We got four. Okay. We will now reconvene in open meeting. Today is Monday, November the 5th. The time is 638 p.m.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, November 5, 2018
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Mr. Gregorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding the notice of this meeting?
Mr. Vice President, I confirm we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act in regards to this meeting tonight.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's board meeting.
To prepare for this meeting, each board member will receive the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Friday, November 2, 2018,
and have had three days to study its contents and seek clarification from administration.
This evening, the items posted on the agenda will be presented to the board by staff, administration, and the deputy superintendent.
The board will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss agenda items during tonight's meeting.
The board met earlier this evening in closed meeting. Any action arising from
this discussion in a closed meeting must be taken in a subsequent open meeting.
Just to let you know, any scouts in the audience? Roger that. Check that off.
Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Ashley Doyle is at, I'm sorry, Ashley, oh gosh guys this
This is fun with me.
Ashley Vann is at the band competition in San Antonio with Seven Lakes High School.
Courtney Doyle had a family emergency and illness.
She is out of the out of state of Texas.
She is in Louisiana.
So and I'd like to pause before we start our public hearing.
I'd like to in light of some of the unfortunate tragedies that have beset our district over the last week or so.
that with some of our families that we pause for a moment for a moment of silence.
Thank you very much.
Item 4.1, presentation of the district's rating on the financial integrity rating system of Texas,
F-I-R-S-T, Mr. Christopher Smith.
Well, good evening, Vice President Lacy, Deputy Superintendent Gregorski,
and members of the Board of Trustees and public.
It's my pleasure to get up here tonight and go over our school's first rating.
schools first as a as an FYI is an acronym for the financial integrity rating system of Texas
and essentially it's our financial report card the information that we're going to go over tonight
miss fighting her and myself we're gonna kind of tag team this presentation but the information is
from the 1617 school year audit so we just wrapped up the 1718 school year our auditors started
today as a matter of fact to start our 17-18 audit but this goes back a year to
the 16-17 fiscal year the audit was presented to you to the Board of
Trustees and the public in January of 2018 we submitted all to the Texas
Education Agency it takes them two or three months to go through the data and
and analyze all of the ISD data and then they release these these schools first
ratings in August. So it's a year old. Schools First was adopted during the
1999 legislature. Schools First is a statewide rating system that was
implemented its first year even though it was adopted in 1999, began in 2003 and
then the fall of 2003 like this year it went over over one year old data from
from the 2001-2002 fiscal year.
TEA implemented numerous changes effective over the years.
We've gone from as many as 21 indicators to as few as five
to as 10 and 15.
I presented and Ms. Feitinger presented this time last year
15 indicators.
Those are the same 15 indicators tonight
that we'll be presenting.
And then we expect this time next year for those 15
indicators to be the same I believe and then the budget that was just adopted
when we're here two years from now will be significantly different indicators
for looking at ISD finances the purpose is to expand the public education
accountability system to financial services its primary goal is to improve
the management of a district's financial resources and to ensure the maximum
allocation of resources is spent directly for instructional purposes as
it should be. There are several indicators that are easily recognized and
interpreted by both the public and the finance industry. There are several
indicators tonight that will have a wider sliding scale range to allow a
high, medium, or low points award to the indicators. So those points could be from
zero to ten points on some of these indicators that we'll see tonight. And
And then there would be an automatic failure
if someone was failed to meet the requirements
of any critical indicator.
And the critical indicators will be the first five,
and they'll be in red tonight.
And failing one of these or answering no to one of these
would be an immediate failure of Schools First.
To determine scores, you can have a numerical score
score of 70 to 100 points to earn a superior achievement. 50 to 69 points is above standard
achievement or a B. 31 to 49 points is meets standard or a C. And then less than 31 points
is substantial achievement or an F. And again, you could have more than 31 points and fail
one of these first five indicators that Ms. Feitinger is going to go over and you're going
to fail and get an F anyway. I'm going to turn it over to our business manager, Ann
by Tinger. Okay, indicator number one. This is was the annual financial report
filed within one month after the January 28th deadline? This is our audit report
and it was filed on January the 26th before the deadline. So the objective,
some of these are worded very strangely with double negatives in them. The
answer, the objective is to answer yes to all of the indicators. So the answer is
yes we did file it within the time frame indicated indicator 2a this is a two-part
was there an unmodified opinion in the annual financial report in other words
did we have a clean audit opinion and yes we did have a clean audit opinion
indicator 2b was the annual financial report free of any instances of material
weaknesses in internal controls and yes it was free of weaknesses of internal
controls so again there's the double negatives indicator number three was the
school district in compliance with the payment terms of all debt agreements at
fiscal year-end in other words do we make our bond payments in a timely
fashion and yes we did indicator number four did the district make timely
payments to TRS the IRS the Texas Workforce Commission and all other
government agencies and yes we did make our payments timely and the last
critical indicator is was the total unrestricted net asset balance in the
the statement of net positions or net assets greater than zero and yes August
31st 2017 or 17 we had net assets of just over 273 million dollars so yes we
did meet that indicator all right thanks I'm gonna take the next five indicators
whether it was were the number of days of cash on hand and current investments
in the general fund for the school district sufficient to cover operating
expenses this goes back to fund balance although this says cash cash is a large
part of fund balance 90 days cash on hand is what it's looking for we have at
the end of the 2017 fiscal year we had just over a hundred twenty seven days
cash on hand so yes we meet this indicator indicator seven was the
measure of current assets to current liabilities ratio for the school
district sufficient to cover short-term debt? Yes, our ratio was more than
adequate to cover our short-term debt. Was the ratio of long-term liabilities
to total assets for the school district sufficient to support long-term solvency?
The answer to that is yes. In addition to that, we had the, we would not score all
the points all ten points on this i think we would score six uh however um because of our growth we
had uh more than ten percent growth over five years the agency recognizes that any district
that's growing over ten percent probably is going to have to issue the debt uh as we do our our
growth over those five years was 16.8 percent so because of that we do get all 10 points on this
indicator and the other indicators I'm sorry that I started out with we've
received ten points the maximum points on those as well indicator nine did the
school districts general fund revenues equal or exceed expenditures in other
words did your revenue or did you outspend your revenue and we did not and
so we yes we met this indicator if we would have spent more money if we would
have used that had a deficit budget and spent more expenses than our revenue as
long as we had 60 days cash on hand we would have passed this indicator we
probably would not have scored all the points but we scored all the points
because we are we did not overspend our revenue and we had more than 60 days
cash on hand was the debt service coverage ratio sufficient to meet the
the required debt service? Yes. I will say this. This time last year we went over
the syndicator. I talked to you about this and I said this is going to be a
tough one to meet next year because we had a the series 2016 C and D refundings.
One was a very large refunding but they were current refundings and the way we
had to record that was showing unlike normal refundings where we have
resources in and resources out. We had to record this one according to the
Government of Kennedy Standards Board. We had to record this as all expense and I
said if we, if the agency doesn't look for this, anybody that had a current
refunding is going to not pass this indicator. Well the agency did and the
agency did make an adjustment for one of our two refundings. So they didn't do it
for both. I think they overlooked the second refunding. It was much smaller
than the first one, but because of that we right now we only have eight points
on this one. We didn't get the full ten. I sent a letter to the to the
Commissioner of Education on September the 8th. I thought we'd have here back
by October the 31st. We have not. Now that date has moved from then to
September the 8th. We're only looking at two points, but we would have gotten it
right had they put the data in there we would have been just just just got to it
to get the ten points in addition to that we also had we also were defeasing
or we paid down twenty five million dollars in principle that payment of
down of twenty five million dollars in principle save the taxpayers of this
district ten million dollars instead of refunding and we just paid them down
paid them off just like somebody would pay a credit card just pay it off but
but they did not take that into account so we were teetering near not getting the 10 the full 10
points and had that not happened or had they given us credit for that we would have been far above
and and and not even close to skirting it but we did and uh more more in the future
say that the state of texas or the organization did not recognize paying off debt in lieu of
refunding yes sir the this is the debt service obligations in the detail annual
obligations this TEA directed yes they made the rule and I wrote it in my
letter but we'll see I mean this is just part and parcel of the nonsense that the
the TEA does consistently. It is absurd on the face of it. Someone needs to say that.
Mr. Scott and other Board of Trustees, let's wait until they vary and we can bring other
things like that up and other questions. I'm going to let Ms. Feitinger take these last
five indicators. I'll break it up a little bit for you.
Okay, so indicator number 11, was the school district's administrative cost ratio equal to or less than the threshold ratio?
The administrative cost takes your instructional leadership and your general administration and divides it by the direct instruction,
instructional resources and media, guidance and counseling, and curriculum and staff development gets a ratio.
to meet this indicator to get full credit.
We had would have had to been over 8.55%
or under 8.55%. We were well under it.
We were at 3.77,
which is one of the lowest in the area.
And one of the lowest in the area last year.
I think I said we are always neck and neck
with another district similar to a large
district very close to us to the North.
We are always neck and neck to them.
I keep up with some of these school
school first indicators with 16 districts that are big districts or high profile districts across the state and of the 16 districts this year, we in this rating the 1617 school year, we did have the lowest administrative cost ratio. And based on that, I would say, and I don't know this for sure, but it has to be one of the lowest administrative cost ratios in the state. But it was of those 16 districts.
Indicator number 12, again this is one of those negative things, did the district not have a 15% decline in the students to staff ratio over three years?
We had a slight decline but we were nowhere near a 15% decline so yes we met this indicator.
Indicator 13, did the comparison of PEMS data to like information in the audit result in an aggregate variance of less than 3% of the expenditures per function?
of a budget of about 642 or over 642 million our variance was 424 dollars
which is rounding so we met that indicator indicator number 14 was the
annual financial report free of any material non-compliance for grants
contracts and laws related to local state or federal funds and we were in
compliance with all of those areas and the last indicator this is a tough one
Did the school district not receive an adjusted repayment schedule for more than one fiscal year for an over allocation of foundation school program funds as a result of financial hardship?
And the answer is yes, we did not have an adjusted repayment schedule.
So that's a positive.
We did not need to have our repayment schedule adjusted for any financial hardship.
So I know it's killing everyone what our rating is, and we're on the edge of our seats.
but Kenny I see past all critical indicators that miss fighting er went
over we received 98 of 100 points again that's not our final rating I'm a
confident that when we get our final rating it should be a hundred points out
of a hundred unfortunately this meeting this was set prior to to that so we do
still receive a 98 as a superior achievement of those 16 districts just I
I might add that the average score for those was 95.1.
So we're doing good.
There was two hundreds.
I think there will be three hundreds of those 16 districts when it's all said and done.
So that's the highest rating that you could get under the guidelines established by the Texas Education Agency for the schools first.
And I think, last I heard, there is a plus.
So in addition to the information
that we just went over, each of you
has a report that looks like this.
And in this report is a copy of the presentation
that we went over.
It's got the scores from both the 16-17 school year
and the 15-16 school year.
Both of those, all 15 indicators are there
for each of those two years. In addition to that, it's got the
disclosures that are required. Those disclosures contain the reimbursements.
Those are the reimbursements that are received by the superintendent or the
board. The vast majority of those reimbursements are due to mandated staff
development reimbursements that you get and those are disclosed in there on
page 17 any outside compensation and fees received by the superintendent which is none
is is on this report is required to be on here any gifts received by the board and that would include
again at the time mr maholsky and mr griffin any gifts that were disclosed there were no gifts
disclosed by the board during the 16-17 school year any business transactions that may have been
done again Mr. Scott I mean Mr. Griffin and Mr. Moholsky again everyone
disclosed that there were no business transactions during the 16-17 school
year so we've kind of gone through all the requirements of schools first and
I'll be glad to answer any questions that you may that you may have sorry
Mr. Scott I just want to make a comment and that is that KTISD does not live
in a cocoon or a bubble or a shell.
And when I hear these things,
maybe it means more to me than it does to some,
but I think if you're an elected public official
and you're sitting up here
and you hear that kind of thing
coming from our financial director
and the meeting is being streamed
and it's being captured on video,
that the perfect time to interject
is at that moment in time. I really believe that. Here's what Mr. Smith said. What he said was that
the state of Texas, this is one of a hundred things that you could make a list of, takes
an artificial, arbitrary, nonsensical interpretation of financial sanity, and I don't care if it cost
us two points or 50 points or 30 points. It was not ever going to cost us a
superior rating. What it is is it is a dramatic hidden in plain sight
representation that the state of Texas runs roughshod over school districts on
things large and small, on things consequential and inconsequential and
And I'm not going to apologize a nanosecond if I hear something coming from an administrator
and I feel like it's important to stop the tape and say, did you say that?
Is that what this means?
I'm not going to apologize for that.
Any other questions?
Ladies?
Mr. Lacy, I would like to add on one final note.
I failed to mention this.
The first presentation has been on our website since I made it last year.
We will take that presentation down from last year and put this one up tonight on our transparency website so the public can see it.
And of course, it's also available on Texas Education Agency.
Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Item 4.2, receive public input regarding districts rating on the financial integrity rating system of Texas, which is FIRST.
Those individuals requesting to speak regarding the district's rating on the Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas signed up prior to the start of this meeting.
There will be an open forum later this evening, at which time other topics may be presented.
Thirty minutes have been allotted for this public hearing forum.
The time allotted will be divided equally amongst those requesting to speak, but no presentation may exceed three minutes.
A time clock is visible on the podium so that each speaker may see the time remaining.
As I announce your name, please come forward to the podium.
State your first and last name for the record.
And our first speaker is Mr. Robert Willoughby.
Robert Willoughby.
Mr. Smith, I remember when you took over your position three.
What?
Oh, three? I won't need three.
I remember when you took over from the gentleman before.
I don't remember his name, but you do.
Bill Moore, Mr. Moore.
And everybody thought, man, Mr. Moore is great, and I'm sure he was.
It was really before I got involved.
But I just want to say, you and your group, and I've said this before,
if there are a lot of things that we can complain about in this district, you're not one of them.
And your people work hard to try and keep us on the straight and narrow.
And it's good to see that our numbers are low, and we're working to try to capture every dollar that we can.
that's important to taxpayers and it's important to our school districts and
our students I just want you to know it's appreciated and there are people
out there that that see that and you don't usually hear it okay
this is the end of the public hearing thank you for your participation excuse
me in the hearing the board appreciates your comments under reports number five
Number 5.1, planning for growth results of the community feedback survey on attendance boundary modifications associated with elementary school.
Number 42 in recommendations, Mr. Lee Cruz.
That's not Mr. Lee Cruz.
Subbing in.
That's Mr. Ted Behrling.
Called in the lefty.
Good evening, Vice President Lacy, board members, Deputy Superintendent Gregorski.
It's a pleasure to be with you tonight to provide an update on the K-12 Insight survey results
related to the attendance boundary modification for elementary 42. Dr. Shelby McIntosh is here tonight representing K-12 Insight.
She'll be providing an update regarding the elementary 42 survey results and will be able to answer any questions
related to the survey data.
Good evening. Thank you for having me.
I just have a few updates on this to share with you all from my last presentation to you. Here we go
If you were called last time I was here. We looked at interim results for this survey
The survey was still open
We took a look at what the support was like for the three different proposals
With a note that we would come back and show those final results to you this evening
So that is what I'm here to share with you
Just a couple of points to remind you about this this survey. It was open for quite a bit of time
we first opened it on June 20th this summer and it was recently closed October 17th. There were
quite a few reminders sent out to those that were invited to participate during that window.
You see there are two in July, two in August, and then two more in September. I'll talk about the
participation here in a minute. It was quite strong for a survey of this, but it's also important,
or a survey of this nature, but it's also important to remember that this is not a representative
survey. We did not draw a representative sample. We invited every parent who would
be impacted potentially by this attendance boundary modification to
participate. So the results this evening are reflected of just those who chose to
do so. So speaking specifically to what that participation looks like, again it
was a very strong response rate. 40% of parents potentially impacted or families
potentially impacted by this change did participate in the survey. About 630
838 responded via an email invitation that they received, and then an additional 804 took the survey by clicking on the link that was posted on the district website, which totals to 1,442 parents who participated.
A little bit more about that group.
You can see 93% of them said that they have a child currently enrolled in a KDISD school.
school. They could choose multiple responses there, which is why you see those percentages
totaling over 100. And then you can see the specific schools where they said their children
attend or is zoned to. Of those 41% that you see said my child does not attend any of the
schools listed, it's important to note that they did not then receive the following questions
that I'm about to show you. We're showing you just the results from those parents whose
whose children would be specifically impacted by this change.
So this is the table that has all of the land use zones listed and shows you numbers of
participants by land use zone as well as the percentage of the total that they comprise.
An important thing to note, you see this is the total in count here is 635.
We had LUZs or land use zone for any participant that took it by their survey or by the email
invitation.
It was pre-populated. We already have that information. We did not ask those who took it online to tell us what their LUZ is, assuming that they probably did not know. So that's why you see a lower end count here.
But there you do see some land use zones that stand out with pretty high levels of participation.
I'll note 11b had 69, 33 had 77. I won't go through every land use zone here, but you can see there are some that had higher numbers of participants.
There's a second page to this with LUZ 4A had 48, 6B has 61.
So something to note while we look through these results here.
So the next thing, we asked them a series of questions about themselves and about their children, how they go to school, how long they've lived in the community.
And I'll mention some of those statistics here in a second whenever we talk about the different groups that support it at different levels.
But the meat of the survey is really where we ask them their level of support for each of the options.
There are three total options, so we're looking at option one here, which you can see 47% said that they fully support the recommendation, 22% said they somewhat support it, 12% said they do not support it, and 20% were not sure.
I'll go ahead and tell you this was the option that received the highest level of support of the three.
I'm going to come back to this slide in a second and tell you a little bit about those
98 people who said they did not support it.
But before I dig into that, I want to show you what the other two looked like.
So this is option number two.
You can see the biggest difference is that the percent that do not support jumps up to
22 percent.
Almost twice as many people did not support this one.
There's also an increase in those that said they were not sure.
You see a very similar result when we look at option number three.
21% did not support this option and 22% said they were not sure.
So let me go back to that first option really quick just to tell you a little bit more about those 98 people.
I think the most interesting thing was looking at them, the majority of them also did not support option two or option three.
So they could, they did not have to choose in this part of the survey which one that they preferred more.
They could support all three or they could not support all three.
And so I thought that was an interesting point to note about those 98.
The other thing is actually what did not stand out about them.
There was no real pattern in terms of the length of time they had served in the community or lived in the community or the grade levels of their children.
It was pretty varied across the again, those 98 parents who said they did not support this option.
One more thing I'll point out here, there's the last part of the survey was we asked them to rank
the options in order of preference. So option one obviously would be the one with their strongest
preference, option two would be their next, and option three. So this is where they really had to,
they couldn't support all three, they had to put them in order. And one thing you'll notice is
actually 582 people responded to this question which is a decrease from the
821 who voiced different levels of support and it's hard to say for sure
exactly what caused that decrease but based on survey taking behavior a pretty
solid
assumption would be that when they got to the point where they were forced to
rank them in order those 300 or so people just really didn't have a
preference and so when they had to when they were forced to put them in order
they just opted not to answer the question but when you see based on those
almost 600 people who did rank them option one is a clear standout one of
the things we look at is that relative weighted score and the distance between
the two the fact that it goes from 100 and jumps down to 77 that's a pretty big
big gap there and a clear preference if it was closer to like 100 and then 98 or 191 we would
argue that they're still relatively close but uh but option one really stands out um I remember
one more thing I was going to tell you about these uh 98 people that said they do not support we
always like to ask them their reasons for not supporting and it was our the typical reasons
that we see when we ask about this they're worried about their children's adjustment to the new
school. They are worried about having to have to go through this process again in the future.
And they also worry about implications for their transportation, their child's transportation
to school. Those are the most common concerns and that's what we saw among these 98 people
as well. That concludes, I'll go back to this ranking slide here, which was the final question
in the survey. I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have about the survey at this
time. Ms. Fox. Mr. Vice President, thank you.
Thank you for the survey. I have a couple of questions. The majority of these children attend Bethke, is that correct, Mr. Cruz? With the exception of the one that attends Windborn because the school sits in 23C. Everyone else goes to Bethke.
Okay. The categories that you have, can we go back to that? Maybe it says page 30 on my little thing here.
These categories?
No full support.
I'm having some calls from our community members who said I want to take the survey but I don't
want to be dishonest and I don't fit any of these categories.
Like I'm a grandparent or I own a home but I don't fit any of these categories and I
really want to take the survey and give you my feedback.
could we add a category that says whatever it would say yeah I think our
assumption and this is good feedback we could we could look at how this question
is designed to make sure that people understand that none of the above would
would be what we'd assume that they would choose and and I believe I'll have
to verify that if they if they select on of the above we asked them to tell us
who they are and maybe it's once they got into the service had a lady call and
and she was like, well, I'm not going to lie.
And I just didn't have a place to do that.
And I said, could you put something and then say, I'm not trying to lie,
but I really wanted to give you my information.
And so just know that category, the first question I answered isn't exactly true.
But some of them are having, you know, they're homeowners,
and they believe for whatever reason that rezoning them might affect their neighborhood values and things,
and they want to be able to tell us that.
Instead they called me and I told her thank you for the information and I wanted you all to know that that's one of the things.
So I told her I would ask about another category.
Is this the exact same choices that was offered for the junior high one?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Next thing is would you change any of the options when you said that some people chose disagree, disagree, disagree?
disagree, would, you know, I mean, for heaven's sakes, should we offer them something like
which one do you agree with the most?
Or I don't know.
Are you, but you're able to take that information.
I'm starting to struggling here with choose one.
Is that what you think happened there?
And then you said then when they were forced to make a choice, they just didn't choose
anything.
thing right so the point i was trying to make there is that it's possible that they responded
they supported all three of them and then when they were asked to put them in rank order of
their favorite they really didn't have a preference it's also true to your point that they could have
disagreed however that was a very so you're looking at 98 here um then it was the majority
of them i don't have the exact number but it was a majority so i'm gonna assume around like 55 60
that disagreed. So when we look at the drop-off, it's actually about 300 people that opted not to respond to that last one.
So it's, if we're kind of, if we're using that logic,
it would be just a small chunk of those that didn't rank them because they disagreed with all three of them.
Okay. I see that we have a clear choice, but as you were going through how that worked,
I just had a couple of questions. And that's all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Fox. Ladies?
Yes, I have some things I wanted to say. First of all,
Well, thank you very much for the presentation, and I love it that you gave people so many opportunities to respond.
And even though you have done that, I know that there will be some people that might be unhappy.
But as a trustee now, I've been given the opportunity to visit lots of schools.
I teach JA.
I mentor a child.
I have done Promise to Read.
I've been to lots of elementary schools, and I can say across the board,
I feel like everywhere I go, there is great education being given,
and I know KDISD is a premier school district,
and so I am 100% confident that we have that reputation
because of the wonderful teachers that we hire.
And I just want to say this, that I know that when those families get to the new schools,
and even if they're not happy at first, they're going to be thrilled once they get there
because I have been a part of a new school before and that is just so
exciting to be in a new school so even though there are only a handful of
naysayers it seems like with this I think that in the long run everyone is
going to be extremely happy with where they are
That's all I want to say.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
Consent Agenda 6.1.
Consider further.
Guys, I can't talk today.
I'm sorry.
Consider future board approval for the attendance boundary modification for elementary school 42 in the 2019-20 school year.
Mr. Cruz really is going to be presenting.
It really is me this time.
Thank you, sir.
And I wanted to address Ms. Fox's question kind of before we started here.
She was asking what schools are impacted.
And those that could be impacted are primarily Bethke.
You have Hutsul, Windborne, and King also as potentials in there, depending on the option.
So I wanted to make sure we mentioned that before we get started.
But good evening, Vice President Lacy, board members, and Deputy Superintendent Gregorski.
Tonight we begin the final phase of our elementary attendance boundary modification for the 2019-20 school year.
It's hard for me to even say that. It's crazy.
The need for this year's ABM is precipitated primarily by the completion of Elementary 42 in the Morton Creek Ranch subdivision.
And here with me to present tonight is Chris Poole from Population and Survey Analyst.
As a reminder, here's the process we've been following to get us to this point.
Note that elementary attendance boundary final recommendation will be made tonight,
and the junior high recommendation will follow in December.
As you will note on this slide, our intent in this process for elementary in particular
is to review capacities for elementary schools with specific emphasis on providing relief
for Bethke Elementary, which is experiencing explosive growth, as mentioned in last month's
passive presentation.
They're well over 1,300 at this point.
So very, very fast growth out there in that side of the district.
Here's our standard timeline.
Please note that the minor change of moving the elementary recommendation was requested
by the board.
And so we are recommending the elementary tonight in November, and we'll come back again
in December for the junior high. Our communication plan remains in place for
parents and stakeholders incorporating the change to November approval of the
ABM which will allow our communication team to communicate with elementary
parents in December which is a change. It is now my pleasure to introduce Chris
Poole to review our current attendance zones and recommend options for
consideration.
Good evening. I would like to start the presentation tonight by showing the current attendance zones, as we often do, and the projections as we have them based on that fall 2018 demographic update.
And we came to you all in June, and we showed you these very same maps, but these have been updated, of course, with the new figures.
These numbers are the geocoded students, and that is that they are the counts of students that we would expect to reside in each attendance zone.
zone. This does not necessarily reflect the actual enrollment of the school given that
the students transfer between schools for numerous reasons like bilingual programs.
We have included the net transfers of some of the schools of interest there at the top.
So anytime you're looking at a school and looking at a potential enrollment, you need
to keep in mind the numbers of kids that are transferring in and out there. These are the
transfers that have been occurring in the fall of 18, but we know that the minute we
change attendance zones or just by we've changed the day or the week or the month that those
numbers of transfer students are going to change. So I'd like to start with a
recommended option. This is option one. You all have seen this before and of
course this was the subject of the survey. This elementary option relieves
Bethke by sending everything that is between Morton and Clay right there in
that strip either to Hutzel or to Elementary 42. It pulls the one planning
in it down into Hutzel and the remainder go to Elementary 42. It also
pulls elementary 23 i'm sorry pulls lane you send 23c which is where the new school itself sits
pulls that from windborne and then all of the rest of the zones we've left untouched
in option two we wanted to look and see what we could do that would be a minimum amount to open
the school because we know that parents and students the parents don't want their children
moved and we don't want to move the kids around unduly so this is our stab at a minimum option
What we have done is we have left Hutzel entirely alone, and we have shrunk the elementary 42 attendance zone just a bit.
It grows a little more slowly and sort of caps out at that 1,000 students later on.
The problem with this is that it left Bethke at over 1,300 students, even with the opening of this new facility.
We're looking at 1,300 in 2019 and almost 1,600 by 2020 for Bethke.
Another problem with this is that Hutzel would then be operating at around 70 percent of its capacity,
and we felt that we could better utilize that by going ahead and filling Hutzel a little more.
We also looked at one final option, option three.
It's very similar to recommended option one.
The only change is that it moves Laney Sun 22B, which is primarily Lake Crest Forest, from King to Winborn.
Now, King currently gains a few students due to transfers, and Winborn currently loses a few,
and so we felt like moving this might better balance those enrollments after transfers.
It would keep both of the schools operating slightly closer to their capacities.
And Laney Zone 22B, just for your information, contains anywhere between 140 to 160 elementary students, depending on the year.
But after looking at all three of these options, tonight we're ready to recommend that option one,
as we feel that it strikes the best balance between building utilization, proximity, and student stability.
So as you can see, obviously we needed an elementary ABM because we opened a new school.
I did want you to be reminded that we talk to a lot of people when we craft these.
We don't do this in a silo.
We really seek input, as you saw with Shelby's presentation, from our community.
And we really value their input.
We want this to be a shared decision.
obviously with the community but the ultimate decision lies with the board
and we are recommending option one and we hope that you will take action on
that in the general board meeting next week it will be happy to answer any
questions at this time mr. vice president this Fox that section the
The section that we're moving to Hutzel from Bethby,
does it look like it has very many houses?
Is it going to get bigger, or is that undeveloped land there at Clay and Hockley?
That red one at the top.
The red one at the top.
Okay, let me look it up.
10B, we have a couple of potential apartments in there.
We've got some future residential, and we have Heritage Park West.
We are expecting 10B.
Currently we've got about, well, for the fall we're projecting about 89 elementary students in that area.
We're projecting it actually to shrink a little bit as it ages for the students that are there
and then grow some with these potential apartments and some of the potential future development.
Most of that, I believe, is potential future development, land that we would expect to develop.
We are looking at the 10-year time frame.
Our projections put it at 132 students in the 10 years.
Okay.
So that leaves room at Hutzel if it grows there.
I just saw a lot of open space. Okay. I appreciate very much
The difficulty in doing this, you know, I can look at blues and yellows and go well
That blue is so close to that yellow and and then I look at the number right
I call them blues and yellows because I don't have all the numbers right here
But I can see that when born is around 700 and I'm glad that you're keeping it full
I appreciate that you've added students to Hutzel, you know to give that that's vital and right to relieve Bethany
and to keep that vital and thriving.
I know that principals can really know each child by name
and families and things at that size,
and I appreciate us keeping schools as full as we can
because those principals have built an incredible legacy
and family feeling there, and I know they know those students.
And so it's never easy, but I appreciate very much the thought going into it.
Thank you for answering my question.
I do have a question and it kind of piggybacks on Mrs. Fox's. We have the
opportunity to be able to look up close a lot of these you know what the roads
and the streets look like. As we get the what the future is holding do we have a
potential plats from developers? Do we do we have things like that that we can
look into that that y'all look at for your planning and how accurate are the
streets that are on here on this plat that's here that you're illustrating how accurate are these
today we are constantly attacking the plats um in in this area as a matter of fact every time
we say that's it we're done and i take the data and start doing my thing and writing the report
invariably somebody will come up with another stack of plats and i say you have to stop
we have to stop at some point so because of everybody that we work for and with in this
area to the north south east and west we are constantly dealing with all of that and getting
our hands on those plats absolutely as much as possible so we start with a preliminary plan we
start as early as we can get something and prior to that even we go in and say look this piece of
land maybe they're still grazing cows on it today but it is ripe for development there is roadways
there is infrastructure for water and sewer and it nobody has a plan for it yet but it's it's likely
to develop so once we have the plat and the plan then we have started off in a direction and we
We think we can estimate about how many homes per year based on who the developer is.
If they have started construction, then we'll look at how many they're building.
Is it similar to something else?
If we are just projecting homes on vacant land, we take that a little more slowly.
But we would rather have something in there, but we do hedge our bets a little bit.
As for roadways, we're constantly attacking that.
I can't tell you exactly with any sort of level of accuracy.
We're constantly tweaking.
there's a little corner here in elementary 42 that looks a little odd that's a tweak that we made
from between june and and now trying to keep the map as perfect as possible so in some situations
we have gotten roads and and roadways downloaded before that do change um but you know it's something
that we have to look at every single year i don't know if that answers your question perfectly yes
Yes.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Ms. Yesoff?
I had to weigh in.
So when you look at these maps, it's pretty obvious that the boundaries are set around the major roadways.
But I know that you also take into consideration children having to cross roads and safety considerations and transportation considerations.
Can you just talk a little bit about how that factors into your decisions and into your options?
Sure, that is definitely one of the things.
Every time we go in to do something like this, we're always asked, what are your criteria
and what is the most important?
And we can never answer it because it depends on the situation.
It's that whole it's an art and a science sort of a thing.
So major roadways is certainly an issue.
We have stability.
We don't want to move kids around just to maybe provide something different that we
think might be better if they're used to crossing a roadway or they're already in a pattern
or a plan certainly major roadways are an issue and crossings that's often time to discussion
that when when we meet with the principals and things that we'll hear a lot of times yes but
there's a sidewalk and a bunch of my students walk from here from the back of the subdivision
to the school we'll hear that sort of thing and so there's a whole list of of things you know we
have to look at percent utilization we have to look at future growth and so all of those things
come to bear whenever we're trying to craft an option like this.
And transportation as well?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Thank you.
Mr. Vice President, one more question.
Ms. Fox?
Okay, so I'm just saying right up front, I'm not even, I just have a question because I'm looking at the map and it's odd and I just have a question, but we're not talking about rezoning anything else other than the plan.
Yes. But that fringe yellow piece and then the McRoberts blue pieces is just really, and that happened before I got here.
It was years and years ago and I. That is the oddest looking thing. It is. I was here, but I was, I came in at the very beginning of that process and then they held some meetings and then I came in at the very end and I looked at that and said you guys are crazy.
But the way that it worked out is it was neighborhood sections along with the numbers and how things worked out.
And so, yes, I agree there was method to the madness. There normally is.
And once I sat down and looked at the names of the subdivisions and stuff, then it made a little more sense.
Because I look at total numbers and I see McRoberts at 570 and I know they're incredible there and doing some incredible things.
I just but we don't have we don't have over a thousand children anywhere.
So I see that I think I do remember that that was called like
For lack of it was rain tree village and right here right good and they wanted to be together
I do remember that when we rezoned Stevens is when that and they're all there may be some future tweaking and there are some bilingual programs
You know something that's the McRoberts geocoded student number and then we're also expecting levels to grow right?
We're also expecting gobble to grow past this 2021 and it's got an 867 capacity
So we may have to do some tweaking in that area in the future
Awesome. You're right. These are geocoded numbers and I need to be reminded of that because they don't have 570 students.
Right. I've got the list here.
And are these maps available online? I believe they are.
Are the maps available online?
Mr. Crean, are they available online?
This presentation will be available at the conclusion of tonight's meeting, yes, for the public.
Great. And for the junior high ABM, are the maps available online?
someone contacted me about a address and they're currently in the the previous
presentation presentation is online so they can look and see where their
neighborhood is thank you look it up thank you all very much
I'm 6.2 consider future board approval of the November 2018 budget amendments
this miss sherry Butterfield there she is
Good evening.
Vice President Lacy, trustees, Deputy Superintendent Gregorski.
Tonight we have eight General Operating Fund budget amendments
and three of them which bear speaking to.
The first one is $1,588,773.
This is for the 39 growth positions at a prorated salary amount.
The second at $380,337 is a timing and other expenditures related to Hurricane Harvey.
And remember those timing amendments are ones where we budgeted this last year.
Project did not complete.
We're carrying the budget over to this year.
$177,836 for purchasing the contents to complete the rebuild of Creech Elementary.
The remainder of the general fund expenditure amendments are direct offsets between different functions,
and approval of these amendments will result in a decrease of $2,146,946 into the general operating fund balance.
Any questions?
Ms. Butterfield, we have you for 6.3 as well.
Consider Board approval, the annual review of investment policies and strategies.
That's correct.
So tonight, this is a, this may be a little dry, but we can efficiently review all the
requirements as to meet public, PFIA, which is the Public Funds Investment Act.
and first of all let you know that there are three investment officers and KDI ISD
is described by CDA local that is the chief financial officer the business
manager and the director of budget and Treasury so in lieu of all of us sitting
up here I'll be speaking on behalf of Chris and Ian and myself we have four
objectives to accomplish in this annual review according to the public funds
Investment Act first the board annually reviews the investment strategies by
fund type second approve the broker list third approve the investment pools and
fourth authorized training resources although the CDA legal describes the
PFA I a authorized investment CDA local our local policy refines that list for
for KDISD to include U.S. government treasury bills,
notes and bonds, agency bonds, CDs, repurchase agreements,
commercial paper, no-load money market mutual funds,
and investment pools.
Our quarterly reports meet all requirements of the PFIA.
So let's get to it.
Our first objective is the longest to review,
you and a lot of these sound similar but they're slightly nuanced and it's important to have a
strategy for each fund type these all although they're very similar the highest priority is
given to being prudent and non speculative investments focused on safety and the
preservation of principle with liquidity we have four fund types in kdisd general operating fund
strategy preserve the safety of principle and liquidity to provide for 24 months of cash flow
not to exceed three years three years will be a common theme here this liquidity is to provide
two years of cash flow. Special revenue and agency funds preserve the safety of
principal with maturity sufficient to meet anticipated cash flow and debt
service sufficient investment liquidity to meet debt service payments.
Obligations according to bond documents also not to exceed three years. Liquidity
to meet debt service payments is sort of cyclical because we have two major bond payment dates,
one in February around $80 million and the second in August at around $40 million. That's just the
way the bonds break out between interest and principal payments. Finally, the capital projects
fund strategy is sufficient investment liquidity to meet capital project obligations. No changes
are recommended with this report for any investment strategies. Our second
objective is to review the list of presented brokers and you might wonder
how these firms come to be selected. It's a simple process in compliance with the
PFIA brokers and investment pool managers must sign a certification
acknowledging their reading and understanding of the KDISD investment
investment policy. Unique numbers are assigned to every broker and brokerage firm and we are able to check these through the regulatory authority to ensure that brokers and firms are in good standing in their industry and these brokers or firms who express interest in KDISD and provide information to KDISD and who are in good standing in the industry
and most importantly who return the completed documentation are put on the list so we do
receive very good information and investment opportunities from the firms listed above also
we need to approve investment pools these are the major local government investment pools in Texas
and we approve all of them.
And then finally, our training resources.
With regard to approved training resources,
district investment officers are required to have eight hours of training
every two years to remain compliant.
And this list of training resources is varied enough
to provide several acceptable avenues to complete this requirement.
requirement.
This final slide is a simple summary of the quarterly reports that you have been seeing
and is just there for your information.
So that's it.
This report meets the requirements for the PFIA and the legal and local CDA review of
policies and strategies.
Any questions?
Thank you very much, Ms. Butterfield.
Number 6.4, consider future board approval of the naming of student support annex
as recommended by the Naming Advisory Committee.
Mr. Kangukorski.
Thank you, Mr. Lacy.
Student Support Annex Naming Advisory Committee met on October 30, 2018,
to review the names that had been submitted and any supporting documentation for naming that facility.
The committee brings forward to the Board of Trustees a recommendation for Jeannie Coleman as the name for that facility.
For those of you who may not know Jeannie, I'd like to share a little bit of information about her.
Jeannie Coleman began her educational career as a speech-language pathologist,
worked for 13 years in two different school districts before landing in KDISD in 1998.
She was hired as speech-language pathologist at Nottingham Country Elementary, where she
provided speech therapy services, assessments, conducted admission, review, and dismissal
meetings, and collaborated with other teachers regarding student performance in general education.
Ms. Coleman was promoted to an instructional officer the following year.
Her role soon expanded to include provisions of speech therapy services for secondary students
at the Opportunity Awareness Center and the Behavior Transition Program.
She also coordinated district-wide speech therapy.
adaptive physical education, and related services for occupational therapy, physical therapy, music, and art therapy.
She worked tirelessly on establishing eligibility guidelines for the district, overseeing assessment teams,
and establishing service program guidelines, all while maintaining federal, state, and local guidelines.
While in this role, her responsibilities continued to grow in size.
Ms. Coleman became responsible for the supervision and administrative responsibilities for roughly 120 direct hires
and contract speech-language pathologists, the district's preschool
program for children with disabilities, the preschool developmental assessment
team, and communications acquisition programs for preschoolers. She also took
on the instructional services for the visually impaired. Her dedication spread
beyond students of Katy ISD to the Katy community as she designed, planned, and
supervised the implementation of private school programming to ensure appropriate
use of designated funds for students eligible for special education as private
private school students.
Ms. Coleman was a passionate and distinguished leader for the many programs she created,
coordinated, or implemented.
Her attributes exemplify her enduring belief that all children deserve a high quality education.
As a supervisor, her leadership created an environment that allowed her to collaborate
while working with a variety of individuals.
She is said to have a calming, positive way with teachers, administrators, and parents.
Likewise her passion for children with special needs was always evident in the way she spoke
and advocated on behalf in order to help them achieve their goals. Jeannie retired in 2016
with 31 years of dedication and service to their students and parents and it's my understanding
that Jeannie is with us tonight and I'd like her to stand and be recognized please.
Thank you Jeannie. The committee per board policy CW local will hold a public forum on November 7th
to solicit input on the selected name and reconvene afterward to consider information received.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Gregorski.
Congratulations.
Item number 6.5, consider future board approval for annual course additions
for the 2019-2020 school year.
Dr. Steele.
would you mind how do you pronounce your first name is still that I was gonna try
that and you would have done just fine
good evening vice president Lacy board members and mr. Gorg or ski I'm here
this evening to present new courses for the 2019 2020 school year each year the
division of teaching and learning facilitates the process of course review
including soliciting input from central and campus staff regarding course
additions for the following year. As requests are received, the division
assesses the content of the course, availability of curriculum, highly
qualified staff, student interest, alignment to the TEKS, and relevance to
the district strategic plan. Based on this review, the administration
Administration recommends that Animation 1 and Fashion Design 2 be added to the high school course offerings for the 2019 and 2020 school year, which also falls in line with the Strategic Design 1.8 CTE course expansion.
Both Animation 1 and Fashion Design 2 will add an additional course to enhance the arts,
audiovisual technology, and communications pathways.
Animation 1 will give students an additional opportunity to concentrate on the animation
side of digital art and learn design techniques widely used by animators.
Students will also be able to certify and animate 3D Macs and Maya.
Fashion Design II will be recommended for students who have a strong interest in textiles and or fashion industry.
The emphasis of this course will be on design and construction.
I'd be happy to respond to any questions that you have at this time. Thank you.
Mr. Vice President.
Hi, Dr. Steele.
Hi there.
I can see you.
So where are these courses taught, at every campus?
Yes, ma'am. They're open to be taught at any campus where enough students decide to take the class.
Who will teach them?
The same teachers that teach currently. We have some digital graphic classes for the animation, and we also have fashion design one that is currently at all of our campuses as well.
What is the class size minimum?
Most of those classes are around 22 or below, but it just depends on their course selection
and the numbers that principals decide are a good number to continue the class if it's
lower than that, if it makes or not.
And that's all at the discretion of school principals and their master schedule.
Do we have a course minimum?
Yes and no.
Is that gone? No, yes and no. It just depends on principal discretion because I know that some
schools will allow some numbers to be a little bit lower than others. Most of them are at around 22.
Thank you, Ms. Fox. Ms. Gesoff? Just a simple question. Are these semester courses or full
full year courses.
Full year.
Thank you.
Mr. Scott.
When you say discretion, how far does that discretion go?
Would a principal have the discretion to have one of these classes for six students?
Or would that be subject to higher administrative review?
So sometimes what principals can do also is have that course, if it's a small number like
like six in conjunction with another course at the same time.
At the same time?
Yes, sir.
So that that number is a little bit larger and then can make a point of why they need
to add a class.
It just depends on if they're growing a class and that kind of thing.
Great.
So you could combine two medium-sized classes or a…
Sometimes you can, sir, yes.
You can do that.
Okay, great.
Anyone else?
Yes, ma'am.
I would like to make a comment.
I have a son that's a senior at Texas State.
He is electronic media major, and I feel like that animation class is going to be really popular.
A lot of kids like that right now.
Mr. Vice President, if I may again.
I haven't fully developed my thoughts, so bear with me here, Dr. Kasky and Dr. Steele.
I'm sorry, I can't see you.
Let me scoot over.
So I just want to say discretion.
I appreciate what Mr. Scott said, and so if it's a small class, you'll combine with another.
and I understand building courses and building interest in them but we have
had discussion at this board table a few years ago where we had a minimum
expectation that courses that have eight or ten students repeatedly right like
that's not fair to the to the chemistry teacher who's got who has 35 right so I
guess so we're leaving that to principals is what you're saying the
discretion there so okay do we have very many courses that have less than 18 or 15 students
dr caskey we'd have to pull that information it really goes back to staffing and how the campuses
are staffed and maybe mr gregorski or one one of my friends over here could could speak to that uh
you know dr steele has been a high school principal so um we have staffing and the each
campus receives a certain amount of teachers based on the number of students and then looking at their
courses so the campus principal does have some flexibility so they may run a
class larger or they may run a class smaller so the average class size comes
out even I don't know if that helps if you're not running classes that are
really small no we're looking at those classes no we would not be running those
and as dr. Steele said lots of times we'll stack so if we have upper level
language courses for example you know a Spanish for and a Spanish five we may
put those students together in one class and the teacher would teach the same probably the same is
going to happen for fashion one and two will probably end up being a stacked class in order
to grow the um the those courses and have more students interested but until they get to be that
large we'll stack them if that you know i'm always about opportunities for students and i don't want
to take any of that away i also am not in any way suggesting that we take away autonomy from
principals and them knowing what their student needs and their teacher needs.
But the third thing is I fight for teachers and they don't always get the ability to
say hey, you know, why did they only have 12 kids and I have 36?
So a bit of that is my asking questions, bring an awareness, have an understanding of what
we're asking from our teachers while we're still providing outstanding opportunities
for students meeting them in the goal which I have which is an IEP for 80,000
students right so thank you for this thank you for allowing my questions and
know that I will always ask these kinds of questions and I trust that you're
balancing those and making sure that students have what they need and yet
teachers are not so overworked that we because we need to keep those highly
qualified incredible educators that we have thank you thank you miss Fox mr.
Mr. Scott?
I believe Ms. Fox raises a very valid question in terms of pupil-teacher ratio
in upper-level courses or even secondary classes, let's go secondary level.
And I, too, believe that principals need maximum flexibility,
but I also believe there needs to be a ceiling on that flexibility.
So I am under the assumption, based on what you said,
that if you saw or someone in the administration saw a outlier class is
that you would have input on that. Outlier like seven kids that you weren't
able to group or something like that because we still have to be financially
prudent but still do the job of making opportunity available.
Okay. Anyone else? Okie doke. Thank you, Dr. Steele. Item 6.6, consider board approval of one-time lump sum payment of 1% of the midpoint for the 2018-2019 school year for all district employees. Dr. Nita Hill.
Get to bring good news.
Huh?
You get to bring good news.
Yes, this is the good part.
So good evening, Vice President Lacy, members of the board, and Deputy Superintendent Gregorski.
Thank you for allowing me to present the superintendent's recommendation of a one-time lump sum payment
for all district employees who are employed with the district effective December 1, 2018.
Teachers will receive $618, which is 1% of Step 20 of the midpoint of the bachelor's
teacher salary schedule and non-teachers will receive 1% of the midpoint of the 2018-19
non-teacher pay ranges.
If this item is approved, payments will be distributed to all biweekly employees on December
7th, 2018 and all semi-monthly employees on December 15th.
Mr. Scott?
I want to make a comment on this one because last year there were some that mischaracterized this
and I'd like to turn to Mr. Smith to ask this question.
This is a tactic that the district is using that allows
the district to get into the budget year, make sure there haven't been emergencies,
that the finances are there that allow this kind of payment, as opposed to making a decision
up front that we're going to add that 1% pay.
Is that a reasonably fair statement of what we're doing here?
Yes, sir.
It's very fair what we're doing.
This was part of the originally adopted budget this year.
We worked real hard at the board's guidance on trying to do that and get an adopted budget.
So it has been in there.
Whereas a year ago, we weren't sure we were going to be able to pull it off, but we were
able to get the property value adjustment, which about this time last year, which enabled
us to generate the funds to pay for it.
This is a one-time expense and it doesn't recur.
It's a one-time expense.
So what it does is give the board the maximum flexibility to make a decision as late in the budget year as possible to do what it wanted to do at the start, but prudence said we're going to wait for that final 1%.
Yes, sir.
This is being conservative in our approach to how we compensate our employees.
We wish we could give 5 or 6 percent up front, wish we could give more, but this is a step
that allows the district, you, your department, and everyone to look at this and say, okay,
everything looks good, we can go ahead and do this.
That's correct.
Okay.
Mr. Vice President.
Ms. Fox.
If I may.
Mr. President, for the night.
The other piece to that Mr. Scott is that our employees really like this.
They appreciate it.
They like the one time lump sum because when you take 1% and you kind of trickle it out
over 24 paychecks, it's like, is it there?
I'm not quite sure if I should spend it all in one place.
So they really like having it right here at December and when you have a two educator
family. This is, you know, even a one educator family. It's something that's really nice and our employees tell us they really like this one-time payment. And I'm so happy we're able to do it. And you're right, Mr. Scott, I wish it could be a lot more.
Ms. Gesoff.
Just speaking as someone who was blessed to have been an educator in KDIC for five years,
but that was several years ago and several times for my Christmas bonus,
I got a candy cane reindeer with the googly eyes and, you know, pipe cleaner antlers.
And I know, I know it's a, it's an amazing gift given to teachers who work hard all year long
and who put in tremendous extra hours on the weekends.
And I remember when I was campaigning on this Saturday,
how many teachers I saw, and I'm introducing myself,
and they're like, hey, nice to meet you.
I'm here to work.
You know, it's a wonderful thing that we do.
Okay.
I mean, the candy cane reindeer was nice.
Not.
Dr. Hill, thank you.
Item 6.7, consider future board approval for a cell tower lease agreement with Echo Site 2, LLC.
Dr. Mark, excuse me, Mr. Mark Teed, I just made you a doctor, I think.
Maybe not.
Good evening, Vice President, Mr. Lacy, members of the board, and Deputy Superintendent Mr. Kukorski.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves a lease agreement with ECHO Site 2, LLC for a cell tower site to be located on the site of the support services complex.
The initial term of the lease agreement is 120 months with an option to renew for up to four additional 60-month periods for the 2,500 square foot area.
A copy of the lease agreement, the site survey, owner's affidavit, and legal description are attached for your review.
The contract has been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Any questions?
We have you here for 6.8. Consider future board approval of an interlocal agreement with Municipal Utility District number 57.
Yes, sir.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves an interlocal agreement with the
Municipal Utility District No. 57 for landscaping and groundskeeping services at Davidson Elementary.
Municipal Utility District No. 57 wishes to install landscape improvements to the front
and east side of Davidson Elementary School.
This work is in conjunction with site improvements currently being planned for the rear play
or rear play area of the campus and funded by the MUD.
MUD Utility District Number 57 is going to provide all maintenance
and upkeep costs for the landscape improvements identified in this interlocal agreement.
This agreement is attached for your review along with attachments explaining
the landscape improvements being made and their locations on the campus.
The agreement has been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Any questions? Mr. Vice President. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Teed, I see the agreement narrative style. I don't see any drawings or it's primarily keep scrolling. It's all there. Yeah, it's an attachment, ma'am.
There it is. I thought I saw several blank pages. I thought I was done.
Okay. And it's primarily, this is not playground equipment and things. These are landscaping.
It's all landscaping beds. Yes, ma'am.
Thank you very much. I'm sorry. I apologize for not scrolling past.
Yes.
Ms. Chidi, you're here for 6.9.
Consider future board approval of the contract for replacement of domestic boilers.
Yes, sir.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for the replacement of domestic boilers
at Morton Ranch High School and Seven Lakes High School to Hunt and Services
in the amount of $1,222,702,
utilizing the Harris County Department of Ed Choice Partners Contract No. 14-021-JN-05.
The replacement of the domestic boilers at these two campuses is part of the 2017 Bond Component Replacement Program.
The boilers have met their expected life cycle and are becoming unreliable to remain in operation.
They will be replaced with higher efficiency boilers to reduce both operating and maintenance costs.
Costs are higher than originally estimated and needed.
Additional funding will come from the 2017 component projects already completed, and they have come in under estimate.
Replacement will be scheduled during holiday break so as not to interfere with campus activities and operation.
A copy of the proposal for each boiler replacement location is attached for your review.
view. The Morton Ranch High School replacement total project cost is $524,660. The Seven Lakes
High School total boiler replacement cost $698,042. The total not to exceed project cost
$1,222,702. The project funding source is $423,500 is coming from the 2017
2017 component replacements project funding source for the balance is seven hundred ninety nine thousand two hundred and two dollars
Coming from the 2017 bond project savings, which is also component replacement
The contract has been reviewed by district legal counsel and approved as to form
questions I
Do have to yes, sir. You mentioned the average life cycle of a boiler ballpark. What is that?
How long?
For these are approximately 13 to 15 years.
And are the new ones, do they last longer?
The new ones, I would like to say yes, but not so much.
It's 13 to 15 still.
And then last question, will you have several different crews working to do everything at once,
or will it be install a boiler, move from one project to the next,
and get it all during that off time that we have?
It will be split up.
At this point right now, we're trying to determine, we're bringing it to you tonight in hopes that we can get some in time for Christmas, the Christmas break.
If not, our next window is going to be spring break because these are domestic boilers or they're the boilers that feed the athletic areas.
So if they're needing to shower during the holiday period, you know, we can't shut down for that as well.
So it's going to have to be coordinated with staff.
Perfect.
Any other questions?
Mr. Vice President, I don't think most people understand the exciting life of a trustee talking about boilers and fences and such that we talk about.
Thank you so much.
Riveting.
We get the riveting part.
Any others?
Item 6.10, Mr. Teed, you're still here.
Consider future board approval to enter into contract negotiation with Professional Energy Consultant Services.
Yes, sir.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees authorizes the administration to negotiate
a contract for professional energy consultant services to Synergistic based on request for
proposal number 1805.
The proposal for professional energy consultant services will enable the district to jumpstart
our energy savings plan to allow more dollars to flow back into the classroom.
room synergistic will provide staff to evaluate all facilities in the district
for potential energy savings projects and staff to help educate district staff
on how to improve the use of our facilities in order to reduce energy
consumption the reduction of the utilities used will fund the shared
savings program fee a total of the eight companies did submit proposals for these
services maintenance and operations staff evaluated the proposals
synergistic was ranked the highest of the eight companies. A copy of the
evaluation tabulation is attached for your review. This action by the Board of
Trustees authorizes the administration to negotiate a service contract with
synergistic. Fees paid to synergistic will be derived from a percentage of the
future cost savings on energy. Board approval of this recommendation is
consistent with board policies CH legal CH local CV legal and CV local any
questions yes miss Kosova mr. T so did I understand that there's no cost to the
district they don't get paid if they don't save us money that's yes ma'am
that's true there will be depending upon the negotiations made there may be a fee
for the software program used.
Depending upon the negotiation,
there may be a fee for the software program used
that the district will pay for, but the rest of the fees
would be based on shared savings.
Interesting.
So it would be no cost.
And over what period of time?
Is that over a year, six months?
That has yet to be negotiated.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
I have a question.
Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Vice President, I have a question for Mr. Teague.
So I just would like to see some dollar amounts.
So you've evaluated all the companies based on all these different criteria,
but do you have an idea of what the savings will be?
Well, that's depending upon what the negotiations of the contract,
And we would be bringing that back to you once the contract is negotiated, then we could present those dollars.
Okay.
And what the potential savings are.
Okay.
So when will the negotiations happen?
We hope to have those completed and brought back to you before the first of the year.
Okay.
So we have to approve a decision before the negotiations happen?
No, no.
All we're asking for tonight is to negotiate with the company.
All right.
And how long is the contract for?
It's subject for negotiation at this point.
All right. Thank you.
Mr. President, and let me put that in context.
I was once the acting parliamentarian of my fifth grade class,
so I know what it's like to assume real authority.
So you're right.
It demands question when you say you're going to negotiate.
What is the typical contract that is negotiated with this company?
That's a fair question.
Yeah, they have asked for five years.
I'm sorry?
They have asked for five years.
Okay, so we would be inclined to negotiate for five years.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Gregorski.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Lacy.
I want to get a couple of comments in on this item.
item. For quite some time our administration has been reviewing our energy management,
energy conservation and some different things we're looking at doing. So this is one step
in forward in a few steps that we hope to be bringing to the board for action coming
forward. For example, this would be an examination of looking at some human behaviors, different
things we can do, getting experts into our field who can give us some advice on what
what we can do for the energy savings.
Like Mr. Teed explained, if there's no savings,
then there would be relatively no cost
or very little cost to us.
The savings is in where the really money is here.
But on top of that, we're also looking at different things
moving forward of mechanical savings,
different things we can do with our HVAC systems
and whatnot.
So I just wanted to put that out there,
that you'll be seeing a few different things
coming towards the board,
just as much as different automated systems like GPS on buses, different things like that,
that I think will add value to our district, what we do, and at the same time relay some savings back
and some cost efficiencies within our budget.
And that's what we hope to do with these items.
Mr. Lacy.
So I think this is a very interesting idea.
When I read it on my homework over the weekend, I thought, well, that's a very interesting concept.
I like it. So is this something other districts are doing or how did it come about?
I just. Yes, it's been around for a number of years. Honestly, it's it's a lot of smaller districts have done it.
They're just now starting to come into the to the larger districts because we do a lot of this ourselves.
Right. We've we've gone around and, you know, taken refrigerators out of every teacher's classroom, you know,
because they're trying to minimize their lunch times and stuff.
but and heaters under desk and things that we're just running up our bill so I know we've done some of those and
I may be oversimplifying what they're going to do. I know they're looking at a grander thing
I appreciate I think it I think it will be very interesting to see what their recommendations are as far as efficiencies
I am a little surprised that it would take five years
to do that would it be five years because
Every time we put something new in place that they would have an efficiency recommendation
Why would it take five years to look through our district and see what needs to be improved? Yeah
They let me try to explain that a little differently
What might be negotiated as part of the contract would be a five-year agreement in a contract
But the efficiencies would be built into this contract as yearly efficiencies
So efficiencies should be show some some sort of
Behaviors and savings yearly so we're not looking at at the end of five years. What is our total savings?
we're looking at it annually.
So we would want to work that into the contract as we examine what we might do annually
and show those savings each year.
And if there aren't savings, we need to examine the behaviors
or look at that contract differently if it's not producing what it's expected to produce.
Correct.
And let me go on record also as saying I'm glad that they have some ownership in it.
if they don't give us savings, they don't get paid.
So that's as well as it should be.
So, Mr. T, thank you very much.
I think you get to pass the baton, so to speak, on 611.
Consider board approval of design services associated with the construction of vehicle stacking at Vegas.
Bear Creek, Maid Creek, Galbo, Schmaltz Elementary Schools, and the Morton Ranch
Complex. Ms. Lisa Kassman. Good evening. Good evening Vice President Lacy, Board of
Trustees, Mr. Gregorski. I have four items this evening for your consideration. The
first is recommending the approval of the retention of S&G Engineering
Consultants for design services for the schools that you mentioned. These were
were identified in the 2017 bond to alleviate traffic and stacking issues at these campuses.
Harris County officials have also requested that the district address the traffic within
these areas to try to get more stacking off the roads.
S&G, Mike Goulding is here representing them and they are a City of Katy firm and Scott
Walker is going to be the project manager.
Excellent.
Any questions?
Mr. Scott?
I want you to know how happy I am that vehicle stacking is not a euphemism for a parking garage.
I thought that one was going to go into the Hall of Fame for language.
Okay.
Ladies?
Mr. Lacy, Mrs. Cashman, all our new construction already has this built in, right?
That's correct.
This is going back to some of the original campuses.
Some of the older campuses.
Okay, thank you.
and to piggyback on what miss fox said i know that we have some uh construction going on some
other elementary schools or one of they're happening this summer or may have already
started that will be built into as an example fielder that's correct that's one of harris
county's requirements we have to provide for that perfect let's go any other i would one miss Gesoff
So for the benefit of us newbies, can you explain a little bit, so what's going to happen?
What is this firm going to deliver for us, and then what are we going to do?
We're going to redesign the driveways going into these campuses, making it wider for double stacking to try to get more cars off the road.
Just kind of increase that space on site.
So it's just kind of the egress, entrance and egress into the property?
Correct.
okay thank you that's exactly what i was gonna have clarified i know what it is but i don't
know if everyone knows what the stacking means it's the two lane thank you okay 6.12 consider
feature board approval of amendment four to the ancillary bryant construction limited contract
related to the additional to excuse me to the additions and renovations at katie high school
athletics. Okay so this will be the final amendment for the athletic portion for
Katy High School. The September design showed you know we're going to coaches
offices, training room, locker rooms, team meeting rooms. Last month the cost that
we brought to you was for moving the portables, some site preparation, and some
program leave location. So now the total project cost for this portion of the
athletics work is going to be eight million four hundred fifty five thousand
$2,291 and next month be bringing the CTE portion.
Perfect. Any questions? When are we starting? We've already started. Making
sure coach is over there we want to make sure he's... See coach over there? Yeah he's
he's over there. All right 6.13 Ms. Kassman you're still here consider
future board approval of a sanitary sewer easement to Harris County
Municipal Utility District number 495 associated with the Agricultural
Sciences facility. Alright, so the next two items are actually almost the same.
They're both sanitary sewer items. So in order to make our sewer connection from
the Ag Science, we have to cross over the property but MUD 495 and the next
item is going to be over the Lennar and Pulte subdivisions. So for this item, it's
getting over the MUD 495 property. Okay, so I'll be official and read 6.14
consider future board approval of the sanitary sewer easement to Pulte Homes
of Texas LP and Lamar Lennar homes of Texas land and construction LTD
associated with the agriculture science facility that's another piece of the
puzzle to get us to the site any questions thank you very much miss
Cassidy thank you number six point one five consider future board approval of a
proclamation for National School psychology Awareness Week dr. Brian
Ryan Malachek.
Good evening, Vice President Lacy, board members, and Mr. Garsky.
The Special Ed Department would like to thank the KDISD Board of Trustees for providing us this opportunity for recognizing our LSSPs this evening.
Our LSSPs provide mental health support to students, parents, and staff in our district, as well as conduct risk assessments, psychological evaluations, consultations, and parent training.
Thank you for recognizing our LSSPs this evening with the proclamation of the National School Psychology Awareness Week.
Thank you.
And I shall read the proclamation of Board of Trustees.
Bear with me, guys.
This is a lot of whereas's.
I got it.
Proclamation of the Board of Trustees National School Psychology Awareness Week.
Whereas children and youth learn best when they are healthy, supported,
and receive an education that enables them to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
And whereas schools can more effectively ensure that all students
are able to learn when they meet the needs of the whole child and provide integrated,
multi-tiered support, and whereas the mental health of children is directly linked to their
learning and development, and the learning environment provides the optimal context to
promote good mental health throughout the connectedness within the school and community,
and whereas sound psychological principles are integral to instructing and learning school
school safety, social and emotional development, prevention, early intervention, and support
of the culturally diverse student populations, and whereas school psychology has more than
60 years of well-established, widely recognized, and highly effective practice and standards
that are clearly articulated in NASP's Model for Comprehensive and Integrated School Psychological
services, and whereas licensed specialists in school psychology are specifically trained
to foster and deliver in the school and community a continuum of mental health services and
academically supports that lower barriers to teaching and learning, and whereas licensed
specialists in school psychology help children thrive by nurturing their individual strengths
strengths across both personal and academically endeavors and whereas licensed specialists
in school psychology are trained to assess school and school-based barriers to learning
and individual strengths utilize data-based decision making, implement research-driven
prevention and intervention strategies and evaluate outcome and improve accountability
and whereas KDISD should recognize the vital role that licensed specialists in school psychology plays in the personal and academic development of our children.
Therefore, the KD Independent School District Board of Trustees does hereby proclaim November 12th through the 16th, 2018,
as School Psychology Awareness Week in KDISD and commend observance to all our stakeholders.
The Board also encourages students, staff, and parents to express their appreciation
to our licensed specialists in school psychology and their dedication and commitment to KDISD
employees and students. Thank you.
Okay. Item number seven. At this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an
opportunity to speak. A meeting that is open to the public under the Texas Open
Meetings Act is one that the public is permitted to attend. The Act is not
entitled the public to choose the items to be discussed or to speak about items
on the agenda. A governmental body may, however, give members of the public an
opportunity to speak at a public meeting, which KDISD Board Policy BED Local does
does allow. As defined by this board policy, the first 20 speakers who are signed up at
least 15 minutes prior to this meeting began and have provided their first and last name
will be allowed to speak. A maximum of 30 minutes has been allotted with this time divided
equally amongst those who have signed up. However, the maximum amount of time for any
one speaker is three minutes. If you are not finished in speaking at the end of your three
minutes your microphone will be turned off if speakers wish to share written material to the
board 10 copies must be provided to this secretary of the board services for board members the
superintendent the chief chief communications officer and the permanent record due to posting
requirements of the open meetings act the board is able to respond only to a statement related
related to a posted item with a statement of specific factual information given or a
recitation of existing policy in response to the inquiry.
If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels
as stated in Board Policy, the presiding officer shall advise the speaker to seek resolution
through the appropriate policy.
Board Policy BED Legal states that it is a criminal offense of a person with intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting to substantially obstruct or interfere with the ordinary conduct of a meeting by physical action, by verbal utterance, and thereby curtail the exercise of others' First Amendment rights.
board policy BED local provides for removal of any member of the office of the audience after at least one warning who disrupts the meeting by his or her words or actions.
Finally, present it, persuade it to Texas Government Code Sections 551.074 and 551.0821.
one, the board will not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding
to a student and will not discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties,
discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee or to hear a complaint or a charge
against the officer or employee. Should the speaker wish to address one of these issues,
they must go through the appropriate local grievance procedures, FNG local, DGBA local, or GF local.
As I announce your name, please come forward and state your first and last name for the record.
Our first speaker of the evening is Mr. Nick Funditas.
Did I pronounce it close?
Close.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. I'm Nick Funditas.
So Mr. Scott, I'd like to start and say I agree with you that the State not recognizing a direct principal pay down of debt, at least as favorably as crossover refunding, is absolutely ridiculous.
Crossover refunding is the same as refinancing. That's silly.
I would also like to express my appreciation that the Board implemented a request that was made at the last work study meeting by a member of the public to live stream these meetings.
I think that's an important step towards improving transparency and is an excellent example of how engaging with the public can be very productive and result in meaningful change.
I think that together we can build on this momentum and keep the level of engagement moving in a positive direction to ensure that the full potential of Katy ISD can be realized moving forward.
Considering the progress made to improve transparency, I would like to ensure that the Board is aware of an initiative that Fort Bend ISD implemented in 2016 called the Listening Tour.
Fort Bend ISD held two Listening Tours in 2016 and two in 2017, and so far they have held one in 2018.
During the Listening Tour, parents are invited to ask questions of Board members and district leaders.
I think that this is an excellent example of elected officials engaging with the community to listen to concerns and, more importantly, responding to those concerns.
I would encourage everyone to go on the Fort Bend ISD website and watch the listening tour meeting videos, as well as look at the minutes from those meetings.
Fort Bend ISD has published a comprehensive list of the questions they received, along with the corresponding answers for each meeting.
meeting. Mr. Scott, I think also you and I agree and share a desire to have more engagement
between the Board and the community. In reviewing the video from the January 17th work study
meeting you stated that quote, this Board could craft a process by which citizens could
address the Board and we could respond. That's doable also under the Open Meetings Act, end
quote. As clearly you have recognized that this is within the law, you probably already
have an idea of how KDISD could implement something that mirrors what
Fort Bend ISD has already done. I would like to request that you lead an
initiative to allow the community to more effectively address the board in a
manner that the board can openly respond such as what is happening today in Fort
Bend. I look forward to you being able to get an item placed on the agenda for the
board to take action on this. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
The next person to speak will be Mr. Sean Dolan.
My name is Sean Dolan.
A man from Tennessee articulated what I think is a big problem with our district.
district. He says, quote, there's an underground culture that gives folk in power the leverage
and the right to select like kind or those minions who will be subservient to them. It
has nothing to do with professional standards and abilities. He goes on, some people in
this school system prefer loyalty over competency. It's about power and control. So that leaves
teachers in a position of subservience. I have to please this person by any means necessary
to keep my job even to the degree of being wrong. Those are the words of Keith
Williams. I believe this culture starts here with you the board and is spread
through the superintendent that you choose and trickles down to our children.
It's been suggested to me that the students don't follow all of this drama
but when principals are telling their students not to boo the superintendent
at graduation it means they know. The recent PIR I requested and obtained
parts of the rest went to the AG like most everything else does included texts
and emails between board members and there were many texts and emails between
board members expressing frustration with the lack of transparency and lack
of information provided that you board members needed in order to perform your
moral obligations when voting this clearly shows that we have an elected
group of officials that are not afforded the appropriate amount of time to make
informed decisions and properly represent the people that they have been
elected to represent. This perhaps explains why there's such a high
instance of unanimous votes all but one this year and why every motion has passed
in recent history. Unfortunately there appears to be more debate in the
community about the decisions of the district than there are by the board
members. If the administration are not providing the board an appropriate time
to review and make informed decisions then the board are simply puppets of the
superintendent. The public board meetings give the impression of reasoned support
when in fact the support is blind. I would like to invite the legal allowance
of board members and any community members, employees and taxpayers to an
event on November 13th. I'll be holding an open community forum where everyone
can ask questions and receive answers and maybe we can get get some of the
disagreements and hopefully better communicate and find some common ground between some of
the different parties in our community.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN BRYANT L. Thank you, Mr. Dolan.
Next is Mr. Robert Willoughby.
MR. ROBERT WILLOUGHBY, I'm a resident of the district.
I have three children that graduated from Katy High School.
I did not write anything.
I'm not reading from any device tonight.
So I'm learning my lesson.
I, too, have received PIRs, the same one that other people have received.
And I will provide 10 copies of a lengthy statement to the board for the record.
record. But tonight. I think it's important that we step back
and we look and we say to you.
You've been given an opportunity to represent us in the most
respectful and honorable way
possible. My expectation is a taxpayers that you do the right
thing. That you're transparent.
That you're fair, that you're honest and that you do your job.
If you can't do that, then.
You need to step back and ask yourself, why am I here?
There were some troubling things in the 224 pages that I received.
But, you know, nobody died.
We'll be okay.
But I think it's time that people stop and look and say, hey, maybe I didn't do this right.
Maybe I can do it better.
You need to do it now before it gets out of hand.
And I'm just asking as a taxpayer and a guy that's watching, help us help you.
And I'll send you my paper.
Thank you.
Joey Beckham.
My name is Joey Beckham.
I teach eighth grade U.S. history for Katy ISD at McMeans Junior High School.
It's truly an honor to work for this district. I want to begin by saying thank you for all of your hard work and dedication.
I spoke at a board meeting on March 19, 2017 about school safety and I'm concerned that there has not been any progress in addressing the issue.
Eight months later, we still do not have armed response to a life-threatening danger at McMeen's Junior High School where I teach.
This is despite credible threats that have occurred since then in schools across the district.
So once again, I'm here to discuss safety for campuses and would specifically like to discuss gun-free school zones.
As our Katy ISD school board, you have the weighty responsibility of establishing policy that could literally mean the difference between life and death.
This is a sober responsibility and I know that you do not take it lightly. We appreciate that you place school safety at the top of your priority list.
As you evaluate policy decisions concerning safety, please consider that your policies have life or death consequences.
In the Parkland, Florida shooting, we now know that when Broward County Sheriff arrived at the scene of this active shooting,
they made a policy decision to stage outside of the school rather than entering the building to engage the shooter.
This policy decision cost the lives of several students and faculty.
Here in Texas, our legislature has placed on you, the school board, the responsibility
of establishing policy around confronting deadly threats at schools.
When you adopt the gun-free zone policy of the state of Texas, you are assuming a huge
responsibility.
Not only are you taking away the right of license to carry individuals to protect themselves
and their fellow teachers and students, you're also making a promise that you will establish
policies that protect people in these gun-free zones.
Sadly, across the nation, there's been failure after failure on the part of school boards
fulfill their obligation to protect.
In the past 20 years in the USA, almost 100 school children have been killed in public
school gun-free zones by active shooters.
Some argue that guns do not protect people from those wanting to do harm.
This seems utterly illogical.
Walk into a bank and you'll see an armed guard.
Go to Cinemark this weekend, you'll see two armed policemen.
Go to any courthouse or legislative building, you will find armed officers.
In fact, this very meeting is protected by armed individuals.
We protect the things we care about with armed security.
Because of this sad reality of life, I believe we should have armed protection on each of our campuses here in Katy ISD.
Our campuses should have individuals on site who are trained and equipped to protect our most precious commodity,
our children from a deadly threat.
I believe that not having armed personnel on school campuses is a serious oversight on the part of any school board.
Thank you for your time and your attention to this important issue.
And again, thank you for your service.
Thank you, Mr. Beckham.
Okay, future meetings.
Item number eight, 8.1, regular board meeting Monday, November the 12th, 2018.
There being no further business before the board, this meeting is adjourned.
The time is 8.30 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.