Connally ISD Superintendent Jill Bottelberghe stood in front of nearly 100 parents, families and staff at a town hall meeting Thursday to give an unplanned emotional speech about her coming departure.
The audience had just learned that Bottelberghe, an administrator in the district for 14 years and its top staffer for three, would not be considered for the superintendent position under the state of Texas’ takeover of the district.
“It would be very easy for me to sit back and just, ‘I’m done,’ ” Bottelberghe said. “I’m not going to do that because there is no one who believes more than me that every kid can learn. We’ve had 14-year-olds come in that have never been to school and they graduated, so they can learn.”
The Texas Education Agency called the town hall on the coming takeover, which was announced in December due to several years of failing state accountability standards at two schools. They took questions from concerned Connally ISD parents, alumni and staff.
TEA representative Garrett Black said the district will see no day-to-day changes until the 2026-27 school year. The agency has appointed a conservator, Andrew Kim, to oversee the takeover and continues to seek candidates for an appointed board of managers that would sideline the elected board.
The earliest the district would see a new board of managers or superintendent is late spring, he said.
Black stated that Connally ISD would receive no additional state funds under the intervention. Janessa Givens, a Democratic candidate for Texas House District 56, asked for further clarification.
“There are no additional funds given to the district based solely because you’re in intervention,” Black said. “So the funding that Connally ISD currently gets, it would continue to receive.”
Givens later told The Waco Bridge that the lack of additional support was concerning.
“But if you’re already in a stressful situation, you would think that that additional support will help them get the resources that they may need and assist the teachers,” Givens said. “Because we’re asking more of our educators, we’re not providing more resources.”
During the meeting, Connally parent Chris Meza asked about positive things the TEA saw during its visits.
“What I can say is, every classroom that I went into had great kids, great kids,” Black responded. “There were no behavior issues, nothing that we saw. … Everything that we saw on those visits tells us that this amazing teaching staff, this accountability system can work. And so that’s what we believe that kind of with this new leadership team, that’s the direction that we’re hoping to take.”
Meza has a vested interest in seeing the district succeed, with two young children attending Connally and his wife working as a teacher.
Meza hopes more parents get involved and has applied to be on the board of managers.
“The community has to get involved,” Meza said. “The parents have to get involved. And it takes everybody to see the improvement that we’re going to need to see. And so I think the teachers, staff, admin, have a good synergy going here, and I think they’re on the verge of building something very positive. And now we need to get the community involved. Now we need to get parents involved. Now we need to get kids showing up and doing their part.”
Connally ISD parent Mark Ard asked about the success of other TEA interventions.
Black stated since 2000, the state has installed boards of managers at 10 districts and has seen test results improve in each case. He cited improvements at Marlin ISD, which recently returned to local control after eight years. At Houston ISD, student test results have improved in reading and math, Black said.
“I think you hear kind of a national narrative that interventions don’t work,” Black said. “What I would suggest to you is that here in Texas, we do things differently, and we have seen a lot of success.”
As a Connally ISD alumni and parent to three children, Ard wants to see the district succeed. He has seen the standards set at the high school have a direct effect on his two children enrolled in the school. When he was a student athlete, he remembers seeing the Connally ISD values everywhere. For students to succeed, they need to have support at all levels, Ard said.
“You have to take some of the successful programs we’ve seen and replicate them in different campuses,” Ard said.
Ard stated it is important to start at an early age, just as football coaches attend youth games to invest in future players’ success.
“When you start that young, the kids who started at first, second, third grade, those are the kids who become seniors,” he said.”
If it can be implemented at the lower level, I think that that allows more success factors later on in life versus what we’re seeing currently.”
Ard’s father was on the school board for four years and helped with building renovations. Now he himself is considering applying to be on the board of managers for the sake of his own children
“That’s my motivating factor,” Ard said.
A 2015 state law requires the agency to intervene once districts reach a consecutive fifth F rating. After the district received five Fs at Connally Elementary and Connally Junior High schools, TEA commissioner Mike Morath announced on Dec. 11 that the agency would replace the board, install a new superintendent and appoint a conservator to oversee district operations.
In January, the TEA appointed Andrew Kim as conservator. Kim, who also oversees Lake Worth and Beaumont ISDs, has visited Connally twice since his appointment.
After the takeover announcement in December, Bottelberghe said she urged the Connally ISD board not to appeal.
“I would rather let go and let them proceed with what they (think) is best,” Bottelberghe said. “But I do think we have already set it on the right path. Yes, it needs some tweaking. Yes, it needs some fine tuning, but we are doing the work, and I can assure you, even after the decision came out, my No. 1 thing I went and told every campus was, ‘You keep doing exactly what you’re doing because you are doing the right work.’”
Bottelberghe shared the progress the district had worked on since her start in 2023 as superintendent. The district has implemented new math and reading curricula to improve scores. However, scores dipped as students adjusted to the new curriculum due to the rigor of the curriculum.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t had the time for it to show on here, so I don’t want anybody in here to think that we’re sitting back on our laurels, not doing anything, because we really have put in a lot of work in the last two years,” Bottelberghe said.
