The board will now convene an open meeting. Today is Monday, June 11, 2012, and the time is 7.04.
Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, June 11, 2012
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The board met earlier this evening in closed meeting.
Any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting must be taken in a subsequent open meeting.
Mr. Fraley, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Law in regard to notice for this meeting?
Madam President, we are in compliance.
First item is hiring and accepting of the resignation of professional contractor personnel.
Madam President. Mr. DeBrell. I move that the board approve the personnel report
as recommended by the superintendent.
I have a motion by Mr. DeBrell and a second by Mr. Huckabee
that the board approve the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent.
Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote.
All in favor, raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion carries 7-0.
This item is a level 3 FDB appeal.
Mr. Adams.
I move that the Board deny the Level 3 Student Transfer Appeal in case number FDB 2012-13-5654,
thereby upholding the decision of the Level 1 and Level 2 hearing officers.
I second.
I have a motion by Mr. Adams, a second by Mr. Michalski, that the Board deny the Level
Level 3 Student Transfer Appeal in Case Number FDB 2012-13-5654,
thereby upholding the decision of the Level 1 and Level 2 hearing officers.
Any discussion?
Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote.
All in favor, raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Opposed?
Motion carries 5-2.
Okay.
Do we have any scouts here tonight?
I think I see a few back you just stand up please and give us your troop number
the badge working on and your name please I recognize you guys this evening
speak up really loudly and tell us your name and
just a little bit louder
Glad to have you.
Go ahead.
CJ.
George.
Welcome.
Glad to have you guys.
We should have you home by midnight since there's no school tomorrow.
Thank you all so much, and good luck to you guys.
Glad to have you.
And your troop leader?
Troop leader?
Yes.
Well, thank you for your service, too, sir.
thank you very much mr. Fraley it's my privilege to introduce tonight our two
newest board members Charles Griffin and Brian Mahalski welcome we're glad
delighted to have you this is your first night of business you two should be out
of here by midnight no 1 a.m. I think for the board we are in preparing for
for the changes in the transportation and considering student safety.
We've asked Mr. Brimmer to do a study of safety around our buildings and schools and whatnot.
Mr. Brimmer, sir, to give you his report.
Mr. Brimmer, glad to have you, sir.
Madam President, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to present today.
day. We spent a semester looking at issues around crosswalks and sidewalks
and tonight I'll present the results of that in-depth look. I want to acknowledge
assistance from the police department particularly officer Shine who is our
officer who does training on traffic both for our police as well as for our
crossing guards he helped me out every time I had a question or needed another
set of eyes to look at the crosswalks and sidewalks he was always willing to
do that the purpose really is is to update the board on ways that we can
improve safety for students walking and bicycling to school looking as well at
at traffic patterns around those schools
and how we can keep that traffic flowing around the schools
and then effective use of our crossing guard.
Make sure that that program is as effective as possible.
We're looking specifically at sidewalks
and crossing guards tonight.
So a little history.
Most of you have not been on the board
when we did a safety and security audit report
The state requires that we do those every three years and the last time we presented one of those was in March 2011.
One of the things that we're doing now is those in the past have looked at every facility in sort of a general way.
Now we're trying to take some of these topics, safety and security topics, and look at those specifically.
And so that's what we've done.
And so this is the first report that is very topic based rather than individual campus
or facility based.
So that's a little bit about safety and security audits.
We in my office, in the emergency management office, we receive complaints and concerns
and inquiries from parents on a regular basis about traffic around our schools
and so we've been doing that for some time and that was part of the genesis of
looking at this particular issue we also being in a fast growth area we have
changes in the traffic control systems around our many of the intersections
near our schools and three in particular that occurred this year were new traffic
control lights where there had been four-way stops at Rylander, Kilpatrick,
and Wood Creek Junior High. So those were also part of the reason that we started
this study. The concerns raised during attendance boundary modifications and
and the discussion of changes to bus eligibility were also played into that
and then of course with the opening of new schools we wanted to look at safety
around those as well so all of those were part of the reason behind this
study so from that I want to move into the sidewalk side of it and this is
information that that I think everybody kind of already knows but just to set
set the stage for what's happening out there at the schools.
35 elementary schools, so this includes
the new elementary schools.
As we think about that, in the past we've helped
Mudd districts and other community organizations
apply for grants for sidewalks under a program
called the Safe Routes to School Program.
When we started this study, we looked at that
and discovered that for the last two years there's been no grant money
available and so that was one of the starting points we do still have some
improvements that are going on in the district and even on some of our school
property that are funded through that program notably Cinco Ranch and Seven
Lakes campus sidewalks that were put in under that program so we have 21 schools
elementary schools that are major through fairs.
Fourteen that are more located in the neighborhood.
But three of those, those streets could later become major through fairs.
Right now they're really not, but looking forward they could.
When we look at it, we have five schools that share school zones with junior high schools.
And so those are school zones where the hours of the school zone are actually extended.
So instead of an hour long school zone time, there may be an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes in some cases as much as two hours in those school zones.
We have a few schools that share with both the junior high and high school.
We have one that shares just with the high school, and that's Nottingham Country that shares with Taylor.
And then we have one, Morton Ranch Elementary, that really doesn't have a school zone.
So that kind of sets the stage for what we're looking at.
On our secondary schools, we looked at 21 secondary schools.
15 of those are our major through-fairs.
and one of the things that's that's important about that is that really has
a big effect on how much traffic and the need for crossing guards and things like
that and again one junior high school has no school zone and that would be
Morton Ranch Junior High School. So this is just a picture giving you an example
of one of the places where we don't have a sidewalk. This is at Galbo Elementary.
I included this picture in particular because Galbo Elementary, the
parents at that school for the last couple of years have been very active in
trying to encourage students to walk to school and provide safe routes to school
and they've actually asked us to provide them training on how to be crossing
guards for volunteers from the from the school and so very proactive school and
kind of a path there that you see where where there's no grass because students
use that as their sidewalk.
And if you're familiar with this particular roadway,
there's a bridge over South Mady Creek right there,
and that's also been kind of a concern of ours
because sometimes students step off of that bridge
and into the traffic, and so that's one of the locations
where we were concerned about.
Thinking further about our school setting,
setting, we have a lot of different situations around our schools. Some neighborhoods don't
have sidewalks at all. Again, Nottingham Country would be a good example of a school that's
set in an area without sidewalks. Some places there are sidewalks in the neighborhood, but
there's not a connection between our school and the neighborhood. There's a gap for whatever
reason a good example of that is May Creek Junior High where there the
neighborhoods have sidewalks but there are no sidewalks along Greenhouse we
also have sidewalks neighborhoods where where everybody has a sidewalk and
there's good connections Memorial Parkway Elementary would be a good
example of that. Alternative pathways, the hike and bike trails. Alexander is a good
example of that where you can get to the hike and bike trail out the back of the
school property. We also looked at where students walk. Where do they actually
travel? Where do they need to go? So for example in front of Rhodes Elementary
there's not really a big need for a sidewalk out there because the other
side of that is actually sci-fer ISD so we don't have to cross there so we look
at those kinds of issues and then we also made an emphasis and you'll see
that in some of the specific places on getting students to the school not
necessarily having sidewalks where you can walk past the school but making sure
that kids can get to the school so in that these are locations where we we
determined that there's a specific need or lack of a sidewalk and I'll go
through each one of those this is gobble and McDonald junior high and you see
that that the yellow line represents where we would suggest sidewalks along
along lakes of Bridgewater and Broadstone streets.
You'll note that we have a sidewalk
on the north side of Broadstone,
and there's already a sidewalk on the south side,
but the junior high students don't have
a convenient sidewalk on their side.
This is Nottingham country, and here again,
Again, the neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks, but looking at it, this is between Dominion and where the sidewalk ends from the school along a street called Withington on the north side.
And this sidewalk we would anticipate to be used by both Nottingham Country and Taylor High School students.
students. This one is Windborn and at Windborn there are sidewalks that lead
to the two corners on the north side but there's no sidewalk along the western
side and we'd suggest that a sidewalk there would be very helpful for students
traveling to that side of the campus.
Katy Elementary School, not sure how this all came about. There are sidewalks on
Avenue C but from Avenue B over to Avenue A and then along Avenue on George
Bush and then along Avenue A there are no sidewalks and so we identified that
that is a location where it would be appropriate to put some sidewalks.
Katie Junior High, there's an apartment complex that's gone in
on the extension of Katie Fort Bend Road, which is the first residential
area really in that direction.
and so there's not a sidewalk right now to the corner at Franz and Katie Hockley
Cut-Off and so we'd suggest that a sidewalk in that location would be very
helpful. The next one is right here Katie High School and really looking along FM
him 1463. May Creek Elementary School and May Creek Junior High. Really we're
looking at more at the junior high in this particular one where we'd look at a
sidewalk that would come from the junior high down to the crosswalk at Spanish
needle thank you the next one is West Memorial and another small area where
from the junior high school there's not a sidewalk down to Marymount and
and promenade, and that will be helpful getting students
to the crosswalk at that location.
May Creek High School, fairly long area along Delaney
and then Ashley connecting the hike and bike trail
around to the front of the school.
There are various places for students to cross into neighborhoods along that entire length.
Miller Career and Rains. Note that we didn't suggest a sidewalk along Katie-Hockley Cut-Off because there's really no place that students would need to get to along that route.
but to get students from the existing sidewalk over to the crosswalk at
Katie Land Drive is suggested here
Morton Ranch High School this one again shows the emphasis on getting students
is to the school where we didn't suggest a sidewalk across the entire front of
the school but really from the school out to Franz Road and then along Franz
Road particularly so that they wouldn't have to walk through the parking lots at
central transport or central maintenance and the police department student high
school students travel through that area and at times when there's a lot of
business traffic in and out of those two facilities so looking at all that the
scope of work is about 21,000 linear feet of sidewalk the district standard
standard is 48 inch sidewalks and looking at it for compliance purposes that would include about
66 curb ramps. Turning now to crossing guards. This is an unusual situation where we actually
have a crosswalk where there's no sidewalk to it and again this is one of
the school two of the schools that have been very active in trying to help
students have a safer way to school through their community involvement so
some some concepts in terms of how we evaluated crossing guard needs we really
looked at the what the transportation code allows what our authority is and
and really that authority is limited to school zones during school hours where
there are crosswalks and so in some other areas you'll see crossing guards
out in the community away from the school we don't really have that
situation in in Katy ISD in any locations so we're really talking about
the school zones near the schools and that's where the authority for crossing
guards to direct traffic in particular is we really concentrated on elementary
school students feeling that secondary school students generally have the
capacity to safely cross the street we're really more worried about the
younger ones who don't have good judgment about how fast the vehicle is moving or the danger
involved there we had to i want to make the point you'll see this on two different slides
that every intersection is designed differently and every situation is unique in in a myriad of
ways and so we started out hoping that we could come up with a formula and just kind of put it
in there and say, well, if this condition exists, then you need a crossing guard.
Well, we found that we really couldn't do that.
Each of these situations has to be independently evaluated.
A couple of things that really the crossing guards help us with, right turns on red, particularly
at those locations where you're going from a four-way stop to a light.
A lot of times people get used to four-way stops. You go, you check the traffic, and then you can proceed.
And it's not a really big deal. But you tend to look both directions when you're at a four-way stop.
Unfortunately, when you replace that with a traffic light, what happens is that the people making the right-hand turn are focused to the left,
where the cars are coming from. They forget to check back to the right to see whether anybody's in the crosswalk.
and that situation has come up a few times this year in the we do get
reimbursed for our one school that's in the city of Houston they collect a fee
for traffic violations that are associated with school buses or school
zones and out of that fee that they collect through their municipal courts
they fund a crossing guard program and we apply for funds under that every year
to pay for the crossing guard at wolf unfortunately they're the only
municipality in the area that does that and we only have one school there so we
can only recover money for that one crossing guard crosswalks not in the
school zone they're at the school but they're not in the school zone that's
kind of a situation that we have in a couple of places where there's a
crosswalk very very close to the school but because of the way they place the
signs it's not actually in the school zone we still think that crossing guards
can be helpful there we just can't have them in traffic directing the traffic
they're really there to direct the students when it's safe to cross we do
have a at least one situation where the school zones been extended and that
would be at Williams the school zone was extended north to the intersection with
prior with Westheimer Parkway is it Westheimer Parkway yeah so that they so
that we can put crosswalk crossing guards there that's really about a block
away from the school but but that's an example of one of those where the
crosswalk is not right at the school
here are places where we where we determined that additional crossing
guards would be very helpful won't go into all the reasons for that I will
I will mention that Rhodes Elementary, all the students basically travel south from that school and cross the road at Westfield.
And there's not a crossing guard there now.
So that's one that we really thought fit this.
Morton Ranch Elementary sits back on a very long driveway.
And then the crosswalk is at Mason Road.
And the problem there, and we'll mention it in a couple more slides, is that that's not a school zone.
So, again, a crossing guard at that location would be strictly for the pedestrians,
unless we can get the county to designate that as a school zone through there.
We do think that there are some places where the crossing guards assigned with the junior highs
are appropriate and these are places Beckendorf that's related to the change
in in attendance at Griffin where students will now be coming across Cinco
crossing at really at Beckendorf that that will be a good place Wood Creek I
think we've you've you've mentioned that in board meetings before that's at Katie
Flewellen and then Katie junior high those crossing guards already exist and
they're there for both the junior high and elementary students the new schools
we didn't see a need for crossing guard at the junior high at Seven Lakes junior
high that school has a pedestrian control light for students to use for
for crossing but the three elementary schools in looking at the way that those
are laid out we we determined that each one needs two crossing guards to allow
students to cross safely there so related to the jurisdictions that
actually own the roads no turn on red we've asked for that in some of those
places where we've had problems with it we've had some luck in getting those
they are in place at Kilpatrick we hope that we'll see them go up at Alexander
and Wood Creek junior high just to help us with that problem of people not
checking back to the right as they make that turn and then I mentioned already
the Mason Road for Morton Ranch. So in conclusion what we're doing we're
looking at ways to enhance our training of our crossing guards. We'll have
proposal for additional crossing guards and look for when you've had a chance to
to review approval for adding those sidewalks.
And again, just an example of what we find out there.
This is another one of those funny intersections
where we have curb ramps and little stretches of sidewalk
on each of the four corners, but no sidewalk beyond that.
And we have pedestrian light.
so a lot of different things out there and with that I'll take questions
any questions mr. deBrell do you have no anybody have any questions mr. Adams
thank you very much I don't know what's wrong with this mic two questions I have is that
You're talking about 21,000 linear feet, so that's four feet wide.
That's 84,000 square feet.
Is there any concerns about additional detention ponding requirements or anything,
putting that much more concrete on the ground?
Because it's spread over such a large area, I don't believe that we're going to run into a—
that's not all concentrated in one place.
Second question is if you go back up to Nottingham Country Elementary just for a second.
I didn't quite understand. You said something after this slide that it would allow students not to have to walk through a parking lot.
But I'm just looking at this and seeing it on the back side there that we would force children to walk through a parking lot here.
here and my question is why would you not want to extend that that sidewalk on over to I think
that's Rennie over there I think or yeah the there there is a sidewalk to the corner at Rennie
and there is a sidewalk it doesn't show up very well on this but there is a sidewalk along the
edge of that parking lot up to where the yellow line starts and so there's actually a sidewalk
walk along the curb where that driveway is now.
So from where the line stops to the street
on the right side there is a there is a side
no i think our our thought was again that concentrating on getting students to the school
that we brought them into a sidewalk on the west side of the school and they had a crosswalk over
on the east side at Rennie so we do and there's no crossing place between those
two locations for students from the north side so we really felt like our
effort to get them to the school rather than get them past the school was met
but we could certainly look at adding that section I think that's an
an additional about 200 feet.
I just ask you to review it.
I'm not asking you to do it.
I'm just asking you to review it.
All right.
We'll reevaluate it and see.
It's a good question.
And if I could add, too, part of that reevaluation
included discussion with the campus, too.
So we'll see what they think about that proposal, too.
Mr. Griffin.
Has it been looked at how many kids are walking to schools?
like percentages do some schools have a lot greater percentage or less like if
this project was to go and you prioritize which schools would get it I
mean are we taught and obviously you're not going to know this question now but
how many kids are we actually looking at affecting in this decision because you
know concrete is you know really expensive so you know has that been
looked into yeah we we did take that into consideration and in terms of which
places out of all the possible places which ones we brought forward I will say
that in looking at it and looking at the capacity of the student to safely move
move along. If I were to delete projects out of this, they would probably be the projects
that are associated with the high schools. Because of the same kinds of considerations
that you're talking about, the number of students using them and then also the capacity of that
student to travel that path safely. Thank you.
Is this an answer to or brought to us because of the new busing
where children were going a half mile out,
so we'll have more children walking?
Was that the reason for this, or were you already
looking at it?
We were already looking at a number of these locations
because of concerns raised mostly
by the principals at the campus.
We expanded that out to the entire district and looking at it more systemically across the whole district because of the busing concerns, but that wasn't really the impetus.
Have you looked at other ways to pay for some of the sidewalks? I know sometimes mud districts will help with that kind of thing.
at creech i believe they helped pay for the sidewalk there between the canyon gate and
creech elementary did you look at um yes and and again that goes back to the safe routes to schools
funding many of those projects that were done by the mud districts were actually grant grant funded
projects where we sent letters of support with those requests from the from the mud districts
And so we have looked at that.
Again, the grant funding isn't currently there,
but I haven't approached the individual MUD districts.
I could add.
One of the things we're looking at is can we get these sidewalks built by the time school opens this fall?
And working with the MUDs for approval would really kind of have an impact on that.
We may get some reimbursement perhaps, but getting approval first
and getting the sidewalks built by the time school opens this August would be a challenge.
I have a question.
Can these be funded out of bond money?
Okay.
They can be funded out of bond money or general fund money.
One thing, too, just to give you a scope, an idea about how much this is going to cost,
the investigation we had so far is probably about $600,000 for all the paving that we're talking about.
so if we're looking at priorities if the board could give us some direction take
a look at the number of students for example or to phase it in great but if
we were to get it done this summer that's about about the cost we'd be
looking at I have one more question for example the Miller career and rain
sidewalks you take those out to that street there but none of those children
attend that school live in that neighborhood and they are either bused
or driven there I don't believe we have children who walk to Miller Career
Center true we need those sidewalks one of the things about those particular
sidewalks is and one of the reasons that we left them in was that they will also
help us with foot traffic following football games because that's also a way
that people leave the stadium. And so again, some of these projects we can definitely prioritize
and look at in terms of student usage and things like that. But that's it. Your point
is is well taken there are some particularly range students that do walk
that way and president if I could add I know we were with city of Katy because
they had concerns about students parking in the neighborhoods and then they do
walk and so I guess some could see that we're encouraging that perhaps who sets
the school zones and how long they are why are some like a way long and some
somewhere like this short.
We don't do that, right?
School district.
We don't do that.
That's done by the jurisdiction for that particular road,
the county or the city that it's in.
And as I looked at it, you are absolutely right.
There is every possible conceivable iteration of that.
And sometimes you just scratch your head going,
what were they thinking?
And there seems to be no continuity between the two, right?
Yeah.
If you've ever tried to get to Seven Lakes High School and started way back at Griffin
and driven all the way past Beckendorf, it's quite a long time.
Well, that one actually, again, that one works in our favor because it lets us move both
elementary and junior high students.
That's one of the reasons that that school zone is long and over a longer period of time.
But it does kind of slow down traffic.
Any other questions? This is a report to us, not ready for action. No need to move. Thank you very much.
First item is to discuss considering which would approve the musical instrument replacements.
If I could add, Madam President, we have been looking at this item for a while now and trying to figure out how can we better support our programs and fine arts.
we're very glad to have the problem of growing programs and growing students
participating in these in these programs and these are instruments that are help
to help for our older schools and this really came to me from the finance
directors themselves from the newer schools and older schools need these
these items so I really appreciate that teamwork there and so we're looking at a
replacement schedule that I know ideally we would have a lot more robust of a
schedule mr. Bryant will love that but we're looking at what we have the
capacity for right now and then trying to build a program of replacement that
we can be looking at and the other thing I'm very happy to talk about Morton
Ranch High School and their band has grown by a 66 66 percent and so we're
looking at having to add more uniforms for them this fall there are 275
students from up from 165 so that's a tremendous improvement of growth there
and and if you've heard them play you can tell the difference they're doing a
great job at Morton Ranch High School so this is a proposal to support all of our
schools and to really we have the students at Morton Ranch no they've been
uniform now so this is all about I don't know brother Brian at the risk of
asking this question anything that you want to answer and this has been your
baby in.
Madam President.
Dr. Proctor. Just a question. I notice
it talks about some of these are
25
to 35 years old.
And I don't know what our replacement schedule on
computers is.
And we're,
we I believe we can buy computers out of bond funding are there any of these
items that have a lifetime long enough to buy out of bond funds I think we do
some of the larger instruments at the opening of the new school is that right
bill that yes it has to be connected with the school itself
self
mean a better audit
well with sad or second more some school to school like this you know
places replacement compressors and boilers i will have a miss mcdonald
I'll address that one.
Good evening, Superintendent Fraley, Madam President,
and members of the board.
Tonight I bring for you one item,
and it has to do with replacing some compressors and one pool
boiler.
It's necessary to replace these pieces of equipment
this summer.
The equipment will be purchased and installed
by our HVAC department prior to the start of school.
The pool boiler is at Cinco Ranch High School. It's 13 years old and original to the building.
This boiler is in a chlorine filled environment so it has accelerated the deterioration of the
boiler. It is no longer functional at this time. The chiller compressors, we have three of them
at Alexander Elementary that are failing and one at Creech Elementary that is failing. The
The compressors at Alexander are 15 years old,
and the one at Creech is 13 years old,
and they are also original to the building.
The compressors, although still functional,
they will not start and run without being manually
attended.
So a technician is having to go out there,
sometimes several times a day, to restart these compressors.
So right now, we're not staffed where
where we can have somebody that stays out there and kind of babysits these pieces of
equipment that should be automated.
The total cost for the project is $68,410.
Funding is available through the general fund.
Replacement of the compressors will help provide a comfortable and healthy environment for
our students.
So it is our recommendation that the Board of Trustees approve the compressors and boiler
replacement as discussed.
any questions
president mr. de Bruyne I'm sort of the
theme of the evening I see we have going
here but I'll chime in with it general
fund opposed to bond funds seem that
this is part of the physical building of
some of these places now have to defer
that to mr. Moore moving to the budget
presentation you'll get a little bit
more flavor of where the money can come from actually they have under spending
and they made us budget that we did not budget for under spending so there are
funds available in the general fund now to go ahead and do the boilers mr.
Huckabee do we have I know it says a lot of
expectancies 15 to 20 years and this one's only lasted 30 do we have a way
that we can either retool the area or fix it to where this new boiler will not go out as fast as this first one has,
to where we can get some more life expectancy out of them?
That would require moving it to a different location.
I have Mike Latte with us.
He's our energy utility conservation manager.
He also oversees the department that takes care of that.
So I'm going to see if Mike will.
Okay.
There he is.
Just a quick answer to that question is we're going to a different manufacturer of boiler that has a greater resistance to this atmosphere.
Okay.
And we should get the true life expectancy.
This boiler has been, the burner section has been replaced once already.
ready and in just in its corrosive environment it's deteriorated to the
point we feel it's unsafe to operate okay any other questions any objection
to moving item 1 and item 2 to consent agenda so moved next we have one of
Michigan else favorite topics and service vehicle replacements will let
Mr. McMeans, who is a lot more credible, present that to us.
Pick it on your time.
Thank you, Mr. Fraley.
Tonight's presentation and the recommendation that follows pertains to our aging fleet of service vehicles
and the need to consider a partial replacement of some of those vehicles.
The issue is just that, is that we've got a number of our service vehicles, our white
fleet if you will, that are beyond a useful life and they're becoming increasingly more
difficult to maintain, if not impossible when you see the age of some of these vehicles
and the availability of parts.
In some instances, these vehicles may be becoming less safe, certainly more unreliable, and
And as a practical matter, at some point in time, it's going to impact our ability to be responsive to the service needs of our campuses and our departments.
Some of you may recall that in the March operations update to the board that Mr. Gunnell's group presented to you, a mention was made of our aging fleet.
At the time, I think we presented a schedule that showed that in the next 10 years or so, actually in the next 10 years, we would have 180 of our current service vehicles that would be 10 years of age or older.
And so, you know, again, we do have an aging fleet there.
And certainly the outcome of tonight's presentation and the recommendation is perhaps the opportunity to replace some of these vehicles.
This schedule actually reflects a certain portion of this fleet. For all intents and purposes, this schedule reflects, with the exception of our police department, all the vehicles that are currently 13 years of age or older.
And you can see that that 75 vehicles spread amongst a number of different departments as well.
Now, that 75 vehicles represents about a third of our present fleet of service vehicles.
We have around 235 vehicles currently, of which, as I said, 75 are 13 years of age or older.
or older. And actually if you look at those first two rows, there are 46 vehicles that are currently 16 years of age or older.
And that represents about 20% of our total white fleet right now. And so there certainly is an aging fleet there.
Also we have a category you see there that are for vehicles that are 10 to 12 years of age.
Currently, and this actually the only vehicles that we've included in this category are our police vehicles.
And you can see right now that there are six police vehicles that are 10 years of age or older.
So total, there are 81 vehicles right now that we've got on this schedule here that we've identified that are either 13 years of age or older,
or if our police vehicles are 10 years of age or older.
And the reason for this schedule was we use this, if you will, as the standards for developing the previous schedule.
The industry standard for urban police patrol vehicles is 10 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first.
Hence, that's why we picked up the 10-year category for police vehicles.
For all other vehicles, the State of Texas, the Department of TxDOT recommends a replacement cycle of 10 years or more.
But of course for our schedule, we use a 13 year life as the life in which we wanted to evaluate the replacement of these vehicles.
This schedule though reflects the approximate cost to replace about half of those 81 vehicles or so.
So this schedule actually shows, and I know the numbers are a little hard to read, but a total of 41 vehicles being replaced and the different number of vehicles within each of the departments that we're considering.
We could replace these 41 vehicles at approximate cost of not quite $1 million.
I think that number is $997,000 or so.
And that would replace, as an example, 29 vehicles in our maintenance and operations department, four in transportation.
It includes a large delivery truck in our warehouse and textbook operations, two vehicles in our technology operations, one in athletics,
and they would also include four police cruisers as well. One thing I would like
to add though here as well is that this also includes a one vehicle that is not
a replacement. It would be funding for a bucket truck, a high lift boom truck
that's used by our maintenance department to replace parking lot lights
and those type of things as well. We've this the nine hundred ninety seven
thousand dollars here includes about fifty five thousand dollars to fund a
used high lift boom truck as well. We also have the schedule here that shows
the various costs that we've allotted for each of those vehicles. You can see
it ranges from the half ton cargo van to the large delivery truck with the lift
that I mentioned earlier as well. Also one thing I might add is this schedule
does not include any of our food service vehicles. We've excluded them from our
purposes of this schedule because as a practical matter another funding source
exists if those need to be replaced. The recommendation that that follows that is
in your board information as I said is to replace 41 vehicles. This includes
the one vehicle that is not the replacement, the high lift bucket truck.
That would allow us to improve effective and efficient service operations to our
campuses and our departments and it appears that funds are available from
funds that are currently budgeted in our general fund. That concludes our prepared
remarks. Be glad to try to answer any questions that you might have.
If there's no questions, any objections to moving this to consent?
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. McMeese.
Thank you.
Thanks for the interlocal agreement between Harris County and KDISD.
Ms. McDonald, welcome back.
I am bringing a second item to you tonight.
It's the interlocal agreement and recreational easement between Harris County and Katy ISD.
The administration is recommending that the district enter into an interlocal agreement
with Harris County and Katy to construct an eight-foot wide walking, hike, and bike trail.
It's going to be on the northwest property of Pattison Elementary.
The trail will be available for public access, but there will be a fence that divides and separates the playground from the trail.
Through the agreement, Harris County and KDISD will oversee the design and construction of the project and should be complete by around the end of December of 2012.
Upon completion, Harris County will assume responsibility for the maintenance and repair of the trail and everything that's involved with the trail.
And the district will continue to be responsible for the maintenance and repair of the easement and any facilities within the easement.
By accepting this agreement, the district will gain recreational facility improvements at Pattison.
And it supports our safe and orderly working and learning environment and community engagement and effective and efficient operations.
So at this time, we'd like to recommend that the Board of Trustees approve the interlocal
agreement with Harris County and Katy Asst. as presented.
Any questions?
No questions.
Any objections to moving it to consent?
Thank you, Ms. McDonald.
Thank you.
Next, we have a number of policy updates.
Ms. Sallin is bringing the book to walk us through those items.
Ms. Sallin, welcome.
Good evening, Mr. Fraley and Madam President, members of the board.
As you have noted, the majority of the policies, once again, in this update are legal policies.
There are very few local policies.
Of those that are included, we have some recoding.
We were simply lifting language from one code and moving it to another.
There are several of the local policies that involve new definitions or modified definition.
The definition of moral turpitude has been revised.
We now have a state definition of bullying, so we are all using the same term the same
way, which will be helpful.
And there is an emphasis in the two policies at FFH dealing with harassment in general
and the policy dealing with bullying and a focus on the interplay between those two
and what we're required to do.
In addition to the local policies presented in Update 93,
we are also bringing a number of policies, local policies, for your consideration.
Two of those deal with district planning and decision-making.
One of those deals with district-level planning and the other with local planning.
planning. As Mr. Fraley, I think, has discussed with the Board before, we want to establish
local policies in this code so that you provide the framework within which you would like
for us to operate as we move forward with our planning. Also, we are naming the distribution
center coordinator as our records management officer, which we need to see, and that's
included in one of the local policies. We are taking the detailed restrictions off
of the term personal leave to give a broader scope of options there. And then
in terms of dress code we are going to a more generalized policy in terms of
dress code the TASB recommends and then the board will be able to set the
parameters that you want to establish within the discipline management plan
which you have done for 2012-13. Be glad to answer any questions that you might
have regarding any of these policies.
Okay, no questions. Any objection to moving this to consent? Okay, so moved.
Thank you, Mrs. Holland. Okay, you've approved already the campus staffing.
This is a report request for consideration of district level
level staffing that we focused mainly on replacing service providers to the campus.
And you see a number of them are in the district plan, but they're going to be housed at the
campus to directly serve the campus.
So Dr. Harris, we'll let you kind of walk us through what we're requesting tonight.
Good evening, Madam President, Board Members, and Mr. Fraley.
You do have before you the department staffing for 2012 and 13.
And as Mr. Fraley mentioned, there are several positions that we'll be adding to the campus
of staffing. The additional staff reflects the needs created by student growth. The staff
will impact student success, safe environment, and effective and efficient operations. The
district has growth across the system in addition to opening three new elementary schools and
one new junior high. There is a need for support in numerous areas such as operation, technology,
technology, and teaching and learning. After many of the positions listed in the department
staffing represent staff that will be on campus daily, if not in the staffing plan. Many positions
are a direct result also of the expansion of our new state required testing. All the
positions requested will play critical roles in maintaining a positive instructional environment
for our students. Please note that the respective cabinet members brought forward recommendations
and the cabinet has reviewed this list for over four months.
The cabinet looked at compliance, what requests most directly impacted the campus,
and then the cabinet looked at what support would be needed.
For example, some of the data that was given was many of the positions on the campus,
like your custodians, your crossing guards, and we did increase that crossing guard.
It's gone up from three to 16, I believe.
lead, custodians for high school, food service employees, security guards, and computer field
engineers. Some of the positions actually add to the campus staffing, such as your instructional
coaches, vision impairment teacher, and academic support. Please note that with opening schools,
we're adding over 600,000 square feet, so we're going to need more HVAC support, more
more custodians. Testing, we have increased, like I said, many new aspects of testing and
retesting which has increased responsibilities. Special education, we have grown over 300
students from 10-11 to 11-12. We also have grown over 2,500 at-risk students in that
time period which increases other support that needs to be added. For special ed, there
There are several listed in other areas.
And I will answer questions at this point as best I can.
If I cannot, I have Ms. Yolanda Edmond who can answer the questions for me.
Madam President, we are now adding, and I'm back in my pet kick, two LVN supervisors.
Yes, sir.
Do we have any way to compare two years ago what we spent in salaries and training when
we just had RNs to what we're going to spend next year in salaries and training?
Yes, we can.
I can pull that data for you.
The other thing is with the LVNs, instead of having two RNs at the high school, as they
decrease we will have one LVN and one RN, so that cost will offset this over time.
If we were to happen to make a decision to go back to all RNs, we would not need these
positions?
No, sir, we would not.
I think we have approximately 24, 25 LVNs, so that would be a dramatic increase, just
so you would know.
Can I follow up on that?
We were told that in that briefing we had on operations that we had to up to sell
salaries of the LVNs by the health supervisor in order to get LVNs to work in an education
environment.
We provided some training.
I'm not sure what that quote is talking about, so I'd have to check with Mr. Goodmill.
Any other questions?
We will not move this to consent.
Waiting for your answers to the questions.
Thank you, Madam President.
So budget amendments, Mr. Smith.
One of our favorite topics.
Good evening, Mr. Frehley, Madam President and the Board.
We have presented 21 amendments before you for the month of June.
20 of these amendments are strictly moving monies from one function to another.
The 21st, or the final amendment, does increase expenditures in function 81.
Function 81 is facilities acquisition and construction,
and that's for the $64,410 boiler and HVAC repairs that Ms. McDonald talked about earlier.
Approval of these amendments would increase overall expenditures by $64,410.
Any questions?
Hearing none, any objection to moving this item to consent?
So moved.
Madam President, if I could add one more thing regarding item 6, though.
Because we're asking this to be considered for approval Monday night,
we really ask if there are any questions you have to get those to us this week
and get those answers back out to you as quickly as possible.
There are a number of organizational things we're looking at doing
that are riding upon upon this decision so we're happy to take any questions you
may have and get those responded to as quickly as possible dr. Proctor I don't
mind moving this to consent because if we make a different decision it will
impact this down the road anyway on the LV so I have no problem with moving it
to consent I'd like to hold it off okay for a question that I have any questions
Questions from this, please email them to me and Maria, and we'll get them answered for you.
Actually, Maria's going to be out of town.
She's on vacation, so I would say get those to BJ.
She's waiting right there.
And copy me, and we'll get those answers to you right away.
Thank you.
Madam President, next we'll have our next regular meeting.
It will be Monday, June 18th, and immediately following this meeting, we're going to have a special budget workshop.
shop and you all may want a quick little break while we transition into that.
Okay.
That's all we have, ma'am.
Meeting's adjourned.
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
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