At a recent meeting, Belton ISD's school board unanimously approved purchasing over a hundred acres for use in building planned new schools in the bustling area of Bell County.

The board had been eyeing 109 acres near Loop 121 and Shanklin Road in Belton. They approved buying the property at a cost of $1.529 million in order to build a new elementary school and either a middle school or a high school.

Belton ISD “could have as many as 8,800 high school students in the future,” said Belton ISD Superintendent Susan Kincannon in a news release. “In 2015, a committee of parents, educators and community members developed recommendations for our long-range facilities plan. That number was a significant part of the conversation. Looking out 20 or 30 years, we realized that the question was less whether Belton ISD would have two comprehensive high schools and more whether we’d have three or more.”

According to the news release, Belton ISD has welcomed more than 3,000 new students to Belton schools over the past ten years, and within the next decade could be educating over 28,000 students.

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