Former HEB ISD student and teacher: district shaped my life, inspired me to teach

Ella Rogers, a former Hurst‑Euless‑Bedford Independent School District student and now a fourth‑grade teacher at Lakewood Elementary, told the board she has been "born and raised here my whole entire life" and that the district shaped her choice to become a teacher.

Rogers said her siblings attended HEB ISD and that her parents met at Bell, using family ties to explain her longstanding connection to the district. "I've always been an HEB ISD kid," she said, and later described watching current fourth‑grade students form the kinds of friendships she remembers from her own elementary years.

She credited two close family members for inspiring her career. "What inspired me to become a teacher was definitely my mom and my sister," Rogers said, calling them her role models. She told the board that her mother taught fourth grade in the district, and that having a parent as a teacher motivated her to pursue the same path; Rogers said that experience made her want to be "the exact same as her."

Rogers also described Meadow Creek Elementary School as a formative place for friendships she maintains today, and said that even while she attended college she always planned to return to HEB ISD. "It's just really is a small town, big town where everyone is family," she said, adding that knowing people in the community provided comfort both personally and professionally.

Rogers's remarks were offered as public comment; no formal action or vote accompanied her statement. The board did not take a recorded action in response during the segment covered by the transcript.