back frozen collections that's why we never quite get to the 50 cents so you're not maxing out at 50 cents but we are maxing out in terms of the test so one thing i want to point out there so obviously
101pretty good capacity so the next question that was asked was let's say if we we've always looked at this as how much can we afford to borrow going all the way up to the max what if we want to go out and borrow in belton without having any tax increase whatsoever you're at the 39 to call it almost 40 cents ins tax rate what can we afford to borrow and hold that tax rate without any increase whatsoever so in this case we looked at it and you're somewhere between 98 and a half million and 171 million we'll call it uh for a may of 22 elections so obviously when you think about it that way that starts to sound like a really good news story that hey we might be able to borrow up to
102170 million without any increase in our tax rate whatsoever and i'm going to talk about how we got there so the larger figure the 171 million without any increase assumes that we're using some fund balance from your ins debt service account it's not general fund fund balance it's the ins fund balance an important thing to note on that ions fund balance is it can't be used for anything other than bond payments can't be transferred to general funds so it's sitting there kind of as a cushion it grows over time with conservative budgeting and then delinquent tax collections that sort of thing so it's a good bang for your buck here to be able to contribute it to sort of downsize the tax increase from any bond election so i was pleasantly surprised when we ran
103this and you were 171 million with no tax increase um and then just kind of as comparison if we're contributing 3.7 million of ins last fiscal year you reported 6.5 million in ins fund balance so we're not dropping it to nothing you'll still have cushion there should something happen in terms of tax collections or whatever to be able to make your bond payments jennifer can i ask you a quick question before you move on on your second bullet between you say that there's a debt capacity currently between 98 million and 170 million obviously that's a big swing what what what determines that for us so the the 98 million excellent point sorry to bring you know make this more clear but the 98 million assumes no contribution from existing fund balance so because we have
104the growth kind of slowly trickling in you know even if you're going at seven and a half percent a year if we were to wait five years your capacity would be much larger so essentially we're using that 3.75 million in fund balance for basically three years i know it's hard to see there on the right but we're basically using that to kind of offset any growth in the tax rate that we would have for the next three years while we're assuming seven and a half percent growth in the tax base so we're kind of taking the approach of delaying any impact on the tax rate until your tax base can grow more to support it which is what that fund balance allows you to do so it's i know it may look a little strange
105but having that fund balance gives you the option to essentially be able to borrow and kind of wait till the future couple of years of tax collections are able to start to pay for it and so um it's kind of wrapping up here i think we're pretty close to the end same sort of example here this is the the one with no tax increase using the fund balance just a comparison this is not to say y'all are better or worse in surrounding districts but just a comparison of of the ins tax rates compared to some of your other peers there are fast growth districts there are several districts at 50 cents you know they probably don't want to be at 50 cents but there's nothing they can do to fund facilities other than put it
106on that ins tax rate so you're in a pretty good position here at the under 40 cents range and then you've got a little bit of room if you wanted to increase it slightly phasing we haven't looked at but realistically like we talked about you probably let's say you go out and you've asked the voters for 170 million we're probably not going to issue 170 million all at once we're probably going to issue it 100 million the first year 70 million in a couple years which is what we've traditionally done and that also allows you to kind of build into those projects so that you're not borrowing all the money on day one paying interest for it for two or three years before you can actually spend it so that's the traditional pattern these models
107don't assume any phasing they assume that you are issuing 170 million for example all at once and paying the interest all at once so if we were to look at phasing this would become better in terms of a lower tax increase or more capacity so just kind of one way to look at it you're not you don't have to go out for separate bond elections because you don't issue it all at one bond you can ask the voters to approve as much money as you want and then issue it as you decide to do it either as you have the capacity or the need to actually go out and issue those bonds so phasing will help and that's probably a more realistic example of how belt and isd would issue its bonds but again to
108be conservative we're not even assuming phasing here so it might be entirely possible that the 170 million that we discussed with no tax increase could even turn out to be a tax decrease at the end of the day but i don't want to over promise on that one but it is entirely possible given your history here um and then it's a moving target obviously we're you know still several months out from may of 23 a year and several months out from from may of 24 so this will change so you know i don't want people to get too hung up on the number it will change if history is an example it'll probably increase a little bit because we feel better estimating interest rate as we're closer to the issuance state as opposed to kind
109of estimating what's going to happen in global markets between now and say july of next year so it will change a little bit it could get worse too i'll caution you against that but just to let you know this is not a hard and fast numbers if we can be allowed to sort of make adjustments as we have them so happy to answer any questions i know that's a lot of information but the good news is that you're in a position to be able to do a lot of projects with either minimal cost or perhaps no costs um just because of conservative planning and growth in the community and being able to go out and manage that for your taxpayers so it's you know a lot of these are pretty bad when we have to
110present and say well you know it's going to cost you a lot of money to be able to do what you need to do so to be able to have this kind of capacity with no tax increases um is certainly a good a good news i've got one yet so some questions that i've been asked uh relating to the bond committee and some of the folks that are you know saw that we've approved it and and that we started our process of of letting the committee put this plan together would you say that this is a good time to take a big chunk out of that amount and borrow money now because the rates are historically low because i've seen two different plans well let's only do a little bit now and then a little
111bit later and then a little bit is this a good time someone asked me this because of the rates being so low with this at this time sure i mean you know it's hard it's obviously i'm in the bond business so we always you know i don't want to act like we're sort of encouraging you to do something i mean the real answer is that you don't borrow unless you need the money i mean certainly that's always going to be the answer but in this community with the growth that you have i can only assume that you always need the money it's just a matter of being able to afford and when time is to ask for the money so when we're borrowing an interest rate environment where interest rates have been higher 96 of
112the time than they are today that's obviously going to be a very good time to borrow i mean 30-year bonds at less than 3 percent are really almost unheard of and so it's almost even difficult for me to project that type of interest rate because it's so it sounds outrageous to be able to say something like that so you are able to go out and borrow money for long term at extremely low interest rates and that to me if you if you need the money is always a good a good um in terms of timing too i had another point i kind of forgot what it was a lot of districts seem to be struggling with construction costs so that's that's another one and that you know they're going up so fast that maybe they
113want to lock in construction costs now while they can actually get hopefully a bid that will be better than it will be in a couple of years so that's something we're seeing people struggle with and then really for belton what'll happen as well is if you don't go out for a bond in the near future there's going to be a lot of downward pressure on the ins portion of the tax rate never a bad thing to lower taxes i'm not saying that's a bad thing but you do have the capability to go out and do projects with no tax increase which is also a good thing and if we wait too much longer it's going to have to be a tax increase because we're going to have to let that tax rate start to drop
114i think we've seen in just the last couple months and i'm in the construction industry as prices have started coming down it's just the supply chain we're still a little bit behind there so maybe by next may things will be the supply chain and will come back up and maybe it'll be better you know at that point you know i hope so yeah christie you have a question i'm going to ask potentially a stupid question here right so this is the this is the first time that well this one might be what just wait right so this is the first time i'm going through you know the bond process right so so even if we were to look at something that is a no new no tax increase right we still would have to go
115out for a bond election okay all right i'm just yeah just wanna make sure i get it that's a good question i think that's a good question yeah and even if it were a decrease let's say you know we could afford all this and you could lower your ins tax rate because growth was so strong you'd still have to ask the voters to approve it okay that's a good question here right now if i could jennifer could you go back just a couple of slides to where you showed the first chart and it was when we were taking a look keep going back right there i just want to point out um and thank this board in passports for the work in your stewardship of taxpayer funds here's what i see in this when i
116take a look at column o and i see projected ins tax rate and jennifer went over what we could borrow you see that the tax rate would go up but then you see it drops back down over the next few years there and that tells us that we're in good shape as a school district we have the ability as jennifer said to borrow the money to build facilities or to redo facilities for our kids when i give you some enrollment numbers tonight i think it's going to make everybody's eyes open even even more than they already are regarding enrollment and i'm thankful for the leadership that this board and past boards and past administration has shown in managing these finances well because it has really put us in a good spot to be able to
117have these conversations so i just wanted to say thank you and thank you to jennifer for her guidance and support along the way yeah that's a good point you're not this this issue whatever it turns out to be that you may consider doing doesn't eat up your capacity beyond really the next couple of years you're going to be generating more capacity so this is not a type of thing where you ask the voters to approve it then you can't do anything for 10 years you really have capacity starting in a couple of years later thank you guys thank you jennifer next item is the redistricting report lord it's my pleasure to welcome michael morrison here tonight he is coming from baylor university he's worked with belton isd for i think the last three redistricting efforts
118four redistricting efforts 80 census 90 census 2000 2010 and this one and that's pretty amazing we thank you for your service to us because this is a confusing process until last year i met mr morrison on zoom and talk through some of these things and it is a it is a confusing challenging process he is considered an expert throughout the state of texas on this and we're excited to have him here tonight walking you through some redistricting items all right well mr taggart uh unlike jennifer when i show up i don't save you money but the good news is it's kind of like brigadoon every 10 years i come out of the mist and we do redistricting for a year and a half and then i fade back in before i get into this i
119when i was mayor of waco suffered through a lot of public hearings and public commentary i suspect y'all are extraordinarily proud of how your students handle themselves tonight i know i i was impressed so you should be okay a little history before we get into it as you know you've grown a lot census is always taken on the same calendar day every decade april 1st april fool's day we all know it wasn't right the day it was taken and it has changed considerably in the year and a half since the next were in 2011 on october 8th we were through with the process here we are on september 20th just really beginning the process as you know our census came out eight months late looking at the 2010 census and the figures today the district's
120grown by 18 501 people since 2010 census again that's the census count 8 000 give or take were anglo 1400 african-american 800 give or take hispanic origin and over 3 300 of other race or ethnicity minorities um so you you had 45 158 census count in the district in the 2010 census so you've gone from 45 158 to 63 659 so you have grown like topsy and if you had a chance i i don't know if you've had a chance to look ahead at the slides that we're about to go through not a very elegant proposed starting point and one of the reasons is like waco like temple the growth is in the outer rings and the minority profile we're trying to protect is really more inner and that's the one that needs the most
121people and you've got to somehow get to areas where you don't significantly harm the ability of the people in that district to elect the candidates of their choice so having let's see if there's anything else i wanted to mention here i don't think so okay everybody's heard of gerrymandering right the uh the the little uh watermark behind the the words on that slide is governor eldridge gary's original uh the drawing in the newspaper when he gerrymandered uh massachusetts uh that's that's the little diagram that they drew to to represent what what they were unhappy about all right i'm not going to read the slides to you i'm going to talk to you about them unless the federal court gets involved or unless you stumble over some state election law requirement this board is the only
122board is the only entity with the legal authority to change these lines when you change the lines it's based upon the population that's grown and in a moment i'll give you the greater detail but if you take the five districts in the uh isd and take sixty three thousand six hundred and fifty nine divided by five the ideal district would be one to twelve thousand seven hundred and thirty two people the 10 we're going to be talking about is 10 of that different that number so if of the 12 731 people if you're out 1273 people different between the district with the most or the highest population and the district with the lowest population you've exceeded 10 percent the plan is presumptively unconstitutional under equal protection of the federal authorities and in texas you're going
123to be required to redistrict if you're over 10 percent we'll get to it in a few few minutes but right now because of the tremendous growth you've had you're actually 42.18 percent over four times the the legal limit which requires significant change and what we're going to see is that the population wasn't distributed equally throughout the misery so when you look up here when you redistrict the first thing that has to happen is bring that population variation down under ten percent everything else is secondary race ethnicity ethnicity is secondary incumbency is secondary keeping core of existing districts is secondary first thing to do is balance the population sort of counter-intuitive if you have more people in a district than their one-fifth we say they're under-represented because they get each of them has less of a
124vote on this board if you have fewer people they're over represented because fewer people are sharing the vote the case that first applied one person one vote which in and of itself is misleading used to be one man one vote not only was it misleading it was inappropriate we don't count voters in districting we count people you represent everybody in your district you don't represent just the voters or just those of voting age population so when we're looking at over and under representation we're talking about the total people total population the case that first applied this requirement to redistrict on equal protection came out of midland texas the avery hank avery was the mayor of midland i was a little upset with the way the county commissioners had drafted their commissioner precincts middle and 67
125000 people all were in one commission or precinct the other less than 3 000 rural inhabitants shared the other three commissioner precincts so when it came time to vote midland could elect the county judge elected at large and midland could elect one commissioner that's two out of five when the issues became interlocal agreements with the city where to pave the roads the city was out voted three to two often enough that hank avery takes us the u.s supreme court hires a waco attorney a london olson senior and the supreme court for the first time held that equal protection requires equal representation not just in congressional elections but in local elections and that's how we put in school board city councils and so forth the the couple of things one congress doesn't have a 10 percent
126uh window like you do when the state is setting our congressional districts we're going from 36 to 38 i guess upcoming special when they do that they have to do it on a de minimis basis in other words no variation is acceptable if it can be done away with and so kind of the you know the the quiz question here the the trivia question is if you look at the census count of the 36th district of 36 congressional districts that we uh enacted 10 years ago and we're looking at the deviation between the district with the highest population and the district with the lowest population under one person there was less than a one person difference when you averaged it out and the reason for that is the computers we have access to we can
127do that now again we know we're playing with fictional numbers right it's just it's the only ball game in town so that's one thing uh the other is uh redistricting under equal protection only applies to representative bodies doesn't apply to judges don't apply to jp's don't apply to constables those are all either executive or judicial officers and they don't represent people they represent the state or the county so in a nutshell that's the first slide um i know you didn't know i could talk so long on about eight lines but i'm a lot i'm actually a former law professor i'm a professor emeritus now i retired after 44 years on july 31st of this year and rolled right into this all right the next in addition to balancing population excuse me see if i get
128this thing done that's avery versus midland county which we just mentioned um [Music] the ten percent which we've talked about here we look the the the number of people different is just the variance and that variance when stated in the terms of a percentage is the deviation of the variance off of the ideal that's where we get the 10 and i'll show you when we get to the spreadsheet i'm not used to this clicker i'm sorry i keep bouncing back and forth it's probably like trying to watch a tennis match um the in a very quickly the voting rights act was passed in 65 amended in 75 amended in 82 in 65 when passed certain jurisdictions before they can enact any change affecting voting had to either get pre-clearance through the department of justice voting
129rights section civil rights division or through the district of columbia court and that was a six day process they never said it's okay they just had 60 days within which to object that didn't apply to texas until 1975 because we didn't have any of the triggering requirements like grandfather clauses literacy tests property ownership we didn't do any of that in texas at that point in 75 congress amended the voting rights act and caught texas and beginning 1975 congress backdated the requirement to the presidential election of 72 any change affecting voting in texas changing a polling place changing an election judge required pre-clearance through the justice department or a suit in the the district or the district of columbia what caught us was a single language only ballot with over five percent single language minority if
130i did that i apologize um in 82 the the the change that had as much effect as any it until 82 in order to get in trouble they had to prove you intended to discriminate in 82 congress said you know what that's hard to do and it places an unnecessary burden on those who feel that they have been impacted and so we're not going to look just at intent anymore intent makes things worse but we're going to look at the effect is the effect of what you've done such that protected minorities will have a greater difficulty electing the candidate of their choice so if i do this right this time under the voting rights act the two sections we're concerned with are really section two in section five section two is don't dilute and what
131that means is for example in let's take district three which has the highest minority profile currently if a board said you know what let's let's separate district two let's put half of this district three in with an area that's mostly anglo and the other half into another area that's mostly anglo so instead of having almost 60 percent maybe they've got 37 percent that would be dilution and that would have an impact on a protected minority's ability to elect a candidate of choice the other way you can dilute and this is what i just described was called cracking where you pull a group apart the other way is packing and that is you've got a large enough insular concentration of minority residents to create two districts but if you cram enough of them into one that
132will leave too few in the other for there to be a meaningful second district both of those are dilutive both of those are a violation of the voting rights act both of those would be a violation of equal protection under the constitution the the other thing that we concern ourselves with is retrogression and retrogression is simply comparing what you want to do with what it's replacing and if what you propose to do makes it more difficult for minorities to elect candidates of their choice it's retrogressive and you've got to have a justification for it so for example in in waco it used to be in 45 years ago when i moved to waco that east waco was largely african-american south waco was largely hispanic hispanic origin over the last 45 years that population has diffused
133throughout the community as you would want to have done and so you don't have the insular concentration district 3 here by the time i balance population with district 3 i've had to go out and find areas to pull in that either help that district's profile or hurt it as little as possible remember balancing numbers comes first so if we end up with a plan that has a lower minority profile in district 3 that is retrogressive it will be harder for them but if there was no way to avoid that and still balance population that is an acceptable justification the the the trouble is when you could have balanced population without having had that effect okay so balancing one person one vote is the primary driver we have to be concerned in how we look at
134retrogression and dilution really in two directions because while it's clearly a violation of equal protection to fail to protect the ability of protected minorities to elect candidates of their choice it's equally an equal protection violation the other direction to focus only on that and that's where you start hearing talk about reverse racial gerrymandering you can get into as much trouble doing that as you can in ignoring it because everybody is entitled to equal protection it applies to all of us the supreme court never really told us where to strike that balance it's more one of common sense and experience and to the extent that we can satisfy any legitimate needs this board has for the district and have a less negative impact on a minority district we would need to do that okay that's just
135a summary of what i've told you the only thing i haven't mentioned yet is providing meaningful public input and based on what i saw tonight you all have no trouble doing that you seem to attract good public input okay traditional redistricting criteria i'm not going to go through this but very quickly if you read down it sounds like we're trying to protect you guys protecting incumbency core of existing districts it's not to protect anybody up there it's to protect the people who put you up there if if i draw a plan that pairs incumbents there's going to be a group of people who elected someone to to represent them and who now are going to lose their representative so everything you see up there even if it's not obvious initially is designed to protect the
136voter it's not designed to protect you okay here's district one incidentally is only 65 people low so district one really nothing has to happen to district one unless we have to move something through district one or rob something from district one to help some other district two is 1291 3 26 56 low and so three your largest minority profile is also the district that needs the most people and all you got to do is look at a map and realize when i was here 10 years ago and 20 years ago and 30 years ago we continued to deal with where there was a concentration of minority residents and that hasn't changed a lot of it's just moved out it's diffused once you get outside the area that's three exist of right now you don't find
137any significant concentrations that you can get to and so what you'll see in the plan is i've moved some up into one which was in good shape until we had to rob from it and move one up somewhere else to get some more people and so that's the example of why one which is almost perfectly balanced right now ends up getting changed in in what you're going to see at least in this discussion model because we needed what was in one for three to do the best i could figure out at least in initially for the minority profile the maximum variation 5 370 is the difference between the population of three and the population of four as i said earlier that's over 40 percent this slide says don't bond with any of the things that
138you're about to see i i would be very surprised if there was any significant positive reaction to the maps that i've sent you until we have a chance to look at some alternatives as as you know sometimes something only looks good based upon all the other possibilities okay the lines that you're going to see one i ended up leaving unchanged in this one two 47 low 365 low 484 low and then five 360 higher our maximum variation is 544 and we're at 4.2 percent 4.27 percent uh maximum deviation that's well within the one person one vote requirements i can't say with certainty because i don't spend a hundred hours on this set of lines until i find out if if anybody sees anything on them that they like you know you don't know if it's
139a rag or a flag till you run it up and see how people react to it so the changes and and we continue to see if i can get this right is that the no mr morrison can we ask a question real quick stop anytime yeah thank you so i'm looking at um i guess the two tables right where we're 42 out of whack today right and at least the first iteration of what might be many shows us only four percent out of whack is there some advantage to us looking at our growth and demographic projections into the future and and taking that into account into how we draw some of this right i mean we know where the heavy growth is going to come from um you know it's coming from the north it's
140coming from the south do we try to build that in or does it not matter and is this a point in time thing first of all we've done that for some clients and hardly ever did we guess right usually when we're looking at under and over populating districts where we under populate as frequently uh as not so much here just 65 under but if we were going to stretch that percentage you know if we were at 8 instead of 4 we don't get a ribbon for being at four instead of eight we just get dinged if we're at ten or above um but often what happens when we get into the really the fine line drawing is it will make sense to under populate or over represent minority districts because you reach a point where
141continuing to add people to bring them up to the ideal continues to lower the minority profile and if you don't have to do it to satisfy one person one vote then you've lost your justification for the retrogression or for the dilution that is taking place but certainly city of lubbock uh 20 years ago did exactly that they were going all to the southwest and so we under populated that they continued to grow to the southwest but they grew so fast to the southwest they blew by us and our underpopulation so the way you're growing if we have to stay within 10 percent i doubt very seriously there are any set of lines that won't get blown by with your population increase it's a good question though yeah um okay okay this shows the four areas
142that we're going to look at and this is where we've moved sum of three and you can see a couple of changes up here see this area in the box right up there that's an area where 10 years ago we had to go out and do some counting and estimating because for whatever reason that particular area the census department has never come up with blocks that correspond census blocks within which we do the count that correspond to your lines in that area and so i've got that marked as a box just because you will recognize that that map doesn't correspond to yours but the reason is the census geography does not correspond to your district lines in that area and so if you want to retain that division the way it is we just need
143to go out and find out how many of the people in those census blocks reside on one side or the other of the line where we've split a block okay so here uh we got three areas 10 11 and 12 that have been moved and so you can see uh 10 here that's just added on to three and that's just going as as close as possible to uh to try and locate population numbers that won't significantly negatively impact the profile and the under the plan it's 55.86 and if you look back at the the uh at the benchmark it was 58.79 here it's 55.86 so you can see it went down almost 2 points and if there's anything about those lines that you like i will go back and see if i can't do a
144better job in that but that's that's one of the consequences of having to bring in over 2 000 people into that district to bring it into compliance then having having taken people out of two then now two's got to go pick up some people and the prese the districts with the highest populations are on up north so two moves up and and gets some from five and gets some from uh four and i probably ten years ago and again this year out there where the golf course is i don't know what the whoever had been deciding that those lines was drinking but that's that probably took me four hours to get that right on the computer and i would have thought after 10 years ago i could have got it right and that's the area
145you can see the the line itself just runs kind of straight up and down there but this is one big census block here and we know how many people live in it but we don't know how many people live east of the west of the line how many people live east of the line and we'll just have to determine that uh well okay next next steps um one is for me to find out what additional information it would would help the members of the board and the administration pursue this i'm shocked quite frankly by how difficult it was to balance the population with anything that looked a lot like what you have it's not uncommon for me to be able to do a plan after 10 years where i have to move 20 city blocks
146and i'm done this is probably as big a change as i've certainly the biggest one i have right now and not a lot over the years and the lake plays a part the population growth around the lake plays a part uh the age of the area within central belton plays a part but there's there's not we're not going to end up with lines that look a lot like the ones you have right now if we balance population and if we don't violate the voting rights act so what would help me a great deal is for you to let me know which of those lines are just absolutely unacceptable and let me we can get into a dialogue and i can explain why they were done that way and we can talk about alternatives because there
147are some ways to go in different directions but the lake creates a real problem now one thing we can do and i've done it in calhoun county port lavaca years ago we can pretend that that body of water is just land and we can go straight across the lake with the district even though it looks to be in two parts we just treat the lake as as as a pathway we can do that i didn't want to do that this time because i didn't know which i just didn't know how we'd end up tonight so since it's just a report tonight what's the what's the timeline going to be on when do we need to make decisions on this you're probably going to call your election in february if i've got your calendar right uh
148i would again it's it's it's up to the board but uh if we don't get it done before the end of the year which basically means either before thanksgiving or you know two weeks or so after thanksgiving you're going to be into the middle of january you got an election to call in february and i think that's that's planted awfully close so i i would think in the next six to eight weeks we ought to at least attempt to come up with a set of lines that the board feels serve the district and get as close as we can to that and still meet our statutory and constitutional requirements because i i mean you have to allow for time to notify everybody who's been changed you know usually what happens there and you know bell
149county has done this in the past is give the newspaper a map let them publish it let them let people know announce and notice a public hearing maybe a lot of people will show up it maybe won't my experience has been the county commissioner courts and of course the state generate a lot more heat in this regard than school districts so i can't predict with you what it will be but um i think we have time to do that we may end up needing this board to meet in a special session there may need to be a special meeting for the public hearing but i think we can get it done but you're not the only client that's looking at that same eight-week period so i'd have to work with you to schedule things um
150so i think this is definitely worth a workshop we need to have more opportunity to review these maps and discuss in more detail and use a timeline more so than just listening to this report and trying to make a decision that i don't know that just posting something in the paper is going to be enough for this community without them coming and giving us some love in a public well i think i think you're going to need the public meetings i'm sorry yeah we definitely need to talk about this a little bit more detail in a different setting so the area that in the blue the unassigned you mentioned and the reason i ask is it's not protection but you actually have not only two board members that you know serve those areas you have
151two board members actually live inside of that blue box okay well i'd right now okay well oh you are yeah i've gotten uh addresses from the staff okay my my intent had been to separate people if i failed to do that let me know but that area we we still have to get some type of idea of the where the population is there in that blue box yeah and how do we do that so a couple of things if i could uh initial presentation for mr morrison tonight was to make sure that you all had the information and that we opened up these discussions it is our intent that we have a workshop or a special board meeting on this topic so that because this is one is as you remember we started talking about
152this in last october when ms wardell did a presentation to you all regarding uh redistricting this is one that's a it's a big issue for our school district because of our increased population growth so what we would propose is that mr morrison is giving you some information to think about we would ask the board for any kind of questions and feedback that you have at this point to send to me and then we'll work with mr morrison and scheduling additional time from there but this gives you an opportunity and our public an opportunity to start to digest this conversation as we move forward yeah yeah as i as i said when i breezed through that one slide saying nothing about these lines is more than a way to start a discussion so happy to address
153any other questions do you have any other questions i just when we do a workshop i'll want to see the whole on one slide i need to see the whole map all together in one the entire thing so that i can get more of a concept of everything well what we'll need to do is just have a big enough monitor that we'll just display it and then we can do things like do a scattergram of where you have african-american residents where you have residents of hispanic origin where you have residents who are of other races or ethnicities and then mr norwood you could begin to see the layout of of why some of these choices were made and and really you're right it doesn't make a lot of sense until you see the minority profile
154on on the map it's just with this presentation it's hard to do that okay any questions all right well thank you very much thank you next on the agenda goal number two update dr love smith's gonna come on up and walk us through a brief uh review of goal number two is you remember we take a look at ensuring exceptional learning opportunities for each and every student at goal number two and she's going to walk us through some data and information to tell you kind of where we are and where we're going thank you good evening and you might have noticed that holly moore walked up behind me she is now our director of accountability so i know you've spent a lot of time in the past with vickie dean she's taken on some professional
155learning roles and so holly's here tonight just just in case i get stumped on anything we're going to talk to you about goal 2 goal 2 is ensuring exceptional learning opportunities for each and every student and the purpose tonight is to really focus in and review on our house bill 3 goals and and to report on our progress on those goals to provide key areas of improvement based on all the star results that we received from last year and then to report any other opportunities or measures that we have for exceptional learning opportunities within our system that are not currently reported on any state system so do you want to begin tonight with our house bill 3 goals to set the stage on this i i want to be very clear from the beginning that
156that these are not results that we would would hope to see and there's areas for improvement in that however to set the conceptual stage for this i do want to point out that our house built three goals in third grade reading and math were based on 2018-19 scores that was a while ago and before several obstacles that have been thrown our way in addition while i report these last year was our first year to use several of these assessments and not all students are going to be reported in this so we had at the elementary level about 23 percent of our elementary students who were at home learners last year and that was around the december timeline so just want to not want to make any excuses at all but to just provide some contextual
157place into what these into these goals our third grade goal in reading on the stars we have two star assessments so the state star s-t-a-a-r was from 50 percent based on the 2019 year to 60 percent by 2024. this based on last year's star results we had 41 percent of our students meeting mastery we use two progress measures in reading one is at kindergarten level and one is at second grade kindergarten is the text kia that's a state assessment we had 54 percent of our students on track again in 2019 we had 75 that's where that measure was originally based on and in second grade we use star renaissance this is different from the state star it is an internal system that assessment that we use and we increased from our goals to increase from
15848 to 62 percent we fell just short of that at 60 percent we'll be keeping these goals as dr golden presented earlier with the exception that on our second grade we're going to remove the beginning of year language we are currently still assessing for beginning of the year data and we will have those results by the um about the second week in october and so when we annually report these we're just going to make maintain consistency with the end goal until we reach it once we reach an end goal we'll raise it so in math our third grade star assessment state of star assessment was to increase from 52 percent to 60. we took a hit here this is where we see an impact with our student learning most significantly it's in we have 30
159percent of our students meet the school we have some significant work that we're focusing on in math across the system our first grade star first grade assessment we had 61 percent on track compared to our goal of 68 percent i will tell you this project uh process measure has progress measure apologize has changed for the upcoming school year it's changed because we're going to use a different assessment when we use this assessment it was the star renaissance early literacy which does measure some concepts in math we are going to move to a math so a soul math assessment for first grade that mirrors the assessment we use in second grade so our new goal for this year our new progress measure will state that it's a baseline year just want to put that out there
160and then our second grade is this is a measure that we did meet we were at 47 beginning of the year to 57 end of the year we scored with 66 percent of our students on track we have raised that goal for next year to be 68 percent so we're continuing to push our students to meet our ultimate goal set by the state for our ultimate goal in the star state assessment in terms of ccmr our goal was to for students to increase from 72 percent median of cmr criteria to a hundred percent by june of 2024. in 2021 72 percent of our students met the criteria while we maintained over the school year our performance we did not meet our our inside target goal of which is why it's indicated in in red our
161progress measure so i'm going to own this one because there was some confusion in how we set the progress measure the progress measure was set to be the tsia with a performance of 44 percent to 48 the tsia is a single assessment the tsi is a comprehensive suite of assessments the tsi includes performance on sat a-c-t and the t-s-i so it's a it's it's one of those three assessments that you can meet a cut score in english and math because um we there was confusion in we use tsi data but at the tsia language i decided it would be best if we report on both measures so for a comprehensive assessment on our sat act and tsi assessments we improved from a prior performance of 44 meeting cut score to 61 percent so we're proud
162of of that achievement in terms of the tsia the single assessment alone we increased our student scores from 41 percent median english and math to 48 percent meeting english and math for the upcoming year this measure will report on the tsi the comprehensive sat act and tsi assessments and it will our goal will be 64 so we're currently at 61. our goal will be to obtain 64. and then our second progress measure was ibc certifications we our goal was to increase from 15 percent to 18 in this goal we our students earned 9 percent of student industry-based certifications so we did not meet this goal um just for for contextual information we did have 37 percent of our high school students at home in december presenting some challenges in in terms of assessments again not
163to make any excuses we continue to push in this area but um we did have some some challenges this past year in terms of our star data overall so so the goals i just reviewed before you were house bill 3 goals but we also received star data that you've you've seen in terms of every grade level in every core area so best in in that to tell you what we do with that data is as we receive it in july we start to work with our administrators as they develop their campus plans as we develop a district plan as we look at providing professional development into what areas are a focus for us overall in reading we are targeting four specific skills inferencing author's purpose making connections into textual evidence at the high school level
164and middle school secondary level we'll be focusing on students draft making sure that it's coherent and that draft is the writing piece of those assessments and social studies or scores indicate that we have high percentage of students meeting standards we need to increase our excel our students that are excelling at mastery level and so for that we need to focus on critical thinking in our social studies classrooms in our math our three targeted skills are operations fractions and measurement the assessments are often um using word problems but we know that those are three areas significantly that we must focus on seventh grade we have we're focusing on readiness skills our seventh grade we haven't we do have a testing anomaly in that our highest performing students do take the eighth grade test not the seventh
165grade test that being said we've studied other districts where that is also the case and we have room for improvement in our seventh grade scores and then algebra one and we've been working with the campus on strategies to support and improve our algebra one scores in science so science is only at the elementary level is only assessed in fifth grade and so is a focus on third third fourth and fifth grade alignment in middle school it's focusing on process standards credible items and and graphs so on those tests we've we've known we've identified specifically when students are gridding in their scores there's a challenge along with the interpretation of graphs all of that to say we align our pd our conversations with campuses and their target areas are around specific skills to and to see
166improvement one thing we know and we've said often in our system is that our star scores while important are also one measure on one date and one time on one assessment and so when we are talking about a goal two update i feel it's important that we also take a holistic goal a look at things because that's one of the things we've talked about in terms of exceptional learning for students so i'd be amiss if we didn't point out things that aren't measured on the system in athletics and fine arts you can see we have district regional and state qualifiers across all areas all sports and all fine arts areas in cte while we did decrease to nine percent on our industry-based standards that are assessed on the state system we still had 766 certifications
167completed by students again they represent are represented at the regional state and national level along with our advanced academics we celebrated tonight our ap scholars we had 1770 potential college hours earned in classes all of these measures are essential to what we do and what we look at for exceptional learning in our students and want to make sure that that we recognize these programs and all the work that goes along in these as well with that i am happy to answer any questions that you might have or address any issues so just a couple of quick comments on this i think deanna has framed it well star scorers are one measure but there are multiple assessments that we reported on tonight data is only as good as how much we do with it so our
168job as an administrative team working with our teachers and our leaders in our system are to be able to actually use this data to improve learning experiences for kids while a score doesn't tell us everything it does tell us hot spots as deanna's pointed out we know we have some math issues that we have to look at in our system specifically and we also know that we have cohorts of kids example when deanna brought that up in third grade we know we have some third graders that we have to make make sure that the supports that we provide them as fourth graders 5th graders and 6th graders as they progress through our system help them address the challenges that they faced along the way but i also appreciate the fact that she pointed out a
169whole lot of celebrations at the end of this because despite a interrupted year and a lot of challenges along the way our students were able to thrive in a lot of ways as well and it's our job to help them continue to learn their academics and classroom uh learning along the way and we'll do that so i appreciate you all listening to that tonight thank you thank you next is facilities report sorry we did not meet this last month but we did show up to the first bond committee meeting and i just wanted to complement connie and erica and i wanted to compliment our communications department and then mike and matt melinda did a great job i thought it was a great first kick off for this process so that's it next is policy committee
170report manual we went over three items one was the board operating procedures the other was bed local which addresses public participation in our meetings and then the third item was eic local what we discussed was actually the the end of uh dr love smith's presentation today of the three tiers we ended it with that so i don't think there's anything else to say about that part of the meeting as far as bed local and board operating procedures i think we did a pretty good job on those actually um of course a lot of help from holly wardell and and what she did for us and and anybody else that had participated in that um a few takeaways from that first of all we amended the time limit to three three minutes um another thing that
171you need to know is that the you know we have special meetings and we have regular board meetings if someone is going to comment at a at a special meeting they need to limit their comments to the items on the agenda regular meetings you can obviously we recognize or allow people to comment both on agenda and non-agenda items board president has discretion uh to limit the number uh number of minutes to down to one minute on a sliding scale depending on how many people show up to to participate of course if we have a bunch obviously jeff's going to use this discretion to take control of that a lot of what we did was to address proper decorum and conduct during the meetings give people a good a good idea of what what they're supposed
172to do when they're hearing what they're not supposed to do another thing is that came up was and i think we addressed it was whenever we have meetings like um special meetings and i think uh there was an email sent out uh where like like a tax like a tax hearing and i don't remember how many of those i actually i couldn't open that email to tell you the truth uh there was an email that came out and about how many special meetings we actually have one one would be a hearing on on on tax issues so the question then arose of course i know janet didn't know and i didn't know that we actually have two different forms one when you sign up for uh to speak or make comments at a for example
173a tax hearing then we have a separate forum that you feel that fill out to uh participate or give public comment during the regular board meeting so the question is um you know do we allow them to speak at both and the answer is yes of course if you speak at the uh for example the tax hearing then you need to limit your comments to the tax issue nothing else and then when you when you participate in the regular board of meeting courses it's kind of open uh in that regard now the other thing is that if we have a lot of folks show up and we have a very large agenda the presiding officer in this case jeff does have the discretion to move the comments on non-agenda items to to the back to
174the back of the line we've we've never done that have we i don't remember us ever doing that we've never done that under the current situation prior to hb3 and mr mcdonald answered more than me public comments were always at the end of meetings hbc changed that said that they had to be at the front unless it wasn't an agenda item so in the past they were always at the end of the meeting right and that was it and then we had to allow public comment always on our public comment as of to 2019 is that right holly okay um other than that i mean i think we we we cleaned up the board training at the end of the board operating procedure you see that it's a good summary you know that's something that
175was added uh there was some did you do though make those changes with the grammatical stuff in there i'm sure you took a look somebody took a look at that and cleaned that up so um actually i think it's a it's a very it's a very well presented uh onboard operating procedure i think anybody that reads it it's user friendly and i think we're gonna post that on the website you can actually go there and and take a look at that so the idea was for the public to come in take a look at the website and and they know what they can and can't do and how to participate and i think we've accomplished that janet anything else that we need to address no i think one of the things that's so interesting about
176this is that because this hb3 came out in 2019 just before covet lockdown and we didn't even have in-person school board meetings and things got really confusing school districts across the state had no time to put parameters around that whatsoever and so this is just about clarity it's just about helping the public know what's expected and we know what's expected and defining what that means and making it nice and clear for everybody and it's a it's not that old right right chris anything else dr smith all right i appreciate y'all tonight we're going to go through the superintendence report very briefly um there we go some september highlights a couple of things to note and i said you might be a little shocked at some of the numbers take a look at that number right
177there we currently as of 9 16 21 have 897 more students enrolled than we did on 9 16 20 20. so that's a lot of kids in our school district now i will i will say this is a little bit different because we've said uh snapshot data snapshot data is what we've used often that's comparison for the end of october to where we currently are now this is just comparing the date 9 16 21 to 9 16 20. the reason i share that with you is i also want to point out that at the beginning of last year remember we were just getting the school year kicked off we started school three weeks late so all that enrollment that we see at the beginning of the school year was catching up with us at this
178time but i am um just amazed to think that just calendar year to calendar year comparison 897 more students are currently in bisd schools and in our hallways than they were last year student experience is one of the things that makes me most proud in our district is that we have focused on what students do in the school district for years and we've celebrated that when you walk through the halls of our schools when you visit the classrooms when you see them on the playing field and when you see them on the courts our kids are doing amazing things right now and while we have a lot and we've had a lot on this agenda tonight a lot of business and adult issues that we're working through as a school district i want you to
179know our kids are doing great things in our school district right now from day one we were able to see students working with their teachers to try and address deep learning and make sure that they're getting to the point where they all feel quote caught up and when i i use quote caught up because i want to point out again covet affected every every single student every single adult in our system and across the state and nation i don't know what caught up really means to some people that use it over and over and over again but i know i'm super proud of where our kids are right now and the work that our teachers are doing with our kids right now and we're going to continue to support them along the way improvement plans
180tonight i thank you for adopting those key progress measures as you know we've been very deliberate over the last two years between drawing a line between board goals key progress measures campus and district improvement plans so as we provide you updates along the way this year we hope that you see that alignment and see the work that we're doing is directly related to the goals and key progress measures that you adopt as a board staff learning we've been working hard on our staff learning as well i want to celebrate our assistant principals right now dr golden and i have had the opportunity of working with our principals in the spring and now cohorts of our assistant principals as we continue to study and learn about leadership so that we can be the best school district
181in the state of texas we believe we've got the best kids and the best teachers and staff and best leaders we're continually learning to make sure that it becomes a reality that belton isd is known is the best in texas new tech high school discussions as we heard tonight there are a lot of comments along this and i do echo the fact that we have some amazing students and they were extremely well spoken tonight a couple of things that i did want to point out is this process actually started last spring where we had district leadership working with campus leadership to start to discuss what's the future of new tech look like not to get rid of new tech i don't want to be really deliberate about saying that in fact the opposite how do
182we make sure we're asking ourselves the question how we make sure new tech is a sustainable option and options for school district for students in our school district as we move forward so we've been proud of that work we fast forward to july sent some emails out to staff and students and parents and said we'd like you to come talk about and learn about and put have input into what the future of new tech looks like we had a cohort in the summer time that started diving into that and then we obviously get school started in october in august excuse me and we are here at this point now i also i want to point out that there was no presentation to you tonight saying here's what our recommendations are and why i say that
183is because i think a lot of them think there are foregone conclusions along the way if you can take a look at the email that was sent out to parents we have gotten feedback the reason we did it this way was to get feedback and input from people and how we can best shape this option for our kids for the future so we knew that it would create a lot of discussion a lot of emotion because people are passionate about a school that serves them well we're proud of that passion that school serves them well and so we want to continue to exhaust all options and figure out ways that we can support each and every student along the way the comment that bothered me the most tonight was when i hear a student say
184that we don't we aren't able to support each and every student and what their needs are and i disagree with that we're going to continue working hard to try and figure that out and we're doing that in partnership with staff and students and parents this is part of a process and we believe we can get to a good process where we honor the voices of those people and provide a sound recommendation for our school district for the future it is going to be hard because change is hard but i also don't want to underestimate that change on them and we want to bring their voices in along the way so i applaud the way that ms winters our news our new principal at new tech and mr loma lee our executive director of secondary schools
185have worked to engage people as you all know as board members i believe as of the end of last week they'd have 51 individual meetings with parents and students to help talk through these pro this process and to get feedback along the way so that's where we are right now we'll continue to explore all options and i know that though those leaders were on the phone with different bodies in our state to continue to explore those options at 1 o'clock this afternoon today so i want to assure our parents and our students that we hear you we're continuing to work to make the best recommendation possible not only for the students that are in this program right now but also for the long term of of new tech high school um smith yes so just
186to clarify this is not something that's being fast-tracked you all are not making a recommendation within the foreseeable future the next month or so to say close new tech or anything i just want to be sure that i i'm hearing you loud and clear and that new tech students and staff and parents hear that or maybe i said it wrong you just i will i will say we may make a recommendation next month to you all we're going to continue working with parents and students to make the best recommendation possible that is the superintendent there is no way in the world i would recommend to close new tech high school and i want to that has never even been in this discussion what the discussion has been is actually making sure that new tech high
187school could be a standalone sustainable program for our students school for our students for the future and our hope is to be able to provide a good recommendation for that moving forward in a timely manner i don't think that it'd be worth continuing to go a long term in all this so hence the reason why we've been having these meetings working with staff along the way asking for parent input along the way always we may misstep and so if we need to reevaluate process we will and i'm entirely good with that but i feel pretty confident about where we are right now bisd financial ambassadors um super excited that we got that program kicked off in the last month here we had our bond exploration committee as ty mentioned in our beef and boots and
188barbecue event that is a phenomenal event super thankful for our partnership for with beef there are a lot of a lot of effort goes into that and it all goes back to our kids and our teachers so that we can have those learning experiences for kids so special thanks to beef for that that is not correct there we go wanted to provide just a quick coven 19 update along the way you all know that we are still in scenario three that we have worked over the past few weeks to continue to tighten safety precautions that we have in our school you know that that includes distancing and things that are allowed by state law or state executive order and we're continuing to try and make sure that we are enacting all of those mitigation strategies
189to best keep our kids safe we also wanted to note because we get a lot of questions about this why haven't you gone to scenario four scenario five scenario four and five are both changed based on state requirements over the last year so we don't have those as viable options at this point for us in belton isd we've reworked our dashboard we heard a little bit about that tonight in public comments i want to point out we have always published probable cases because we've relied on our medical professionals to help us with that we believe turning to our medical professionals to to for guidance in this is a positive thing for us we trust our doctors and we're thankful for our doctors along the way we all we did when we reworked the dashboard is
190to separate those out so our public could actually see lab confirmed positive cases and probable cases so hopefully it is a good tool that is easily readable for all of our constituents staff testing we've also uplifted staff testing for any staff members that are in close contact with coveted cases so six am two days a week we have staff testing where they're able to come and get tested just to make sure that they continue to be safe we have continued to work with individual student learning needs i want to point that out when we have students that are considered close contact they are also notified it's up to parents exactly how they want to pursue their child's needs educational needs from there but we have as a teaching and learning department they've really reached out
191to those students to help uplift a learning resource for kids that are in quarantine for some reason due to covid super thankful for that and then finally we get updated guidance from tea on thursdays uh that never stops right now and i want to continue to point that out that we listen to guidance orders and advice from our medical professionals from tea and obviously from our governor as well and we continue to work through those things as we move forward in our system and that concludes the superintendent's report for the month of september questions no all right thank you doc thank you dr smith next on the agenda item is the consent agenda does anyone have any item they'd wish to pull for discussion if not i didn't see any hands okay just make sure
192do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented miss lee mr tiger seconds all in favor pastor namsley thank you very much all right board requests for new information and or reports i just want to make sure we get all the materials that people brought tonight make sure we get whatever people brought for us to look at we've got some up here for you we'll give them to you too daniel miss mcdonald mr floor miss bass what's your tiger okay as a reminder the following upcoming events here we go in case you weren't aware we have a tasty conference a tassel conference where we get to get our ce hours for those who didn't have it um you can see everything right there i don't need to read it to you i've
193been reading enough so is it seen anything on that for pre-registering for courses as we've done it in the past so i'm assuming that you just pick the course you want to go to and show up is that correct yes you'll get your cec number at the end of each session that you attend and then you're able to log it from there you don't have to pre-register i think it's because what he said when i asked him earlier is that we've always done sli sli is apparently much smaller than one we're about to go to and remember how the class has been to convention before oh i haven't been there well i have and i know that you've been able to pre-register for courses well and then the something with the phone and the thing
194we're supposed to check right right i have to do that yeah there you go got it all right if there's nothing else no other business and this meeting is adjourned at 904. you