The Board will now reconvene in open meeting. Today is Monday, September 19, 2016, and the time is 735 p.m.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, September 19, 2016
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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.
Dr. Hint, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding the notice for this meeting?
Madam President, I verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding the notice for this meeting.
Madam President. Mr. Griffin. I move that the Board of Trustees denies the level
3 FNG grievance and FNG 15-050A, thereby upholding the decision of the
level 1 and the level 2 hearing officers.
Second. I have a motion by Mr. Griffin, a second by Mr. Mahalski, that the Board
denies the level 3 FNG grievance and FNG-15-050A, thereby upholding the
decision of the level one and level two hearing officer any discussion hearing none we'll proceed
to vote all in favor raise your right hand and say aye aye motion passes seven to zero 3.2
i'm president
hold on hold on please
different
Thank you, Mr. Griffin.
That's a good explanation.
Item 3.2, consider board settlement in case number 113-CB.
Madam President.
mr. de Broglie move that the Board of Trustees approves the settlement
regarding case number one one three dash CV dash zero zero six one seven dash CCB
according to the terms discussed in closing and authorized the
superintendent yes execute all necessary documents second
MS.
Thank you, Ms. Vann.
I have a motion by Mr. DeBrell and a second by Ms. Vann that the Board of Trustees approves
a settlement regarding case number 1-13-CV-00617-CCB according to the terms discussed in closed
meeting and authorizes the superintendent to execute all necessary documents.
Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote.
all in favor raise your right hand and say aye aye motion passes seven to zero another president
mr mahalsky i'll move the board of trustees approves the personnel report is recommended
by the superintendent and closed meeting second a motion by mr mahalsky a second by mr griffin
that the board of trustees approves the personnel report is recommended by the superintendent in
closed meeting any discussion let's proceed to vote all in favor raise your hand and say aye
Aye.
Aye.
Motion passes 7-0.
Do we have any scouts in the audience working on badges tonight?
But we do have people in uniform we love and respect.
It's the time now to administer, let me see, the oath of office for
a police officer.
There you are, Captain.
How are you?
Hi. Chief.
President Fox, Board members, Superintendent Hint, newly commissioned officer, newly commissioned
peace officers are required to publicly swear or affirm an oath of office.
Tonight we have three newly commissioned officers.
I'd like to call upon Officers Gonzalez, McElhaney, and Trahan to come forward to take the oath
of office and be recognized as members of the KTISD Police Department.
please raise your right hand and repeat after me I Jose Gonzalez I Dominic
Trahan I don't make training I Blake McElhaney do solemnly swear do solemnly
swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the Office of Peace Officer of
Katy Independent School District of the state of Texas and will to the best of
my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United
States and of this state so help me God congratulations
officer Jose Gonzalez was born in Monterey Mexico and raised in Katy
Texas he graduated from May Creek High School in 2006 officer Gonzalez is
is married to the former Lorena Lopez, and together they have two daughters, Ava and
Audrina.
In October 2010, he joined the United States Army where he served as a Petroleum Supply
Specialist.
Officer Gonzales served in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 1st Cavalry Division.
In November 2015, Officer Gonzales finished his active duty and joined the Texas National
Guard where he currently serves with the rank of sergeant and leads and mentors
younger soldiers as squad leader. He attended the University of Houston
Downtown Police Academy graduating in April of 2016. Officer Gonzalez was hired
by the KDISD Police Department in May of 2016 at which time he began his field
training program. Officer Blake McElhaney was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee.
he moved to Kingwood, Texas at the age of 15, where he graduated from Kingwood High School in 2005.
Upon graduating high school, Officer McElhaney joined the Marine Corps, where he served for four years.
After completing his military service, he attended Lone Star College,
earning a state certification as a firefighter and EMT.
Officer McElhaney worked as an EMT in the oil and refinery industry for three years
before becoming a safety technician for various contractors. He attended the
University of Houston Downtown Police Academy graduating in April 2016 and
began his law enforcement career with the KDISD Police Department in June of
2016. Officer McElhaney and his wife Lydia have two sons, Brenton and Tatum,
and are expecting a little girl. Officer Dominic Trahan was born in Lake Charles,
Louisiana he moved to Katy in the fifth grade attending Windborn Elementary
Katie junior high and Katie high school graduating in 2011 while in Katie high
school officer Trahan was a member of the Katie ISD Police Department Explorer
program for four years during which time he attained the rank of captain upon
graduating high school officer Trahan worked at a major engineering company as
a 3D designer. In January 2016 he left his job as a designer and attended
University of Houston downtown Police Academy to fulfill a lifelong dream of
dream of becoming a police officer. Officer Trahan graduated from the Police
Academy on April 29th 2016. He was hired by the Keddie Police, Keddie ISD Police
Department on May 5th 2016 where he started his field training program.
Officer Trahan is excited to be part of the KDISD family and community. Help me welcome
Officers Trahan, McElhaney, and Gonzales.
Thank you.
Board members, at this time I'll direct your attention to Item 6.6.
We're going to go out of order this evening and begin with the to discuss and consider future board approval of a resolution to initiate the process to designate Katy Independent School District as a district of innovation under HB 1842.
We have one of our presenters this evening.
Mrs. Bonnie Holland, Mr. Janet Horton, good evening.
Welcome.
Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Hint.
We are here tonight to talk to you about the possibility of the board approving a resolution
to allow us to move forward in gathering information to determine whether we might have interest
in becoming a district of innovation.
As many of you know, the 84th legislature did adopt House Bill 1842, which would give
us some of the same flexibilities that are awarded to open charter schools.
things such as choosing our own start date which I know would make many of us
very happy of course having greater autonomy and ability to have greater
influence on local decisions we think is something that would be a value mrs.
Horton and her group have assisted some of our neighboring schools in their
pursuit of designation as the District of Innovation and she's here this
evening to share the process that is used. President Fox, Superintendent Hint,
ladies and gentlemen of the board, the District of Innovation process is a
creature of the 2015 legislative session. It is a simple procedure that gives the
school district an opportunity to exempt itself from certain parts of the Texas
Education Code if it finds that complying with those parts of it would
inhibit educational goals that the district has set. So I just want to give
you a very brief overview of the process itself so you can see how it begins and
how it ends and keep in mind please that the board is in control and is the final
decision maker with regard to whether an innovation plan is adopted by the school
district. So it starts either as Ms. Holland has said with the board adopting
a resolution that you're interested in exploring the process or with your
district improvement team which I'm going to call your DIT team that's your
district level planning and decision-making team bringing a petition
passed by a majority of that team to the board to act on. And if one of those two
things happens, then the board is to have a public hearing on that. So if you were to
adopt a resolution, then you would be required to have a public hearing within 30 days of
adoption of the resolution. The public hearing is one where the public gets to hear the plans
or the things that you're thinking about and gets the opportunity to give input and make
comment on that. And then at that meeting or within 30 days after that, the board decides
either no, you're not interested in exploring it anymore, or yes, you're going to go forward and look at a district of innovation plan.
And if you decide to go forward, then you appoint a committee to develop your innovation plan.
The law itself and the rules that are in place do not set any parameters for what that committee looks like.
So you could decide how many people or who are going to be on that.
Also the rules indicate that you could have your district improvement team be
the one that develops the plan. There's no timeline for how much time the
committee has to develop a plan, but what it does it develops a comprehensive
educational plan. So it could look at things like instructional
curriculum, it could look at start date, it could look at community participation,
participation, campus governance, there's a whole list of things. And as part of that then
there would be an identification of the parts of the Education Code that would inhibit the district reaching the goals that are in that
comprehensive educational plan and from which the district would exempt itself.
Once the plan is done by the committee,
then the plan goes to the district improvement team. And the district improvement team must pass the plan by
majority vote of the district improvement team. You're supposed to give
the Commissioner notice that the district is thinking about adopting an
innovation plan. The plan in its final form has to be on your website for 30
days before the board can vote on it and then it comes to the board and there's
no specific timeline laid out in the law for this to happen so it could be a
short time or it could be a long time. When it comes to the board, first of all
the district improvement team has to pass it by a majority vote. Then when it
comes to the board, the board has to pass it by a two-thirds majority of the
membership of the board. So in your case that would be five board members would
need to pass it. Once that happens you give notice to the commissioner and you
identify to the commissioner the parts of the education code that you have, that
the district has exempted itself from. There's no approval process by the
commissioner. The commissioner simply notes that you have an innovation plan
and process and notes the parts of the education code that you've exempted
yourself from. The plan could be for up to five years in length. During that
period of time you might move to amend it and the amendment process is very
much like we've just described as far as developing it in the first place. Towards
the end you can determine to renew it and the renewal process follows the same
procedure that we've described. Sometime during the term of the plan, if you want
to, you can resend it. And if you rescind it, you're supposed to give the
Commissioner notice within five business days and identify to the Commissioner
how soon you're going to come back into compliance with the portions of the Texas
Education Code. The district can't exempt itself from anything that an open
enrollment charter school would have to comply with. There's a long list in the
the rules that have been proposed and are now final actually as of last week I
believe by the Texas Education Code of all the things that you cannot exempt
yourself from. So for example things with regard to accountability, school finance,
the foundation school program, various things on fiscal management and
budgeting, certain parts of chapter 27 there's a very long list that you can
look at there that you could not exempt yourself from. So that's the process that
that is followed if you decide you want to explore that.
Mr. President?
Mr. Dubrell?
I have a little bit of, maybe not as much as you,
Ms. Hawthorne, but as some understanding of this.
As part of my TASB presentation,
we brought this into this upcoming fall,
the whole idea of district of innovations
and how it basically gives us the same ability
as a district that some of our charter schools have.
It also gives us some unique opportunities.
One thing is if you take all the districts in the state that become districts of innovation,
if 50% of us choose to go after the same item, let's just say the start date,
50% of us decide we want to change our start date.
Well, then the commissioner has to suggest to the legislature that it becomes law for the entire state.
That gives us some certain abilities because we know that our start date is simply tied to what the tourism lobby wants,
not necessarily to anything educational but to what the tourism lobby wants.
So I think that this releases some of the strings that currently hold us down to really begin to explore some of the great things that we can do for young people.
So I, for one, would like for us to pursue this as quickly as possible.
I mean, I've heard through some of my contacts there that the tourism lobby itself is coming
after the districts of innovation, just so we don't change our start date.
So I think we need to get this moving as soon as possible.
MS.
You might be interested to know that of those districts that have applied,
I think I read were 83 percent of them, or one of the exemptions was the start date.
Madam President? Mr. Scott? Who can be against innovation? I mean, I mean, no one
can be against innovation, but I think this is a cart before the horse process.
How many districts in this area have gone down this path so far? Spring Branch,
Who are the others? I don't know in this area you can go on TEA's website
And if you just tap in district of innovation, you'll see a list and I think there's probably about 25 or 30 in the state
So far
Every week there's more that are added to it. So what is it other than the start date?
Is it pupil teacher ratio more freedom on on that? What what is it?
That you want us to have above and beyond the start date
That would be it.
MR.
That would be up to the committee.
Once we pass the resolution, then we can bring back to the board what our committee is suggesting.
But if you're asking me personally what two items I would look at and two items that I
would immediately say this is something that I would like for the board to consider and
the committee to consider, it is the start date.
Another one is some of our CTE programs and finding teachers that are eligible to teach
those courses in CTE you have to have X number of years in the field and then
you have to go through the certification process through the state of Texas this
would give us a little bit of leverage where we could hire a statistician
directly out of the workforce to teach one of those courses without some of
that state required certification or an engineer or if we had a fire training
program etc here's my problem and I'll just be candid but I'm not going to
spend a lot of time tonight I'm tell you what my problem is among them one I
believe that the start of this process there's enough out there with the
district of innovation that we could have a report that this thick showing us
what other districts have done so far so that it's not theory I have a great
concern I don't care too much about the stadium okay but I have a real problem
turning any of this over before we even know what the issues are to a committee
because once you turn it over to a committee it's pretty much on autopilot
for instance if we're going to have a citizens committee I've been in this
district for a long time okay and I haven't seen citizens committees that
genuinely go out and reflect a diversity of opinion about everything too often
Often the district talks to people that it wants to talk to with token types of things.
So here's what I think.
I think that we could ask our staff to bring us examples of what District of Innovation has done besides the start date, which is the principle.
I understand what you're saying.
Let this board look at it.
We are the elected people.
the the campus team or the district team is is people that look at it from their
perspective we're the only people that are elected by the board to look at
these things and this is just too quick it's jump-starting the process we're not
going if we don't do a resolution next Monday at the board meeting we're not
going to not be able to do district of innovation I would say and this will be
my final statement tonight. I would say that now that this is reared its head, it's probably
going to take me 15 to 20 hours to do the personal research to know what in the world this is. I have
no interest at all that TASB is behind this, none. And if there are certain things that this
is focused on then maybe we ought to be more aggressive in our legislative
agenda I know that we have opportunities to be innovative that do not require
changes in state law in if the only thing we want to do is a start date and
be able to put professionals into certain kinds of classes but I'll be
I'll be I'm not going to go if one of the purposes of this is to is to make it
easier to make the lives of classroom teachers more difficult to arbitrarily
increase pupil teacher ratio size I'm not going to be sympathetic to that and
I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done at the board table before we
push the button and start on 30 day tickers and 30 day tickers and 30 day
tickers that's my that's my position
Madam President, Mrs. Doyle, just for clarification purposes, this gives us the opportunity to have more local control, correct?
That's correct.
Okay.
Just in reference to what Mr. Scott is saying, I have heard an astounding amount of our community, the diversity of our community has said that they wish that we had more local control.
So I am interested in learning more about what local things we could then control here versus being dictated by the state.
Mr. Griffin?
Mr. Scott, I kind of have to go to the rescue of the teams that we put together in this community.
I worked for a year with the administration and anytime we put a
council a group a community group together we looked at the entire
district we looked at all the demographics we looked at even what jobs
people held in the community make sure that that group that we had represented
the community we looked at Northside Southside Eastside Westside and we spent
a considerable amount of time trying to represent the entire district we try to
put as many people as we could to make those programs where we could get this
stuff useful I'm extremely proud of the community with the results that they've
given this board president mr. Mahalski Thanks Thank You miss Holland miss
Wharton so if I just want to clarify that I heard this correctly Europe but
What we're asking right now, or you're asking the board, is to approve starting a process to determine if we want to go out and earn this distinction that would give us greater local control.
Is that correct?
Right.
Passing this resolution is not deciding whether to move forward or not.
Right.
It's just giving us a chance to investigate.
And the plan would come back to the board, whether we chose.
And I will say this, Mr. Scott, I have no appetite whatsoever to increase class loads whatsoever.
All right?
So that would not be an option that would be recommended by the superintendent that would apply to this district of innovation.
So I want to make sure, nor do I believe this board would have that appetite.
I've been here long enough to know a little bit about this board and what their appetite is.
This only initiates the process.
And then we bring back the findings.
findings, we bring back the committee, et cetera, as Mr. Griffin said.
What is our appetite of the community?
CHAIRMAN BRYANT L. Madam President, Mr. Griffin.
MS.
One second, one moment.
Mr. Mihalski, were you finished?
MR.
One follow-up, if I may.
MS.
MR.
You talked about a public hearing process.
If we approve this, is that going to happen?
MS.
Yes.
Yes, if you approve the resolution, then within 30 days, we have to have a public hearing,
which, of course, anyone can speak at the public hearing.
And this is a chance to hear from any community members who have input that they want to give
and to hear about what the district has in mind.
Well, I guess another follow-up to that.
So that public hearing, how much information will be out prior to that public hearing?
because I do feel like there needs to be some information to the community so that they can discern that before, you know, we ask them to come tell us what they think of it, right?
And we would take some steps to try to get some information out.
I think Dr. Hint talked to our KD Improvement Council briefly about the concept.
And when they mentioned an earlier start date and being able to balance semesters and some other things,
We had a lot of interest from that group the biggest interest was a week off it
Thank you. They were very interested in a week off at Thanksgiving. They certainly were but
This is really just an opportunity for us to investigate and the board still has the opportunity to say move forward or decline
Thank you very much
Mr. Debrell and then mr. Scott. I
Think the most attractive thing about a district of innovation the rave today if you look anywhere in education
is this idea of a charter school. We have the legislature talking about vouchers,
giving choices to parents so they can control their child's education.
Well yet the state ties our hands in so many ways. This gives us an opportunity
to act as a district very much like a charter school. It takes some of the
state's control off of us and we can experiment, we can try some things. I
I would love for us to bring in one of the high quality engineers from BP to teach some
of our students and not have to have that individual go through some type of program
just to get their certification.
So I think that this gives us that opportunity.
So and one argument for starting now, I know for a fact that there is pressure being put
on legislators right now to pull some of this back.
And if we get in that process before any one of them files a bill and we're grandfathered in
So we want to make sure that we get in the get in the line before someone even files a bill
Mr. Scott
More questions just keep arising you're saying that the filing of a bill is the deadline the mere fight John Doe
state representative state Senate from Timbuktu and file a bill and we're
locked out and it could be active from the date that that bill is filed the
day field is fine if you're not in line at that time you haven't began the
process then you're gonna have to change and go under the new ruins the filing
date following dates coming up when can when can a lawmaker file I think it's
coming up this fall September October November you see that October November
maybe even be decent I believe this process should have started by asking our administration to bring
us information on how other districts have gone down this process we're going to have a public
committee and you know how that I'm in a public hearing and you know how that public hearing is
likely to go
opponents will get to come up to the podium they'll get to talk three minutes
and this board will not be able to interact with them that's not what I
call a public hearing we ought to have an opportunity where people have an
opportunity of a hearing where we can interact with people that's not against
the open meetings act it's not against the law we can structure meetings work
to give people three or four hours where we started and if people want to come
come talk, we can do that.
I want to know what Spring Branch has done.
I want to know how they have used it.
I want to know what path we're going down.
Yes, there are good things to be accomplished,
but Mr. Dubrell, I can tell you this right now.
This district has all the statutory authority it needs right now
to be innovative in the delivery of curriculum.
This district and many districts around the state of Texas
choose not to use their authority to be innovative.
And we have more authority than the state of Texas.
The state of Texas does not have us handcuffed in every regard.
And the District of Innovation is not going to take off the handcuffs in big regards.
And yes, I want to be able to do things,
and it may be that the District of Innovation is the only way to accomplish that.
But I don't like the process the way it started.
and I'm not buying the notion that once we approve this motion that we're not
starting the first domino that's going to be very hard to come back to it seems
clear to me that the intent of this board no no violation at all of open
meetings no private discussion at all but it seems clear to me that the intent
of this board is to push our district of innovation and before we start down that
path I think maybe one time we have a different process that guarantees people
who want to talk about this the opportunity to come talk to us and you
talk about the committee's do you want me to spend one hour of which I won't
talking about the last bond issue and the bond issue committee we'll just put
that one on the side I spent more time on that bond issue and I can tell you I
I actually looked at the capital improvement program and the architectural plans,
and it was not fully covered in these committees.
If we're going to do something this important,
then we ought to have a better process than just pushing the domino
and getting it started the easy way.
And I respect this board.
I've said I'm not going to have blood at the table.
I don't think I have.
But I have expressed my opinion on this, and I've expressed it strongly.
Madam President, I'm correct that this is a vote for next week, correct?
Yes.
Okay, thank you.
Any other questions?
Okay, thank you, Ms. Horton and Ms. Holland, for your information.
This will not move to the consent agenda.
It requires a resolution if we so choose next week.
Okay, now we'll go back to our report.
Let me just turn back a page.
Okay, Board, I'll direct your attention to 5.1.
We're going to have a presentation about the district legislative priorities.
Good evening, Dr. Grintz.
MS.
Good evening, Madam President, Board of Trustees, and Dr. Hintz.
If you give me a moment, I'm going to upload this slide.
Okay, I'm here this evening to share information about legislative topics for your consideration
as you begin the planning process for the Board of Trustees legislative priorities.
Mr. Smith, Chief Financial Officer, as well as Dr. Allison Matney, Executive Director
for Research Assessment and Accountability, are with me here tonight to help any, to address
address any questions you might have upon hearing this presentation.
As you know, the 85th legislative session is fast approaching.
It will commence in January 2017.
In the past, the Board of Trustees has adopted legislative priorities that have focused on
four main areas, being school governance, assessment and accountability, and school
finance.
These also happen to be areas that are a part of the conversation, or at least have been
been a part of the legislative conversation for the past three to four sessions.
When it comes to public education that is.
This evening I will discuss these four broad areas as well as specific subcategories under
each topic for your consideration.
Also we are prepared to administer a community feedback survey on these topics this week
and any other legislative topics you would like to include in this survey to gauge the
community's interest in pursuing these focus areas.
And of course you also have other avenues for considering and developing the legislative priorities outside of what you will hear this evening.
As you'll recall at our recent legislative breakfast, our elected officials spoke about these four topics. Again, governance, assessment, accountability, and finance.
and I'm going to start with talking about governance.
This item speaks to providing greater control and authority to the local
government with regard to decision-making concerning school district matters. You already heard about the District of Innovation.
This is just another avenue for pursuing some of those needs through legislative advocacy.
And I'm not going to read every slide since the advocacy points do appear on your screens and for the audience as well.
Again, under the broader topic of governance, we have voucher programs.
As you know, many voucher programs redirect public funds to non-public school systems
like private schools.
Some would argue that it would be in the interest of both systems if both were held accountable
to the same transparency and accountability rules.
This is what this item proposes.
Moving on to assessment, we know that a lot more TEKS have been added over time to the
STAR program. At the third grade level, for example, there are 51 standards alone measured
on the STAR assessment. This item proposes the streamlining of the TEKS as measured by
the STAR assessment program. Again, under assessment, in the last legislative session,
Senate Bill 149 was introduced and passed and as you know and enabled students who have taken and
Failed the intercourse exam in the 11th and 12th grade to be eligible to receive a diploma
After having been reviewed by a graduation committee that bill unfortunately sunsets in September
2017 that could have an impact on our graduation rates and we think would be in the interest to at least extend this program for a
while
So this item proposes retaining the individual graduation committee
Under accountability, as we know, hundreds of new bills and legislation affecting public
education have been introduced into law over the years, oftentimes without appropriate
funding.
And as you know, the state dictated initiatives that school districts must implement by law
but without additional funding are called unfunded mandates.
mandates. One such unfunded mandate, rather, are the costs associated with mandatory testing
and remediation. From our experience at KDISD, funding state mandates like this at the local
level without assistance from the state at times impacts general operating class size,
classroom materials and so forth. So this item is proposed to address that matter. Still,
Still under accountability, again, there's been some talk among state officials about
delaying the implementation of the new statewide accountability system until it accurately
reflects student achievement and progress.
We know that the current accountability system relies heavily on STAAR examinations, but many
believe, including our teachers and parents, that accurate measures of student achievement
and progress should include more than a one-day multiple choice test, and this item addresses
addresses that concern.
Under accountability, again, you are probably familiar with the A through F rating system
that was introduced in the 84th legislative session.
Those who support the implementation of this new rating system believe it provides a simple
and transparent way for parents and community members to understand the performance of their
schools.
However, the other side of that is that the letter grades really don't do a whole lot
to actually improve failing schools.
schools. In fact, in some communities that serve larger numbers of economically disadvantaged
students could be punished in a more general way and the rating system in general circumvents
the core problem at hand, which is really lack of funding, which you're going to hear
a little bit about when we go into the topic of finance.
finance.
Again under accountability, we are proposing that the state align its accountability system
with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act ESSA requirements.
Currently, the federal government does not require the measurement of writing and social
studies.
The state of Texas goes above and beyond and requires assessments in those areas and we
And we are proposing that we not measure writing in social studies, but there are other ways
to do that, perhaps at the local level.
Again under accountability, excluding English language learners assessment results from
the accountability system, as you may know, it takes some English language learners, or
or research will show rather that most English language learners take five to seven years
to become a proficient, academically proficient in English.
And when these scores for students who are not yet proficient in English is included
in the accountability system, it impacts the school's overall rating and accountability.
And when you talk about the A through F accountability environment, that has significant implications.
applications.
Now moving into finance.
I think I jumped ahead one.
Okay, again under accountability.
This speaks to adding college readiness assessments to the postsecondary readiness domain indicators
in the current accountability system and funding with state resources, a broader administration
of college readiness tests.
The current legislation requires the post-secondary readiness domain to include dropout rate,
graduation rate, college and career readiness, and other indicators.
But broadening the number of college assessments used in the state accountability system will
help reliably measure how Texas schools are preparing students for colleges and careers.
Now moving into finance.
As you know, in 2012, about two-thirds of school districts across the state of Texas
entered into a lawsuit against the state because they had concerns about inadequate funding
for public schools.
In 2014, a county judge agreed with them, and then this past spring, in 2016, the Supreme
Court overruled that.
So lack of appropriate funding from the state places really a greater burden on the local
taxpayer and ultimately impacts programs and services for students and families.
So this advocacy point really addresses that issue and concern.
Again under finance, the basic allotment is the primary building block for the
school finance formulas. Increasing the basic allotment could potentially
improve every district's funding level by bringing more money into the system.
While legislators did increase it by $100 per student in 2016 and in 2017,
2017, that's still well below inflation. And so this advocacy point addresses again that concern as well.
And now I'm going to talk a little bit about the golden pennies.
For those of you who are not familiar with it,
the state currently matches up to four cents in the tax rate and these are known as golden pennies.
It is believed that by increasing the golden pennies to eight cents without an election,
this would provide further local control and flexibility of the tax rate along
with a greater level of local and state funding. So that is what you see in this
slide. So as I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, if the board is
interested in gauging the community's interest in these specific topics or
others you identify tonight or at a later date as you go through your
your development process for the legislative parties, we are prepared to administer a community
survey, a feedback survey, to provide you a greater understanding of the public sentiment
on these topics.
This survey could be sent to our parents and community members as early as this week if
that's something you would be interested in.
This slide shows a proposed timeline beginning with this evening, a presentation of topics
of interest and for your consideration, followed by a community survey.
That's something you would like to do with preliminary results being reported to the board to kind of serve
as a catalyst for discussion.
With the final survey results being presented in October work study and then
the board moving forward with the planning process at the regular meeting and forward.
forward. And of course the Board has many other options and avenues for developing the
legislative priorities outside of this proposal. You could develop the priorities up until
the end of December if that's something you choose to do. And that concludes this presentation.
If there's any questions, Mr. Smith and Dr. Matney and I are here to answer those questions.
questions.
I have a question about the survey.
Will you rank which items are most important to the community members as well as give them
some space to write in something that may not be included on it?
You can incorporate that into the survey.
That's what the board wishes to do.
And whatever is important to them so it's not administration-driven,
we can ask them on all four of those topics.
Rank these items for us.
And the reason I ask that, I think that it would be better for us to advocate
for fewer things rather than more.
Absolutely.
It's kind of like, I know Charles is going to appreciate this story,
it's kind of like the Katie Tigers.
When they show up in the football field, you know they're going to run.
They do one thing and they do it very well. They run the ball
That's only because they run very well
So we're not going to get into the football analogy of stacking eight in the box and of course you're gonna pass
Yeah, but we could we could we can actually take those and we can ask the community list these in
Priority and your priority then bring that back to the board so that you guys know what?
What's most important to our community? I think that would I think that would be beneficial
Madam President, this will be mercifully brief.
Mr. Scott, I wait to see.
Can you tell me who gives more tests, not counting classroom tests, not counting six-weeks tests, not giving,
who gives more tests on more subjects, more times a year, KDISD or the state of Texas?
So I'm assuming you're talking about beyond the state assessment program.
Are you speaking to tests beyond the state assessment program?
Right. The district learning assessment. We give about 90 administrations. Has the
administration ever presented anything on the correlation of the district learning
assessments to this because I noticed in the other document that we want to ask
the legislature to consider local assessments and and that's it it was
just a question I will be at a team-building meeting soon but this
district gives more assessments takes more time for teach testing on our
teachers than the state of Texas does and that's a fact and that's something
that I think when we start asking the legislature to do something or we want
to be innovative maybe we ought to look at our own house first I hear you but I
would say that that's probably a true statement for every district in the
state of Texas not just Katie I mean if you take a look at the state
assessments every district in the state of Texas they do have assessments that
probably far outnumber what the state's asking us to do but if it weren't for
those state assessments we may not be looking at some of those assessments
that were administering it internally we give tests all the way through high
school and I know that this district has never brought to this board or made
available to public researchers which I used to be before I got on the board
never made available any coherent presentation of the assessment that we're
doing in the state of Texas so when I look at one of these passages I'm gonna
have some comment when we get down to the details okay for what I would like
to do if you all see what what you think of this I'd like to consider putting
putting together a legislative committee, having board members as of heart kind of lead
that committee and have you all bring ideas to us, look at these presentations, take the
survey feedback, get some community input, whatever you think that, and I think this
This is an open time for discussion from our board of what we want to decide in isolation,
what's best for KDISD kids.
Our community put us here, and it is their schools, their children, and their money.
And we work for them.
So we need to take their input and see what do they consider the priorities for education legislation
so that when we communicate with our legislators we're speaking for the
masses not for ourselves so I would like to appoint a committee through the board
president's ability to appoint a committee and ask a two or three of you
all to serve if you have the time and desire and then keep reporting back to
to the board
about how things are going and then you help us decide the timeline how much
time do you need what other ways do we need to do that
and mister de brel
would you be willing to serve on that committee
mister scott
yes that committee
meets in public
i do not want to get into a situation like we did with the stadium committee
where you have members of a board meeting in de facto executive session,
if we're going to have a legislative committee that's going to talk about the
community's desire for legislation, then that committee needs to report and
figure out a way to allow a broad section of the community to come in and talk.
I would love to serve on it as long as that meeting is public.
And this meeting is this committee is much different than the one that are
That are protecting business interest and things like that from our community partners
And it may be that that's more of a reason that that committee might should have been posted
I don't know if we've gotten an opinion from that on the attorneys, but you're right this committee would be a classic
Discovery right right so
So we have two board members
members. Mr. Griffin, would you want to serve on that committee? Do you have the time to
do it? I don't have time. Thanks. I wanted you to because you're a legacy and you've
had children go through and certainly your career experience would help. But if you would
it be okay if Mr. Scott or Mr. Gibrell would call you for maybe some input from time to
time? Sure. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Does anyone else want to be a part of that?
I do would be fine it was fine or it have fourth so we and if mr. Griffin is
going to give input that would be a third so we'll have him be a alternate
house that if you all need his input let him know and then so I'm also going to
ask I think it's important for us to have parameters on what the committee is
going to look like and maybe put together a parameters for us maybe a
beginning of a charter something we could talk about we could do that mr.
if mr. Scott's fine with it I don't mind getting with him this week and begin to
put together some parameters for a charter possibly to bring back next week
if you have the time okay and if you could do that we could put it on the
agenda and vote about the charter at our next Monday meeting. You'd have to have it here by
Thursday to put to include on the agenda if you have an opportunity and then that could be a
discussion action then if we want to amend it at all we could always put it off to another day but
yeah let's a very simple charter one page type a very simple charter what the goal is who you're
going to include how many people are going to be on the committee how the committee is chosen
And in the meantime, the Board, I mean the administration will move forward with the
survey information to the Board.
Do you want to give the input to the survey on what they're asking or do you want them
to go forward with the, Board, what do you all think about the survey?
Do you want them to go forward with the survey of all of those interests and see what comes
back or do you want to do, do you want to amend the survey before we do?
Are we in a hurry with October?
I'm fine with the survey.
I think those topics are the things that the legislature is going to be discussing this upcoming session
As long as there's an open-ended section where people can type in their own interest
I think that even might help us speed up the process
Because I would hate for us to wait until January when they're started the best thing to do is talk to them in November or December
Before they before they begin their work and actually begin writing legislation. So you like the October decision-making time?
Yeah, I mean, November at the latest.
Okay.
So the survey, the questions will be simpler than the things you presented to us, Dr. Grims.
Your previous surveys are generally more brief.
Well, the questions would be the actual topics.
So it would be essentially what you did see this evening.
We're just going to ask the community to rank those in their importance.
Okay.
Any other feedback?
Other board members, what are you thinking?
Like I like the idea of a community.
Somehow you're going to meet with the community.
Maybe a town hall.
Maybe the survey will have.
I like the idea of being an open Mr. Scott as well.
But I want to limit.
I don't want to limit.
I think that we've got a committee, we've got a charter,
and what we have shown you, if the committee determines that there are additional items,
then I think that the charter certainly has that jurisdiction.
Okay.
Any other input?
No?
Okay.
Excellent.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being willing to serve on that.
Thank you, Dr. Grimes and Dr. Matney.
Had someone else on the?
Okay.
Mr. Smith, you were there too.
Did a great job, Mr. Smith.
Okay.
Thank you for the discussion and that
Six point one
Mr. Excuse me, mr. DeBrell, would you be the chair of that committee, please?
And then would you report back to me when you're ready to add something to the agenda before Thursday?
Mr. Mrs. Noak five o'clock when when would when do you need that information? You need the posted item posting item?
Okay.
So Thursday morning.
Okay.
Thursday morning at 8 o'clock is when we need that.
Let me know if you have, Mr. DeBrell, you'll report to me and then we'll do that.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Here we are.
6.1.
Discuss and consider future Board approval of a proclamation for Texas Education Human
Resources Day.
For our first two discussion action items, I'd like to present two proclamations for
the board.
We're going to talk about the first one is the Texas Education Human Resources Day.
October 12th is the day we're going to say we love you to all of our human resources
people even though we love them every day of the year.
So it's been set aside by the Texas Education Human Resources by the Texas Association of
School Boards.
So TASB is leading this. School district personnel who work in human resources play a key role to ensure that we retain and
that our schools are staffed with high quality employees.
I'll read the proclamation at this time.
Board of Trustees proclamation for Texas Education Human Resources Day.
Whereas the Human Resources Division is instrumental in recruiting, selecting, resourcing, and retaining
quality staff in support of providing an excellent education for all students and
whereas human resources plays a key role in fostering satisfaction and loyalty
among employees by allowing for professional growth and development and
keeping employees informed about policies working conditions compensation
and benefits and whereas human resources monitors and manages current and future
workforce trends organizational culture legal and legislative trends and ethical
and social responsibility and whereas human resources is an important part of
district leadership and is vital to the overall productivity and efficiency of
the district's workforce and whereas human resources is a valued and
respected department that sustains the district's most important asset its
people therefore the Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees does
does hereby proclaim that October 12, 2016 will be observed as a Texas Education Human
Resources Day throughout the district.
The Board also encourages students, staff and parents to express their appreciation
to our Human Resources Team members for their dedication and commitment to KDISD employees
and students.
Any comments or questions?
Any objection to moving this item to consent agenda for Monday?
Madam President, I would like to hold it off consent so we can read it again and vote on it at the same time.
I think that would be good.
I mean, I think our Human Resources Department does a fabulous job.
I know that around the state they're having problems with getting and maintaining quality teachers
And we don't have a problem with that when you come to the teacher fair people are lined up, and they do a great job
I appreciate you reading it today
But I think we should read it in a formal meeting to celebrate them and also allow you to take miss Edmunds to lunch to celebrate
October 12 that won't be a problem
remember next week we'll read it if that's what you'd like but this is
October 12th that is actual day that we're talking about but he's gonna make
me read it again on Monday when we vote
right mr. mr. Durrell are you going to have the same thing on 6.2 because if so
I just assumed we wait and read it next week oh yeah let's read them both let's
read them both next week okay both 6.2 board members is discussing consider
future board approval which will be next week of a proclamation for principals
month and I'm gonna save that one how much we love our principals and how
fabulous
are and all the wonderful things they do in whereas form next monday any objection well no
it won't move to consent because i will read it next week and sign it next week we love our
principles and our human resources i agree with you mr debrell but give a girl a break and say
it before i do i just wanted to make sure i agree with everything i didn't want to interrupt
Okay, 6.3 discuss and consider future board approval of the Katy Independent School District
2016-17 School Health Advisory Council representatives. Mr. Grimmett. Good evening,
Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Head. I come here tonight to present a list of the 2016-17
school health advisory council membership for your approval are there
any questions and that list is in your documents you can see those individuals
that we've pulled together for this committee any question okay any
objection to moving this to consent agenda thanks for being here mr.
Mr. Gramm, it's always good to see you.
I look forward to your report that happens in...
I'll be around May, June.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
6.4, discuss and consider future board approval of a principal assistant principal substitute list.
by our human resources. We appreciate you very much. We're going to tell you next Monday.
Thank you. And we're going to read the resolution too.
And I get lunch.
So good evening President Fox, trustees, Dr. Hinn.
I am here to present a list of principal and assistant principal substitutes
that we could potentially use throughout the school year when there is a need
and it would usually result if we have a vacancy with an assistant
principal or principal or if there's a need for one of those individuals to go
out on FMLA and the reason we bring this list forward is because according to
policy DNA an evaluator must be certified must be a certified PDOS
appraiser as well as being approved by the school board any questions okay any
I did I do have one question is this primarily or appraisal during the course
of the year is this to supplement the eligible appraisers or is it just to
make sure that you have someone on campus who can appraise if the other
ones out someone that's on campus that is allowed to appraise the DNA these are
not rotating these are just classic fill in the blank if someone's missing that
is correct sir any objection to moving this to consent agenda so moved said
Ms. Edmund, you'll be presenting 6.5 as well.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, so each district in Texas is required to conduct a class enrollment survey
for grade levels kinder through fourth.
Based on that enrollment survey, a district that is seeking a waiver
must submit a written application to the State Commissioner of Education.
At this time, KDISD is seeking the board approval for the superintendent to prepare,
sign, and submit an application to the State Commissioner of Education
for a class size waiver exception.
This waiver was taken forward in front of the Katie Improvement Council and they had no objections to us moving it forward to the school board.
For the 16-17 school year, we are asking for a waiver for a total of seven campuses and 15 class sections.
Any questions?
Yes, ma'am.
Where was the unanticipated growth?
I thought our projections were pretty spot on.
We spend millions of dollars on buildings.
Where's the unanticipated growth?
We can see there's a list of those campuses there.
Of course, we can never get it down to the exact total number.
And as you know, at the kindergarten through the fourth grade level, once you exceed the
22, now my understanding is we have no classes that exceed 22.
24 they fall right within that range and also as I indicated to you guys last
week through a communication we are in the process of balancing the district
also some campuses that are under enrolled versus those that are over
enrolled we did have to move some staff to try and get us as close as we can
based upon data from previous years this is the lowest it's been in five years
that we've requested for this type of waiver but to answer your question
Mr. Scott, don't have it down to an exact science, but we do have some areas that we
under project it and we have some that we over project it.
Madam President.
Mr. Michalski.
Ms. Edmunds, do you know how many total class sections there are K through fourth grade
in KDSD by chance?
I'm sorry, I do not have that information.
A bunch.
How many elementary schools do we have?
Thirty-nine.
Thirty-nine.
on right well less than 1% well less yeah and it appears they're kind of
spread all over the district so it's not growth in one area no it's not one more
question please so there's no leveling that can be done at these campuses that
you need to put 24 kids or whatever the number is that's organizationally that's
what you're saying is necessary for these particular sections yes sir they
are already exceeded the 22 to 1 maximum okay any objection to moving this to
consent so moved thank you miss Edmund very much thank you
six point seven miss Holland word will look at discuss and consider future
board approval of proposed changes to board policy DNA local and D and B local
on 6.7 and 6.8. Hi Ms. Holland. Good evening. Ms. President, members of the board, Dr. Hint.
On April the 25th, Yolanda Edmond presented to the board the district's intent to continue with
our local appraisal system for teachers for the current year with an understanding that we would
move to the state system for the coming year. We have updated the policy at DNA
to reflect the board's decision at that meeting to stay with an alternate system
for this year and then we will bring another policy to you in May at which
time the policy will show our intent to move to the state system for appraising
teachers for the 17-18 school year. So D&A will simply put into practice what the board has already voted on in April.
Any questions? Any objection to moving this to consent agenda? So moved.
Okay, thank you. D&B is the same process but this is concerning appraisal of
administrators and non-teaching professionals, primarily principals, and
again we would use the local system for this year with the intent to move to the
state system for 17-18 and in May we will be bringing you a revised policy in
this code to reflect the change to the state system any objection to moving
this to consent agenda so moved I solid now we'll move to the JJ AEP Harris
County and Fort Bend County yes each year we come to the board at this about
this time of year to ask for your approval for the memorandum of
understanding between the counties with whom we are involved with juvenile
justice alternative education programs Harris County we are asking for the same
number of seats three and the price for those seats is $110 a day I do want to
call your attention to the fact that at the bottom of the contract it says if
this contract is not approved by September 1 that the price of those
seats goes to $120 a day however we did not receive the contract until after
that date. I have talked with Harris County and we have been writing that
they will honor the $110 per day since we did not receive the contract.
Otherwise there are no changes. Any objection to moving this to consent
agenda? I just have one question. Yes sir. Is CPE still running the JJAP for
Harris County? Is who? Community Education Partners. Alma Fox is the person with
with whom I interacted, Harris County, I'm not sure.
Okay, I was just curious.
Okay, and Fort Bend?
And Fort Bend, no changes in the Fort Bend contract.
We contract for two seats at $7,000 per seat,
and that is a fixed rate.
So even if we don't use those seats,
we don't get the money back,
whereas with Harris County, we do get some refund.
fund any objection to moving this to consent agenda so moved Thank You miss
Holland mr. Smith and miss I chinger are going to talk about the 2016-17 debt
service tax rate and also right into the maintenance and operations tax rate good
evening mr. Smith good evening miss Fox board and dr. Hint tonight I'm first
first item on the agenda is to talk to you about the maintenance and operations tax rate.
And I've put a picture of our tax rate history on the screen, and I just want to show you
that I'm advancing the years, and going back to the 07-08 school year, we've been able
to maintain a 40-cent tax rate in the debt service.
In October of 2014, our voters went to the polls and thought they may be increasing the
tax rate by half a cent.
One year later, instead of increasing it a half a cent, we were able to actually lower it by one penny.
And we were able to change or lower the tax rate for the first time since 07-08 school year.
I'm pleased to say, and as you know, we built the budget around a 39-cent tax rate again.
so we are recommending the board adopt the the order adopting the 39 cent tax
rate or the one cent reduction again in accordance with Texas Education Code 26.05
the board is required to adopt a tax rate and there is an order
presented before you listen any questions okay next we will not move
this to consent agenda 2017 maintenance and operations 16-7 I'm similar with the
maintenance and operations tax rate going back to oh seven oh eight we've
had a dollar twelve six six that is our compressed tax rate plus four golden
and pennies it's been that way again since the 07 08 school year unfortunately we do not have any
control of this as it stands now as uh based on my uh conversations over the summer and and during
the spring about tier one uh and how the uh the apples uh effects uh is and so um again you have
an order before you and it would be the administration's recommendation to
to adopt the order with the same tax rate of $1.1266 for the 16-17 school year.
Any questions?
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
We also will not move this item to consent agenda.
6.13, discuss and consider future Board adoption of an order authorizing the issuance of Katy
Independent School District limited tax refunding bonds in one or more series.
setting certain parameters for the bonds, authorizing a pricing officer to approve the amount,
interest rates, price, and terms thereof, and certain other procedures and provisions related thereto.
Mr. Smith?
Okay.
I've got just a few slides that I wanted to show you to kind of set the stage of where we are with our debt management program
before I invite Mr. Greer from RBC Capital Markets up.
up. But we've talked a lot as we've gone through budget years and over this last summer about
our debt management tools, and tonight I want to talk to you about that top bullet of bond
refundings. In the past, in the recent past, since the November 2014 election is what I'm
bringing up as recent past, we've had refundings come to the board. And this one that you see
in front of you that we did in late 2014 generated a gross savings of $30 million or $30.1 million
to our taxpayers. In 2015, we did another refunding of $52.9 million and that generated
$8 million worth of savings. And then earlier this year, we did a $23.5 million refunding
that generated $4.6 million. Now, I said at one point when the success that we had during
in the 14-15 school year which would include the 2014 a 2014 b and 2015 b that we hit a home run
with those refundings and and we did and i've told you during the budget process uh that we
may have a very good at bat this year and i'm going to be in a minute introducing mr greer
to come talk to us about our next at bat but before i do that i want to do since we're since
since we've been so aggressive at trying to reduce interest expense.
Oh, by the way, that's a total of $43.5 million in savings,
gross savings from those refundings.
But I want to mention bond defeasances again.
I think it's important that we talk about it
because it reduced our interest expense through the defeasing of the bonds.
And by doing that these last several years as well,
we've reduced interest expense or had generated savings of $18 million.
million dollars so using our toolkit those two alone over the last since since
just after the 2014 bond authorization we'd have been able to generate sixty
1.5 million dollars in savings to our taxpayers so Adams six point one three
and six point one four on your agenda are for those two items the combined
gross savings that's potentially out there I'm going to let mr. Greer talk
talk about but before I bring him up I'm going to just go ahead and talk about
item 6.15 which is the new money sale we talked along the way about having four
new money sales with the 2014 authorization that's going out to the
bond market and getting money to build the construction projects that the
voters approved we had our first of four and I'm going to put a fast trick by
that and say it may just be three now but our plan was to have the first of four we had that
in february of 2015 we called it series 2015a it delivered 180 million dollars in proceeds
which went to work very quickly we had a true all-in true interest cost of 3.49
which was darn near a low water mark at that time and an average life of 18.254 years
years. The second new money sale was earlier this year in January, January 27, 2016A. It
delivered $275 million in proceeds. And I mentioned this at our Bond Review Committee
meeting. We're averaging over these last three months about $28.3 million in spend a month
over these last three months. It hurts to say, but we're averaging about $28.3 million
but but but it's really it's it's hard to say but uh for me because i'm tight but it's also
very proud to say when you go and see what we've done uh putting those buildings up and how much
is going on uh and and knowing that uh of all the districts that at least that i follow closely
we're out there really delivering to to our to our people and putting seats up
and that's a real testament to mr ganell mr mcawane because we are spending these proceeds
quickly that had a true all-interest cost of three point three nine percent
at eighteen point eight one average life for those bonds so some may be mature
longer than that some much quicker than that but the average was eighteen point
eight one so the third new money sale will be the third item on the agenda of
a six point one five based on the aggressive spend that we're having and
and being able to be delivering on these projects like we want and the interest
rate environment that we're in recommending the third of three bond
sales it would be sometime in the spring of 2017 that funds delivered in March or
April bond series 2017 a would be the name it would deliver 293 point 1 2
million in proceeds again that would be the last new money sale from the 2014
2014 authorization I'll let mr. Greer talk about the true all in true interest cost and the average life on those
And as mr. Greer comes up and sherry and man if y'all could pass out his package. I just wanted to
To basically show you what's happened here in the last 15 years and I think it's pretty impressive
I haven't been here for 15 years been here for a lot of this but not for all 15
but there's 32 transactions that we've gone that the board is approved and that
we've gone to market on on these 32 transactions and you can see on the on
their column along the left is the guy that has the sale date the bond series
and we've just named some of those series as an example the par amount
whether it was a new money sale or refunding those are both listed there
but again 32 transactions the sale type whether it was a negotiated or a
competitive sale for what we could gather the all-in interest totaling cost
we have there and then the average life the final maturity and some of these
we've passed the final maturity date and then the average coupon and if it was a
refunding it was the savings at that time again sometimes we've refunded a
refunding and it gets kind of complicated but again that just shows
you I think the history that we've had in the last 15 years and we have a debt
management plan that's arguably one of the best in the state and with that I'm
going to bring up the mr. Greer to talk to you about these three items and a
little bit more detail than then I was I have talked about good evening again my
My name is Clarence Greer with RBC Capital Markets.
Madam President, members of the board, and Dr. Hint, I'm really glad to be here before you today, tonight.
You have a package that was circulated before you, and what I would ask you to do is to, on page four,
a summary of what Mr. Smith just got finished discussing and which really
entails the limited and unlimited tax refundings and then also the refunding
parameter itself. We're going to go the next couple of pages we're going to turn
through to go each one of them specifically so you can see exactly
what's going on with the numbers and if you have any questions. On page 5 from
from the package that was circulated, was passed out.
We're specifically talking about the limited tax refunding bonds and the unlimited tax
refunding bonds.
And you can see the summary of savings right below the item before on the left side of
the page.
The limited tax we're looking at about $12 million of refundings itself, reducing savings
upwards of 6%.
And on the unlimited side, we're looking upwards of $170 million worth of refundings where
those bonds were sold in a higher interest rate environment. We can replace that in a
lower interest rate environment and save about 19% present value savings or taxpayers about
about 32 about 38 million dollars this is a summary illustration of where the
market is right now so when we actually get to the actual pricing it could be
higher or lower but we're we're thinking that we're going to be in the range
collectively and in between 35 and 38 million dollars the mark you know
hopefully the market cooperates and so those are the two refundings that are
before the board for consideration to be placed on the consent agenda and what
What the parameter resolution does is it enables your delegated authority, like we've done in other transactions, to the staff to enter the market at the most opportune time or to avoid some, I guess, less desirable times to be in the market.
Like a couple years ago, there was an ice storm in New York and a lot of buyers weren't able to even get into their office.
So we were able to kind of negotiate around that and have a sale.
Well, your ability to give the parameter and Mr. Smith and his team the ability to enter the market gave us that opportunity not to set a predetermined sale date,
but to kind of navigate around it and achieve a pretty decent level savings as you see above.
above. So we would have, those are the two refundings that's before, for the board's
consideration. And on page number six is, you know, Mr. Smith referenced the new money
itself, and we're looking at selling the remaining authorization of about $293 million.
And this sale would not result in any tax rate increase. This would be the last installment
again you know any increase above the 39 cents and when you look at the all the
and true interest costs that's in that's inclusive of all the fees all the
expenses we're looking at that being about three point three zero percent in
today's market and you can see how that compares about well you know we've been
very fortunate to be in a very strong interest rate environment to the right
The right side of the page you can see is just an illustration of how the new money bonds are projected to be structured.
This is not the actual sale itself. What we would do is through a negotiated method of sale process,
we would try to sell the bonds and structure the coupon and to give KDISD the most management and flexibility
and debt management to pivot around you know future sales and needs of the
district as they arise without locking taxpayers or the district within the box
and so that's just an illustration on the right side of the page I also have
for the board's pleasure behind appendix one on page number nine a little a brief
market summary. Bonds are, demand for bonds are not constant. They change.
They change for a lot of reasons. Supply and demand, economics 101. What we have
here on page nine was just an illustration of how macro events can
impact what we do here at the district. And you can see how just looking at the
global markets in the respective G7 countries, their respective 10-year yields, where we
kind of pictured a snapshot before the Brexit, a little bit after Brexit, and what it was
in the beginning of this month. And just to kind of show the volatility that's in the
market and how it can somehow impact our markets as well, subsequent slides will show that.
But interesting to note that we were at a 174 U.S. Treasury tenure before the Brexit vote.
And then after the market was shocked, we dropped down to the 140.
And at the 1st of September, we're back up to 164.
A lot of this is pretty remarkable as we kind of walk through the journals of financial history.
When you look at the scan, we're Germany and Japan with negative interest rates.
And when you look at our 10-year municipal market data, that's our 10-year yield for a AAA-rated index,
what we look to to make sure that you're pricing in a market environment that is a market rate.
And so you can see the corresponding rates of 153 before the Brexit dropping all the way down to 131 and then back up to 144.
And so, you know, so volatility is in the market and it is somewhat tied to what's going
on in the market in the macro level.
You can see the correlation on the next page, on page 10, of the 10-year U.S. Treasury denoted
in the blue and the red, which is the 10-year MMD, that's the hour market.
and you can see how the you know there's a I wouldn't say a perfect correlation
but definitely there's a strong correlation between the two so demand
for bonds in general somewhat are driven by what but it's going on in the macro
level what's going on with the Fed talk what's going on with miss yelling and
chairperson telling in her comments about whether interest rates are going
to move higher or lower and so it's not constant for that reason you know we
We have been very successful kind of navigating very bad markets by having the negotiated
sales method.
On page 11, we have where we are denoted in the municipal market specifically as denoted
in the upper right-hand corner in the red graph and then where we were in the blue graph
a year ago.
So rates have really improved over the last year to our advantage.
And I think some of the catalysts was again the Brexit and then just global rates just being so low in other places, the demand for U.S. Treasury bonds, we're starting to see a pickup which lowers the overall yield.
And then on the final page I want to leave you with, on page 13, is we've gone all the
way back to 1961 and to see and compare and contrast where interest rates were as measured
by the bond buyer 20 year G.O. index and where we are all the way up to date. And you can
see that we're near historic lows. In fact, virtually since we've started recording
reporting indices and whatnot. Rates have been higher. We are pretty much at all-time
historic lows. And what that does, it creates a lot of apprehension of some investors to
commit their money at these low levels. And we've seen the absence of retail investors
not participate in community markets as much because they find other risk assets such as
the stock market are the things to invest in because he started talking about the yields on
their investment they said wow that's that's too low for them to participate in but you can see
it's a great opportunity to be an um an issuer because you're locking in rates at near historic
lows and that's what we've fortunately been able to do over the last two sales and um the talk is
you know there's you know the market's been pricing in about 20 probability that there's
there's going to be a rate hike in the next couple of days with the Fed meeting on Wednesday.
But the probability goes up significantly by the end of the year.
So the chances are that monetary policy is shifting and the Fed is looking to increase
interest rates.
We'll see how aggressive they are with that.
But there's going to be, as different governors start talking in the market, that impacts
our market.
And so you can see in a daily basis, a weekly basis, yields go up and down significantly with the volatility.
And so we'll probably see more of that, but just kind of give you a brief market overview.
And then on the second section, just for the board's reference, we've given a comparison between competitive and negotiated method of sales.
you can look on the board the majority of the sales going back to 2001 all but
a couple have been on a competitive basis and in one thing the debate you
know I don't want to go know it's a lot of details unless there's questions but
I'll just leave it one one idea with you with the board is that several studies
have been deducted whether it's through the government finance officials
nationally or here the government financial officials in any each
respective state or there's a study in Arizona University Arizona Arizona State
University but it's inconclusive whether the method of each whether one method of
sale negotiated or competitive produces any savings you know to the issuer and
and that's through a lot of studies and analysis and empirical evidence you know
You know, there's obviously you can pick up one sale versus the other sale,
but collectively, you know, there's not been a major difference as it relates to the price itself.
And so, but I think I just want to leave it there as an overview
and see if there are any questions from the board.
Madam President.
Mr. Why is the thing called strictly private and confidential?
Am I able to go, I have CPAs and people that I like to go talk to things about financial issues,
but if this is strictly private and confidential, then I'm barred from doing that.
MR.
I just want to know if I have to protect this.
I could consult with the staff and get an answer back.
I don't, yeah.
MR.
It's not strictly public confidence.
MR.
MR.
Okay.
Okay, second question.
You made reference to competitive and negotiated bid.
You made reference to a study.
Can you send Dr. Hint where he can forward it to us?
I'd like to read that.
Yes, sir.
If there's an academic report out there.
Yes, sir.
I'd really like to read that.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Pretty interesting.
All right.
Any other questions?
Okay, thank you so much.
Just to give you a little bit of a timeline, the refunding is February the 15th, and then
we can refund up to 90 days before that.
So we'll be watching the market anywhere between November the 15th and February the 15th to
try to hit that home run.
Okay, so I read 6.13, I read.
Board members, any objection to moving 6.13 to consent agenda?
Okay.
MR.
Let me double check.
I would like to have the option of reading what he's going to send us.
I'm not saying I'm that I would just like to have the option of reading what
he's saying you can always pull it off right consent at that meeting also
that's fine okay I'll read 6.14 that way if we move it to consent I don't have to
read it again that night we will have an order authorizing the issuance of Katy
independent school district unlimited tax refunding bonds in one or more
series setting certain parameters for the bonds authorizing a pricing officer
to approve the amount the interest rate price including the terms thereof and
certain other procedures and provisions related there to any objection to moving
six point one four to consent agent mr. Scott the same would apply there no
based on what you said this right the same what I do I would like to get that
reference that he made. 6.15 would be an order authorizing the issuance of
KDN Dependent School District unlimited tax school building bonds in one or more
series setting certain parameters for the bonds authorizing a pricing officer
to approve the amount, the interest rate, price including the terms thereof and
certain other procedures and provisions related thereto. Any objection to moving
moving 6.15 to consent. So moved. Are we good Mr. Smith? Good. Okay and now Mrs. Butterfield.
Welcome. Talk to us about the approval of grant ratifications. Good evening President
Fox, Trustees, Superintendent Hint. I have two grants for ratification tonight. One is
in the amount of $2,679. This is a Ecolab Foundation grant to Wilson Elementary School.
It will be used for STEM supplies. And the McKinney-Vento, again this year, this grant,
also known as TechSHEP for Texas Support for Homeless Education grant, in the amount of
$53,722.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Questions? Any objection to moving this to consent agenda?
So moved. Thank you, Ms. Butterfield.
6.17, discuss and consider future board approval of the superintendent
evaluation instrument to be used in evaluation of the superintendent's performance.
Dr. Hint? Yes, I sent the board an evaluation
instrument that contains all the commissioners domains that was part of
the interview process we talked about was putting together something I
certainly know that you guys have looked at it may have some questions that's
just the first step of many steps that that goes into an evaluation I told you
I didn't think that that was something we do once a year it's an ongoing
process and quarterly I'd report to the board based on those domains also you
You know, one specific addendum to that is the commissioner's report with regards to accountability and how we assess and what our pluses and minuses are.
But that doesn't limit the board from including multiple addendums to that.
For instance, if there was a program evaluation or if there was a needs assessment or at some point as we're working forward with developing a strategic plan for the district,
those would be items that would be included in this evaluation because
that's the direction that evaluation is give me direction by the Board of
Trustees where we want this district to be tomorrow a year from now five years
from now etc also it provides you guys to give a little input down there some
goals that the board would like you know there's some things that this board
might want to include and of course a strategic plan would be approved by a
Board of Trustees so this is kind of the first step in multiple steps in the
process of evaluation any questions yes ma'am
yeah I have to take this out when I'm talking or otherwise I can't there's an
echo here and there I have to tell you on the Commissioner recommended student
performance domain superintendent appraisal in those numbers if you were
to waterboard me i have no idea what that means that form is just like industry and i will admit
it is archaic but it's part of policy legally i i would like to defer any approval of your
evaluation until after the team building meeting because there are ideas that i have that i really
don't think are going to be controversial but they might be i have a real problem
I can't even understand it.
I mean, that's to start with.
Not the first part, but the second part.
I have a real problem with telling the superintendent that we're going to hold him accountable
if the end of course algebra scores don't do something specific.
I think that's kind of goofy.
Okay?
And I don't think the board should go down that.
I think it's, you know, what should a game be at a Title I campus compared to another campus?
What should the game?
And I have a real problem saying that Dr. Hint should be held negatively accountable
if in one year certain score things don't happen.
But I do think there are things that we can reasonably hold you accountable for
that have historically not been included in superintendent's contract.
But I think the appropriate time is not tonight.
I think it's at the board building.
And I would like to defer this from next week until we have that offer.
It's not my fault.
It's not anybody's on this board spot that the team building that was supposed to be a month ago
Didn't didn't get to take place
That's my thought
No, well, I think what mr. Scott saying even if we moved it to consent next week the team buildings the next day
As superintendent I have no opposition
to that we'll bring it back at team building then we'll have to move into
October to get it approved that way it gives mr. Scott and if any of you have a
little input on that I personally don't a problem if you want to put something
on the agenda or after the team building I'm not trying I'm not trying to delay
it so if you want to have an action item on the team building meeting that would
still time to post that at the end you may not want to I'm just saying I'm not
I'm gonna leave it to the board then okay the main thing is I want to have
some input absolutely and I think we can get I think we can improve the
evaluation and then still get some input through the team building I don't like
part I really have problems with Part B I have I have real fundamental problems
with Part B what page are you talking about well I'm looking there's two
attachments and the the other one is recommended addendum oh you have
problems with the addendum not the not the part a is something that's very
fairly standardized and I have no problems with that I do think there
needs to be a part b but this might as well be written in hieroglyphics and i'm pretty familiar
with the numbers well this certainly is much more complex than anything we've used in the past so i
see that the addendum is something sometimes complex is really really negative and here's
here's the deal that portion there although I would agree with you it is
that's not one that I came up commissioner came up with that that's
actually part of BJC D legal bars that addendum there but if this board so
chooses to change that document I think we certainly can and because that's an
an addendum, I think that we can change that through that team building.
I think what I'm hearing you say is the evaluation.
You just don't like addendum A.
I think addendum A is just nonsense.
Yeah.
Well, then I think the evaluation can be approved, but addendum A is what we
would refine through team building.
Is that what I'm hearing?
I have no problem with the framework that you've outlined, but I do believe
there needs to be a Part B and that's not it.
And I think you agree with that.
I do.
Matter of fact, what I said was I believe this board can establish an addendum B
and addendum C.
Now, naturally, I can only get so much done, but I work for seven members of this
board and you guys collectively are going to come up with the direction you want
the superintendent to go.
If I believe that teachers are grossly mistreated in the state of Texas because
calls up numbers like this then I don't want to impose that on a superintendent
of schools well I certainly wanted to weigh in on this and tell you that I'm
very grateful that you have something much more it's just a better instrument
I don't know if complex is the right word but we search constantly for great
evaluation instruments for superintendent because we want to be able
to do that fairly but thoroughly and this is better than anything i've used since i've been
on the board i really like it and i agree with you mr scott the framework the first part is excellent
it's that state addendum that's confusing so yeah i really like this should we separate into two or
just go to team building and bring it back what i could do is modify the motion that we bring
so that it gives the board authority to discuss the addendum for the workshop.
Perfect.
Okay?
That sounds really good.
Yeah, this is great.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
So we will not move that to consent agenda.
Dr. Hint will bring that back revised.
6.18, discuss and consider future board approval of a board advisory subcommittee
to discuss review and develop oh we we already did that we did that when we
talked about the report so on the legislative committee so we will vote on
that next week any objection to moving that tickets
it's not winning okay what
It's going to make me read the charter next week.
Okay, that cannot go to consent agenda.
Read the charter.
Don't tell him he's right, like, really loudly.
That's not a good idea.
Just saying.
Okay, this time we will move to the open forum portion of our agenda.
Board of Trustees will hear from patrons as established by board policy the first
20 speakers who sign up at least 15 minutes before this meeting will be
allowed to speak a maximum of 30 minutes has been allocated to open forum the
time will be divided equally among those who have signed up however the maximum
amount of time for any one speakers three minutes a time clock is visible on
the podium so that each speaker may see the time remaining and our sergeant at
arms mr. de brel will alert you when one minute remains if speakers wish to share
non-confidential written material with the board ten copies should be provided
to the secretary for board services
miss noack written material would be given to the board after the meeting
due to posting requirements for the open meeting of the open meetings at the
board is able to respond only to a statement that is related to a posted
agenda item student disciplines specific student issues and personnel matters
shall be addressed through appropriate channels established by policy and the
presiding officer shall determine whether a speaker has attempted to solve
a matter through those proper channels patrons who have not provided their
first and last name will not be allowed to speak as I announce your name please
come to the podium state your first and last name for the record our first
speaker this evening is Lisa Babin. Good evening. Good evening my name is Dr. Lisa Babin. It
certainly says that on there and you will address me correctly. This issue that I'm speaking of
regards Mr. DeBrell's manners to me in the parking lot after the last work-study meeting where I was
verbally accosted in front of my special education child. Mr. DeBrell seems to want me to prove to
him that I have two doctorates from Emory University. Mr. Dubrow, in this lifetime,
if you have not learned that I don't have to prove anything to anyone but myself, then you need to go
back to school. As a pastor, you are allegedly a pastor, you shall not mistreat any widow or
fatherless child. That's what it says in Exodus. You frightened my child by verbally talking to me
the way that you did in the parking lot. He is a special needs child. You will not ever do that
again do you understand you were wrong and you know you're wrong and i'm not going to put up with
it um the next item i want to discuss is the remark at the last work buddy work study meeting
by mr griffith thank you mr griffith i totally agree with you um for the first time um in a long
time i do think that taping of the board of trustees training sessions should be made public
i want to know why you don't want them made recorded it makes me wonder and a lot of other
people wonder what else are you trying to hide if you had had your training
session then most people would have been under the assumption that summer
graduation which is where your board of trustee work-study your training session
was supposed to be was supposed to be filmed and to my surprise I received
nine phone calls from nine different individuals in this district informing
me that we do not take summer and winter graduations I think that's a travesty
because we tape all the other graduations in this district,
those children are entitled to have the ability
for their taxpaying parents to be able to purchase
a copy of their graduation.
They've worked twice as hard to receive.
And I just think with all the capabilities
that we have in this district,
we should be able to be taping that.
Had we had the Board of Trustee work training meeting
after that, there would have been somebody available
to tape that meeting.
The fourth thing and final thing I want to talk about
is single-member districts.
We've grown the district and it's time to grow the school board. We need to go to single-member districts based on feeder patterns
It's time. We have no representation currently for Morton Ranch or Maid Creek areas
None of y'all represent any of those people. So when you talk about community, there's not any representation for that. So, thank you
Have a good evening
And its speaker is Kim Belcher
Ms. Belcher, it's nice to see you.
Good evening.
I'm Kim Belcher, a Katy parent, taxpayer and public school advocate.
I'm here to comment on Agenda Item 6.6, the District of Innovation initiative that has
received little to no publicity up to this point.
Districts of innovation or DOIs have the power to change the entire nature of a community.
Such an undertaking should not be taken lightly by anyone involved due to the potential of undermining the roles of the professional educator and the parents of our students.
While the marketing of the DOI touts local control, these concepts do not allow school districts to exempt from state or federal requirements that charter schools are subject to,
which means that the two greatest problems in Texas education today cannot be solved through a DOI.
Poorly crafted standards that are interfering with our students' ability to perform fundamentals of math, write coherently, and comprehend what they read will not find resolution in a DOI.
And the new so-called accountability system cannot be avoided due to this limitation, which means that our kids are subject to real-time, anytime assessment, not only from an academic standpoint, but also social and emotional responses to stimuli in the classroom.
classroom.
In addition to the two primary problems in education not being remedied by implementation
of a DOI, if a district so chooses, educators could no longer have to be certified to hold
their positions, could lose their ability to enact or enforce disciplinary measures
in the classroom, and could provide unfair contractual advantages to the districts over
the educator that have the potential to impact pay, work hours, and rights to paid leave.
While parents are already seeing a push to keep them out of the education of their children,
DOIs afford the opportunity for a district to exempt itself from providing parental access
to a child's instructional materials, limit a parent's right to prohibit videotaping
or tracking of their children, lose broad access to teachers and administrators, and
lose the expectation of safety in the classroom as teachers' rights to discipline are negated.
According to Deputy Commissioner A.J.
Craybill, the three most common exemptions that the schools are taking under these plans
are exemption from the uniform start date, exemption from the teacher certification
requirements and exemption from limiting class size to 22 to 1 ratios Craig bill
had nothing to report on what innovative programs were being piloted under this
initiative it seems these districts are more interested in what they can exempt
themselves from than what they can do to improve student outcomes none of this
points to a more sound academic education for our kids the Texas
Education Code has safeguards in place for the district's educators parents and
students that should not be set aside hastily i respectfully request that you hold a public
open forum in addition to your debt team so that all of those stakeholders have an opportunity to
provide input not just a limited three minutes at the end of an already long day you're setting
kd texas up to be left without a traditional public school our public schools have been the
cornerstone of our community and our culture for decades and that should not be stripped
away without the involvement of those who are funding it your property
Thank you, Ms. Belcher.
These are the only two speakers who have signed up, so this concludes our open forum.
At this time, board members, I'll direct your attention to the regular board meeting next Monday, September 26th,
and we also have a special board meeting on Tuesday, September 27th, for our team building.
There being no further business before the board, this meeting is adjourned.
The time is 928 p.m.
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
The motions and votes for this meeting have not been recorded here yet. Whether any were taken is not stated either way. The agenda and the recording above are the primary sources.