Good evening. I hereby call this work-study meeting of the Board of
Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, May 13, 2013
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Trustees of the Katy Independent School District to order. Today is Monday, May
13, 2013 and the time is 6 55 p.m.
Noting that a quorum is present, the board will now convene in closed,
oh sorry, open meeting, sorry, the board will now convene an open meeting. The
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 the notice for this meeting?
Madam President, we are in compliance.
The first item is the hiring and accepting of the designation of professional contractor personnel.
Madam President.
Mr. Griffin.
I move that the Board approves the personnel report as recommended by the Superintendent.
Second.
Second.
I have a motion by Charles Griffin, a second by Terry Huckabee,
that the Board approve the personnel report as recommended by the Superintendent.
Any discussion?
Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote.
All in favor, raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Motion carries 7-0.
Next we have the Administrative One-Year Term Contract Personnel.
Madam President.
Mr. Mahalski.
I move that the Board approve the Administrative One-Year Term Contract Recommendations
as recommended by the Superintendent.
Second.
Motion by Brian Mahulski, a second by Henry DeBrell, that the Board approves the administrative
one-year term contract recommendations as recommended by the Superintendent.
Any discussion?
Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote.
All in favor raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Motion carries seven to zero.
Mr. President, item four has been pulled.
We have special recognitions at this time.
Mr. Steve Stanford, communications will come forth and share with us.
Good evening, Madam President, Board members, and Superintendent Fraley.
KISD Police Department is a full-service law enforcement agency that can efficiently provide for the protection of lives and property,
preserve the public peace, and provide the central and campus administration with services.
The department is comprised of 37 officers serving all 181 square miles of KDISD.
At this time, I'd like to introduce the KDIC Chief of Police, Mr. Mark Hopkins.
President Fox, Board Members, Superintendent Fraley,
as you may know that newly commissioned peace officers are required to swear or affirm the oath of office.
I'd like to call upon Melissa Smith and Imran Admani to come forward and take the oath.
I raise your reference to the opinion of the committee.
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of peace officer of the state of Texas
and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State.
and I furthermore
solemnly swear
that I have not directly
nor indirectly
paid, offered
or promised to pay
contributed
nor promised to contribute
any money or valuable thing
or promised
any public office or employment
As a reward to secure my appointment or the confirmation thereof.
So help me God. Congratulations.
I'd like to tell you a little bit about these fine officers.
Officer Melissa Smith was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada,
Nevada, where she completed high school and attended community college in southern Nevada.
After moving to Katy with her family in 2008, she obtained an associate degree in business
and while working part-time as a waitress, completed the Houston Community College Police
Academy in October 2011.
She is currently attending Sam Houston State University, majoring in accounting.
Prior to accepting a position with Katy ISD, Officer Smith worked as a police officer for
for the cities of Weimar and Caldwell.
Officer Smith strives to be the kind of officer
that was her hero and role model.
That role model was her grandfather, William Cook,
a former Beaumont, Texas police officer
who assisted in the investigation and ultimate capture
of famous bank robbers, Bonnie, Parker, and Clyde Barrow.
Officer Smith's hobbies include all outdoor activities
and hanging out with her black lab, Roxy. Furthermore, she shares a faith-based
lifestyle with her friends, parents, and twin sister. Officer Imran Admani was
born in Karachi, Pakistan. When he was approximately six months old, he and his
parents immigrated to Houston, Texas where he continues to reside. Officer
Admani graduated from Robert E. Lee High School and successfully completed the
Houston Community College Police Academy in July 2005. He has a bachelor's degree
in criminal justice and will be attending San Houston State University
in the fall, work on his master's degree. He speaks Urde, Urde, Urde, Urde, and Hindi
and he can read Arabic. Officer Edmani has been a police officer for six years,
working for the Harris County Constable 6 office and Lone Star College Police
Department. We are delighted to have Officer Smith and Admani as members of
our public safety team. Please help me welcome to KDISD.
Welcome to KDISD. We're really glad you're a part of our team.
This is your family on the front row, family and friends.
Glad you're here.
Welcome aboard.
Madam President, can I just say as a graduate of Sam Houston State University, eat them up, cats.
as great as you know Boston I will hold it against you do we have any scouts with us tonight in the
audience sometimes we do but I think we scare them off because we stay till midnight for the
the teachers who are here we will provide coffee for tomorrow morning
our first order of business this evening is unlimited tax bond sale and refunding
Mr. Moore, this sounds like you.
It is. Thank you.
First I'd like to do is sort of give you a quick overview,
and then we'll do some introductions,
and then ask our financial advisor to come to the microphone
and explain the transactions that we are reviewing and looking to do.
We're in the process of selling the last of our bonds from 2010 authorization.
We have about $109 million remaining unissued.
and the proceeds from the sale, there's two things, really there's three things, but to make it simple, there's two things.
There's refundings and then there's new money sale.
The new money sale is $109 million, and those monies will be used to construct the two new elementary schools that were approved,
was it last month, I believe?
Also complete the construction of Tompkins High School and the equipping of the classrooms.
Also the renovations, complete the renovations of both Katy High and Taylor High School.
The district's performing arts centers, the renovations for those that again were just approved.
And then also purchase buses and fund the technology retrofits as part of the retrofit cycles.
cycles. That's what we're looking as far as the new bond proceeds from the new $109 million.
Due to the current interest rate, which we've been saying this now for several years, thinking
that at some point rates were going to go up, keep them low for us, we are considering
refunding some of our prior bond issues. As they age, opportunities come up to where we
we can replace those bonds with lower interest rate bonds.
There's two different memos, but really one explanation covers both.
The parameters are is that we are asking the Board tonight, or I guess next Monday night,
to approve the parameters.
One is that we're issuing the $109,795,000 of the new money bonds, unlimited refunding
bonds and limited refunding bonds and Clarence will talk about those in just a second.
But as far as putting an amount on those, an exact amount at this time, it depends on
the interest rate market.
And because we have in our parameters that they must generate a minimum 4 percent net
present value savings, the amount of bonds to be refunded will depend upon the market
during that time.
So we're asking for the Board to allow us to work with our financial advisors and whenever
Whenever these parameters can be met, especially the 4% net present value savings, we can pull
the trigger on those, depending on the market.
With that, tonight we have our Bond Counsel, Andrews Kurth.
We have Tanya Fisher.
Back there, raise your hand.
And Rick Witte.
And then also our financial advisor with RBC Capital Markets, Clarence Greer.
And I'll ask Clarence if he will come up now and sort of give you the highlights of what
we're looking to do. Good evening Mr. Greer. We're glad you're here. Good evening
President Fox, board members, trustee, Superintendent Fraley. You know I just
wanted to briefly summarize the opportunities and interest rate market as
As Bill Moore briefly alluded to, when interest rates are near all-time lows, when you look
back since 1991, we are near all-time lows.
On page one of the handout, it kind of shows you there where we are, and that's indicated
by the blue line, which is the current market.
And you can see the shaded region has been anywhere from north of 6%, you know, all the way down for a 30-year bond to where we are now, less than 3%.
We hit the all-time lows in December, January period.
But, you know, you can see the blue line is not too far off that all-time low.
So since 91, this is a very ideal time to sell the remaining authorization.
Certainly you have projects that warrant it, but related to the interest rate environment, it certainly does support it.
And with that opportunity of low interest rates, we've worked diligently with your bond council to break out this different series of whether the bonds are limited or unlimited tax.
tax, but you know, we're looking at refunding about $44 million in today's market of unlimited
of tax exempt refunding bonds, um, on a, what we call attack, you know, versus about 40
million on a taxable basis. Um, you know, pulling the trigger in today's market provides
significant savings to taxpayers, roughly about $600,000 a year for the next several
over years. We're not extending the final maturity of the existing bonds. What we're
doing is we're matching off. So like your mortgage, you know, we're, you know, keeping
it consistent and just recognizing savings, allowing the debt service savings to accrue
to taxpayers. So in summary, just looking at what this allows us to do is the parameter
authorization gives us the ability to go outside, working diligently with your, your bond counsel,
council putting papers in order and we anticipate having that all done where we can actually
access the market and deliver by the end of July where funds will be delivered and that's
$109 million remaining authorization being delivered to the school district as well as
having some savings associated with the refunding bonds, which at this point in time we're approximating
to be about 75 to 100 million dollars from refunding which produces about 600 000 a year
savings to taxpayers uh and you know and also this new money sale does not increase in your taxes
we were able to meet the tax rate problem it's actually exceeded you know we originally
projected a small increase but we're keeping it you know we're not we were not uh we didn't have
to increase the tax rate at all so we're keeping that constant so that's that's a bit of good news
and great we've been greatly facilitated by the interest rate environment allowing us to do that
so if you have any questions i'll definitely can answer it at this point in time mr griffin
i got a quick question on when you refinance the bonds that are already out there you won't extend
in the duration of the bond. You know, you would match it. If you got five years left,
you'd still go to another five years, but you reduce the interest rate, if I'm not mistaken.
That's right. Is there any cost savings to taking
the difference in savings that you have and then to shorten the duration of that loan?
And we do that from time to time, and we'll work
with the staff to see if there's opportunity. That's a great question, because what it does
is it takes advantage of certain parts of the yield curve where that could
could be more well received and also a voice interest as well.
But, you know, the offset of that is it could put, you know, additional pressure in the
early years for tax rate goals being met.
And so we're going to continue to work with staff and Mr. Martin's staff with regards
to that balance.
But certainly we're not going to the document certainly allows for us to accelerate, but
we're definitely not extending.
any other questions
mr. Mahalski so so the refunding bonds that will be issued or basically the
proceeds of which are going to be to retire the refunded bonds correct right
okay so if I had purchased a bond that is going to be refunded basically you're
going to be returned your your principal and then you know and that's a great
question because some of the bonds have a call date that might not be immediately
callable so what we'll do is set up an escrow and so at that point the both
those bonds will be legally the fees which means that they're no longer that
bondholders no longer looking to KDISD for the payment but they're looking to
the US Treasury for the payment I would argue that KDISD is struggling in the US
government right but you know right maybe concern there yes okay so it could
be so from a from from an accounting standpoint the the um those bonds will be legally the fees
and it would be footnote um and when the bonds actually are called then they'll it'll be
disclosed as well as part of the financial statements will the holders of those bonds
be able to call those or will it just continue along its path and if you know so when the
bonds are so the call provisions were already um outlined and so the expectation the bondholders
don't know if their bonds are going to be called or not and which bonds we're calling.
So it's pretty, it would be from a financial standpoint, a benefit for them if their bonds
are called.
CHAIRMAN BRYANT L. Thank you.
MS. Mr. Adams.
MR. So when we talk about refinancing a home, you're basically taking your
current loan and just redoing it.
You're not really coming up with money that you have somewhere else or the ability to refinance something.
My question is that if we are using available bond money to refinance what we already owe,
are we limiting ourselves on future ability to use that money to purchase or
to build additional buildings in other words we're using it up we're using our
savings are we're not using our say we're using the bond money that we voted
on to build schools with to pay off
right so we have two separate parts of money so we have the hundred and nine in
one pot that we're going to sell just for the express purposes of building new schools and
then separating apart is we just recognize that there are some outstanding bonds that we're not
going to utilize any remaining authorization but just going to refinance that and so they're going
to be independent so by us taking the action and taking action where we're creating savings for
taxpayers does not impair our ability to build new schools so that authorization still is in full
of faith, full force. What we're simply doing is just lowering the interest rates because
we've recognized with rates so low relative to when we originally sold it, there's an
opportunity to refinance. But that refinancing doesn't in any way impact or is harmful to
us anyway with regards to our construction. And we reviewed that with legal counsel and
I think Rick can speak to that as well if you want to.
Basically, Mr. Adams, you're just replacing the bonds with new bonds.
Nothing changes.
So the money is still there.
Right, same as it was.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Greer.
Appreciate you being here.
Thank you.
Mr. Moore, tab two.
we cover both of those in the same any objection to moving this these two items
to consent both both one and two will move to consent item three is hi miss
mcdonald how are you
good evening madam president members of the board and superintendent fraley
hold on miss mcdonald let me just double check
okay i think we need to go to mike robinson first is item three and then miss mcdonald are you doing
the texas general land office ms mcdonald hang on right there just hang right there a minute
And Mr. Robinson needs to talk to us on item three first.
UIL activity accident insurance.
Hi, Mr. Robinson.
Hello, ma'am.
President Fox, board members, and Superintendent Fraley,
we have one item from the risk management department this evening for your consideration,
and that is the proposal for voluntary student and UIL activity accident insurance.
insurance. We recently requested proposals for this insurance. The results of the proposals
are summarized on the worksheet that's attached to your cover. After review of the proposals
it was determined that the proposal from East Texas Insurance Associates provides the best
value in terms of benefits and cost to the district. The carrier for this new plan is
Fidelity Security Life with an AMBEST rating of A-8. The catastrophic insurance that is a part of this package is underwritten by Zurich with an AMBEST rating of A-15. The Texas True Choice Network is a full assignment network that prevents balanced billings to claimants.
UIL accident policy is paid for by the district and provides medical benefits for accidents
incurred by students who participate in UIL activities such as athletics, fine arts, and
the career and technology education.
This plan is secondary to any other insurance available to the student and includes a catastrophic
policy benefit for those types of injuries.
This insurance package also provides for a student, a voluntary student accident insurance
and includes options for at school and 24 hour coverage.
For those who elect a voluntary accident, this is for the students, they pay the insurance,
they pay the associated premium.
The general fund expenditures for this coverage in the current year was $261,870.
The renewal premium is $268,799.
The increase is basically due to our increased student participation and an unfavorable loss
history over the last four years.
The student accident insurance provides us for student growth and success by providing
a district paid accident insurance policy for students while participating in district
sponsored UAL activities.
activities. For students without other insurance, this plan pays as primary.
Provisions for the voluntary student accident insurance policy is deemed a
public service that provides a low-cost accident insurance option for students.
It's our recommendation that the Board of Trustees approves the voluntary student
accident and district-provided UAL catastrophic accident insurance policies as
presented, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Griffin?
Sorry, Henry.
Sir, let's say students' parents don't have any insurance and they chose not to do this fund or to buy this insurance.
If they're participating in a school activity, does this insurance still cover them?
No, sir.
Okay.
Well, excuse me, if they're participating in a UIL activity sponsored by the district, yes, it does.
Okay.
Mr. DeBrell?
Should the new or will the new legislation coming from Washington, Obamacare, affect
the cost of this any?
Seeing that more people will have a primary insurance carrier and this being a secondary?
It may impact individuals.
It won't impact this particular policy because this is an accident only policy.
It's not like a health insurance policy.
Mr. Huckabee?
And this is the policy that the parents opt to buy or is this the policy that we as the district take out as a whole like an umbrella?
The $268,000 premium is for the policy that the district pays for, for the UIL activities.
The voluntary product is offered to the students and if they choose to participate, then they pay the premium on that.
Okay.
Mr. Adams.
Mr. Robbins, then, so the voluntary program outside of the UIL, if a child is hurt at his home, would their coverage pay for that?
If they elect the 24-hour coverage, there's two parts.
They can choose an at-school or a 24-hour, and the difference is just premium.
If they elect the 24-hour, it's more expensive.
So it could become just a regular insurance policy?
Well, only for accidents.
Only for accidents, correct.
Yes, sir.
Thank you Mr. Robinson for being here.
Any objection to moving this to consent agenda?
Hi Ms. McDonald.
Item 4, thanks for being here so quickly.
Obviously I'm very excited tonight to bring forward for your consideration
an interlocal agreement with the Texas General Land Office.
The gas marketing program at the Texas General Land Office of the TGLO was formed by the
legislature in 1983 to reduce utility costs to state agencies by using natural gas being
produced on state lands.
This program has been expanded to include public retail customers, or PRC, as defined
by state statutes, which now includes school districts.
The program has two basic charges, one to enhance the permanent school fund and to reduce
energy costs to PRC participants. Recently, CenterPoint has lowered their minimum transportation volume threshold to 10 MCF per day,
averaged annually to allow the state's program to offer this service through interlocal contracts to school districts for sites that
volumetrically qualify. Contiguous district sites not separated by public streets can likewise participate without individually meeting
meeting this threshold.
So based on that criteria, the following sites for KDISD
can be included.
We clustered these together so it's
a little bit easier for everybody
to see how we do this.
And the first one is Morton Ranch High School, Morton Ranch
Junior High, Morton Ranch Elementary, Brands Elementary,
and the Central Maintenance Complex.
The second group is Seven Lakes Junior High and Seven Lakes
High School.
Third is Maid Creek Elementary, Maid Creek Junior,
and May Creek High School.
The fourth one is Katy High School and the Educational
Support Center.
Fifth one is Cinco Ranch Junior and Cinco Ranch High School.
And the sixth one is Taylor High School.
Additionally, Tompkins High School and other locations
may qualify and be added to the contract at a later date
once CenterPoint agrees that they have met the threshold.
Advantages to the interlocal agreement
include that all procurement requirements
requirements for competitive process have been met.
KDISD will be able to purchase natural gas at significantly reduced rates.
Program management responsibilities lie with the TGLO.
The program will integrate wireless telemetry into the district's metering system.
Program revenue is dedicated to the school children of Texas through the permanent school fund.
This agreement would go from July 1st, 2013 through July 20th, I mean July 30th, 2016.
The total savings anticipated is approximately $86,859, which is 29% per year for the natural
gas.
It includes a contract maintenance fee of .03 cents per MMBTU consumed by the eligible
district facilities in accordance with the state statutes.
That amount is estimated to be approximately $1,343 per year.
The district will incur a one-time cost of approximately $34,000 for the installation of telemetry as required by CenterPoint at the participating meters owned and maintained by CenterPoint.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve the interlocal agreement with the Texas General Land Office.
And tonight we have with us Mr. Stephen Schneider.
Right there.
He is the operations manager for the state energy marketing program.
And between the two of us, we would be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Huckabee?
Just a question.
Of the savings of the $86,000, does the one-time fee of $34,000 and the yearly cost of $1,343 come out of our $86,000?
or is that above and beyond that?
I believe it comes out the first year only.
Yes, sir.
The first year only will be where the $34,000 comes out,
and then after that it will not.
Okay.
President?
Mr. Mahalski?
So if I'm reading this correctly,
that's $86,000 per year over the three-year period of the life of the agreement, right?
Per year, yes.
So does that mean that our natural gas prices will be fixed during the entire term of this agreement?
They will not be fixed.
That's an approximate.
That's an approximate.
Yes, sir.
So it's basically an estimate.
Okay.
Thank you Mrs. McDonald. Thank you. Any objection to moving this to consent agenda?
Okay. Gentlemen, just a reminder, happy to put this on consent or not. If you have
any questions between now and next Monday when we vote on consent, please
submit your questions or call and get them answered so that we can avoid the
confusion of last month thanks item number five Tompkins high school
additional department staffing is that you mr. Fraley
madam president yes this is a previous you've approved the campus allocations
for all the schools and and they're in the process of hiring staff for those
these are department staffings that we've not brought that to you in total
yet but these positions that they need to begin hiring now to get the school
ready to open up and so that's why they're pulled out separately. These will be part of the
recommendation, well these are part of the recommendation, these are being pulled out in
advance of the overall department staffing plans. You can see
the list of positions that were needed including additional security officers
and police officers as well. And they want to get these positions
posted and hired over the summer so they can begin working. And I believe we're going to take occupancy
of Tompkins June 14th, Mr. Grinnell, is that correct?
Okay, so they'll need to, between now and then, try to get these positions filled as many as possible.
So these are mostly security officers, groundskeepers, custodians, food service?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, good.
Any questions about this?
Any objection to moving it to consent?
So moved.
Mr. Smith, you have number items 6 and 7.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Item six is the ratification of our participation in grant projects.
The district did apply for a grant.
We've not received this grant at this point.
I think the application was due a week or ten days ago and the application has been
sent in.
It is not an entitlement grant.
It is basically a competitive grant.
We've applied for this grant before and not received it, but it is the ING Unsung Heroes Awards Program.
And I believe the amount can be a maximum, in our case, of $27,000.
If received, funds would be used to, I mean, means junior high, to potentially purchase technology to compile a virtual choir.
And Bob Bryan, I said, what does that mean?
And he actually showed me, and it was pretty neat.
You could basically, when he showed me, they had people from all over the world on a screen that they had put together with software singing in a choir instead of all on one platform.
And I think this would be, if funded, would provide the software for them to do that and maybe have junior high choir virtual.
Again, not received, but applied for, and we would need, if we were awarded it, we would need you all to ratify our participation in it.
Any questions?
Okay.
And the next item is budget amendments.
Unlike last month, these are really just moving monies from one function to another.
There's no additional expenditures requested or projects being funded.
It's just moving kind of budget cleanup.
Any questions?
Any objection to moving items 6 and 7 to the consent agenda?
So moved.
Okay, thank you Mr. Smith. Well, it's very nice to have our police officers in the
audience with us this evening as we move to item number eight. Gentlemen, this is a
proclamation from the Board of Trustees
for Police Officer Appreciation Day 2013.
And we are asked to read this and vote on it this evening.
Madam President.
Mr. Michalski.
I move that the Board proclaim Wednesday, May 15, 2013,
as Police Officer Appreciation Day in KDISD,
along with the proclamation you are about to read.
I have a motion by Mr. Moholsky and a second by Mr. Adams that the board proclaim Wednesday, May 15, 2013 as Police Officer Appreciation Day in Katy ISD.
The proclamation reads, Police Officer Appreciation Day 2013, whereas students, staff, and parents have a right to a safe and secure learning environment free of crime and the fear of crime.
and whereas KDIC police officers are creative, forward-thinking, effective and
efficient workforce dedicated to raising their level of excellence to meet the
challenges of tomorrow. Whereas KDIC police officers are recognized as
leaders in campus public safety practices committed to integrity,
servants and excellence while supporting the diverse and dynamic campus
community's pursuit of academic goals. And whereas KDIC police officers
effectively and efficiently provide for the protection of lives and property,
preserve the public peace, and with the highest level of professionalism and
ethical standards, provide the central and campus administration specialized
services. Strengthening their ability to prepare students for the changes and
challenges of the future and whereas police officers pledge to protect and
serve even at the cost of their life and whereas police officers are
recognized for their service during the week of May 13, 2013. Therefore, the Katy
ISD Board of Trustees does hereby proclaim Wednesday, May 15, 2013 as Police
Officer Appreciation Day in Katy Independent School District. Signed this
13th day of May, 2013, Rebecca Fox, President, Katy ISD Board of Trustees.
All in favor? Raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Motion carries seven to zero. Congratulations. Thank you for the job you do for our students and our community. It's a pleasure to work with you.
Well, Mr. Fraley, I tried to drag it out to get to this report really, really, really late for our audience, but look, 7.30.
Well, they're anxious to go.
We're welcome to the teachers who are here, you all, and the department heads that are here.
And you all have looked over these instructional materials, and we thank you for your time, very much for your time,
and for what you do for our students every day, every day.
Love what you do.
And you're welcome back any time, but know that it's more generally much longer than this.
Hi, Dr. Caskey.
Welcome.
Good evening.
Good evening, President Fox, Board Members, and Mr. Fraley.
We're pleased to be here this evening to provide you with an update on our instructional materials allotment.
Specifically, what we're going to cover tonight is a textbook adoption.
We did have several textbooks that were up for adoption for implementation next year.
Not a large one, small ones, yet still important to us.
Also going to share with you our recommendations on technology and other supplemental materials
that will also come out of our instructional materials allotment, as well as the state-required
annual TEKS certification that we're required to do each year.
Just to highlight briefly, the instructional materials allotment was an outgrowth of the
2011 Texas legislature with the implementation of Senate Bill 6 to create a new instructional
materials allotment from the existing state textbook fund and also the
technology allotment fund and this fund gives districts the flexibility to
expend those funds on things on a broader range than just simply the
textbook so we have a lot more flexibility and how we spend those
monies we also receive our allotment based on a per pupil amount and we are
are closing out the first biennium, if you will,
of instructional materials.
It's kind of hard to believe that it's gone that fast.
So we are ending out our second year
and entering into our second biennium of this process.
Just to reiterate, in KDISD, our curriculum
does not rely solely on a textbook.
A textbook is one resource that our teachers use in order
to deliver our curriculum.
But our classrooms in KDISD are rich with technology,
with other printed materials, with literacy libraries, and lots and lots of
hands-on learning tools for our students within the classroom. So the textbook is
just one of those tools to assist teachers and students with the delivery
of curriculum. And Ms. Fox, you thanked the teachers for me, so thank you very much.
And once again, we do have some of our committee members here joining us this
evening, as well as Kathy Harder, who is our secondary science coordinator, and
Sally Farr, who's our secondary social studies coordinator. Again, we had four high school
subject areas that were up for adoption, and what I first want to do is go over, before
we actually get to the recommendations, is go over the timeline and the steps that we
followed during textbook selection process. In December, this board approved our selection
committees for textbooks for four textbook adoption committees. In January, I met with
with the parent roundtable group
and shared with the parent roundtable
which textbooks we had up for adoption.
We did solicit them to serve on those committees.
We had one interested person,
but unfortunately was not able to serve on those committees.
In February, there was a press release
that was sent out across the district
requesting public input on our textbooks up for adoption.
Our materials were on display here at the ESC.
Our coordinators hosted an evening to address questions
regarding our textbooks, so they did make themselves available to the public for that.
February through April, the committees worked diligently to review lots and lots of books
and instructional materials, and this evening we bring before you their recommendations.
We have the courses that were up for adoption were Earth, Space, Science,
which is one of our new science courses, which needed the materials and textbooks to go with it.
And the other three are AP texts, and those courses had changes with College Board and the curriculum.
So we had AP Chemistry, AP Macroeconomics, and then AP World History are the textbooks that we bring forward for your consideration this evening.
In addition to the traditional textbook, we do have a lot of materials that we are proposing that we implement for next year
from the instructional materials allotment.
I'm gonna start by saying that most of these things
are technology based.
Most of them are online subscriptions
or maintenance fees or renewals.
We also have some bilingual reading intervention materials,
science, pro-wear, and some teacher resources
to support reading and writing.
These are just kinda high level what they are,
and then we've also provided for you the detail of each of those actually those
are these slides so you can see very specifically what those proposed
purchases are taking a quick look at the budget we actually will be ending out
this school year with about 4.7 remember started 9.1 million so we'll be ending
out at the end of this school year with about 4.7 million and our expenditures
you can see here I've kind of chunked them together for textbook supplemental
materials materials for Tompkins High School and growth and so we have
proposed expenditures out of our IMA account totaling a little over 1.6
million leaving a remaining balance at 3.1 we will also be receiving our
additional IMA funds in September so to date we don't know what those are but
we'll be receiving those like I say in September I want to I'm sorry I'm
flipping around here a little bit my slides are a little bit out of order I
apologize this is not the right presentation there we go we're being
very conservative within our spending of IMA and that is because of the
proclamations that are coming up. We have not had a large proclamation over the
past two years but if you look here on this slide next year in 2014 we have two
actually three very large adoptions coming up. We have K through 12 science,
we have K through 8 math and our technology applications and then right
Right behind that in the year 2015, we have another large adoption coming up, social studies K through 12,
and then our high school math courses and all of our fine arts courses.
So we're being conservative, knowing that we have some really, really big adoptions coming up.
So we're going to be real busy over the next few years.
And then it slows down again in 2016 and 2017.
Not to say that those areas aren't as important, but they're not quite as large of an adoption that we have coming up.
The other piece, I apologize for this, this evening that we want to share with you is
our annual TEKS certification that we are required to submit to the State Board of Education
and also the commissioner that for each of our subjects that are taught in the foundation
curriculum that we are providing students with instructional materials that are covering
the Texas essential knowledge and skills.
materials. And as far as next steps, there are several next steps that we have. One is
to revise our administrative regulations according to the newly adopted policy, EFAA, that the
Board approved at your last Board meeting. Also, we will be busy upon your approval,
hopefully next Monday, ordering, disseminating, and conducting training for new instructional
instructional materials and then it's time for us to get busy on that proclamation 2014
and implementing those processes so that students have the materials that they need for those
upcoming proclamations. I'm here to respond to any questions that you may have. Dr. Kasky.
Sorry, I'll take a first turn. These instructional materials, when they're in the form of a textbook,
Do those stay primarily in the classroom and then the children have them at home, an online
resource at home?
Or do they still do textbooks at school and at home?
How does that work these days?
We're moving more to a classroom set of textbooks.
Now these textbooks that you saw tonight are advanced placement textbooks.
And so for our advanced placement textbooks it was decided that it was important for the
students to have a copy.
And I know I kind of went through that slide quickly, but all four of the textbooks that
that we bring before you this evening
also have online resources.
One of them, I believe, the AP Economics book
has essentially like a hybrid online course
that comes with it, where the students can actually
go online and get assistance.
There are tutorials, there are videos.
It's getting so much more robust
than just having that PDF of a textbook online.
And the publishers are pretty wise
at what they're putting out there.
But all of these textbooks that we bring before you
this evening do have online resources.
Mr. Griffin had his hand up right when I did, and I'll move this way around.
Mr. Huckabee, you'll be next.
Does the district, I know this is kind of a little bit different than the specific books
we're talking about today, but does the district approve the textbooks that are used in the
dual credit program?
No, sir.
Okay, thank you.
Yes.
Yes. On the science adoption, how long of an adoption is that going to be?
I mean, I know ours prior to this was a 10-year adoption.
And as we know, the biennium changes every two years.
When you're stuck with a 10-year textbook and it changes every two years,
depending upon what new thing the curriculum does or whatever,
like for us, the book became unusable.
And we just started doing everything without it.
how long is this adoption going to be or what's the proposed length I guess?
Again these aren't courses in the foundation curriculum they're elective
courses I'll have to look to my site. Kathy do we know how long we're
anticipating that? Six? Six okay. Thanks. Much better than ten. Who reviews the
online resources? So you've reviewed all the online resources as well as the
textbooks since you were talking about how robust they are.
Dr. Cash, you may want to repeat that again.
We were going to online access, so teachers can go online and review these materials in
advance.
Sally, you want to come up here so they can hear on the mic?
Thanks.
Are there either one?
The publishers gave us online access and the teachers were able to go online and check
out what was there and they were very impressed.
In relation to that, are you aware of the State Board of Education, did they review
these things as well?
That was in the past.
These are AP courses and they do not review AP books.
What we did do is we went to the college board and they have an online forum where they review
textbooks and we relied on their reviews and then we reviewed them ourselves.
Thank you.
Maybe you should stay right there.
Mr. Adams.
Dr. Caskey, in terms of cost here, textbooks at $506,000, tell me when the state provides
provides the cost of the textbook, will pay the cost of the textbooks, and KDISD is responsible for the cost of the textbooks.
Well, in the prior, before IMA, we would order the textbooks from the state, but now with the IMA, we control that fund.
And so what it, our account kind of resides at TEA, if you will, and they draw down off of our account.
That's what I was looking for. Thank you.
Okay.
Dr. Proctor?
On the online subscriptions, and this falls up on Henry's question, social studies resources, science resources, are those enumerated what resources we use online?
If you click through your presentation, there's actually the fine line detail.
It looks like this.
There's two slides that tells you exactly what those things are.
For example, discovery education is an online renewal.
STEM Scopes is something we use in biology as an online subscription.
I tried to give you the high-level picture of those for the presentation,
but I've also included here for your reference, every single one of those has been delineated.
Okay.
Okay. Second part of the question, the 2015 adoption for social studies, those are the new social studies standards that were adopted two years ago?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
It appears we've been pretty judicious with our funds on the IMA, and you gave the reasons why.
Do we know, do you remember what the amount for the 2011 to 13 biennium was in our IMA
fund?
It was 9.1.
Okay.
Now the state releases 60% of that within the first year and then they release the other
40%.
Okay.
That's good.
Is that calculated on a per student basis or they use some other, I mean statewide?
Is that how the district gets their allocation?
Yes, sir.
And we did receive about a half a million dollar increase last year because of our increased
enrollment so is it so we do have a chance to put in for that and apply for
additional funds based on our student enrollment increasing so is it
reasonable to assume I wouldn't say safe but reasonable to assume that more than
likely the next biennium is should have at least some increase for growth that
for no other reason we've had no hint I don't think mr. Moore has I don't Nikia
is attended all of those meetings and I asked that same question over and over
every time they go to a meeting is it going to be about the same it's going to
to be about the same and we just there's no reason to think that they wouldn't
that's why I said reasonable one comment there has been some conversation I know
through the fast growth school coalition of trying to get additional materials
if you're in a fast growth district now that has not been deemed successful yet
when will we know the number when they approve the budget and the state
generally approves the budget when May 27th I would guess or shortly there
before any other questions mr. DeBrow do you have a percentage for us how many
class how many classrooms on a classroom set versus every child having their own
book well you know right now as you saw every proclamation is at a different
state in adoption so it would probably depend upon the grade level it would
depend upon the subject area that we're talking about and as we look to
implement proclamation in 2014 you'll probably see a lot more class sets going
in sometimes right now the principals will call the warehouse and say my
teachers have decided to go to class that's even with some of our older
adoptions and so we'll have surplus textbooks so it's it's um you have a
ballpark figure mom now we have thousands and thousands of textbooks no
lots of courses when you look at K through 12 any other questions about
instructional materials okay Thank You dr. Caskey thank you all for being here
that was painless right okay well for future meetings Monday May 20th so we
have a regular board meeting and then we will conclude and reopen with a special
board meeting hearing no further business 748 this meeting is adjourned
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