The Belton ISD Board of Trustees approved the hiring of Alysa Curtis at its regular meeting on Monday as assistant principal at Tarver Elementary.

Curtis, who is in her 10th year in education, served six years as a teacher at Southwest Elementary before becoming an instructional coach at Sparta Elementary in 2019. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and a master’s degree from the University of Texas-Arlington. 

In other news, administrators provided an update on Goal 1 of the district’s five long-term goals that were approved by trustees in July 2021. In October 2022, the board adopted key progress measures (KPM) for each goal. For Goal 1, the KPM is that every campus and central office will implement two or more new, targeted strategies to increase partnerships with parents by May 2023. 

“As a district, we’ve intentionally been working to strengthen our partnership with parents because we know how critical it is to student success,” Jennifer Bailey, executive director of communications and community engagement, said. “Parents are one of our greatest allies. Our school district is stronger because of their partnership.”

In November, parents weighed in on the parameters district leaders should consider as they planned for attendance boundary adjustments ahead of the opening of two new elementary schools. Parents will have additional opportunities to voice their thoughts in upcoming community feedback sessions.

The district has also created a parent-focused, twice-monthly email newsletter targeted at parents and hosted meetings with parent groups to brainstorm opportunities to collaborate. Leaders are working to improve the process of becoming a parent volunteer after hearing how cumbersome it was for parents and campus staff.

Administrators are also planning for a future community-wide Parents as Partners conference and working on an annual parent survey scheduled to deploy later this spring.