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October 3, 2019
It was an exciting day as students, staff, board members, administration, community leaders and project partners participated in the dedication and ribbon cutting for Charter Oak Elementary School!
Message from the School Board President:


Dear

On September 24, we celebrated Charter Oak’s dedication with a ceremony featuring patriotic songs by third-graders, a pair of fifth-graders sharing the history of the Charter Oak Tree, which is the school’s namesake, and a ribbon cutting facilitated by the Temple Chamber of Commerce. Several special guests joined us that morning including Charter Oak’s Adopt A Unit, the 49th Transportation Battalion at Fort Hood, State Representative Hugh Shine, City of Temple City Manager Brynn Myers, Belton Chamber President and former Belton ISD Board President Randy Pittenger, and the Belton Rotary Club who continued their generosity of donating a flagpole to all of our new school buildings.

As we all came together for the dedication, I felt honored to stand before our guests on behalf of my fellow Board Members to say thank you to this community. As a Board we have been focused for many years on planning and preparing for the new homes and the new students that will come with those new homes in our school district. We want to stay focused on the kids and make sure those buildings are here and ready for them when they come. I can’t wait to see our students getting to learn and grow at Charter Oak Elementary for many years to come.

And as we continue planning for the future, a key role will be our next superintendent. During a special board meeting last month, we selected the firm Thompson & Horton to lead the search for our next superintendent.

Thompson & Horton demonstrated that their experience and knowledge of large and growing districts can get us to the next level. They recognized not only what we have achieved as a district to this point but how we as a Board can engage our community in this important decision for our future.

In their interview presentation, Thompson & Horton described their 20 years of experience with superintendent searches as having been focused on districts with more than 10,000 students. Presenters David Thompson and Dr. Mike Moses both acknowledged the reputation, history and future prospects of Belton ISD as excellent when outlining how they would work for the board and with our community to recruit a chief executive with a proven track record of success.

Please know the board will do its due diligence throughout this process, and we look forward to selecting a leader who will help us continue to grow and build upon the student-focused successes that our community believes in. 

Sincerely,

Suzanne M. McDonald
President, Board of Trustees
Belton ISD Advanced Academics  recognized 114 seventh-grade students last week as Junior Scholars for their high academic achievement. To see more photos from the ceremony, visit www.bisd.net/photos .
Feeling lucky? Try your hand at t he Belton Educational Enrichment Foundation's annual Red Carpet fundraising event and Casino Night and help support BEEF's mission to award teacher and paraprofessional grants and scholarships to graduating seniors. Sponsorships are still available as well as tickets and tables, which can be purchased here .
Superintendent Snippets:

There are currently several District projects that impact policy and facilities. To ensure that Board meetings are conducted in an efficient manner, the Board approved a recommendation to form two committees that would meet monthly. The Policy and Facilities Committee meetings will be posted and open to the public to attend.

This week the Policy Committee met to discuss transfer policies, district trademarks and mascots, and the potential impact to regular board meeting agendas from the recently passed HB 2840.

Three Early High School Intradistrict Transfer meetings, held in September across the district, were well attended and received. Special thanks to Assistant Superintendent Mike Morgan for facilitating these important discussions! These are just the first of many such meetings that will take place this Fall as staff work with parents and students to prepare for the opening of Lake Belton High School and Belton Middle School in the fall of 2020.

Construction at Lake Belton High School and plans for re-purposing BHS 9 back into Belton Middle School are moving along. Of the projects funded as a part of the May 2017 Bond, Lake Belton High School is the final and largest investment. Work on the Belton High School Orchestra Addition is also on track for completion prior to next school year. 

Our incredible facilities and maintenance staff have done an excellent job maintaining buildings, but there are some 50+ year old facilities needing refreshing. We have toured all campuses, met with campus administrators, and compiled a prioritized list of items for the Board to consider. It is the hope that work can begin this Fall on prioritized items.

In addition to visiting classrooms and interacting with students, a highlight of visiting all district campuses has been talking with our amazing staff. Across the board, from classroom instruction to nutrition or transportation services, it is clear that all are here to support kids. If you know of a special Belton ISD employee who deserves recognition, please submit a Big Red Heart Award nomination through this form available on the district website. 

Take care of yourself!

Robin Battershell, Ed.D.
Interim Superintendent
From patriot and freedom parades to remembrance walks, students across the district celebrated our first responders, Adopt A Units, and honored all who have sacrificed for our country. Thank you to all those that supported media being a part of your campus celebrations!
Congratulations to our recent Big Red Heart Award recipients for their high level of service to our students, families, schools, district, and community. Shown here is Jessica Hargarve, a fifth-grade Math/Science Teacher at Sparta Elementary, and you can see more of our winners here.