The board will now convene an open meeting. Today is Monday, December 9, 2013, and the time is 6.55 p.m.
Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, December 9, 2013
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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 the notice for this meeting?
Madam President, we are in compliance.
The first item is lease agreement between Katy ISD and Willow Fork Drainage District.
Madam President.
Mr. DeBrell.
I move that the Board approves the first amendment to the lease agreement between Katy Independent School District and the Willow Fork Drainage District.
Second.
A motion by Henry DeBrell, a second by Bill Proctor that the Board approves the first amendment to the lease agreement between Katy Independent School District and Willow Fork Drainage District.
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
this time is the personnel report matter president mr. Griffin I move that the
board approves the personnel report is recommended by the superintendent a
motion by mr. Griffin a second by mr. Adams that the board approves the
personnel report is recommended by the superintendent any discussion hearing
none will proceed to vote all in favor raise your right hand and say aye all
Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Do we have any scouts in the audience with us this evening? Earning a badge? No? Okay. At this time we will move to our public hearing.
President, if Ms. Schneider comes forward, this is required. I know she'll look behind me. Go on the highly qualified teacher report. So, Ms. Schneider will present that this evening.
Good evening, Mr. Schneider. Welcome.
Chair Greg Musil. Good evening, President Fox, Mr. Fraley, and board members. Annually,
since 2002-3, I guess it was the year the federal government and NCLB required that
we have a highly qualified teacher report made open and available in public hearing,
and this is that so in five six this is when you had to have a in 2005 six when
you had to have a hundred percent or if you did not you had to put in your
action plan on how you were going to get there special education teachers were
added at that time this document continues to evolve they add categories
as we have categories in different classes in education.
To meet highly qualified status, you
don't need just Texas state certification.
You also have to have the other requirements, which
is, of course, a bachelor's degree.
And you have to demonstrate competency in the area
that you're teaching, as well as a pedagogy test.
And it also includes college hours,
As far as professional development, years of experience, there are other ways that you
can become highly qualified.
Of course, just because you have state teacher certification, it does not automatically mean
you're highly qualified, especially for teachers that have more years of experience.
In recent times, they've updated state certifications to meet those guidelines, but if you were
were certified years ago with a lifetime certificate,
you can be at risk.
Teachers who are allowed to teach certain courses under
state certification and assignment rules,
they may not meet the federal definition.
And CTE classes, fine arts, and science credits
must have highly qualified status in two different areas.
These are the core areas that they
ask for for highly qualified teacher status to be verified.
As you see, it pretty much covers almost everything we do.
In 13-14, the actual compliance report was due November 15th.
They extended that date to the 19th.
The schools were running behind.
We got ours in on time before the 15th.
And this is based on where you were by September 16th at the beginning of the year.
It isn't based on where you are as of today because we've had some teachers that have
accomplished becoming highly qualified but we're not at on September 16th but
they are now this chart shows you the evolution or how we've progressed in
Katie ISD from 2002 3 to now they're current in the 1314 school year there
are eight thousand seven hundred and eighty six classes or periods that we
report on. So almost 9,000 classes that are analyzed to see if they're being
taught by highly qualified teachers. That's a lot of classes. There are
currently seven teachers that we found were not meeting highly
qualified status but some of them have already accomplished those. Now by that
that's a period that they may not be meeting.
They may have one or two classes that are out
of their certification field.
They are six different campuses.
And one of those, as I said, has already achieved it.
Part of the process is at that point,
we will have a meeting with the federal programs, myself,
director, myself, and the campus principals from those five
or six campuses.
and they put in their campus improvement plan and action plan to get those teachers highly qualified on a certain deadline or timeline.
It includes professional development that goes with it.
These are the special education classes.
We currently just have one campus that has two, actually two history and two science classes that have a teacher in it,
a special ed teacher, but they're not under the terms of highly qualified qualified.
qualified. But in the addition of the growth units that you've had, we're going to be able
to make some switches and hire and cover that for second semester. So we should have that
one addressed. This is really the same report, just shown in a different view. Instead of
by periods or by classes, it's by the number of teachers that we have, 99.78. There are
are just seven teachers that are under that that aren't meeting the HQ standards.
And then special education is 99.48.
And I described that from the situation we had at one campus.
It would be fixed and make that 100%.
We have, of course, our professional development
helps them all meet the standard to have the 100% compliance.
and basically what happens now is what I kind of just described earlier for the
teachers who aren't meeting it they have to have an individual plan set up for
them and it's also in corporate incorporated on a data analysis that we
do regarding teacher experience and in making sure that they're set up for the
future to achieve that or be reassigned or lose their job depending on certification
there's another piece to this that isn't being required at the present moment by tea it's under
review and that's the poverty low high low mine high and low minority comparison in a district
tea still reviewing that they have not in the past they've required that it sounds like it's
something that either they're changing they're not sure what they're going to change it to or they're
going to remove completely. But we should be okay even in that because a lot of our
of the six classes or teachers that we have, most of those are on the south side and not
the north side or any different high minority or low minority campuses. We balance pretty
well there. And again, this is due the final compliance part is due December 16th. That
on regarding the six or seven action plans that we need to put in for
individual teachers and incorporating them in the campus improvement plan and
then they take a snapshot, TEA does throughout the year. Other than that
that's our present. Mr. Snider I believe it's correct that parents notified if
their child's teacher does not have that highly qualified recognized status even
even though they really are capable of doing the instruction.
Absolutely.
There's a letter sent out to those parents when we find that compliance.
Do you have any requests from parents to have their child moved out of a class?
I know we've not had one before you got here, and has it started?
No, sir, has not, to my knowledge.
Mr. Griffin?
Mr. Snyder, do long-term subs, are they held accountable to the HQ standard?
Yes, they are.
Okay.
So they're figured out in all this data as well.
Do you have a number of teachers? You said about 9,000 classes and we have six or seven teachers.
Do you know how many teachers that is in those 9,000 classes?
Do you know that number offhand, Will? I don't.
I'm going to estimate somewhere in the upper 4,000s of total teachers that we have. Is that what you're asking?
No, I'm, yeah, that's possibly it. Thanks.
We have seven.
Of those 4,000, we have seven who still need a requirement here and there.
And this highly qualified status is not something just simple to do.
Is it a difficult requirement?
It depends on the field.
For example, you might be a fine arts teacher that has several different subjects,
and it's a little harder to achieve.
If you're an elementary teacher, your certification is pretty EC through four and whatever the state requires and meets that guideline.
So it can be complicated within itself.
It's a lot more complicated and difficult for secondary education students.
For teachers that teach more than one prep.
Yes, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am.
And as many of you know, sometimes we create a class and it doesn't make, but the teacher of record with that class still is held to the highly qualified status.
status. So, and the flexibility within the high school with the different periods and
different subjects that may be taught, that can be harder to make work.
That's more clarifying. Thank you very much. Any other questions, board members? Thank
you, Mr. Schneider, for your report. Thank you.
We did not have any person sign up for the public hearing of this.
Because there are no speakers, this public hearing is now closed,
and we will move on to the consent agenda. First up Mr. McIlwain.
Good evening President Falk, Board Member, Superintendent Fraley. This item is
associated with elementary schools number 36 and 37. As you know those
projects are are into construction. 36 being located on Pine Mill Ranch Drive
and 37 on Flewell and Oaks Lane. This particular item accompanies every new
construction project. You've seen this item before with respect to air testing and balancing
which is required once the HVAC systems are started to be installed into the particular
campuses. We are recommending Engineered Air Balance Company to complete this work. The
funding for this work is already, has been approved by the board as part of the total
approved project cost. The amount the total amount for both campuses $169,550.
With approval of this particular item we'll be able to start this testing and
balancing work when the HVAC equipment is installed early in the new year.
Any questions? Thank you Mr. McIlwain. Our next item is for the proposal for dining
in and catering services hi mrs. Stevenson mr. McMeese how are you this
evening
good evening president Fox superintendent Frehley members the board
I've brought four contracts forward for your consideration this evening.
The first one is for dine-in and catering services.
This is for the types of food products that are brought in for meetings, in services,
that type of thing.
It is a one-year contract with an option for two additional one-year renewals.
We anticipate about $100,000 spent district-wide on this particular contract.
It is the recommendation is to award to all the, excuse me, all the restaurants that submitted.
They all met the qualifications to be a vendor for KDISD after review.
And the annual expenditures are estimated to be $100,000.
And the funding is coming from the general operating fund and or special revenue funds.
Go right ahead.
The second contract I have is for baseball and softball equipment, supplies and apparel.
This particular contract was developed by finding the eight most commonly used items
throughout the district.
These were the ones that each of the campuses could agree would be used in each program
and we got pricing on those items district wide.
The rest of the items or the rest of the contract will be done on a cost comparison type basis
where the coaches will get competitive quotes from among the vendors.
For purchases over $1,000, competitive quotes must be obtained from at least three awarded vendors.
We do encourage them to do that no matter what the amount of the expenditure.
The last section was for a discount on each brand of apparel that the district campuses prefer.
And for any apparel expenditures, we will ask that they get three competitive quotes.
And with this process, we are always assured of getting best value.
This also is a one-year contract with an option for two additional one-year renewals.
And the estimated expenditures will be $100,000.
And it is a one-year contract with two additional one-year renewals.
The source of funding is the general operating funds, indoor special revenue funds.
Any questions?
Thank you very much for your presentation.
Okay, I have two more.
Okay, the next contract I have is a proposal for school bus air conditioning.
I have a number of resources with me for any questions on this particular contract because it is a large one.
The proposal specifications were developed by the district's transportation department,
who also reviewed all of the proposals that were received.
And, of course, we had Mr. McMeans assisting us in this evaluation.
evaluation. We included specifications for all the route buses and as we were looking at the proposals coming in, we disqualified many of them because they did not meet the State of Texas requirements for certified bus air conditioning systems. So after review and looking at all the proposals that were there and the recommendation is to award to Longhorn Bus Services and the total cost will be $1,000,000.
$292,189.18. Now this will provide air conditioning for 134 international buses, which will serve
a great number of our bus fleet and the routes that are in service. We will look again at
retrofitting the balance of the buses, the other 69 when additional funding is identified
identified at a later date. The pricing will be firm for one year, although, and that's
just in case there is any unanticipated developments. We do expect all of this work, though, for
the buses that we have scheduled to be done by August of 2014. Again, the source of funding
for this is the General Operating Fund Indoor Special Revenue Funds.
Mr. President.
Ms. And again, I have a number of resources here.
Mr. President.
Mr. President, one of the issues, the bids came in a little bit higher than what
what we had anticipated them coming in at.
So we'll have 69 buses that still will need to be retrofitted,
and so we'll be coming back with a budget amendment to go ahead and get those funds allocated
so we can get those back so we can get those online as well.
That was going to be my question.
Who gets one and who doesn't?
Or are we going to get bus drivers?
Mr. McMeans?
I was going to add a couple of additional statements as well.
well. At this time, we're not planning on necessarily retrofitting all of our existing
route buses at this time. The plans that you have before you is really we're looking at
all the buses that are purchased in 2004 or later. We have buses in 2003, 2002, and 2001
that we were not planning on retrofitting at this time. They have a relatively, or they
They actually have a very short use for route life, so we don't think it would be prudent
for us to use those buses.
They'll go into our reserve fleet.
Having said that, though, all of our new bus standards include air conditioning for all
of our regular ed buses.
For example, the 13 buses or so that we've ordered this fall that we either have received
or are in the process of receiving will have air conditioning installed on them.
So then over time, all of our route buses will be air conditioned.
And as Mr. Fraley said, because the bids are coming in higher than what we thought,
we do expect to bring back a budget amendment before you.
Additionally, we may bid out portions of this contract as well just to make sure that we get the type of bus that we want
and that also that those vendors out there are able to provide us the state-required certification
that the state specifications can be met on that temperature cool down requirements.
And again, reiterate that our goal and what we presented to the Board was to have all of our route buses
within a reasonable period of time out retrofitted or there's new ones coming in purchased.
And some of those that are the can that Mr. Connell likes to park by my car that are about to fall apart,
to encourage me to support funding for them, we'll be looking at funding to make sure that
Those that we are ready to kind of put out to pasture are replaced and retrofitted.
Madam President.
I appreciate what you said, Mr. McMeans, about not installing an air conditioner on a bus with a short life left.
I appreciate the attention there to our fiscal responsibility.
That's a very good thought.
Unfortunately, that's only about 30 of the 230-plus route buses we have out there right now.
No, that's not unfortunate.
That's a good thing that we have a lot of life left in those.
Mr. Griffin, you have a question?
Now that you're doing the retrofit on the air conditioners,
do they do a pretty good job of distributing the cold air, or is it?
Well, we've not yet really had the opportunity to put these on the road yet in high-temperature conditions.
However, I will say this, Mr. Griffin, the state specifications require,
to meet the state air conditioning specifications,
It requires the bus to be brought up to a temperature that exceeds 100, 110 minutes,
110 degrees for, I think, a two-hour period as well.
And then the air conditioning that's installed, the system must bring the temperature down 30 degrees
within 30 minutes as well.
And so the systems we are purchasing are capable, have to be capable to meet that.
So, yes, sir, we full well expect that they will.
Now on our transit buses, and Mr. Anders was showing me one of our transit buses that we just received within the last two weeks or so,
our air conditioners that we requested are bulk mounted. They mount on the front and the rear of the bus as well.
But for our transit buses, we also need a drop down unit in the middle to help distribute a little bit more air there as well.
Both he and I have climbed on them, and you've got more room in these buses with that drop down unit,
unit, which only covers about three seats,
than you do in a passenger airplane.
So we would prefer not to have a drop down unit,
but on the transit buses, you have to.
We like the passenger airplane connection with Mr. Griffin.
That was not intended.
Let's pretend like it was.
Is there more room between your seats?
And these come with guarantees and warranties and a?
Two year warranty, parts and labor.
OK.
Any other questions? Do you have any more for us, Mrs. Stevenson?
One more.
Sorry, I'm not trying to rush you off. I acted like last time. What's the last one?
That's all right.
The last proposal I have for your consideration is the Water and Sewer Treatment Plan Operations Services.
This is for the Water and Sewer Treatment Plan at the Maid Creek location,
as well as the water well at the district's Ag Center,
and the grease trap inspections that are required at Wolf Elementary School.
The proposals were received and reviewed by Peggy Caruso in maintenance as well as the purchasing department.
We looked at all the basic criteria which included price and service quality and past performance.
The recommendation is to award to Severn Trent Environmental Services.
They've done this particular service for us for a number of years very successfully.
This will be a one-year contract with an option for four additional one-year renewals
because of the amount of time it takes to set up service and have everything running smoothly.
The expenditures for water and sewer treatment plant operation are expected to be around $79,000 per operational year,
and district expenditures will be funded from the General Operating Fund and or special revenue funds.
Any questions?
I don't believe we do.
Thank you so much for being here.
here. Our next discussion action item is the discussion about the attendance boundary modifications
associated with elementaries number 36 and number 37. Mr. Ganell, good evening.
Thank you, President Fox. Good evening, Superintendent Fraley and trustees.
Let's see, in front of you, you should have a little blue binder, and I put in a copy of the
the PowerPoint slides as well as the speaker notes that we'll be using over the course
of this evening.
And should I misspeak?
At least you have in the notebook what I meant to say.
Okay.
This presentation is a follow-up to last month's presentation on attendance boundary modification
and also October's annual demographic report.
Tonight I will be assisted by Steve Stanford, the district's communication director, and
Dr. Chris Poole from the state's biggest demographic firm that focuses on K-12.
Population and survey analysts, or PASA, have been our consultants for many years.
Also assisting as needed, particularly with any Q&A, will be Peter McElwain, our district architect and planner,
and Scott Dunlap, our emergency management coordinator, our resident demographic resource who has worked to tend his boundaries for decades.
So thank you all for being here and Scott you just do a bang-up job on this.
Our presentation goals for today are to present a very short summary of growth within KDISD.
A very detailed presentation was provided in October and can be accessed through our
website.
I will also touch on our process and timelines before Steve Stanford reports on the attendance
boundary modification feedback.
And lastly, Dr. Chris Poole will close with a look at the attendance boundary recommendation.
recommendation
In October passive provided projections for the district that shows continued growth much of the future growth is shifting north of I-10
You can see here that the moderate growth projections, which are the projections we use for planning
Which pushes our enrollment to over 80,000 students in five years and we are knocking on the door of having a hundred thousand students in
ten years our
enrollment climbed to over 67
67,000 students in November on
On average, there are projected to be about 4,000 new housing occupancies each year over the next 10 years within our district boundaries.
That totals about 39,000 new occupancies.
39,000 new occupancies over the next decade.
We are projecting that in 2023, we will have about 136,000 housing units of those 79% single family and 21% multifamily.
This map shows projected new occupancies by a land use zone.
red is the largest number of new occupancies and here the red is indicated by more than over 605
years although if you take a look at places like cross creek ranch you see that number comes almost
2 000. you can see that the fastest growth over the next five years is south or along i-10 the
most rapid growth in the district is projected to be in cross creek ranch and synchro northwest
looking a little further out six to ten years from now you will notice that the northern part
of the district looks like we have been used to seeing in the southwest quadrant of the district
over the last 10 years kda isd continues to be a destination location because of its great schools
proximity to jobs and with the opening of grand parkway north significantly improved mobility
let's move on to attendance boundary modifications or as we call it abm for shorthand
This slide summarizes the process for this year's ABM.
PASA and KDISD administration jointly developed the options you will see tonight.
Board meetings are held, including tonight, to discuss the options, which will be publicized through a variety of mediums.
And tonight we bring the final boundary recommendation to the board.
As far as the schedule goes, in October we did the demographic update.
In November, I provided the preliminary recommendation to the board. The following
day for two weeks we did ABM public feedback. That will be reported on
shortly and tonight again we bring the recommendation to the board. There are
many milestones dependent on the ABM decision. This includes meeting with
stakeholders, selecting a school name and a mascot, and most importantly on this
slide the beginning of the staffing process. It is now my privilege to turn
the microphone over to Steve Stanford our director of communications take it
away Steve thank you please excuse me if I start calling out student names it's
kind of a habit when I'm up here I'll pick easy ones that I can pronounce though Smith and Jones good evening
madam president board members and superintendent Fraley the communication
strategy we developed in our department included a news release launching an ABM
website providing written correspondence those families that may be impacted and
ABM survey before I get to the feedback I'd like to quickly summarize our
communications we started with a news release on passes demographic study
issued to local media and issued on the November excuse me in the November 5th
Katie ISD update e-newsletter the same was done following passes recommendation
for the ABM at the November 18th board meeting immediately after the meeting on
On November 18th, we updated the ABM webpage with a map featuring the recommended ABM from
that evening and information about the feedback mechanisms.
Then on November 21st, an ABM informational survey was distributed to parents via email
and posted on our website.
On November 22nd, another letter went home that was supplied by the communications department
to the campus principals there in the southwest quadrant, also letting them know about the
ABM.
And then we also provided print communications to the impacted HOA representatives and the Katy Area Realtors Association representative.
On 25th, there was an article in the Katy ISD update about the ABM.
And then looking forward on December 17th after the next board meeting, we will update the webpage to reflect what is approved.
And then we will also be notifying parents at the school's impact of the choices that are made by the board.
Again, our district ABM website was accessible beginning November 19th, and in the last couple
of years, as you know, website surveys and input have provided the bulk of our feedback
from the public.
So what kind of response did we get?
For starters, we received more than 7,000 responses through the survey, which is an
anonymous online survey that we provided a link to via email and made publicly accessible
via the website.
Should we know that the unique link to the survey provided parents via email was allowed
for only one response. More than 98% of the responses came from this email link.
To put this into perspective, if you go back to two years ago and you combine
all the responses from the two surveys and two public forums for the four
schools that rezoned at that time, it was about 3,000 individual inputs and as you
can see we far exceeded that number. We are a phone line, received about 15 calls,
mostly concerned about capacity at Stanley and finally we received 33 emails
through our communications email address, which also primarily focused on Stanley's capacity.
I'd like to add that based on reviewing the inputs from the phone line email as well as the survey,
they seem to be reinforcements and a lot of overlap on those comments.
I'm going to take a few minutes to go over some of the key findings from the survey.
I'd like to note that all the survey results will be publicly available on our ABM webpage tomorrow morning.
One of the first questions on the survey was, please select the region of the district in
which you reside.
As you can see, 7,276 participants responded to that question.
Of those who responded, 46% indicated they live in the southwest quadrant, 34% in the
southeast, 11% in the northeast, and 8% in the northwest.
This question measures whether the respondent student had been impacted previously by an
ABM.
Out of the 7,180 participants that responded to this question, 78% indicated their child
or children have never been impacted by an ABM.
This next chart looks at this very same question but shows responses from Stanley, Schaefer,
Wollman, and Wood Creek in particular.
Here we see that the numbers for those impacted by an ABM previously are 99 from Stanley,
family, 99 from Schaefer, 69 from Wollman, and 60 from Wood Creek, which equates to about
4.5% of the 22% who said they had been impacted by an ABM in the past.
Those 1,542 respondents that indicated that they had been impacted by an ABM in previous
years were also asked to rate their child's experience in his or her new school.
50% of these respondents said that their child's experience in his or her new school was positive,
35% neutral, and only 15% negative.
Another question addressed participants who live in the Southwest Quadrant, their perceived
impact of the proposed ABM.
A link to information about the proposed ABM and the ABM map was provided to the respondent
prior to them reading this question.
As you can see in this bar chart, 84% of the 3,300 respondents who live in the Southwest
Quadrant that answered this question expressed that they believed the proposed ABM would
have no impact on the child's commute to school.
We also asked participants who live in the southwest quadrant of the district if they
support modifying the attendance boundaries in the southwest quadrant to address student
enrollment growth and provide campus relief.
2,452, or 74%, said they supported ABM.
695, or 21%, were unsure.
And 166, or 5%, said they did not support an ABM.
Again, this chart looks at the same question, but shows responses from Stanley, Schaefer,
Wollman, and Woodcreek in particular.
Again, participants were asked to respond to this question only after having reviewed
the passive recommended ABM.
Of the 166 respondents that said they do not support the recommended ABM, 12 were from
Wollman, 11 from Woodcreek, 5 from Schaefer, and 20 from Stanley.
Finally, we asked those participants from the Southwest Quadrant that said they do not
support the recommended ABM to tell us their reasons for not supporting it.
Again, this is 168 respondents out of more than 300, excuse me, 3,300.
Please note that participants were able to select more than one response.
Most respondents indicated they were concerned about their child adjusting to a new school,
40% or 67 individuals.
individuals. Academic and extracurricular options at the new school, 38% or 64 individuals.
Future schools and boundary changes, 36% or 60 individuals. Proximity to school, 26% or
44 individuals. And then feeder patterns, 23% or 39 individuals. Again, the complete
survey results will be available on our website tomorrow morning.
Okay, that brings us forward to the actual recommendation.
So I'm going to ask Dr. Chris Poole to come up here and walk us through what that recommendation
is.
Okay, and most of this is a good deal of review from last time, and so just let me know if
we're going too fast.
I know we were going a little fast last time.
As we did in the last ABM, we were asked to develop a recommendation for tenant zones
for the opening of these two new facilities.
We've been assessing these possibilities for several months now, but we waited to see the
final numbers here that we presented to you all in October before we finalized our decisions.
We began the process by looking at the minimum amount of stuff that we could do to open these
new schools.
We wanted to open these schools with appropriate levels of utilization, but kind of try to
do as little change as possible.
This area has been affected by numerous zoning efforts in the last decade, and we try to
provide as much stability as possible given the enormous amount of growth that has occurred
in the Southwest.
west you guys know this we also looked at junior high school feeder patterns and we try to avoid
splintering off small pieces of the elementary schools as they feed into the junior highs if
that's possible we started by using the laney zones that were immediately surrounding the
school sites to fill the schools and for elementary school number 36 in the pine mill development that
included laney's in 67d and 67f from woolman and 67c from wood creek for elementary school number
37 in cross creek ranch that included 73a which is that cross that large cross creek ranch lane
newson along with 73b in this particular situation using those that minimal impact we open both those
schools below capacity it does not impact the 52c area that would be affected with the opening of
the next elementary school in the area laney's on 73b we noted could either go to cross creek
the school at Cross Creek Ranch or the school at Pine Mill Ranch because of the way that it was located.
It could go to 37 or 36.
73B is currently at Woolman.
We opted initially to put it in number 36 because it better balanced the enrollments between the two schools in 2014.
We could have moved Laney's own 67A and 67E to number 37 for proximity reasons,
reasons, but the combination is expected to contain more than 400 students in 2014 and
2016 and that would overburden number 36.
Stanley, and to a lesser extent, Rylander are both still projected to exceed capacity
with our real possibility for relief from new facilities and Wollman would be temporarily
overburdened but would receive relief with the opening of a new school in Laney Zone
52C in the future.
To address the question of slivers or splinters, we then overlay the junior high school attendance
zones there in the black line.
And while Woman, Wood Creek, and Elementary School number 36 in Pine Mill Ranch all sit
safely inside the Wood Creek Junior High attendance zone, it quickly became apparent where 73B
should go.
It did not need to attend Elementary School number 37 in the Cross Creek Ranch development
as Cross Creek Ranch subdivision attends Seven Lakes junior high so this showed
that 73 B would be split out from the remainder of Seven Lakes junior high and
73 B is projected to contain 87 elementary students in 2014 and fewer
than 200 at build out so this is what we're looking at moving around so this
slide reflects 73 B 73 B moving to elementary school number 36 there at
at Pine Mill.
You can see the enrollments have changed just a tad there.
This would alleviate the feeder concerns.
And then both 36 and 37 would still be well utilized to open.
And Wollman then is projected, though,
to exceed 1,600 students in the fall of 2016.
And so that was our next thing to look at.
So we began looking at possibilities of relief
for Wollman to see if we could make a viable change
during this current rezoning effort. So in order to address the expected
crowding at Woolman, a short-term change we looked at would be to move a new 52D
to Wood Creek and if this is done we might consider doing that now, doing
it in January to ensure that anybody that moves into 52D doesn't go from
Woolman to Wood Creek and they instead go directly to Wood Creek. We carved out
when we carved up 52c and 52d we looked at sections 9a through 17 of that Cinco Northwest area hoping
to capture vacant land but just to ensure that we don't move kids from one to the other for no
reason we're hoping that maybe that could be done sooner rather than later.
And like I said this moves 9a to 9a through 17 sections 9a through 17 from Cinco Northwest to
Wood Creek and they're currently unoccupied but they build so quickly in KDISD and so we wouldn't
want them to move from Woolman to Wood Creek. The drawback to this is that we would like to move a
few more kids out of Woolman but because that is building out there's nobody there to start with
and so you know we couldn't move as many kids as maybe we would have liked to but it does
provide some relief to Woolman. And so then this would recommend this would reflect our recommended
attendant zone boundary modifications there for 36 and for 37.
Any questions?
We can go back to the slide here.
President.
Dr. Proctor.
Is 73B fairly built out with houses?
73.
Because, you know, it's in the north part of Cross Creek.
It's a separate piece. I can look up and see how many homes we projected in that area.
Bayland New Zone represents Churchill Farms across the street from Cardiff Ranch and it is not completely built out yet.
and Chris is going to see if she can dig those numbers. Yeah what I'm interested
in is what's the potential in that particular area you know is it quarter
built out, half built out. We've got 400 homes still to build out. What? We've got 400 homes still to build out so it's quite a few. But those should be taken into account in these projections. 400 left and how many are there?
there already 570 lots we had in September 13 we had 138 occupied 19
available 98 under construction and 174 developed lots so it's going to grow by
2 thirds it's going to grow but you've taken those numbers into account for
We have a ratio applied for that particular development based on what's there right now
and tweaking that a little bit of a .51 students per house.
And then approximately half of that would be elementary students.
That .51 is E12.
12. Thank you.
Mr. President.
Mr. Moholsky.
Ms. 52D,
are there currently any homes in there right
now? It looks...
52D, that is
a part that we carved out.
And I think we've got some streets and some slabs
I was working on it right now, but we tried to go in and carve out where we didn't have kids.
Right.
So whether they'll manage to enroll by March, you know, we're a little uncertain about,
and so that's what we're talking about, maybe making that one move now to ensure that they don't have to move twice.
That's part of Cinco Northwest, right?
Sections 9A through 17.
So where you're splitting that 52C, and the 52C is being developed right now, 52D.
And it is sections of Cinco, yes.
Yes, it's at Cinco Northwest.
But the idea was to try to provide relief now, knowing that in 52D,
those two sections will probably come together when that new school is built in 52D.
That purple spot there is a future elementary school in 52D, right?
Yes.
And just to make sure that we're clear,
our intent would be if the board approves the attendance boundary on next Monday
is to immediately cut that land use zone for planning purposes
and split it so right now you don't have one that's labeled D so we would do that
immediately and shift whoever moves there over the next few months next six
months to Wood Creek
any other questions my president mr. Huckabee on the on the Schaefer numbers
that we have there and then with the heavy Stanley numbers has anyone
contemplated looking at possibly open the enrollment between those two to
allow some movement since we're mr. Huckabee we're gonna hear that presentation just
right next hold that question hold that question
that's the next thing after this tab right here in our blue folder the let me
me ask one question first where is Avalon at Pine Mill which section it's
in 67 e you see that right under the K and Kilpatrick thank you
Tompkins High School is right under the K and I wanted to once again say how
much I appreciate your attention to so much detail and your attention to the
the feeder patterns and the importance of that for our boys and girls going to junior high.
That 73B may look like an odd cut,
but the importance of those boys and girls going to junior high together is, you know,
something very important to us.
Who had a question?
Mr. Huckabee, go right ahead.
The other night when we talked, we also talked about we were going to make this change
and then possibly in another couple of years have another change.
after we did look we're going to look over the whole area I guess is that
we're still looking at that kind of plan or I believe we have another
presentation that's going to be one of the one of the discussion points coming
right next to dr. Proctor can go back to the slide and I don't know where it is
here which shows the feeder patterns for the junior high school deficit well it's
the black line there the black line is the junior high schools okay so with
with with these elementary numbers Wood Creek would be at what would Wood Creek
junior high be at with these up with the new 36 in its feeder pattern I think we
showed that you know maybe during the demographic update and you're asking for
junior high numbers at Wood Creek yeah because it would create pretty crowd
right I think it topped out that over 2000 maybe 21 and change so 36 would
exacerbate that problem the the relief for for that entire area would come with
with the building of one of two junior highs,
the first one probably being in Hawks Landing,
which is just pretty much next to Tompkins High School.
That's kind of where I was going in this whole thing,
and not to get into junior highs tonight.
What land use zone is that Hawks Landing
that you're talking about?
is that 67 a Scott yep 67 a okay thank you no further questions let's move on
to our next present thank you very much that's a great presentation we'll move
into our next presentation we don't get the next one I think we get a pause
between the two sorry I turned to the tab budget amendments are next okay hang
on. Good evening Mr. Smith, how are you? Wonderful Ms. Fox. Good evening Ms. Fox, Mr. Fraley and the board.
Please present the December 13th budget amendments to you. I think there are six of them that you
have been presented. Five of them are just moving one budget from one function to another. There is
one budget amendment here that increases expenditures by $41,950. This is to pay a
Texas Virtual Schools invoice that came in after we closed the books. We would
normally record that expenditure back but the books were closed and the
revenue had been received in this so basically it's going to be part of fund
balance and we are just requesting to expend it in the 13-14 budget. Any
Any questions?
Thank you very much.
And now, how do we feel about the attendance boundary,
moving that to consent?
Any objections?
So moved.
How about the December budget amendments?
Can we move it to consent?
OK.
Thank you, Dr. Proctor.
So moved.
And the grant ratifications, go right ahead.
I'm pleased to present the December grant notifications to the board.
This is an interesting one of $240,000.
It's a grant or a donation that the district is participating in or recommending to participate
in is for the Chevron Jason Learning Grant.
And the funds will be used to raise student achievement and teacher preparation in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics using Jason Learning's curriculum and professional
development.
and again it's for $240,000 any questions any objection to moving this
item to consent agenda so moved okay thank you mr. Smith okay oh look it's
mr. canal welcome back I apologize for the randomness of this I'm getting used
to a new look of a new format right here and I got off schedule just a bit
welcome back well thank you president Fox actually it's it's great that we
were able to split the two presentations by the first one which you know really
talks about the two new elementary schools and what you're going to do to
move kids into them and this for the continuation of the dialogue that we had
starting last month when we talked a little bit about Stanley there were a
lot of questions about it over the last last couple weeks number of things have
have happened at the public forum.
You had speakers come.
We received phone calls, we received emails,
we received feedback from our survey,
all saying, can you do something about Stanley?
Not all of them, but several of them.
And so we were asked to staff some other possibilities
in addition to the three that we provided last month.
So we have some potential solutions here.
Some are better than others.
and we're happy to take any and all questions.
We did a lot of work over the last week to give you some options here
that we want to talk to you about tonight.
So I'm going to give it to Dr. Chris Pohl again and let her do the heavy lifting.
Okay, so this is the map that we were just looking at.
This looks at Elementary 36, Elementary 37,
makes that change there, 52D, between Woman and Wood Creek.
Creek. And then of course we're interested in this number here at Schaefer being 776
and this additional number here at Stanley being 1503.
We have several possibilities, options A, B and C we talked about several weeks ago.
We looked at option A initially and also showed you some options B and C of actually moving
some additional land use zones. Stanley is located near the southern border of the district
and so therefore it's not likely to receive relief from the opening of future schools.
It's sort of all the way to one end.
And although we discussed Stanley at the board last month, with the board last month,
there's been community input requesting that we look closer at it
and potentially relieving Stanley there.
The input came from a variety of sources, including the last open forum, our ABM survey,
individual emails and phone calls to the district.
And so as we discussed last month, we looked at several possibilities,
options A, B, and C and we'll talk about these in a little more detail here in a
second and then we've also drilled down deeper into additional options. Some were
suggested by those that are within the current Stanley attendance boundaries
and because one of our problems is because Laney's in 74A which is West
Homer Lakes North has such a large student population projected that's 527
27 elementary students in the fall of 2014.
When you look at moving that one piece, that's a big chunk to move.
And so most of these options we looked at called for splitting that lane use zone.
That would be options E, F, G, and H, four different ways to split that lane use zone.
We also looked at an option D that does not split that neighborhood and instead makes
another couple of tweaks.
So first we'll talk about the three options we looked at last month.
This is option A, which is to do nothing.
Okay, this is the same map that you guys just saw.
This would let Stanley continue to operate just above its current enrollment levels.
So it's not like we would see a big chunk of additional students there added.
That allows Stanley to be addressed in the future under a comprehensive enrollment capacity
and programs assessment, sort of looking at adjusting several of these zones here in the
southwest.
And doing nothing at this point would ensure the maximum amount of stability for neighborhoods.
hoods the only way I can promise you we're not going to move in twice is to
not move them the first time right so another important thing to note is if
you will look at the black line here again we're looking at the junior high
school so regardless of what we do for Shannon for Stanley and Schaefer they're
all within that same junior high attendance zone so we shouldn't have to
worry about split splinters okay option B is also a carryover from last month
this is one that moves 74 D and 74 M from Stanley to Schaefer and these are
the two that are on the eastern end there right up against the numbers there
they're shown for Wilson this better utilizes Schaefer it relieves Stanley
and of course like we said Stanley has little chance of relief in other ways
there's a possibility that these could be reasoned again during a large-scale
rezoning of the district they're sort of poking out there in the midst of several
other attendance zones and they're actually closer to stanley or even wilson than they are to shaffer
and then option c is the last of our carryover options and it shows the impact of moving laney
since 74a to shaffer and that's the whole whole uh wood westheimer lakes north there
there. And what that does is because of that large enrollment of Westheimer legs, it creates
a problem at Schaefer similar to the problem that we're trying to relieve at Stanley. And
last week we had looked at or last month we had looked at various ways to split Westheimer
lakes and it's not terribly conducive to splitting it and I think you'll see what we're talking
about here in the future when we try to split it four or five different ways. We also have
an option D first though it does not split West Homer Lakes north you can see
right here the enrollments we move West Homer Lakes north but we also move 74 J
and 74 M that are just north of Stanley to Stanley I'm sorry Jane K so you can
see an enrollment there of a thousand ninety in 2014 1189 and Stanley and the
numbers are really quite close 2014 2015 2016 so that numbers are the figures are
balanced between the two it does not split West Hummer Lakes north into two
pieces which i think is a plus when we can avoid splitting a neighborhood and
it puts Laney sense that are close to Stanley in Stanley's zone maximizing the
number of students that can walk or ride bikes there's those ones that are just
north of Stanley right there it does move the northeast portion of West Hummer
lakes north that is close enough to walk to stanley over to shaffer and i'll show you a map
here in just a minute one little corner of west hammer lakes north is close enough to walk and
just go ahead and keep it to this time and move on the other issue is that this results in moving
two areas to balance the enrollments in laney's own 74j and 74k those residents might be aware
that they can move in an opportunity to provide you that's a couple weeks the thing is this
this might be a long-term solution for Stanley and Schaefer.
And so just to take a look at West Homer Lakes North, this is a look at the street layout
and so forth for West Homer Lakes North.
And we worked with Scott Dunlop here to find some potential ways to split the subdivision.
And this first slide shows the area in Stanley that are walkers within West Homer Lakes North.
In other words, everything north and east of that red line right there are close enough
to be considered walkers.
And so that is one thing we were trying to keep in mind when we were assessing the viability of some of these splits that we were doing.
So the first way we split the map, the split the lane you saw is right here.
And you can see that in the north it runs along fence lines.
You know, your backyard neighbor is, could potentially be going to a different school.
It does pick up a street and then it goes and runs along drainage and green space there.
And so this is what it would look like on the map.
You can see enrollment to start with in Schaefer 2014 of 1100 and Stanley 1179.
So the numbers are quite good.
Like I said, the enrollments are fairly balanced.
This leaves a portion of the West Homer Lakes North walkers there in that northeast quadrant.
It leaves them at Stanley.
And then one of the drawbacks though is it does split this neighborhood, of course, even
even along fence lines and so forth and the question is whether or not you actually want to go ahead and split the neighborhood.
A second way we looked at splitting the neighborhood was this way.
Again using there in the northern part using a fence line, hitting a street and then using green space on the way down to the south.
And then this is what it looks like there on the map.
You can see 986 at Schaefer, 1293 at Stanley. So the first thing to notice of course is the enrollment. It doesn't balance the enrollments as well.
It also leaves more of those walkers maybe in the Stanley zone. You know that first slide that I showed, everything in the northeast, those kids could be walkers.
It leaves a few more of those kids that are close to Stanley in there. But it does go ahead and split along fence lines.
In option three, we did go ahead and use green space, drainage ditches and green space, which is a nice clean split.
But this is what it ends up looking like on the map. And the split wasn't very many students.
It really wasn't very many students in that particular sector.
sector. So the split is now not even with regard to the number of students in each area
so that it doesn't provide enough relief to Stanley and then it creates these non-contiguous
attendance zones. Once we made that split I thought well actually which piece are we
talking about sending to Schaefer and which piece are we talking about sending to Stanley?
I suppose we could have done it the other way but then that would have taken all of
the walkers out of Stanley and so we didn't even get to showing those options.
And then the last way we looked at splitting West Hummer Lakes north was this way along the drainage
ditch and green space and it looks kind of similar on the map. We've got an enrollment of 1018 at
at Schaffer and 1261 at Stanley.
So again, it's a much cleaner split
than some of the other ones that we were looking at,
but it leaves a slight uneven distribution of students.
The zones are again not contiguous.
And then if we had done it the reverse again,
like with the other one,
we would have lost all of the walkers there.
So, in conclusion, we can make adjustments for Stanley and Schaefer by moving as little
as one lane use zone, but that might not be the best thing to do.
And so we would recommend moving Laney's in 74A and also 74J and K using that option D
that I showed you guys that does not split West Hammer Lakes North, hoping that that
would provide immediate balance between Schaefer and Stanley.
and then we would recommend a comprehensive enrollment capacity and
program assessment with the district
dr. Proctor lean into your microphone please lean into your microphone please
just pull back up the map D so we can see what it looks like right there okay
Okay. And question, 74A, that's Fry Road that goes through it, is that correct? Is that Fry Road?
It's the northern boundary, right?
What?
Right north of 74A, is that?
Right, the northern boundary of 74A is Fry Road.
It's Pry Road.
And that would put, would that put everybody in 74A, would they be eligible to ride a bus?
I'm worried about safety crossing that road, but if that's all potential bus riders, that's a good deal.
Right, right.
I think that's one of the things that we'd have to analyze is the transportation impacts.
if we get a direction that the board would like to go
to see what those trade-offs are.
I'd hate to say something off the top of my head.
We have not done an analysis to see if it's a dangerous path.
It looks like it might be if the only way to get there is 1463
or going down the other way.
So my inclination is to say probably,
but I'd like to have the opportunity to talk with the transportation.
Because if they could be bused, then that looks pretty safe.
Because I know last year their concerns were walking across Fry Road to go up to Schaefer and all of this stuff.
And because a lot of work has been done on price incidents.
Certainly, I think a lot of 74A would be eligible for transportation.
Just trying to figure out where that radius might slide in.
And without measuring it, I can't say that.
Well, could that be under our, let me follow up.
I'm taking up everybody's time.
Don't we have some kind of safety rule?
we can use buses where we think it makes more sense safety-wise crossing dangerous roads or something like that?
We have to look at it, and my inclination is to lean towards saying yes for busing.
We have to also look at fry roads between Stanley and also part of Wilson as well.
So we've got to look at that, but I would prefer, if at all possible, to do the transportation
because I think to provide the busing is what I prefer to do.
Because if that corner of 74A is a walker to Stanley now, they would cross Fry Road.
So I don't know that Fry Road is there.
There is a place.
Maybe Fry Road wasn't done all the way through then last year.
I think we'll probably have to wait until you give us feedback on that.
We're going to try to get it on a Google app here real quickly and see what we come up with.
Okay, good.
Another question, Mr. Griffin?
If we were to go with this option D,
are we going to use the same communications package that we just used for the two elementary schools,
which I thought was an awesome job with the amount of feedback that you got back?
Yes, sir.
Mr. DeBrell?
Steve, what would be the timeline for that communication?
Reasonable amount of time for people to give us some feedback.
Mr. Gannell, we would not make a decision on this next week.
we would give enough time for feedback from our community first. Is that correct?
That's what we prefer to do. We already have a process for attendance boundaries.
I think it's a process that's worked pretty well now for three years, and I'd like to keep it if I can.
It takes me two weeks to get a survey and then a week to analyze the data. In the meantime,
I can figure out how far it is between the two spots.
great it is it also correct 74 J and K were at Stanley before is that correct
before we built Schaefer so they're very familiar with the Stanley feeling there
and the wonderful school that it is so and it's pretty much directly across the
street and they wanted to stay at Stanley to begin with so okay I'm both
Both schools are incredible schools.
Mr. Mahalski?
I'd like to address Dr. Parker's question a little bit.
Because, first of all, I do believe that that is going to be outside the half-mile radius.
But I'll wait until they actually do that.
But I did want to point out that West Timber Lakes North does currently cross Rye Road to get to Stanley now.
And certainly some of those, at this point in time, looks like do not have bus service.
Mr. Huckabee?
Of all the options that we've looked at and things we've talked about,
I like this one a lot better because you're not taking a chunk away
that's right up to the backside of Stanley,
like all the other options that looked like before.
Now you have area around Stanley that goes to Stanley,
and then the only one that has the craziness is Wilson,
but its numbers are still compatible,
one that allows a lot of balancing over there and looks in the way it looks it
looks like it would be a balance for a while and so that would be a definitely
a positive I think that would be the something that the Stanley fans would
would enjoy
Adam president mr. Griffin one of the last recommendations was an enrollment
capacity and programs assessment within the district is that elementary is that
complete junior high high school what would be the scope of that
recommendation we believe that should be comprehensive once you start modifying
any any boundary there's impacts on feeder patterns etc and not only do we
have issues right now with for example Stanley you're going to have issues with
with Wood Creek that you mentioned
and Morton Ranch High School.
So we think it needs to be enterprise wide.
President.
And that would take considerable time,
more than a month or two and you'll.
I have in my mind that we'd start work on that in January
and hopefully be done by about this time next year.
I like that very much.
Mr. DeBrow, did you?
You asked my question.
Well, I have a follow-up question on that.
I mean, are you asking for a board action for that,
or is that just something you're going to bring to us and start the process?
I think we can bring forward, you know, firmer recommendations to you next month.
What it looks like, who's involved, those kinds of things for feedback.
Okay, good.
So you're asking us tonight to the action item for 36 and 37 has been moved to consent agenda and that action will be taken next week.
The action for the proposal or recommendation for this evening is for discussion only and that decision and more discussion and decision would happen in January which gives these families ample time to make adjustments for their next school year.
But it would be done by January.
Yes, what I anticipate doing is that since it seems the preferred option is D is to see what the survey response to is on that and provide you that response in addition and see if there's a lot of pushback or see if it's embraced.
So you want from us this evening our preferred option, you will take one option forward for community impact or would you take forward more than one option?
I'll be happy to take as many as you like, but one makes it a lot easier to get the point across.
I think one option is good. We have a preferred option. I think we need to put that on the table and see how people respond to it.
The pleasure of this board is to take forward one option.
Option D.
Absolutely.
Dr. Proctor, do we need to make a motion?
I don't think so. We're just giving them feedback.
and we'll take this and then we'll get the community feedback there and this
balance is the people from the other ones that called and said here move
these guys from Stanley and move these guys from Stanley and I remember the
discussion back when we were still having people in the room with us and
the passion for this is called Westheimer Lakes North to be at Stanley
since that time I've heard from people saying from that area saying I
understand you know that Stanley that Schaefer is a wonderful school and that
the overcrowding has surpassed the want to be right there you know at Stanley
they even understand that 1500 while another response I got that I think is
important you all have probably heard from people as well is that our children
are happy and successful but the 1,500 students at a school makes it very very
difficult for parents to be involved in things and to have lots of things that
bring bring visitors in and to create that community feel in a school cannot
really be done at 1,500 so I really like the balance here and appreciate the work
I know how much work this was I appreciate the administration's openness
to hearing from both the resistance from the board members last month and the
community feedback that we got I am thrilled over 7,000 people told you what
they thought and that gentleman is input from our community and while it wasn't
at a microphone it was absolute input and our administration listened and
brought us a new proposal based on what that survey responded and for that I
applaud you for for the way you took input and the last thing I will say is
that how proud I am of our district for giving the honor to honorable families
like the Stanley's and the Schaefer's and the woman's and the Wilson's and the
Hollins of the world that I believe that our community will be like Schaefer or
Stanley they're both incredible and the names represent excellence and for that
we're honored and so yeah and I think this shows we're living up to the
commitment of one of our goals of providing you know a quality good safe
educational environment I don't have to go memorize but it's something like that
having no further questions well Oh mr. Cooper right ahead I want to make sure
I'm hearing you correctly also in January you're going to bring us some
type of timeline for a district-wide realignment correct some type of input
that is our intention yes sir yeah I just want to clarify so we can blow the
trumpet and Zion let everybody know that we're about to shake this thing just so
I can be clear on that that that will be one of the end outcomes but there's a
lot of work on the program and capacity side that needs to be discussed too so
So we'll be spending a lot of time figuring out what programs are and what schools as
well as what the enrollments are too.
So that'll probably all be on the front end before we actually get into the attendance
boundary modifications per se.
But I'll bring you a schedule next month.
Okay.
Anything else?
Thank you very much, Dr. Poole.
Thanks for being here.
We like having you here.
Okay.
Our next discussion.
discussion. We're going to discuss the STEM Project Center. Who's leading this?
Mr. President, a little bit year ago I guess was you all met some students here in this
room who did a demonstration and several of you approached me after saying we got
to do something to help this program and so this was part of a recommendation
that we put together that was unsuccessful however the need and
and support for this remains.
And we have a new set of information
that allows us to move forward, actually,
if it's the desire of the board continues,
which I hope that it does.
Recent reports chronicling the US's performance
in this international PISA exam, so to speak,
identified that we do okay in reading,
but we're still lagging behind in science and mathematics
and whatnot.
And it talks about the successful organizations
of those that have what they call high imagination enablers as a value.
And everything I've seen regarding our robotics team, which really got the ball rolling,
has shown we have high imagination students, without a doubt.
This Saturday I was fortunate to be invited to stop by a single-year junior high
where they had a Lego League competition.
And these are junior high students from across the area,
and I was completely blown away. I had a very intelligent VIP escort walk me
around and explain things to me and the excitement and energy in those students
and parental involvement as well was just beyond anything I thought. I thought
you know this will fit perfectly in the Stern Project Center without a doubt.
out. House Bill 5 is passed and KDIC we have it as part of our curriculum so
we're okay but we're not really unparalleled in what we're providing for our
kids with this. Now don't think that we're truly facilitating because our
robotics team has to spend part of the money they raise which is not funded by
the district to rent space which makes it more difficult to set up permanent
equipment things and and and and reliable storage as well and that kick
out the orchestra to have a demonstration facility for their robot
however I've learned since this time there's more about there's more to it
than robotics there's the Lego there there's a solar issues experiments there
and I really see this as being a lab another lab that's all of our high
high schools can have access to. We have been very fortunate that the auditors have been
in the district and because of our offerings as a district, our growth continues to truly
astound us. And we have identified significant additional funds that were not budgeted for
that would be going to general fund that would be more than adequate to actually just pay
this project center. The design of the project center is at four and a half
million dollars. I would ask for five million, four and a half for construction,
another half million for specialized equipment for this and if the board is
so willing we could bring it forth and have this approved and get this project
off the ground. Construction documents have been worked on over the holidays and
and have it ready for use next school year.
Madam President.
Mr. Maholsky.
Last month we had a bond referendum that failed.
I've spoke to many, many people in the community about that,
both during that election and afterwards.
Nowhere did I hear a reason for that failing the STEM Center.
Almost everyone that I talked to everyone that I talked to and it was quite a few people within this district both during that
Election cycle and afterwards were supportive of that
Since I've been on this board we have heard from
many passionate students
That have shared with us
Some of their exploits and some of the things just the team building that they have done the amazing accomplishments that they've had
in those areas and we are truly educating some stars and probably being
educated by some star pre-engineering students that will utilize this facility
while I would prefer to use bond funds for this facility that's not available
to us right now and yet we are still in a very good financial position that we
we have the ability to move forward with a project like this.
So I do believe it's important.
It's important that we do offer those unparalleled opportunities
for those students.
So you have my support on this.
Mr. Adams.
Thank you, Madam President.
I concur with what Mr. Maholsky says.
And in terms of using GIF funds for this,
is there for the education of our children and this is certainly an
education facility and certainly something that that should be done and I
think that when you were just like mr. Mahowski talked to many people and I too
didn't hear anything either about the AG Center or the STEM Center as far as
being a negative the and so I totally concur and and and would support and
would hope that we could put this on the next agenda for for passage of this
matter Dr. Proctor thank you Mr. Adams I concur to and heard exactly the same
thing and while we're using general funds and I'll use an old term that it's
not recurring correct it's one time and so then if we have it back in a fund
unbalanced or whatever it's not like we've committed this forever and ever
four million dollars a year on and on and on you know and we have used those
funds for other things in the past and you know I I heard identical things to
what this is and you know like you said when you see the US scores and some
some things we need to get moving.
Yes, sir.
Mr. President?
Mr. Gibral.
I concur with Mr. Mahalski as well.
I mean, I heard so much.
Not one person said anything that STEM
was the reason they didn't support the last package.
But I think that the usage of this facility for us
to continue to be a leader in education is,
we almost have to do it.
I think that this is a great use of the funds.
And I remember last year, at the end of the year,
Mr. Moore was telling us how we saved some $10 million.
I don't know where we are right now on track of how much we're going to save this year.
I couldn't think of a better use for those savings than to pour them back into
and invest them back into the students of this community to inspire them on to excellence,
some of those engineers of the next generation that can maybe solve this great crisis we have with energy right now.
It could be solved, could find its roots right here in our STEM Center.
Thank you, Mr. DeBrell.
Well, I already have a name for it.
want to call it the high C high imagination Center that'll be my little
contribution high imagination and it isn't limited to robotics and your
experience on Saturday just was one thing that could be there and the high
high imagination that will happen when we saw the design of that, I was more excited about that
than just about anything. And I can't wait for our students
to take their imaginations and show us
what they're going to do. Madam President, Ms. Fraley, would it be possible
for us, as Ms. Adams said, to have this on the agenda for Monday so we can move ahead with this
as quickly as possible? Mr. Durrell, more than have to make that happen, sir.
Great. Thank you all very kindly.
And I look forward to more people coming and more savings happening so that we can have more opportunities for students in that second floor of the Miller Career Center.
And I know that, Mr. Fraley, you are working with your great curriculum people at designing what that looks like.
And I'm very excited to hear in the future about what kinds of things you have for our students that makes us unparalleled.
I'm just so stinkin proud to work with you gentlemen and with our community to
be a part of we are Katie our last thing is on the agenda is that we have a
meeting next Monday December 16th 2013 our regular board meeting having no
further business this meeting is adjourned
Thank you.
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