Panther Nation,

It has been a very rewarding and successful semester at Liberty Hill ISD. Our students have accomplished some amazing things. At the board meeting this month, we recognized many student groups, including Robotics, FFA, Theatre, and Volleyball, all making it to the state competition level. In November, we recognized the Panther Marching Band for winning the Area marching competition, the highest competition available this year. Our percussion section qualified to perform in Indiana at a national showcase. This month we also showed off the best and brightest minds as all five elementary schools came together for a UIL Academic competition.

The semester has been challenging as well. LHISD lost three students, one former student, and two parents. We also lost an LH treasure in Mrs. Kristy Kercheville, who served the community and our district for over 20 years. We have pulled together as a community to support each other through those tough times as only LH can. Liberty Hill has such a great community, and the support you have given our students and teachers has truly been amazing to see.

LHISD continues to see unprecedented growth. This year we are currently up over 1000 students for a total enrollment of 7,912. That is a 16% growth and puts LHISD percentage-wise as one of the fastest-growing districts in the state. Last year we realized a 23.5% growth. Due to the tremendous growth, we are engaged in a Long Range Planning Process to help determine the needs of the district going forward. Our current demographic projects have us growing in enrollment to 18,000 by 2032, and currently have projected 10,000 future single-family houses in some form of construction planning.

We have new schools being built right now. Elementary #6 is scheduled to open in Bar W in August 2023, with Elementary #7 opening in Santa Rita Ranch in August 2024. We also have four schools under expansion and renovation. Liberty Hill Elementary and Louine Noble Elementary construction will be completed this summer. Both Middle schools are expanding, with SRMS completion in May and LHMS expansion completed in August. For a more comprehensive look at construction projects, go to www.libertyhillisdbond.com/bondatwork

My Family wishes you a wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season. We hope that if you are traveling, you stay safe. Most importantly, we hope that you are blessed and surrounded by family and friends. We will see you back in January!

Take Care, Panther Nation. Enjoy the break,

Steve Snell,

Superintendent

The LHISD Success Academy Graduated eight students this week (5 pictured). The academy was started in August to prevent Dropouts and help students recover lost credits and accelerate. All students have plans after graduation, including college, workforce training, or military.

Mr. Bever moved over from High School Principal to take over as Director of the Program. Since the academy began, ten students have earned their high school degrees with the expectation that all students currently enrolled will be able to graduate on time. The program has grown to 50 students enrolled.

At the November Board meeting, LHISD entered a multi-year agreement with Pohl Partners to make them the main advertiser on a new video scoreboard. The advertising agreement guarantees $900,000 in advertisement revenue over a ten-year term that will cover the cost of a new Video Scoreboard at Panther Stadium. At the December Board meeting, the Board approved the purchase of the scoreboard to be paid for with 2021 Bond revenue generated from bond investment earnings. Advertising revenue from this agreement will be earmarked so the district can recuperate funding over ten years and allocate funds towards the scoreboard operational costs, curriculum, and program implementation.

The agreement states $7,500 per month or $90,000 per year for ten years. The donor can choose to pay monthly or yearly. The Board approved NEVCO as the vendor to build and install the scoreboard. Nevco is an industry leader in integrated displays and scoring solutions. As part of the agreement, the Pohl-Jensen Partner logo will be prominent on the scoreboard, as well as Mr. Gatti's Pizza. LHISD is grateful for this opportunity. The Video board will be able to raise additional revenue for the district, which could raise as much as $200,000 annually, which will help provide instructional resources for students across the district K-12. The district expects advertising revenue to equal three times the initial cost over the life of the Board.

In addition, the videoboard will be run by students who are enrolled in a CTE Audio/Video class and provide the potential for career and scholarship opportunities. The Board will enhance the experience of football, marching band, soccer, and track.

Recently, the field at Panther Stadium was renamed Coach Jerry Vance Field.

This year LHISD has increased school safety efforts. The LHISD news story highlights the efforts of the district to keep students and staff safe. Recently, the district has partnered with two companies that use Artificial intelligence to help assist in safety efforts.

One is Linewize. Linewize is an online monitoring device that monitors all online activity on school devices and networks. It alerts the districts to any inappropriate site, content, or comment. It can help with bullying, self-harm, and threats to the school. So far, this software has been very beneficial and worth the investment.

The next example is a partnership with the company Spark Cognition. The company's CEO and founder lives in Liberty Hill. After the Uvalde school shooting, he reached out about ways LHISD and Spark Cognition could partner to keep our schools safer. LHISD will start a trial run with the company at LHHS this spring; SparkCognition is underwriting the AI software for this first year. They provide software that interacts with our current security camera system to constantly search for threats, identify weapons, and monitor parking lots and building perimeters. The system can also alert us to potential medical emergencies, such as if a student or faculty member should fall and become injured. Once the system identifies a concern, all safety personnel are notified by cell phone and computer alerts. This will greatly improve response time to any potential situation.

Below is a link that summarizes the district's safety efforts this year.

Mr. Snell meets periodically with local church representatives to share district updates and collaborate on student trends, celebrations, and concerns these frontline workers see with the youth they serve. The last meeting was very productive, with some great ideas being generated. We look forward to partnering with these individuals and churches in the future for the success and support of our students and staff. If you know a church that currently does not have representation in this group, please email the church, contact name, and email to Marsha Hood at mhood@libertyhill.txed.net

The Liberty Hill Education Foundation participated in this year's Christmas Parade. The Foundation supports teachers and students in many ways, including its grant and scholarship programs. To date, the foundation has given away almost $84,000 in teacher grants and $51,000 in student scholarships.

In addition, LHEF's community Pay It Forward campaign allowed them to raise and donate $5,000 to the Comal ISD Foundation in honor of Anna Rogers, a coach's wife who is battling terminal cancer.

Many of our elementary students from around the District were able to attend the Brown Santa Charity trip to deliver gift cards that were raised by our schools!

The Panthers put up a good fight last week against PNG but came up short, 14-42. Even though the season has ended, we are so proud of our student-athletes and coaches for a fantastic season! Our Liberty Hill Community was #ALLIN and stood tall behind our Panthers!

Georgetown Holiday Invitational (Prelim) Swim Meet Friday 12/9/22

LH placed in the TOP 16 in all but 6 individual races, to advance to Finals

3 LHHS Team Records were broken at Prelims:

Boys 100-Yard Butterfly was 1:03.38, now 1:02.42 - Cooper Hardy

Boys 200-Yard Freestyle Relay was 1:50.41, now 1:49.07 - Cooper Hardy, Yatin Ramavarapu, Trenton Shaw, & Jack Boyd

Boys 100-Yard Breaststroke was 1:17.89, now 1:13.44 - Cooper Hardy

Georgetown Holiday Invitational (Finals) Swim Meet Saturday 12/10/22

We swam against Georgetown, Georgetown - East View, Austin - Anderson, Pflugerville, Pflugerville - Weiss, Hendrickson, Wimberly, and Connally.

Due to an illness, we missed swimming in 4 of our qualified boy's events at Finals (2 individual races, and 2 relays).

Overall - 4th

Girls - 3rd

Boys - 8th

Top 10 Individual finishes:

Freshman - Kaleigh Pituch placed 3rd in the Girls 200 IM 2:30.44 and 2nd in the Girls 100-Yard Breaststroke 1:14.13

Freshman - Maddie Levy placed 5th in the Girls 100 Yard Breaststroke 1:29.96

Sophomore - Addison Gonzales placed 3rd in Girls 100-Yard Freestyle 59.20 and 2nd in the Girls 100-Yard Backstroke 1:07.37

Sophomore - Corinna Carstens placed 4th in Girls 100-Yard Freestyle 59.37

Sophomore - Presli Jensen placed 7th in Girls 200-Yard IM 2:42.41 and 9th in the Girls 100-Yard Backstroke 1:15.94

Junior- Cooper Hardy placed 5th in the Boys 100-Yard Butterfly 1:00.48 and 9th in the Boys 100-Yard Breaststroke 1:13.13

Senior - Victoria Phegley placed 1st in the Girls 200-Yard Freestyle 2:03.49 and 1st in the Girls 100-Yard Butterfly 1:03.14

Senior - Grace Pringle placed 7th in the Girls 100-Yard Freestyle 1:04.17 and 3rd in the Girls 100-Yard Breaststroke 1:18.85

Senior - Madelyn Edwards placed 8th in the Girls 100-Yard Freestyle 1:04.36 and 10th in the Girls 100-Yard Backstroke 1:18.12

Top 6 Relay finishes:

2nd Place - Girls 200-Yard Medley (A) Relay 1:57.98 - Addison Gonzales, Kaleigh Pituch, Victoria Phegley, & Corinna Carstens

6th Place - Girls 200-Yard Medley (B) Relay 2:19.06 - Madelyn Edwards, Maddie Levy, Presli Jensen, & Piper Lee

2nd Place - Girls 200-Yard Freestyle (A) Relay 11:46.16 - Kaleigh Pituch, Addison Gonzales, Corinna Carstens, & Victoria Phegley

5th Place - Girls 400-Yard Freestyle (A) Relay 4:32.16 - Piper Lee, Maddie Levy, Madelyn Edwards, & Presli Jensen

5 LHHS Team Records were broken:

Girls 200-Yard Medley Relay was 1:58.92, now 1:57.98 - Addison Gonzales, Kaleigh Pituch, Victoria Phegley, & Corinna Carstens

Boys 100-Yard Butterfly was 1:02.42, now 1:00.48 - Cooper Hardy

Girl's 200- Yard Freestyle Relay was 1:46.97, now 1:46.16 - Kaleigh Pituch, Addison Gonzales, Corinna Carstens, & Victoria Phegley

Girl's 100-Yard Breaststroke was 1:15.09, now 1:14.13 - Kaleigh Pituch

Boys 100-Yard Breaststroke was 1:13.44, now 1:13.13 - Cooper Hardy

Our student-athletes were phenomenal! 20 Time Improvements out of 25 swims!

Thank you for your continued support of The LHHS Swim/Dive Program!

Liberty Hill ISD Anonymous Tip Line | See It. Report It.

The LHISD Anonymous Reporting System, which can be found on all campus and district websites and our mobile app, allows you to submit secure, anonymous safety concerns to help someone who may hurt themselves or others.

What Should You Report?

You can help others by reporting observed threats, behaviors, actions, and harassment. The more detailed you are, the better District personnel can accurately assess the situation. Here are examples of some of the most common behaviors and incidents to report:

• Acts of violence, with or without weapons
• Verbal or physical abuse, assault or harassment
• Sexual abuse, assault or harassment
• Threats seen on social media
• Bullying, fighting, harassment or intimidating behaviors
• Bragging about weapons or a planned attack
• Depression, anxiety or loss of self-control
• Hopelessness, excessive guilt or worthlessness
• Reckless behavior, theft and petty crimes
• Social isolation or withdrawal
• Substance or alcohol abuse
• Suicide threats, or self-harm
• Any other troubling situation or behavior

Submitting a tip is a great first step in making our schools and communities safer.

You can send Anonymous Tips at any time: https://tx50000150.schoolwires.net/domain/223

Do you want to be a part of a growing district committed to providing excellence in education? Come work at LHISD and see why everyone wants to be a Panther! View our available positions and apply now at https://www.applitrack.com/libertyhill/onlineapp/

Superintendent of Liberty Hill ISD

Liberty Hill ISD. Building Champions in Academics, Character, and Community

Email: superintendent@libertyhill.txed.net
Website: libertyhill.txed.net
Location: 301 Forest Street, Liberty Hill, TX, USA
Phone: 512-260-5580
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steve.snell.585
Twitter: @s_snell