Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Groundbreakings Kick off School Projects for Belton ISD

  • 02/05/18

This week teachers, students and administrators held a groundbreaking to celebrate the start of construction for the new Charter Oak Elementary School. When completed for the 2019 start of classes, the new 82,300 square-foot Charter Oak Elementary School will have capacity for 800 students.

The new school will be a flexible and adaptable 21st century learning environment, based on the building program developed through the collaboration between Belton ISD in Texas, and O’Connell Robertson. In addition to general and special education classrooms, students will enjoy specialty flex classrooms that offer art, music and computer stations.

Belton ISD

Charter Oak was selected as the name to commemorate a historic event in Belton history, where, under a live oak tree, Bell County held its first election in 1850. The live oak tree still exists today, not far from the new school location, near Poison Oak Road in Temple, Texas.

Belton ISD has been identified as a fast growth school district; the projects are part of their Roadmap to BISD 2025, a 10-year facilities master plan to provide capacity for growth through 2025. "Belton ISD has grown by over 3,500 students in the last decade’,” said Dr. Susan Kincannon, Belton ISD Superintendent. “In the last 20 years, our student enrollment has doubled. By 2025, we will have nearly 15,000 students in our schools.  Planning is essential to our ability to keep pace with the fast growth of our district. O’Connell Robertson’s team has worked side by side with the District to study and develop plans to address our facility needs.”

Earlier this month, Belton ISD held another groundbreaking to mark expansions to Lakewood Elementary School, which will include music classrooms and a new gymnasium. The projects at Lakewood ES are expected to be complete by July 2018. O’Connell Robertson provided architecture, MEP engineering and interior design services for both projects.

Featured

  • University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Launches New Emergency Communications System

    The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) recently deployed a new emergency notification and incident management system for its campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with 911Cellular to launch Safe@UTC, a smartphone app allowing university officials to communicate and respond during emergency situations.

  • Spaces4Learning Launches 2026 Education Design Showcase Awards

    Spaces4Learning has opened submissions for the 2026 Education Design Showcase! The awards program launched in 1999 with the goal of celebrating innovative, practical solutions in the planning, design, and construction of K–12 and higher-education facilities. EDS recognizes new developments that help achieve optimal learning environments, as well as the architecture firms that brought the ideas to life.

  • 144-Year-Old High-School Campus Debuts New Academic Facility

    San Diego High School (SDHS) in San Diego, Calif., recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new student services and classroom building; the project is part of a larger SDHS Whole Site Modernization project that began in 2022.

  • NWEA Report Recommends K–12 Natural Disaster Recovery Strategies

    The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), a K–12 assessment and research organization, recently announced the release of a new playbook for schools and communities recovering from extreme weather events, according to a news release.