Editor’s note: One in an ongoing series.
Parents are looking toward their children’s school district administrations for answers and comfort as worries about violent incidents on local campuses increase.
In the Belton Independent School District, Belton High School, which had a fatal stabbing on May 3, totaled 202 disciplinary incidents — for violent behaviors including assault, aggravated assault, sexual assault and fighting — over the last five years: 56 in 2017-18, 49 in 2018-19, 43 in 2019-20, 17 in 2020-21 and 37 in 2021-22.
Although these incidents increased following the 2020-21 school year, Cassandra Spearman, Belton ISD’s executive director of student services, highlighted how that occurred during an era of COVID-19 when many students were not on campus.
“Most of the kids were learning remotely during that year … so we have been seeing a decline,” she told the Telegram.
Spearman credited an increase in school resource officers and security guards on campuses, and training provided by the student services department — areas that could be enhanced prior to the 2022-23 school year.
“We do an annual safety training summit in the summer for all campus administrators so we will definitely be looking at that agenda, and we are always looking at places on campus where we need to increase supervision,” she said. “We want to get better and we always want to take that into consideration.
Spearman, who was hired prior to the 2021-22 school year, added how she wants students to say something if they see something.
“We’re really working on our anonymous alert system … to make it as easy as possible for our kiddos to report something if they hear about a rumor or if they know something that is going to happen,” she said. “We believe it could significantly help us prevent any student misbehavior on campus if we have advance notice, and no one will know that they reported it.”
However, Spearman emphasized how building good relationships is one of the best mitigation strategies there is on a campus.
“Campuses are working really hard to increase engaging instruction because research tells you that the stronger the classroom instruction is the stronger the relationships with kids are,” she said. “That means the less likely you are to have major discipline on the campus.”
Salado ISD Superintendent Michael Novotny, whose district did not record a violent disciplinary incident over a five-year period, agreed.
“We have a smaller district compared to some of the other districts around the state and that is helpful because it allows our employees to know our kids much better,” he said. “Anytime a student is in crisis or struggling, we’re able to intervene early to make sure they get help … before it can turn into a violent situation.”
Novotny, like his counterparts in neighboring school districts, understands that safety is a growing concern among parents.
“I’ve got three kids of my own. One has already graduated from our district, and two are at our high school and middle school,” he said. “So I would certainly, as superintendent of our district, keep the perspective of the parent and think about what I would do to keep my own kids safe and apply that strategy in our schools.”
In Temple ISD, Superintendent Bobby Ott highlighted how measures — put in place in response to the pandemic — also have benefitted safety not related to COVID-19.
These measures included hiring social and emotional learning specialists for campuses across the district, and implementing one-way traffic in hallways and eliminating gatherings in the student center at Temple High School.
“We did those things as a result of the pandemic but we noticed, in doing that, that it helped reduce a lot of potential incidents that could take place,” Ott said. “So it really became a preventative measure for all kinds of things.”
Although there are plans to keep these measures in place moving forward, the fourth-year superintendent also placed an emphasis on building relationships.
“I think that is the best prevention and something that has helped us tremendously,” he said. “If you have a relationship with students, you’re going to find out about things that are planned, or that could happen. So we’ve definitely focused on that and it has been a big part of our culture among the staff and the students here.”
Temple ISD, a district that had 9,928 students at the end of the 2020-21 school year, totaled 1,096 disciplinary incidents for violent behaviors between the 2016-17 and 2020-21 school years — approximately 78.6% of which were for fighting, 14.2% for assault of an individual other than a district employee or volunteer, and 7.1% for assault of a district employee, according to data obtained from the Texas Education Agency.
That total, however, has improved each year with the exception of the 2018-19 school year.
Meanwhile, Belton ISD, a district that had 13,555 students at the end of the 2020-21 school year, totaled 359 disciplinary incidents for violence behaviors during that same time frame — approximately 66.5% of which were for fighting, 30.4% for assault of an individual other than a district employee or volunteer, and 3.1% for assault of a district employee. One sexual assault was reported in 2019-20, district records show.
A death at Belton High School
Although Belton High School had no history of shootings or stabbings on campus, that changed May 3 when Jose Luis Ramirez Jr., 18, was killed in a stabbing that occurred in a restroom.
“When police arrived on scene, life-saving measures were being performed on a student later identified as Jose Luis Ramirez Jr. who police observed (had a) large puncture wounds to his chest,” an arrest affidavit filed by the Belton Police Department on May 4.
BHS student Caysen Tyler Allison, 18, is charged with murder in the incident, which occurred at about 9:47 a.m. May 3.
“He provided police with a sworn statement he provided after being informed of his rights and waiving them,” the affidavit said. “In that statement, Allison stated he stabbed Ramirez Jr. once during a fight between them.”
Allison’s bond is set at $1 million at the Bell County Jail.
Lake Belton High attack
Kimberly D. Stewart said her son, who attends Lake Belton High School, also was attacked in a bathroom on campus last April.
“As he was using the bathroom, he was struck on the backside of his head and became very disoriented and afraid,” she told the Telegram. “He stayed in the bathroom stall until he felt the coast was clear. I can only imagine what my son was feeling at that moment.”
Stewart was informed about the incident via a text message from her son, Ke’Shaun Stewart-Lee.
“I immediately informed the principal and the (associate principal) called and advised me that he was being taken to the nurse’s office,” Stewart said. “After his visit to the nurse, my son was then released to go to his second period.”
However, her son’s pain, Stewart emphasized, was growing.
“His head began to hurt worse and a few students took note of his condition,” she said. “He asked to go back to the nurse only to be told that he had just come from the nurse’s office, and to go and lay down on the bleachers.”
This action upset Stewart as her son has a history of seizures and headaches.
“I took my son to the ER after I picked him up from school and they diagnosed him with a head injury,” she said. “As a result of this incident, he now suffers from short-term memory loss, loss of appetite, vision issues even with his glasses, and tinnitus. I believe what happened to my son has everything to do with my son being attacked.”
Although Stewart filed an open records request with BISD for a copy of the video — which shows who entered and exited the bathroom at the time of the incident — it has not been fulfilled yet.
“The students in the video entering and leaving the restroom have already (met with) campus leadership,” Spearman said in an email to Stewart. “Your request cannot be granted as it is a violation of privacy rights for those students. The campus is currently completing the bullying investigation per your request. Once it has been completed, they will report their findings.”
Yet Stewart said she has viewed Belton ISD footage, with other students in it, before.
“I had been picking my son up from the same area the entire year, when a certain security guard started to harass him for standing in the same pickup spot he’d been standing in all year long,” she said. “Word got around about this issue and a teacher that my son doesn’t even know took it upon herself to get involved.”
The teacher, Stewart claimed, prevented her son from waiting outside.
“I met with both principals and requested to review the footage. They obliged,” she said. “We viewed the video and just as I suspected, it skipped and it did not show the part where the teacher accosted him in the hallway. That video had children in it, and we were allowed to review that footage, but we can’t review the footage for this criminal act that was committed against my son.”
Stewart is seeking accountability.
“It’s not just myself. It’s multiple parents,” she said. “I just joined a support group on Facebook called ‘Belton ISD Accountability’ and the support has been really great. There are other parents who have been going through the same thing as me.”
Belton ISD, meanwhile, could not discuss the incident with the Telegram.
“Due to privacy laws, we are prohibited from discussing student issues,” Bailey said in an email earlier this week.
Violent teen deaths in Belton
In 2020, two teenagers enrolled in BISD were killed in unrelated shootings.
Joshua Allen Reyner, a 15-year-old enrolled in the BISD Academic Intervention and Monitoring System program, was killed on Jan. 2, 2020, after being shot in the back at 1610 S. Wall St. in Belton
Months later, BHS junior Fernando Martinez, 16, was killed on Aug. 27, 2020, after being shot twice near an outdoor basketball court on the 400 block of Smith Street in Belton. Robert Garnett, a BHS student at the time of the shooting, was charged with murder in that case.
Belton resident Angela Rendon — who has lived in the Belton area for more than 20 years — highlighted how various criminal and suspicious activities have taken place at the park that connects to the Nolan Creek trail.
“This neighborhood is not safe anymore, but it used to be,” she said.
