Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, July 27, 2015

0:00 Charles Griffin not human verified

Good evening. The Board will now convene an open meeting. Today is 27 July 2015 and the time is 7 o' 9. 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. This is a meeting open to the public, not a meeting of the public. There are students and other guests present. To maintain decorum, respectful behavior is expected. Disruptive behavior or comments will not be allowed the ktisd board of trustees meets monthly to receive reports from the staff and to take action on recommendations from the superintendent whereas there may not be a lengthy discussion or litany of questions tonight please know that we've had the agenda for over a week as a board we have reviewed each agenda item in a public work study meeting with the administrative team where we are able to ask and receive answers to our questions thus as a board we should have appropriate knowledge and should be prepared for our responses regarding the content of this meeting tonight mr. Foley will you verify that we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas open meeting law and regarding to the notice for this

1:03 Unknown speaker not human verified

meeting present our compliance for side of his item 3.1 regarding FNG grievance

1:13 Charles Griffin not human verified

earlier this evening the board heard a level 3 FNG complaint in closed session regarding case number FNG 14-0 to 7-a in accordance with chapter 551 of the Texas this government code any action regarding this matter must be taken in open session you'll have a motion for the level 3 FNG grievance

1:40 Unknown speaker not human verified

mr. president mr. Adams moves the Board of Trustees to die as a level 3 FNG grievance in the FNG 14-0 to 7a thereby upholding the decision level 1 and level

1:59 Charles Griffin not human verified

I have a motion by Joe Adams, a second by Courtney Doyle, that the Board deny the Level 3 FNG grievance in case number FNG 14-027-A, thereby upholding the decision of the Level 1 and Level 2 hearing officers. Any discussion?

2:20 Charles Griffin not human verified

hearing none we'll proceed to vote all those in favor raise your right hand and say aye aye those opposed motion passes six to zero they said it was a personal report mr. president mr. president

2:39 Joe Adams not human verified

yes sir I move the board trustees approves the personnel report is recommended by the superintendent in closed meeting second

2:49 Charles Griffin not human verified

um i have a motion by brian mahosky seconded by henry de barral that the board of trustees approved the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent in closed meeting any discussion hearing none is perceived to vote all those in favor raise your right hand and say aye aye those opposed motion passes six to zero Tonight we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance led by Mr. Joe Adams. Please rise.

3:18 Joe Adams not human verified

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all. honor the Texas flag pledged to the Texas once they

3:43 Charles Griffin not human verified

thank you mr. Adams and I would love to present you with your own lunchbox and a certificate of appreciation but you've probably received one of those before we're gonna move along to the in the agenda item 5 which is recognitions miss Ms. Rebecca Fox?

4:01 Charles Griffin not human verified

Mr. Henry Dubrow? Yeah.

4:05 Charles Griffin not human verified

Sorry. Before we get to Ms. Rebecca Fox, I just missed scouts. Do we have any scouts in the audience? If you could stand up there and tell us your name, what badge you're working on, and what scout group you're with.

4:22 Charles Griffin not human verified

Thank you very much.

4:34 Charles Griffin not human verified

Thank you very much. Anybody else that overlooked? All right.

4:41 Charles Griffin not human verified

Thank you much. Welcome. Don't take my example tonight. I haven't been on my A game. Mrs. Fox, thank you.

4:49 Rebecca Fox not human verified

President Griffin, members of the KDISD Board of Trustees, Superintendent Fraley, it is my pleasure tonight to recognize one of our own. who recently completed the Leadership TASB course of study. Mr. Henry DeBrell has joined the ranks of what I like to call K-O-B-D. You are kind of a big deal, Mr. DeBrell. Leadership TASB was begun in 1993 as a way to offer advanced leadership training to experienced board members and is nationally recognized as a premier leadership training program sponsored by the Texas Association of School Boards. Upon completion of the course of study, the recognition of Master Trustee is bestowed. Leadership TASB is a highly selective program where normally only one in four applicants is accepted as a member of a class of 36 participants. Over a 10-month period, the class meets five times in five different Texas cities. They hear from nationally recognized speakers, tour a variety of school districts, and conduct conduct personal research on a topic of relevance to Texas school trustees. Class members represent districts from all parts of Texas with varying sizes of student enrollment and varying levels of property wealth. Leadership TASB asks participants to work a little harder, be challenged with new thoughts, and renew their commitment to make a difference on behalf of the school children in KDISD and the entire state of Texas. tonight Henry de Brill joins the ranks of more than the 700 L Tassby alums that include mr. Adams and myself and we are I am very pleased to present Henry with his certificate as a lifetime member in the leadership Tassby Alumni Association congratulations master trustee de Brill

6:48 Unknown speaker not human verified

Braille.

6:49 Rebecca Fox not human verified

You have to call your master for Braille now. You can just say master for short. Okay, that's fine.

6:57 Unknown speaker not human verified

Congratulations.

7:08 Charles Griffin not human verified

And that moves us to item six in the meeting, the open forum. At this time, the Board of Trustees will hear from patrons who wish to speak. By Board policy, a maximum of 30 minutes have been allotted for this forum. Time allowed will be divided equally among those who have signed up to speak. The maximum amount of time allowed for any one speaker is five minutes. Individuals who have written comments to present to the Board are encouraged to provide the statement to the Assistant Superintendent for Schools and Community Engagement, Dr. Andrea Grooms. These written statements will be shared with the Board. Due to posting requirements of the Open Meeting Act, the Board is only able to respond to a presentation that is directly related to a posted agenda item. For clarification purposes, the Open Forum is not a dispute resolution forum. The Board is not trying to prevent any patron from speaking. The intent is to redirect patrons to the appropriate grievance process so that actions can be taken as appropriate. Employees or members of the public who wish to express complaints about a student matter or a district personnel are reminded that they must follow and exhaust all administrative remedies prior to presenting complaints to the Board. As I announce your name, please come to the podium and state your name, tell the board whether or not you reside in Katy ISD, and whether or not you have children presently enrolled in Katy ISD. We currently have four speakers tonight, so each speaker is going to have five minutes. When you have one minute left, Mr. Joe Adams, our Sergeant at Arms, will give you a one-minute warning. First speaker today is Bob McSpaden.

8:42 Joe Adams not human verified

Board of Trustees, Dr. Fraley, you probably expect me to talk about the stadium. I did actually listen to the video last week. People do watch them. There were some small details there that were very good, and it makes me not worry about the big details. But I know that it's designed around a lot of activities and a lot of different things. And I want to give you a word of encouragement for extracurricular activities. And I'm going to tell you, as someone who's been out of high school for 45 years, what extracurricular activities that you still do and what they did for me. Because I don't want you to ever get discouraged to say, do we really need to do this? I mean, reading, writing, arithmetic, well, this is all of it.

9:29 Joe Adams not human verified

I've heard people say, you know, we have all this music and drama and stuff, and how many people go to pro? How many pro football players do we have? We have a few. you. I was in band, never played football. Now you probably think you learn music in band. You do.

9:46 Joe Adams not human verified

But have you ever been amazed at one of our performing groups that all start at the same time, end at the same time, and make some really beautiful music in the middle, or even a beautiful play? I took from band. I was mediocre at best, but I learned discipline and a lot of organizational organizational skills. But the one thing that's going on right now that I'm most excited about is the STEM Center.

10:11 Unknown speaker not human verified

You probably think they didn't have STEM Centers 45 years ago. Well,

10:15 Joe Adams not human verified

they did in their own way, and I want to tell you what it did for me. My junior year, I decided to take electronics.

10:24 Unknown speaker not human verified

And then I got there, and they said, okay,

10:26 Joe Adams not human verified

the first four weeks, we're going to work on mathematics as it pertains to electronics. That was kind of a bummer to me because they had a lot of neat equipment, little transistors and things. They actually had transistors 45 years ago. And then he passed out these, and I brought this with me. Let me see if I can get it out of my pocket.

10:47 Joe Adams not human verified

This is a slide rule.

10:50 Joe Adams not human verified

I can explain what it does. They had just come out with calculators 45 years ago, and they were $450 a piece in 1967 $67 and we learned slide rule I wasn't a very good math student but it was math with a purpose so I'm excited about the stem program that's where I would be if I were a student because you actually do things and all these things fine arts and extra extra curricular activities exposes to you a lot of things lots of our high school kids you can ask them what they're going to do and they either don't know or they're going to do whatever he's going to do they really don't know so we need to expose them to all that I will tell you that as I took two years of electronics matter of fact now I use the troubleshooting skills all my career because I started out my career as a control electrician and somebody would ask me where did you learn to do that and I'd say mr. Tackett's electronic class at Odessa high schools where I learned to do that We even built a scoreboard for our basketball team. One other thing, we also shot video. The first video the school district owned, reel to reel, black and white, Sony. And I did that. A few years later, my brother did it. He now has four Emmys for being a photojournalist. You never know. But all these things are important and I just wanted to in my older self say this is what these things that to many people seem like extra or frivolous as being unimportant but it's not. More exposure to more things before they start making those big decisions is everything. My daughter was in band before we moved here and she was in choir when she got here. She now teaches music for KDISD. Some people do take those things. Some people use them in other ways. Thank you very much.

12:59 Charles Griffin not human verified

Thank you. Our next speaker today is Lisa Babin.

13:09 Lisa Babin not human verified

Good evening. I think I put on there Dr. Babin. I hold two doctorates and I would appreciate a little courtesy. see next time I did put my title down there if you'd like to be respected then you will respect me I'm not a happy camper in Katy I stay at first like to offer my condolences on the passing of Miss Pato whoever has taken her spot you have huge shoes to fill she is definitely going to be an angel watching over you and over this district and she will truly be missed I do have some complaints I have tried to resolve those complaints at the lowest level mr. Mr. Malachek is off the hook. His employee finally returned my phone call this afternoon, although it was late. The phone call was placed the last week of school. I do kind of think, since y'all do work, that the timeliness of it was a little strange. I should not have to chase people down to return phone calls or emails. Dr. Kreish, unfortunately, I'm waiting on a return phone call for you because I'm still waiting on a return phone call from Dr. Robertson from last school year. nine weeks into last school year still waiting not a happy camper please consider this formal verbal notice that the art for my child is null and void the lawyers were notified today my lawyer was notifying mr. Borreca it'd be nice if he returned my attorneys phone call regarding my special ed child too you might want to talk to him about that I would like for dr. pause the diagnostician and coach Goodwin to please place their verbal apologies in writing regarding what happened at the end of the school year my child would like that so that he can see that in writing so that he can have that so that he knows that he did his best but people let him down and to their credit there was a verbal apology and there were plenty of tears shed by some of those people in the room because I kind of had to get a little rough with people and And I really don't like to micromanage people in the district. I really don't like to have to talk to people like that. But what happened should not have happened. My child does, just FYI, was not offered the star accommodated. I was looked at in an ARD and told, there is no such thing as star modified. He has to take the regular star. I have it both on videotape as well as audio tape where they looked me in the eye and lied. And, of course, my child failed the star. so I don't understand and I'd like to know how many other children were treated this way and if not if there was no one else that was treated this way then why are we being singled out discriminated and being prejudiced against in this manner this has to stop with this family and with this child I have eight more years with this child and I am NOT gonna put up with it it has not been a fun time with this child in this district for eight years and it looks like it's not going to be a fun time for another eight years until people start returning phone calls and wanting to work with us at the lowest possible level if I have to take this to the news media I will and that's not something I enjoy doing we'd like to know where two of the four board members were for the main Creek high school graduation mr. Adams showed up miss Fox showed up but two others did not I understand you guys had two other graduations that day but the children of May Creek deserved your attendance short short of a death in the family or being hospitalized, we'd kind of like to see a note from your mom maybe explaining your absence. It's ridiculous. You guys don't have a whole lot to do and it's extremely disrespectful to those children and those parents.

16:48 Unknown speaker not human verified

Concerns, we're all concerned

16:49 Lisa Babin not human verified

if the track area at Maid Creek will be completed before the town hall pep rally and will the mostly gray with faded yellow safety concrete pylons be painted by then.

17:03 Unknown speaker not human verified

It isn't too much to ask. It's a safety issue. There will be a lot

17:06 Lisa Babin not human verified

of people there and we would like some maintenance done. Maintenance, for those that don't know, there's an office right over there. It's paint. If you need a volunteer to come paint those, I happily volunteer.

17:19 Unknown speaker not human verified

Thank you Mr. Fraley for the

17:20 Lisa Babin not human verified

gate. We're not sure the reason and the rationale behind the placement of the location but anything helps and if you had time to install that then you got had time to paint those pylons.

17:31 Unknown speaker not human verified

That's the dirty laundry list I have this week. I'm sure there's

17:35 Lisa Babin not human verified

more that I could add. I wish you all a good evening. Be safe going home. God bless.

17:47 Unknown speaker not human verified

Yes, Ms. Boyle. A clarifying question. Ms. Babin, in reference to your in reference to your comments about graduation just for the record I actually was in the hospital that weekend so I just want to make sure everybody knows I was in attendance at all graduations last week last year and was very upset to miss them this year there was hospitalization involved

18:15 Charles Griffin not human verified

next speakers Sarah Jackson

18:25 Sarah Jackson not human verified

Good evening, President Griffin, Board members, Mr. Fraley. My name is Sarah Jackson. I reside within KDISD and currently have two students enrolled in KDISD schools. Tonight, Laura Freeman has asked me to represent KDISD Council of PTAs. I am an officer on the KDISD Council of PTAs Board, serving as treasurer. In August 2014, Laura Freeman, KDISD Council of PTAs President, addressed the Board asking asking for you to back the future of KDISD students and join the PTA. I'm happy to report that membership within our district rose by more than 2,000 members for an ending count of 27,692 members. We are the largest, and we continue to have the largest membership in the state. We had four out of 22 PTAs across the state of Texas to have their entire student population represented by at least one member in their PTA. the brand-new Randolph PTA, Patison, Alexander, and Kilpatrick. As a side note, Kilpatrick PTA has attained the goal of having every student represented by membership for as long as the school has been open. These schools will be recognized for their extraordinary efforts by a visit from Texas PTA President Leslie Boggs. We will definitely let you know when that happens. Thank you for backing the future last year. We will make sure you have an opportunity to back it again in the fall Katie ISD Council of PTAs hosted a successful reflections contest in the fall Margo Faulkner put together a fabulous reception at the Katie Contemporary Arts Museum where we recognized our entrance and displayed our entries advancing to the state level we had 22 entries advanced to the state level and with nine of those entries being recognized we have such talented students in Katie ISD it is so nice to be able to showcase them on February 25th we went to Austin to rally representatives from Alexander back back and or friends Hayes McNeese and Martin Lynch junior high met with rubber with representative Hubert Rose representative and left our priorities with Senator Joan Huffman's office and sent to Senator Lois Cole horse office overall Texas PTA had a successful session advocating for our children Texas PTA was successful in helping to get the following bills passed House bill 1 which supported a boost to public school funding beyond enrollment growth Senate bill 496 which addressed school funding inequality House bill 18 which funds improved for professional development opportunities for school counselors Senate bill 97 which was which restricted the sale of e-cigarettes to children under the age of 18 Senate bill 66 and House bill 28 47 which set forth guidelines for campuses to have EpiPens on site to help children with undiagnosed life threatening allergies House bill 1305 which gives school boards the option of developing a locally funded free or reduced lunch program House bill 4 which provides additional funding to districts that offer high quality pre-k programs and House Bill 2398 which decriminalized truancy. Our PTAs collaborated with each other and brought many parent education programs in addition to the student education programs to our district this year. Everything from how to talk to your children about the birds and the bees to the dangers of distracted driving. Our PTAs took turns adopting the staff of Rains and Miller high schools since they don't have a traditional student body to make sure that those teachers know they are appreciated at their own campuses pt has hosted family movie nights muffins with moms and donuts with dads bring your parents to school days grandparents day events carnivals festivals glow and color runs dances walking back to school days recycling events teacher appreciation weeks and school board appreciation month and they have decided to come back and do it again in august the board of ktisd council of ptas is incredibly proud of how hard our pts strive to make every child's potential a reality by providing unparalleled learning experiences to both parents and students one minute miss jackson our pta is back the future to help create the future thank you so much for allowing us to partner with the schools of kdisd

22:45 Charles Griffin not human verified

thank you and our final speaker today is laura freeman

22:54 Laura Freeman not human verified

Laura Freeman Hi, President Griffin, Board Members, Mr. Fraley. My name is Laura Freeman. I am the President of KDIC Council PTAs. I have been in the district for 16 years and I haven't had a child in the district since then. My youngest child graduates in 2024, so y'all are stuck with me until then. I'm here tonight to tell you about my Board Member, Patty Pato. Sorry. I have been blessed with some amazing administrators during my time in KDIC and I was given the opportunity to form one-on-one relationships with many of them because of my eldest child. And while I didn't always know what they thought about me as a parent, I knew that they wanted the best for my child and were trying to help in any way they could. When my middle child began at Franz Elementary, I felt like I was given a blank slate. It was a brand new school and I was a completely different kid. I was no longer a working mom, so I got more involved with PTA and I thoroughly enjoyed it. When I was first elected to serve as PTA president at France, as a PTA president, going into the principal's office can be emotional. You could be excited about the coming year, upset about the way something turned out, nervous about the news you have to give your principal. It's all over the place. And I already had a lot of experience going to the principal's office with my eldest child. So I thought I had that part of the job in the bag That first year as PTA president an opportunity arose not only to involve my campus administrator But the area superintendent as well. I knew that I had the support of my campus principal because we had a wonderful working relationship But having the area superintendent her boss Involved was horrifying mortifying petrifying and enough to make me really really want to quit Ms. Pato was the Area 2 Superintendent that was given the opportunity to be involved. My principal assured me that I would all be all right, and it was. Things were taken care of and I wasn't excommunicated from the school or even demoted. Without even having a conversation with me, Ms. Pato had fixed my issue and supported my PTA. From then on, I didn't know how to behave. Was I supposed to duck every time the Area Superintendent came into the school and visited our campus? Did I need to apologize for things that weren't really my fault, but things that I had been thrown under the bus for? I didn't really know. But before I could decide what to do, I ran into her in the front office of our school. I smiled and said hello, and she said, hello, Mrs. Freeman. Not ugly like, oh, hello, Mrs. Freeman, but nice, like she didn't know anything about the recent unpleasantness at our campus, like she still supported me. I went on to get reelected as president of France and I started noticing things I noticed that the area to superintendent was around a lot I noticed she attend many of the PTA events in her area and I noticed that still she supported what I was doing in PTA since my children are so I get the opportunity to leave a school for a while and then come back a few years later when I entered junior high for the second time as a parent not as a student I was blessed to work with another awesome administrator my second year there I was the PTA president again PTA at the secondary level is different from elementary Communication is a huge obstacle since parents aren't at the school with their students as often I Wrote multiple emails to be e-blasted out to parents. I sincerely doubted that anyone was reading him, but I kept trying to reach out Again the areas to superintendent was visiting the campus and I ran into her her she asked me how the PTA was going and I told her about the communication obstacle and how I was trying to overcome it she told me she had signed up for all the e-bass from area 2 and that she had read my emails and looked forward to reading them on Monday she was still supporting me and my PTA as you know I became involved in PTA at the council level and I was elected as president my predecessor Lisa Johns and I had gone to council training and I realized that our superintendent was a member of the executive board I was beginning my presidency with some holes on my board our principal reps were rolling off one minute mrs freeman the district had a huge number of brands banking new principles the potential principal rep pool was extremely shallow our superintendent had just been elected as president of the texas association of school board administrators and had other obligations as well we were also opening two new schools i needed someone who had pta experience and a little extra time to help me get all these ptas on the same page i needed someone i'm sorry when i went crying to lisa she suggested i asked miss pato she would be willing to help out i saw miss pato at some sort of district thing and asked her if she would consider serving on council as a superintendent rep and mr fraley as i feared didn't have enough time in the day to work with pta into the mix when i met with mr fraley he confirmed that he hadn't figured out how to add more time into a day and he had asked miss pato to serve in his place on our board and i knew it'd be a good fit oh i'm running out of time last year miss pato proved invaluable

28:01 Laura Freeman not human verified

to our board she was

28:12 Lisa Babin not human verified

clarifying question yes sir go ahead uh can you please repeat what you said there about miss Pato and expound on that so I can get some understanding she is invaluable

28:23 Laura Freeman not human verified

to our board she was able to give that extra perspective that was so needed she was able to make sure that the principals were informed the things are PTA should and should not be doing she did everything and she was always available to answer phone calls emails and texts attend meetings and give us awesome suggestions that were implementing sorry um I found out she had passed when we were in Dallas at summer leadership seminar since the majority of our board was in Dallas with me we had a board meeting and decided to purchase a break in her honor in the new Texas PTA building we wanted to recognize her permanently because she permanently supported us um because she got it she saw the bigger picture that we saw um i wanted to thank you mr fraley for allowing miss payto to serve in your absence i still want to thank kdisd for allowing her to serve the students of kdisd for so many years and finally i want to thank her husband and her daughter for sharing their wife and mom with the students of kdisd she was really really awesome and she'll be truly missed thank you very much thank you

29:40 Alton Frailey not human verified

Mr. President, I want to thank Ms. Jackson and Ms. Freeman for being here tonight. For their hard work, without a doubt. I say it frequently about being a secret sauce, but that doesn't tell the whole story. What these folks do is just truly amazing. In addition to that, we already cost our parent volunteers without a doubt. When I knew that my demands were growing, my love for PTA was not shrinking at all, Miss Fado who became my right hand this past year. She was my right hand. And she will be Ms. Fado.

30:20 Charles Griffin not human verified

We'll move to item 7 in the consent agenda.

30:27 Unknown speaker not human verified

Mr. President. Mr. Adams. I move that the Board of Trustees approve the consent agenda as recommended in items 7.1 through 7.26.

30:38 Charles Griffin not human verified

I have a motion by Joe Adams, a second by Courtney Dorrell, that the Board of Trustees approves a consent agenda as recommended in items 7.1 through 7.26. Any discussion? Let's proceed to vote. All those in favor, raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes 6-0.

31:12 Charles Griffin not human verified

Item 8 is the information items. 8.1, donated items to the Katy Independent School District. 8.2, certification of anticipated tax collection rate for 2015, 2016, and 8.3, quarterly investment reports. That information is contained in the agenda. If you want some further information. Item 9 is our future meetings. We look forward to seeing you there. Our board work study meeting is Monday, August 17, 2015, and the regular board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday August 25th 2015 hearing no further business before the board is we are adjourned at 741