The Board will now reconvene in open meeting. Today is Monday, March 18, 2019, and the time is 6.33 p.m.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, March 18, 2019
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Mr. Grigorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding the notice of this meeting?
Madam President, I confirm we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act in regards to this meeting tonight.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's Board Work Study Meeting.
To prepare for this meeting, each Board Member received the agenda and documentation for
this meeting on Friday, March 8, 2019, and have had nine days to study its contents and
seek clarification from Mr. Grigorski.
This evening, the items posted on the agenda will be presented to the Board by staff, administration,
and the 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 discussion in a closed meeting must be taken in a subsequent open meeting agenda item 3.1
I'm president. Mr. Lacey. I move that the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report is recommended by superintendent Gorgerski in a closed meeting I
Have a motion by mr. Lacey a second by miss Fox that the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent
Gorgerski in closed meeting. Is there any discussion?
Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. All those opposed?
Motion passes. I would like to note that Ms. Gessoff is out tonight.
Agenda item 4.1. Mr. Smith.
Yes.
Superintendent Gagorski and trustees,
I want to give you the March 2019-2020 budget update,
and there's two phases to this, one that I'm very confident in
and am extremely confident in,
and then there's a part that I'll move to that has some uncharted territory
there towards the end and you'll see what that is but as you know we've we've covered two formally
two months in the budget process tonight we're looking at the budget projections the initial
revenue and expenditure projections associated with our budget we've talked about it before the
staffing plan makes a large portion of our budget you're going to hear that tonight and I want the
public and the trustees to know that the administration has looked at those expenditures
and has worked those through. I would be confident under current law with these
numbers and feel confident with where we are so far in the
development of the budget processes. We're far from done but when we do the
staffing plan that will be a large portion that will be with us.
So just as a reminder some assumptions and I'm going to highlight some of the
things that I'm speaking to like state funding. The numbers that you'll see here
that make up our revenue are current law, and that's really important right now, is the current
law that we've been working under. That current law yields a basic allotment of $5,140. I'll speak
to that a little bit later in my presentation. And an Austin yield of currently $106.28. Those
Those are on the four golden pennies or our six golden pennies.
And under current law, it's indexed to move up to $126.88 because Austin ISD's yield or wealth is increasing.
You've seen me show the picture of Austin and the skyline from 10 years earlier and what it looks like now.
But that's increasing.
and that $20.60 increase does generate some pretty good dollars to our bottom line under current law.
Oops, going the wrong way.
In percentage increase in our enrollment, we're looking at about 4.2% or about 3,300 children.
We hit over 81,700, and I think it was six today.
We, Mr. Cruz and I have a fun hamburger bet whether we'll hit 81,000 or not this semester,
but we do expect to hit it next year or sometime during the summer and are looking at a 4.2%
increase. Percentage of growth in our taxable values, we're still looking at 6%. Again,
our average growth over the last several years has been over 9. We think that 2.6% was a result
of Harvey and we're anticipating that that will be behind us because the
growth is still continuing to grow. If you drive around any of the major
thoroughfares you see businesses going up and houses going up at the pace
they've all they have been for for many years now. So teacher growth, the staffing
plan that you'll see tonight, this is high level they'll get a little bit more
granular in it when we go over that item tonight, but that shows a
320 increase in teachers are people tied to the teacher salary schedule. Now
that's a whole junior high more than we opened this last year. Last year we
opened an elementary school and only one grade level at Pato High School so we
had 162 people there. This year we have higher growth. We're budgeting a percent
of 1.2 percent more in growth and we're opening a junior high in addition to
to another elementary school, and yet the final grade level at Pato High School.
And non-teacher growth, 239 people, again, that's more.
That has to do with opening those campuses.
And again, and I didn't say this on teacher growth,
there are also some people with special education that we'll hear from tonight
as well that we're having to hire because of some actions at the TEA and
some of the things that we're having to do for that.
that. I've left salary increases off. Who knows what's going to happen. I'll talk about that in the part of this conversation I'm not very comfortable with at this point. So tax revenue, you can see that 6% increase would increase our tax revenue from the left-hand column over to the right-hand column. State funding actually goes up. The biggest part of what makes that go up, because we're going to remember that doesn't increase as fast as it should
because the state takes away based on our property value growth from the prior year,
but we do see an increase this year. You've seen that go down before.
That increases because we're only on the coattails of a 2.6 percent gain in property value from the prior year plus
that increase in the Austin yield or the golden pennies
generates some pretty good revenue.
TRS contributions, that's in blue because
there'll be an offsetting expenditure associated with that. When you see that expenditure,
it'll be blue because there's a revenue associated with it. Those are essentially a wash to the bottom line. And federal revenue is really nothing
when it comes to the percentage of our budget, less than 2%.
So you've seen this before,
88% of our of our
expenditures are in salary and benefits. The staffing plan is a big portion of that that y'all see tonight.
88% is we are labor-intensive when it comes to supervising children
children in this business. Obviously the vast majority of those are folks that work in the
classroom there on the left. We are above 65% instructional expenditures. We are on
the far high end when it comes to the amount of monies that we spend in our classrooms.
We put, and it's on our website, we have a trend that goes back 10 years on the website
that shows audited numbers and numbers that TEA posts as well that we're pumping in the dollars
and instruction at consistent rate of around 65%. There are little variations in other areas of the
budget that go annual, but for the most part, they do track tremendously when it comes to year over
year where we put our money. It's very consistent, so the budget process has not changed at this
point. So we're looking at new facilities, we've talked about that, we're looking at
district-wide growth, we're looking at special ed growth, and we'll talk about
that a little later in the meeting, and then the ancillary positions on those
campuses. So new positions that would be about twice what we spent last year are
about 18.4 million dollars that are tied to the teacher salary schedule. Again,
I've left salary increases blank for now. New position in the non-teachers
schedule is about 5.2 million dollars. Again salary increases are blank at this
point in time. I'll speak about other compensation real quick. For the last 20
years Career Ladder has been here. That's still hanging in there. I keep thinking
we'll have some folks retire and that'll go away or at least it'll be so small
it'll be less than 0.1. I wanted to show it anymore but it's still there. Substitute
teachers is a large expense when it comes to to that. We spend over eight
million dollars a year making sure that when a substitute teacher is out that we
have a substitute in that classroom. Overtime and supplemental pay you do see
an increase again that's organic growth but that that and and is things like
tutorials obviously overtime any additional assignments that somebody's
doing that they get paid for and that's relatively consistent. Health insurance
anytime you get growing employees you're going to grow in our health insurance so
So we look at an increase in that.
That's on the contribution that the district currently is making.
There's no reduction to that contribution or addition at this point.
I know there's some talk, although not much lately, at the state level about putting more into for school districts to fund insurance.
I will say this, and I'll say this again and again.
We do have better insurance than some of our other districts that are tied to TRS active care.
Obviously, depending on the health of the individual or the location, that can be argued,
but we do not, we have been able to shelter our staff by and large that participate in
our plan from insurance premiums.
We have a healthy insurance fund at this point in time and we are far better off in that,
managing that.
Mr. Nauman does a great job managing that and we're far better off, our employees are,
than we would be if we were in TRS active care.
TRS 1.5% local contribution that was added in 2015 and I'm going to elaborate that here on a few
minutes when I go over my little story that I'm going to tell but that's new as of 2015 but that's
about a 6.1 million dollar year increase or a year contribution that funds TRS insurance for
retirees. Okay? And I think that's a wonderful thing and ISDs across the
state in 2015 had to start adding that expense to the budget and that's
great that we take care of the big folks that retired in our business but that
six million dollars is not going to one child in Katy ISD or it's going to
retirees and their insurance programs and again I'm just wanting to make
in that point I think it's great that we've taken care of them but that was
was an expense to our bottom line and continues to be. TRS stat minimum, there's some legislation
that could go, that could take effect. I'll talk about that in a few minutes. This is because we
pay above the teacher salary schedule. So there's a published minimum teacher salary schedule,
and because we pay more than that, we contribute about $7.5 million a year. That comes out of our
cash. There's no offset to it. It's our cash, about $7.5 million a year that goes toward TRS
on behalf because we pay better than the state average minimum salary schedule.
I'll talk about that in a minute too. So about 63 million dollars in total
benefits. Total payroll budget of 623 million dollars. Again that's all that
all of this is offset by the state. There's straight revenues that cover
this that's in blue there. So a total payroll budget of about 660 let's just
just call it 662 million dollars at this point. Campus allocations, you'll see that that only
went from 7.4 to 7.8. That's organic growth. That's the amount of monies that we give,
and it's the same amount per elementary school district-wide and the same amount
per junior high and high school, etc. But because we had growth, that increases,
but that's not a very big increase. The big budgets are in the department allocations.
The majority of that is in things like utilities, all the district utilities, things like textbooks, testing, all of that, and licenses for software, et cetera.
That would all be in the department allocations that we spend for the campuses.
And so total nonpayroll cost of about $90 million at this point.
So that's where I'm comfortable.
And you didn't see a bottom line.
I think the bottom line if we could just have to pass a budget right now would would not would be okay
It would probably be something that wouldn't make me go do backflips over
But but it would be something that I could live with okay
And I don't think it would be a deficit if we could pass it based on current law
86 legislators happening now. They've been working since January
And I want to tell a little story, and this is I mentioned this earlier and step back and go to
just four years ago and
And four years ago, the percentage of education that KDISD was funding was 53%.
The state was picking up 47%.
So let's just say it's close to 50-50.
Just that many years ago, we were 47-53, 53 KDISD,
or our taxpayers were paying towards the cost of increasing,
educating the children of this district.
We hoped in that session we'd get some monies.
They did increase the basic allotment from $5,040 per student to $5,140 per student.
We were excited about that for a while because that was going to fund a large portion
or the lion's share portion of our 3% salary increase that we were able to deliver that year.
But then they added the TRS care, let's just call it a payroll tax.
I didn't mean to put that in writing, but it's a TRS care, the additional $6 million that I pointed out earlier.
That kind of took away from it because that 3% pay raise cost us about $12 million,
and half of it went away with this increase to our expenditure.
So that's what came out of the 2015 legislative session.
So in May of 2016, we had hoped that we would find some relief that the lawsuit
that the public ISDs had filed against the state of Texas. Their ruling came
back from the Supreme Court in May that was not in ISD favor. It was in and they
said that the it was not a state income, state income, a state property tax but
they did acknowledge as the court that the funding system was out of date and
needed updates, was complicated, it was band-aid after band-aid. I could go on
and on because they they were somebody with a dictionary was writing that or a very high
uh intellect because they were using a lot of big words that i didn't understand look them up
but we're nonetheless they were uh they acknowledged there needed to be updates
in the 2000 legislative session we we hoped that that would happen nothing nothing happened we got
the Austin yield which is already in statute and that increased during that
session $21 from $77.53 to $99.41 and it was in the House Appropriations
Bill and the Senate Appropriations Bill and that's what funded the 3% pay raise
that y'all were able to deliver was they increase in the Austin yield had
happened legislative sessions many ago tying that yield to it but that's what
funded the 3% pay increase by and large. That's all we got. They couldn't agree on anything else.
So we're hoping on the 1986 legislative session that kicked off a couple of months ago.
I don't know where we are. We talked, I think one of the representatives made styrofoam cups that
that said public education is finance reform, the time is now.
Put them in the coffee areas throughout the capitol
so everybody carried around a book says the time is now.
I do think there's a commitment to fund the public education.
But to what level is still unknown.
And how it affects KDISD is still unknown.
So let's talk about the House bill and the Senate bill
appropriations.
Those have both been approved.
approved. They're not in law yet, but both the House and the Senate have those in their
budget. Those have the increase in the Austin yield going from $106 to $126. I think it's
a $20.60 increase. That would fund a cost of living pay increase by and large, about
$12 million. It costs about $13 million, $14 million to do a 3% pay increase. That would
would fund it. It's in current law now. It's in the appropriations bills. But they're wanting to do more. And that's good. That's good for the children of the state. So Senate Bill 3, the third item on the list, has been passed out of the Senate Committee. And I think the full Senate has passed this at this point. And I think it's great. It's $5,000 per teacher. And they added a librarian, librarians to it. $5,000.
My wife would benefit from that.
It's a great thing for the Smith family.
Not sure it's a great thing for all of public ed because, as I understand it,
it wasn't in the basic allotment.
It was more of the form of a grant.
It didn't include other people that are tied to the teacher's salary schedule
that, by law, nurses and counselors are part of it.
And counselors are pretty big and pretty important, as are nurses.
But they got left out of it.
so the local districts would have to hire or pick up the expense of the
counselors and nurses. It's not guaranteed to be around in a couple of
years so when it goes away could we afford to sustain a pay raise of that
kind? Don't know. Under current law? No. But there were some other things
about that I could speak about that on. I think it's great and I love the fact
that they're wanting to give the people that are pulling the lion's share of
what we're doing and as educators there are other educators that row a boat
towards education such as custodians bus drivers campus front office staff
principals there there there's there was no monies in that to pass on a pay
increase for those folks in that as well and and again we want to treat our
teachers because they're in the front lines and they're what we're all about
out, okay? But there are other people that are important. They're just not teachers,
and they're important too. House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 4, I'm not going to, I could talk,
most of the talk has been about House Bill 3. It was filed 13 days ago today,
a week ago, two weeks ago tomorrow. At this point, I've seen one run, meaning from a statewide
organization that's been able to calculate the runs. House Bill 3, one of
the things that the author wanted to do and the Finance Reform Committee wanted
to do was make things simpler. School of Finance is too complicated. We need to
make it simpler for people to understand. Well at this point the reason we haven't
seen runs and those runs were asterisk asterisk asterisk because it's too
complicated to calculate. Okay? It's too difficult to calculate right now.
As an example, right now, school finances, state compensatory education is based on
the number of children that are qualified for free and reduced lunch,
okay? That's how state funding works for calculating comp ed,
free and reduced lunch applications. This throws that out and says we're going to
fund state comp ed based on four tiers that have to do with the census, and
And depending on where that geographic location of the house is will depend on whether that is, what tier of funding that that gets.
Now, I'm talking about something that I may be repeating.
I don't know anything about it, but neither do anybody in Austin.
Okay?
So that's speculation at this point.
I would say that right now it looks like that wouldn't be good for KDISD if we did it that way.
What has happened in KDISD since the last census?
We're getting a new one coming up, but what has happened since the last one?
We've had rice fields that now have elementary schools like crazy in them. So
whatever data that they're going to refer back to has to be dated, but that's
what the proposal is at this point. It's changing. I think
some folks are kind of figuring out, hey, this may be tough to
calculate, but that's what they're looking at as far as House Bill 3 goes
now. One of the things that's really staple in public education, it's been
around since 1990, since I was in college, was something called the cost of
education index. And the cost of education index is an index that was
done back in 1990 that looked at things like geographic things that say it's
more expensive maybe to educate a child in the city of Houston than it is out
in somewhere in West Texas or East Texas. And they had some data to back that up
and they established what they call the CEI or the cost of education index. Back
in 1999 the state paid for a big study the Dana Institute out of the University
of Texas at Austin did a big study and came back with the updates that needed
to be done. Nine years later they were too expensive so the legislature didn't
do anything with them to update the CEI. So again I think it was in 2013 maybe
2015 there was another study done this time at Texas A&M. As I
understand it it's too expensive just leave it alone.
Too expensive. Going back to 1990 our CEI, CEIs from across the state of Texas
range from 0.2 to 0.16. We're 0.16, okay? I'm sorry, to 0.2 to 0.20, we are 0.16. I think the
average is somewhere around 8 or 9, 0.09, okay? I'm not certain of that, but we're far above average.
All the Houston area districts are around 116, HISD, I think they're 117. We have high cost of
Education Index. Well because it's dated, the author of the bill said it's so
dated nobody's wanted to touch it, doesn't mean anything anymore, let's get rid of
it. As staple as that desk is in the classroom, the CEI has become in funding
public education, especially in the Houston area. The Houston area, we offer
our starting teacher salary is $53,500. Is that right?
right? 53,500. In West Texas, it's 45,000. Big difference. Why? Well, we have more competition.
It's more expensive to live here. Healthcare is more expensive here. It's better accessible. It's
more expensive. Insurance on cars and stuff is there. So we've morphed our salary schedule
over those 29 years around the CEI. Whether it's a good index or not, we've morphed our
salary schedule around it. House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 4, because they're dated, do this.
It didn't work. After all that. It didn't work. It knocks the leg out for funding education
Education in districts with high CEIs just knocks the leg out from under it.
We've morphed around that CEI for 29 years, and these stages, since it's so dated,
we're just going to throw it away.
Index doesn't mean anything anyway.
53,500, 45,000, doesn't mean anything.
I spoke to this board in January and said,
you cannot take current pieces of the pie, even though they may have a high value,
and redistribute them and not have losers.
That would be magic.
This isn't magic.
There are going to be losers if they do away with the CEI.
If you do away with the CEI alone,
it costs this district annually $60 million.
Annually, $60 million.
Now, it costs other districts a bunch, too.
Again, minimum CEI is 2%.
So, House Bill 3 and Senate Bill, you have mechanisms to make up for it.
And that's through Comp Ed. Remember that Comp Ed allotment that nobody knows how to calculate right now that's based on the census?
If you have a low number of students that qualify, let's just say for free and
reduced lunch because I know how to speak that, we're about 30%. If you have a high
like some of our neighboring districts east of us that may have a 90%, you get
brought back up. Like I brought that table up, you get brought back up and
then some in some cases. In Katy, because we only have a 30%, we're not made whole
and that desk is leaning on a purpose. Because we started in a $60 million
hole and even though House Bill 3 increases the basic allotment by $890
or to $6,030, it's not enough to get us back to where we were under current law.
Okay, the piece of pie of this cost of education index is valued at $2.9
billion and they're taking that and throwing it out and redistributing it
through comp ed and let me tell you that the records show I think it's important
that districts that have high poverty and poverty levels get the funds that
they need because it is more expensive to fund to educate children of poverty
it is but you can't put a system in in 29 years or rip that table leg out and
not make up for it and it doesn't make up for it in KDISD it makes up for it a
lot for example there's a district and I won't say the name they gained 21%
funding if you equate 21% to us that's over a hundred million dollars that
House Bill 3 would give us that's given them they had a lower CEI 10.10
point one zero so they didn't fall as far to a deep as hole as a 60 million
but they have 90% free and reduced lunch they came way out of it and there it's
going to be worth a hundred million dollars to them if you were talking KDISD numbers.
There's districts next to us that come out five, six hundred dollars more per student
in in the classroom. If you take that and you just take
let's just say 600 because I can do that math that's just over just over twelve thousand
$12,000 per classroom that they will have
to educate
More additional monies that they will have to educate their children
12,000 more per classroom that takes care of a pay raise for teachers and other staff
so
The average I think of the highest school districts in the states about seven and a half percent
Recapture districts earn about 10% again. The highest that I've seen so far is about 21% We're at 0.5 and
and that's assuming that we get that 6% value growth.
So if we don't get the 6% value growth, then we may be at a negative on this deal.
It does not do school finance reform and KDISD taking that piece of the pie and redistributing it.
Again, I believe with all my heart and soul that the districts that have high comp ed numbers need it for those children.
Katie Astey needs it because we've morphed our salary structures and as other districts in the suburban Houston area have morphed their salary structures around it.
And we just don't have the high comp ed numbers to make up for it the way that those call for.
So, in addition to House Bill 3, a couple of the highlights of it.
they do away with the in an effort to make things a little simpler we do away
with the gifted and talented allotment gifted and talented just goes away it's
worth about three million dollars to KDISD they say they've made up for it in
the basic allotment when they increased it eight hundred ninety dollars again
that wasn't enough to make up us back whole but it does away with the comp ed
allotment I'm sorry the gifted and talented allotment it does away with the
high school allotment which is about six and a half million dollars to KDISD
or worth about again that's supposed to be as monies are supposed to be saved
and in the basic allotment and we'll spend it will still spend money on
gifted and talented you bet I just want we want to receive revenue for it we'll
still spend money on high school allotment programs we were before it was
enacted we just won't get money for it again it'll come through the basic
allotment but it won't it won't make up to where to where we are at this point
whole. House Bill 3 does do some things like offer pre-k, full-day pre-k, require
full-day pre-k. There's revenue associated with full-day pre-k. There's
also an expense associated with full-day pre-k too that offsets or maybe even
more than offsets the revenue associated with it. So when I talk about being up
back to break even or 0.5, that includes, that doesn't include any
additional expense for say full-day kindergarten at this point. It does
provide three billion dollars of tax relief to our taxpayers. I think it's
important and I left it out but we to go back to 47% where we were just some five
years ago where we were paying 53% and the state of Texas was paying 47.7% of the cost to educate
our children. We're now at about 70-30 as we know. Even with a 4 cent tax reduction,
that's not going to mean much. It's not going to mean much to change that trend. And if our value
keeps growing in KDISD, that's going to continue. We are now over 400 million. The taxpayers
Taxpayers of this district are now paying over $400 million, have paid more than $400 million over the last several years, more to educate the cost of our children than the state's paying.
And this is going to be a tin can in the road to help that, to stop that truck.
It's a tin can in the road.
It will continue that the local taxpayers are going to continue to pay more under the legislation that's there, even with the 4 cent tax reduction.
I'm a proponent of saving monies on taxes.
I did the math.
I actually asked Ann to do the math earlier, last second.
On the average homestead in our district, a $0.04 tax increase or decrease would save about $100 a year to the average residents.
$100 a year, $0.04, administrative burden, and it would be real complicated and, in my opinion, so far anyway, not very transparent.
I'm having trouble figuring it out.
But it will happen.
in four cents will go to the pockets of our taxpayers only to pay more in rising
values towards the cost of educating the children in this district moving off of
that Senate bill 5 that's another bill that's been filed I don't know where it
had what kind of traction it has senator Betancourt filed that one it actually
increases the homestead exemption from 25,000 to 35 35 thousand a ten
$10,000 increase. What's that mean to our residents? That would mean on a resident with the homestead, we get about $150 in tax relief. I
like that better. It's $150 and it's a lot easier and more transparent to explain, hey, your homestead exemption is now
$35,000 versus 25. That's the perk you get as a homeowner.
And it gives more relief to that homeowner because it's not just the M&O tax rate. That would be the full tax rate,
which includes our debt service,
that they would get that benefit from that that who knows where that'll go
seen a bill 995 is Senator Seliger filed that that that bill up in the Panhandle
area I was from me to mr. Gorg or ski away and heard him say we just need to
increase the basic allotment and give it to the die SD's the ISD's will spend it
the best way that they know how to spend it with their local decisions and that's
to me the best thing that we could do with any excess funds we have. It's been
filed. I don't even think it's gotten any traction, but I like it. House Bill 89 and
Senate Bill 136 are companion bills, meaning that they mirror each other
both at the House and the Senate side. Those raise the basic allotment $800
over two years. I think it's like 300 and something the first year and 400 and
something the second year for a total of $800. That's just under the $890 that
House Bill 3 raises the basic allotment, but it also doesn't do away with the CEI
as I understand it. It does increase, call for an increase of comp ed funding. So
again students, districts with higher levels of poverty would still get
more money in addition to the increase in the basic allotment. They'd still get
get more money for those those students at the other point I was going to make
on that but but that would be that would be good House bill 89 and I think those
also keep the not certain of that so I won't say House bill 8089 and Senate
bill 136 go to the to the legislative priorities that this districts had in
the past. It ties the state's contribution to an index or the basic
allotment to an index that would increase with inflation, etc. That's
what we need to be able to plan and do the right things for the teachers and
the staff of the district to deliver a better instructional quality. And to me,
those meet it. But I don't think they're catching any service. It seems
like House Bill three is the one that's got all the traction at this
point and again it's not good for the elimination of the CEI was currently as
in it's not good for this district so what are we going to do with our future
property values we're going to continue to grow slowly or more robustly it's
unknown at this time I think you can look around and see that we're still
growing and you can see the residents popping up and the fact that we're
getting 15 10 to 15 18 kids a day enroll in our district so that that's that's
going to continue. What are the long-term impacts of the flood zones in the district?
Property value impact, what's it going to do to the funding formulas?
There's been some some talk in addition to that of going to current year values
and not having the property value lag. There's been, let me back up back to my
legislative slide, there's talk of uniform election dates, uniform bond
bond election dates and bond disclosures and all kinds of other factors over
7,419 bills that were filed prior to the deadline.
And a large portion of them, not thousands, but many of them affect public education.
And a lot of them that don't affect funding, which I'm here to talk about only.
Enrollment growth, we're growing.
Special populations is growing.
We're going to talk about that a little later.
state funding what's going to happen with the legislative actions when it
comes to that we've done now with March and April I hope to have a little bit
more details and hopefully there'll be less movement going on or something more
concrete and hopefully it'll be a better picture than what I've talked about
tonight I've been doing this for the last 36 hours so I'm kind of trying to
catch up where we were with what's happened in the last 13 days and trying
to get information to put together to talk about the impacts of the district
So I know I'm a little excited, and that's not like me, but sorry.
May and June, we'll take a closer look.
Then we're going to look at the bottom line.
We're going to formally look at the bottom line.
And in July, we'll look at the bottom line on all our funds.
And in August, we'll conclude this.
But that's all my comments, and I'm sorry I went long-winded
and got a little passionate about some of the things.
But when you've seen and you've worked around something for 29 years,
and to see that go away and not be made up for concerns me for the taxpayers and the children of this particular district.
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Board, do you have any questions?
I have some questions, but I won't be here that much longer, so I have some comments as well.
Mr. Smith, you and I have been talking about this for 18 months.
The problem is when people choose not to get in the weeds, sometimes they get run over, and that's where we are right now.
People have wanted to do legislative strategies on bullet points and
ideological comfort zones rather than look at the math.
I think it's important tonight, I've been doing this since 1973.
This literally is one of the most devastating financial reports,
almost de facto expose of the state's financial and
and operational corruption that's been ongoing for 30 years.
I want to make four or five points about why we are here tonight,
because if you're not talking to your representatives in belligerent, aggressive, arrogant tones,
and you allow the legislators of this district to walk away from what you've heard tonight,
even if you've not fully internalized it, you're making the mistake of a lifetime for this district.
I'm out of here May 4th. Let me put this in real terms.
The state of Texas is making these financial moves for one underlying fundamental reason.
The state of Texas since 1989 has been an institutional pathological liar
about closing the academic equity gap for at-risk minority kids.
Two, it has reached a point where they can't run much more. The legislature only does things when
the lawsuits are building steam behind the scenes. You can't have 30 and 40 and 50 point equity gaps
between at-risk kids and not at-risk kids when at-risk kids are statistically
dominated by children of color and be under a constitutional mandate to close
the academic equity gap and you have a testing scheme that destroys curriculum
you have a testing scheme that lies about what we're doing for children it
It lies about what they know, literally no hyperbole.
So what you have here is a state of Texas who has come down to the last 10 yards of a 30-year dash,
and they are now having to recognize that they have lied about their constitutional burden.
So what do you do?
What they've done over the last 30 years, 20 years, however long it's been,
is they've taken property money from school districts in increasing amounts,
and they shift it, and they use that for equity funding.
That is a constitutional mandate.
Then in our district, in Fort Bend and other districts like ours,
they do this shell game where as our values go up 6%,
we're going to lose a proportionate amount of state aid.
He was kind.
He said $400 million.
Since 2013-14, I think your real numbers from memory were over $500 million.
Over $500 million.
Through next year's budget.
Over $500 million in Fort Bend ISD.
So what has happened is the state confronting this reality is having to take money that is in the pie.
This is not complicated.
They are taking money that they are currently generating through confiscating property taxes or redistributing property taxes, and they're taking some of that pie and they're moving it from some categories of school districts.
They're grabbing the pie and they're moving it over to districts that have a high component
of at-risk children, hoping that that will stave off the results where they're headed.
In the end, what Mr. Smith has said for the last 18 months as we've been talking about
this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
They are redistributing an existing pie to create maximum winners and maximum losers.
And we have members of the Texas legislature who are fundamental morons.
They do not understand what they are doing.
They absolutely do not understand what they're doing.
They have never understood it on academic equity.
if you ask them what a raw cut score was, you could waterboard them and they could plead ignorance.
Okay, if you were to ask them about the cost of education index, some arrogant members of the legislature would say,
well, you've been getting that for a long time, you don't deserve it.
This is all a 100% shell game.
They may increase the sales tax revenue to make the pie a little bit bigger.
But in this school district and districts like this, we have a high percent of at-risk minority kids in this district.
We don't have as many as a lot of school districts.
Our at-risk minority kids deserve the same commitment that ones in the Valley, ones in Central Texas, ones in rural Texas deserve.
Yet the legislature will not step up and do its duty. They continue to play shell games with property tax dollars, pretend.
How we and Michael Schofield go before the Katie Republican Women's Club and say, how much value does the state get out of property tax?
Big zero. Big lie. Big zero. Big lie. They will not add from the state treasury the level of funding that is necessary. The analogy, and I'll close on this, the analogy that I often give is I'm from West Columbia. To get to my hometown, I drive past Damon Mound.
It rises 126 feet. It was an old salt dome and it rises 126 feet.
I dare say that I am the only person in this room tonight who is actually skilled Damon Mound.
The legislature wants to fund closing the academic equity gap like it's walking up Damon Mound.
When in reality, providing at-risk education, providing gifted and talented education,
providing the full range of academic opportunities that we want for our
children but especially at-risk minority kids is like climbing Mount Everest it
is not easy if you want one analogy to take away from this to the if the lips
of the Texas legislature are moving institutionally they're lying they're
They're misrepresenting, they're scheming, they're protecting themselves.
And if you want to honestly assess the command that is needed,
the demand of services and resources that are needed to bring children who come to school,
who can't read, they don't have the background, to grade level.
That is a Herculean task. It is a moral task.
It is an ethical challenge of magnitude.
to, and they're pretending like it's easy, and they're pretending that they're closing
the equity gap, and when they get their hands caught in absolute malfeasance, they put their
dirty hands in a piece of pie, and they move it over to other districts, meeting winners
and losers.
I'm out of here, folks, May 4th.
I've been trying to lead on this issue for three years, and I guess this will be my valedictory
comment but this district is about to get tattooed I won't use the other part
of that oil field expression this district is about to get tattooed other
districts are about to get tattooed and it's because we have made a decision in
this state that we as long as you have our quote ideology as long as you have
our party will support you come hell or high water what I'm telling you is this
my children are out of this my children are gone they're out of public education
the only reason I wanted to be on this board was to try to ensure that KD ISD
in public education gave your children and other children the same
opportunities that I had for my children in this district and the bottom line is
this is in jeopardy and if you want to know what's really going on here I'm
Nostradamus I found a previously unwritten quatrain an unpublished
quatrain this is to create chaos in areas that will lead to a demand for
privatization and vouchers and if you don't believe that you need to study the
issues harder. Madam President. Mr. Scott are you done? Mr. Lacey. Mr. Smith thank you so
much. I just want to kind of go over some things that I know a lot of people may
have missed. I remember our rotten apples that you so wonderfully illustrated
and made it so simple. Just to just remind everyone what percentage of $1 of
our tax income, our tax revenue, what percentage goes to the general fund or
to the state of goes to the what used to be called the Robin Hood. What is that
number? The local taxpayers contribute approximately 68 to 70 percent of the 100 percent it costed
to educate those children. And about how much do we get back? About 30 percent, 32 to 30 percent.
So round numbers, it's costing us about 40 cents per dollar. So about 40 percent of our total income.
Growing annually, yes, sir.
Okay.
And we're compared to basically, as I recall, the baseline is the Austin ISD.
Is that correct?
Baseline is the basic allotment for the first, in our case, 108 pennies of our tax rate.
Yes.
Is the basic allotment, and that's currently at $5,140.
I already used the wrong word.
I'm sorry.
Sorry, when establishing how much we get back, that's we were compared.
Am I mixing up a couple of different programs where we are compared to what Austin ISD is doing?
Yes, sir. And there's not but about 100 people across the state that can get that.
So don't don't feel bad about that there. There is the first hundred and eight pennies of our tax rate.
we are far from recapture the but the wealthier we get or the closer we get to
a yield of five thousand one hundred forty dollars if you take our property
values divided by a number of students the closer we get to that level the less
state funds we get so we are getting closer to that and if things continue to
say at the same rate they have the last five or six years at one point we would
be a recapture district and we would be recapture but recapture is a good term
but it also is one that is easy to understand and people catch on but when
you get less mistake money every year it's just a different form of recapture
it's still this local property value payer paying more towards educating
children it's a nice way to to piggyback on what mr. Scott said it's a really
nice way to make it sound like we're just being equitable to everybody but
we're still not getting and I don't think that we would ever be made whole
I'm sure because we're considered one of the more wealthy districts
And we do need to help some of our not so wealthy districts out in some of the outlying areas a
Couple other real quick questions
So basically that that comparison that Austin to us
Austin are they considered an urban school yet?
Austin yes
Austin has a low base
cost of education index, but they're very wealthy when it comes to per student. So
if you take their number, their property value, and divide it by their weighted
average daily attendance, it comes in to over a million dollars a student. That's,
so as that increases, that's when, when it becomes over a million dollars per
student, that's when the Austin yield went to above a dollar. Yeah. Okay, so do
the math. Property value divided by weighted average students, or number of
students. If it's more than a hundred dollars in Austin's case, I mean a
thousand dollars, a million dollars in Austin's case, in our case it's about
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So we're far less wealthy than Austin ISD.
But the index on those golden pennies, the six golden pennies that KDISD
has, is tied to Austin's wealth. So as their value goes up and their students
don't grow as fast, their wealth per student goes up. And that's why we're
seeing it go from $106 or I think the math is $1,600,000 or maybe $1,060,000 per student.
They're getting more and now it's going up to $126,000. So it's $1,200,000 per student if I'm
doing the math right on the fly. So they're getting wealthier but then on those six golden pennies
we get we get that bang for our buck so we only may get three hundred and fifty
thousand dollars per penny but they match us was the difference in what
Austin can get off that yield so that's why those are called golden pennies or
have been dubbed golden pennies because the investment on the top end of our tax
rate generates substantial state funds that that this that that districts can
can control up to four cents without an election, two more cents with a natural disaster or an election only.
So at this point, under current law.
One last question.
You were talking about something to do with the census.
Are you talking about census tracts?
Do you recall offhand?
Mr. Lacey, I'm...
Your brain's probably off.
It has something to do with going back to the census and the tracts.
Yes, sir, census tracts.
and there's different tracks across the state of Texas and depending on
where our residence is in that track you will be deemed as that you will get more
and it's an index it's a sliding scale index so some tracks may get a whole
bunch of comp ed students comp ed funding some tracks may not get as much
there's four tiers according to some of what I'm hearing here whereas right now
it's just free and reduced lunch if you got them you got them it's to your
your highest six months average.
That's how the comp ed's funded now.
How it's gonna be funded in the future right now,
even the experts at the state level
are having trouble calculating it.
I appreciate everything that you have tried to
come up with to try and explain this,
because it is a, I'm sure, infuriating
problem that we can foresee in the future
if it goes against us.
So I greatly appreciate all that you're doing
to try and bring this to our attention and not just us but the community as well so that we can
speak to our state senators and legislatures. So thank you very much, Mr. Smith. And I will say that
again, the goal was to make things simpler. I may be getting older. I got called a grandfather
today, asked about my grandkids. Far from that, I hope. But I'm getting older and a little less
adapt to change but I see this is not getting at least some of the things that
have traction now is not being any easier being more complicated than what
we're dealing with now are you finished mr. Lipson yes ma'am anyone else
and president miss Fox I concur Thank You mr. Smith for the presentation it's
exhaustive and confusing I've several points that I just want to go through I
I appreciate you talking about the teacher and librarian pay bill.
That's the $5,000 they're talking about, right?
Yes, ma'am.
That they're saying $5,000 for every teacher and teachers are getting so excited about
it, but it doesn't cover counselors, nurses, paraprofessionals, our special ed aides, our
people who make everything else run.
As I understand it, it only covers those FTEs that are counselors.
I mean that are teachers and librarians.
librarians. And my understanding in talking to my legislators is that this
is a two-year funding and they say that they cannot commit future legislature to
something they pass so it's really only guaranteed for the biennium or is it
maybe even just one year by the time they get finished it'd be by the time
they'd meet again so two years. I think it's two years but when it would take
effect I don't know is considering they may not nothing may happen that's
tangible and that it's concrete until sometime in the middle of the summer and
then the ISDs across the state have to react and implement what they've done
assuming it starts September 1. And then once those teachers and librarians have
that and then it's not funded two years from now that's going to fall on the
district and how will we how we fund that? Under current law that would be a
great question. There's only two ways to fund it. Use your your savings or fund
balance that we talk about we need to have that more than 25% or three months
supply you could use that for some time and you could find ways to reduce
expenses well okay moving on to the compensatory ed numbers you said we're
around 30% which is in keeping with the other numbers we've seen how accurate
this may not I'm not sure who the question is for how accurate do you
think that 30% number is. My understanding is that we have a number, I don't know if
it's a large number, of families who don't want to identify as free and reduced lunch,
yet they could if they chose to apply for it. But many people, I don't know, embarrassed
maybe to do it. They want to take care of themselves. Maybe they, I don't know, fear
of the government you know there are lots of reasons why people don't apply for free and
reduced lunch that they could qualify my point in saying that is that those children would really
qualify in the need for differentiated instruction in order to be able to meet their needs
educationally so is that number a little low do you think mr superintendent it would be real hard
to speculate how many of those kids or those families are not applying for but
I do know this from our campus level perspective for the folks that are on
the campus level when they do identify children who look like they're
struggling or look like they don't eat adequate meals or aren't eating
breakfast or having issues like that we do reach out to those families and
encourage them to go ahead and fill out those applications the other good thing
about our application system is if there are young children in the system and
they have applied and they have a sibling it will automatically link those
applications if by chance an older sibling has not filled that out for the
reasons you've described maybe they get to high school and they are embarrassed
by that or they don't want to be identified that way but our system will
link those kids to go ahead and identify them ensure we're meeting those families
needs miss Fox one one thing that when I was in high school 30 years ago when we
When we went through the lunch line, there were kids that wouldn't pay.
I whipped out my $2.25, whatever it was, $1.50, I don't remember, it's been so long ago.
But those that didn't pay just got to go through.
And we saw, oh, you're on pre-introduced lunch.
It was a stigma.
Nowadays with technology, everybody uses a badge.
whether you have
$1,000 on that badge or you're free and reduced lunch, you use that badge.
So that stigma is gone.
But I think a lot of us parents still remember the days back when we were there.
That's my opinion on it.
Right.
My understanding is it's the parents who feel bad, like I should provide for my children,
and maybe some of them have a little bit of concern that if they're in free reduced lunch,
maybe the government can identify them and make it difficult for them to work.
I mean it I am appreciate mr. Scott's talking about the achievement gap and minority kids I
Believe also that it's not just color of skin
It's socio economics right when when children are low socio-economic they they just have greater needs
You know for meeting and we do differentiate our instruction and and provide for that in many ways
When you talk about the full-day pre-k
that the legislature is talking about, that's not full-day pre-K for everyone.
That's, again, the low socioeconomic.
As I understand it, it's for those that qualify for pre-K now.
So it's not all.
It's some.
Okay.
And, Ms. Fox and President Doyle,
there's some things that I'm remembering now about House Bill 3 that come up
that I've not spoke to that are good.
They fund dyslexia.
They fund some of the allotments a little bit more.
And I apologize.
Again, I think that there was an effort to try to be reformative in some cases,
and I haven't spoken to all of them.
And, you know, for those that watched it on tape going with the score,
you didn't mention this.
I'm sorry.
Well, it's too complicated.
It's too complicated, and there's too many moving parts right now.
But if we do full-day pre-K, now we need more buildings and more teachers.
It's a concern for a fast-growing school district like this.
That's a lot of room in a district like ours.
I just wanted to make sure that people didn't expect that every pre-K was going to go to school full time.
I also understand, just on a side note here, the tourism lobby was pushing pretty hard to fight against districts of innovation.
I knew someone who was there during the testimonies, and we were texting back and forth.
Do you know if that got any leverage? I forgot to ask and it just kind of popped.
They don't like our, they want to go back to that very late August start time so that their Fiesta Texas and all of their tourism can be staffed by our high school kids.
And that families will stay and spend money. It's how that originally happened.
How we moved to the fourth Monday in August was because the tourism lobby convinced the state legislature
if we'd save a lot of money on air conditioning our buildings because we could turn the air conditioning off in the summer.
Well, you can't do that in the state of Texas, certainly in the southern part of Texas.
And it saved $0.
There was never any proof of any savings.
And I understand now that we have districts of innovation and a little bit of freedom to determine our start date.
We moved ours up one week right that now they're lobbying again
I just wondered if you knew if it got any traction do we need to be calling our legislators?
Yeah, that bill you're referring to is still kind of hanging around out there, but it hasn't moved really too much forward
I don't know what's going to happen with it
It's really early in the session to really tell there are two or three different bills that that attach some different
I guess
challenges or changes to districts of innovation or DOIs and we're watching to see how those kind of play out and see what happens.
But there are some folks who do want to regulate the calendar kind of the way they used to regulate the calendar with
mandatory start and end dates whereas we will always maintain that that's a local decision for our community to select our calendars and
we're going to watch those bills to see if any changes move forward with that, but I haven't seen anything lately.
If that does, maybe we could...
I'm going to come back to that.
That's my last thing.
I have one more quick thing.
The basic allotment is $5140.
Yes, ma'am, currently.
HB3, what is it?
Do you know?
$6030, I believe.
$890 difference.
Okay.
And again, that's just to pull us out of the drop of the CEI
and to make up for the loss of gifted and talented in the high school allotment.
Those are the three raises and new money into the system. It's just not enough new money to get us out of the CEI hole
So my final thing
What can we do? What can we do to help? I know from being sitting at this desk
I when I first moved here, I didn't I didn't care about all the politics. I don't really like politics surprisingly
But I learned sitting at this desk how important it is for us to talk to our legislators.
What they don't, who they don't want to hear from is us.
We're the WASP, the Whiney A. School people.
They don't want to hear from us.
They want to hear from the taxpayers.
They want to hear from constituents.
How can we help?
Is it possible that we could send emails to our, however the amazing Dr. Grims and her
communication people are send something out to give bullet points for people to
call and talk or send an email or I mean we have to speak up you Mr. Scott is
right we cannot sit by and do nothing or we will be losers and in what I see
coming now we agree wholeheartedly with you miss Fox on that and we are not
going to sit idly by as a matter of fact Chris and I will be over in Austin on
Wednesday meeting with some of our folks who represent the Katy area and we are
are going to make a case for how we feel their representation impacts Katie and
we expect them to do their best for Katie ISD and we're going to show them
what that really means in the meantime Chris and I have a draft of a press
release not quite ready to go out yet but we're also going to wait on until
Wednesday possibly when we have some meetings and hear what's happening
firsthand in Austin and then our goal is to get that information out to the
the community. We want to inform the community through that press release of how certain bills
are impacting KDISD and our funding and our finances and our children. And as always, I'll
keep the board updated weekly on different information, how it impacts this group and what
we can do as a group to move it forward. For some of us who are in frequent contact with our
legislators I would appreciate some just a few bullet points that I can we can
call them and speak with them about and then if you'll keep us updated I'll send
out to my group of people who will make the phone calls if if it'll help it will
help thanks thank you anyone else I have a question mr. Smith I'm sorry I'm
hoping that this one will be easy I know that our audience is just captivated by
this but when I take the five thousand one hundred and forty dollars and
multiply it by seventy nine thousand four hundred eighty one children this
year it comes out to four hundred and eight million five hundred thirty two
thousand three hundred forty dollars and when I look at the total estimated
revenue of seven hundred fifteen million dollars where so you know and I can see
the how it's all divided up and everything but but where exactly does
that allotment come from? Okay and I didn't hear your finality on your math, but again the basic
allotment $5,140 is adjusted by the cost of education index and it moves it upwards by 0.16
through a formula. So when you run that through all the other weights based on our student
demographics and I don't ever get into this detail because it will make everybody's eyes
roll back in their head, but the CEI serves a basic, a fundamental like the
chair on that desk over the last 29 years of boosting the basic allotment
and I think in our case it moves $5,140 to $5,726.
So then you do your math on our number of students and you're
going to be higher and then the other part is there's about $40 million, I'm
I'm sorry, about 20, right at $30 million in Tier 2 monies that get added on top of that based on our,
and then you've got to remember the local taxes that are the lion's share of the equation.
And when you add those in along with those two numbers, the number that you came up with, you're right at our budget number.
All right.
Thank you.
Everybody's good.
Good. I just want to reiterate a couple of things to make sure I heard you correctly.
Under House Bill 3, GT funding will be non-existent. Is that correct?
The state will, under House Bill 3 as it's drafted now, the state will no longer deliver revenue to the two districts that serve a GT population.
And you don't have to give me an exact number. What is our, what are we spending for our GT programs?
Just spending.
Oh, what are we?
We are receiving currently about three million dollars or just under three million dollars for that. We're spending far more than that.
Okay, and then and maybe this is this is more of a statement than it is a question for you.
I find it interesting that the
the districts that have a larger free and reduced lunch
population are going to be receiving more funding, but what about you know, we've noticed a rise in our special education
education. Programs and students here in the district.
There's is there never any talk about how the state will
compensate districts like ours who have an increase in our SPED
program are spent population. You know why are those children
and their education not being
considered? I'm sorry and I it wasn't meant to be a question.
It was yeah, it was just a statement that I will point out
Ms. Doyle that House Bill 3 is a draft. It does provide monies for dyslexia and
I'm not sure what that generates. I've calculated I'm going to say it's right
around three million dollars too. We're not getting funding for that now but we
are serving dyslexia students just like we would serve GT students without the
funding. We are serving dyslexia students now but in effort to acknowledge that
they are out there, they are, I think House Bill 3 does have some money set
set aside for dyslexia. Which I think are currently and Mr. Dr. Malachuk can
correct me if I'm wrong they're not considered now dyslexic children are not
considered now special needs just based on to let dyslexia known alone and that
could change under all of this where we're now they would be qualified for
special ed funding as well. Could could call for. All right thank you Mr. Smith
I appreciate it.
We will move on to our consent agenda.
Agenda item 5.1, consider future board approval of the March 2019 budget amendments.
Mrs. Butterfield.
Good evening, President Doyle, trustees, and Superintendent Grogorski.
Can you hear me?
Tonight we have three general fund budget amendments that are both increasing revenue
and recognizing an expenditure budget.
They are $114,000 for center point repates, $5,000 for improvements at Davidson Elementary,
entry and $59,210 for HCC dual credit classes. Additionally, expenditures increased $26,708
for the replacement of a vehicle and $747,000 to fund the move of portable buildings this
this summer. Approval of these general operating fund amendments will decrease the general operating fund balance by $773,708. The food service fund has a budget amendment tonight for $155,715 for the purchase of a new cafeteria point of sale system. An approval of this amendment will result in $155,715.
$15 decrease to the food service fund balance construction expenditures are
recognized of two million six hundred eighty one thousand four five projects
including gliding at roads paving at the support services complex stage curtain
replacement Holland Elementary's gym floor and a security fencing all of
these will be funded from 2014 bond project savings are there any questions
you have 5.2 as well go ahead yes thank you we continue to experience a very
successful business relationship with Prosperity Bank and as our current bank
depository who was selected during the 2017 bid process it is therefore
recommended that the Board of Trustees adopt the resolution authorizing the
extension of the bank depository contract with Prosperity Bank for the
two-year term beginning September 1st 2019 are there any questions okay Thank
You mrs. better field agenda item 5.3 consider future board approval of the
renewal of the Texas Association school board risk management fund casualty
insurance program mr. Nauman good evening superintendent Gorg or ski
president Doyle Board of Trustees in March of 2018
the KDISD Board of Trustees approved the renewal premium quote from the TASB
Risk Management Fund for a 12-month period providing auto, general liability,
police liability, and school board liability coverage for the district at a
cost of $254,477. The Risk Management Department seeks to
renew this program which provides casualty coverage for the district.
Although the district continues to grow, adding more employees and assets yearly,
the renewal premium is offered at a 4.5% higher than expiring at an annual cost of $266,665.
This is the result of organic growth rather than loss experience. The program provides
commercial auto liability coverage for vehicles owned, operated, and or leased by the district.
Additionally, the program provides general liability coverage to ensure against actions resulting from the day-to-day operations of the district.
Next, police operations are also contemplated as part of this offering.
Lastly, the program extends school board legal liability coverage for those claims related to administrative issues.
After the evaluation of losses over the past three years, the Risk Management Department believes it is not cost effective to purchase comprehensive coverage on the district's fleet, as the premium expense is far greater than the loss experience.
This program only provides liability coverage. The program has been reviewed regarding adequacy of cover, assessment of risk, availability of services, and cost.
Authority is granted to purchase this coverage through CRB Legal and CRB Local.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the renewal of the Texas Association
of School Board TASB Risk Management Fund Casualty Insurance Program.
Are there any questions? Mr. Scott?
I understand you to say that this is a difference that we're not going to have comprehensive.
That is correct.
So there's increasing premiums and a reduction.
Let me clarify.
The comprehensive coverage, we provide catastrophic losses through our property insurance program for our fleet,
where we have our three transportation centers.
And the premium savings for not carrying comprehensive is very substantial.
So our losses indicate that we have hardly any losses over the last three and over the last eight or nine years to justify carrying true comprehensive as you might.
This is on vehicles fleet.
Vehicles are yellow and are white fleet.
Okay.
An example.
If something catastrophic were to happen, a tornado would hit a bus barn or something like that,
then that would be covered completely.
Under our property policy.
Under property.
But if one of our cars hits another car and it's our fault, the liability would cover.
Correct.
But it would not cover the damage to our vehicle.
That is correct.
Do we have numbers that kind of support that decision?
Roughly, it runs about anywhere from $900 to $1,100 a year,
and we run about 850 vehicles in our fleet,
and that would equate to anywhere from $800,000 to $900,000 in premium savings by garnishing that.
That's pretty good.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
5.4, discuss and consider future board approval of the campus staffing plan for 2019-2020
school year.
Mr. Shush.
Good evening, President DeWolf, members of the board, Superintendent Gagorski.
Did you pull the microphone closer to you, please?
Yes.
Is that better?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay, President DeWolf, members of the board, Superintendent Gregorski, good evening.
Happy to present the 19-20 campus staffing plan to you this evening.
First, though, I do want to say how much I appreciate everyone that's been a part of this process.
You know, it involves input from a lot of folks, a lot of different departments,
from campus principals, our school leadership team, department heads, HR staff.
It's an extremely important process to ensure the success of our district and staffing appropriately,
and I just wanted to publicly state my appreciation.
So now talking about the 19-20 campus staffing recommendations.
These recommendations are based on enrollment growth of about 2,800 students.
It's a little higher than the enrollment growth projection last year.
It was about 2,600.
We're requesting a total of 382.26 campus staffing units,
and we're also requesting an additional 153 units for our campus support and auxiliary personnel.
These positions provide direct support to the campuses.
If you look at that and comparing to last year, it's a significant increase in staffing over last year, about 228 additional units over the previous year.
Reasons for that, opening two new campuses this year as opposed to one last year.
Following my report, you're going to receive a report on special education.
There are significant increases there, and that is a big part of this number.
additional grade at Pato High School and again the enrollment growth projection
that is a little bit higher this year than last year and when you put that
all together you know it can be a considerable amount of staff but it's
very appropriate that we that we staff appropriately and and I think we have a
good plan I was really happy to be a part of the process and in closing we're
recommending that the Board of Trustees approve the 1920 on the campus staffing
plan are there any questions board members miss Fox riding as fast as I can
welcome to Katie I stay I know you just got here now here you are doing this
thank you and I'm not sure if this question will need to get back to me how
How is our staffing ratios with the recommendation that you're giving us compared to previous
years?
We, teacher-student ratio on some and then our administrative ratio.
I know that KDISD prides itself that we are below the state and regional averages for
around our area.
So do you have those numbers with you?
Yes.
So let me speak to that.
you know at the elementary level we staff at 22 to 1 and we do constantly
watch that and at the junior high and high school level they're at either 23
or 24 to 1 specific administrative ratios I can't speak to right now but
what I can tell you that 382.26 campus staffing units about 350 of the 382 are
teachers and campus paraprofessional staff so if you look at that as a
percentage that's what 10% or so administratively so I believe that is
below the typical averages that are I think run around 11 and a half 12%
around 11 or 12 percent is our average well yeah that's just an example I was
just giving you example based on this staffing that it's not administratively
heavy but as far as districts wide I don't have it but I can get that to you
Mr. Gretgorski has it on top of his head.
Yeah, I'll jump right in there on a few figures on there.
So when you talk about campus staffing, some of the other positions, as you know,
the teacher positions are allocated off a standard of 22 to 1 at elementary K through 4.
And then for the secondary, we have not changed those ratios.
We have held a standard on those, and I can't remember.
I know I've been here two years, and we've had the same ratios,
and for a few years before that we did that we've always had the same student-teacher ratios.
When it comes to campus administrators, counselors, instructional staff, instructional coordinators,
those type of positions that aren't based on student to teacher ratio, we have staffing
standards in place and the staffing standards that we use this year to staff those positions
are the same standards we've been using the last two years that I've been here as well
working with HR.
The part you did mention about administrative costs, that's more of a question over there
for Mr. Smith and he has shown some different figures in the past and I know it was in the
the budget we just saw. Administratively as a whole, as a district, not
specifically campus related administrative costs, but our
administrative costs for the district are, I believe, some of the lowest in the
area. We're neck and neck with the neighboring district every year to see who's the lowest in the area and I think we're probably the lowest in the state and we're under 2% and we've
always run under 2%. That may go from 1.8 to 1.9 to 1.8 to 1.7 to 1.8. It kind of teeters,
but we do maintain and have been since I've been here a very low administrative cost ratio.
And we will continue that same model. It's a priority. I think we run pretty lean or
as lean as we can run administratively without sacrificing any support that we provide those
those campuses, but you'll see year over year with this budget is most of our ads that we
do put into personnel are going to be those campus-based positions and specifically teachers
and paraeducators who get into those classrooms to support those kids.
One of the explanations that I give when people ask me about that, you know, you're so top-heavy,
there are so many administrators, and I talk about when you get more than 22 children in
elementary get another class when you get another class you get another when
you get 750 students if I'm correct about this you get a helper when you get
over a thousand you get something else those things happen at the campus level
where we are talking about classrooms at the district level when we get two more
campuses and we get four more campuses and we're at 70 is it are we right at
70 campuses soon to be 70 campuses we still have one superintendent we still
have one CAO we still have one CFO like the 80,000 students and growing we still
have one person managing all of that so when we talk administrative ratios
that's why I asked the question we still have one HR director we're not adding
more but at the campus level when we're talking classrooms that's where we put
our money it's where we put our dollars in instruction 65 i believe mr smith talked about
we are focused on the classroom and i am asking you one more question and i don't know who the
answer is but we talk 22 to 1 at elementary 23 24 to 1 at secondary but our numbers are actually
district-wide much lower than that around 14 to 1 when we add in our special ed numbers and
13 or 14 to 1 is that still where we are we have been in the past yeah I'd have
to pull that again from a peems document to see exactly but you're right once we
add in specialized programs and then you add in what we call line item type
staffing things that are not in those ratios like the number of band directors
you might receive and then PE teachers obviously teach more than the 22 to 1 or
even more than 28 to 1 at the high school level so by the time you put
put everything into the mix of everyone who's called a teacher and you divide that out per
pupil, it significantly drops that number down.
I think when you look at those on the TEA numbers or something and you look at teacher
student ratio, you'll see 13 or 14 to 1.
People are, wait a minute, I have 30 kids in my biology class sometimes as we're growing
and changing around.
But that's because we have a lot of programs, YCAP, ECAP, PPCD, special ed, when we are helping babies be successful from the time they come to us until they graduate, sometimes those ratios are much smaller, sometimes 2 to 1, 1 to 1, sometimes 6 to 1.
And those are where those numbers come from that we'll see probably on our dashboard.
Certainly.
You're spot on in your assessment on that, Ms. Fox.
those numbers do get kind of skewed when you add in specialized programs because a lot of our special needs types programs are very labor intensive to where you might have one student or two students, one teacher, three students, one teacher, you know, and those kind of ratios so they impact the overall program.
And it's kind of like what Mr. Smith was talking about in there.
You do get a little bit of a cost of there's a multiplier in there with the state formulas for special education students,
and they are weighted a little bit more heavy.
But I'll tell you this, the weights don't even come close to the cost of educating some of our most highly need specialized students.
And last thing I promise, Madam President, I appreciate you talked about band directors
and choir directors and orchestra directors, 150 kids, and they have two people helping out.
And we have that in place, too.
When you get this many number, you get a helper, those things.
But those numbers are crazy, right, crazy big, and coaches and all those educators who take on 100 kids.
And so when you think about all those people doing all those great things and the success we get,
it's complicated to just have a one number.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Sure, Mr. Scott.
A couple of points.
One, Mr. Smith, you know that when we worked on the presentation that Fort Bend ISD and I put on at TASB,
we did a historical look, and it went back about 10 to 12 years.
And the truth of the matter is, if you look at it in a big-picture way,
the percentage whether you use per student or percent of percent of total
budget was remarkably stable in all the functions and the functions is how the
TEA breaks down where you know you're doing it on students you're doing it on
pure administration it allows you to really classify it but I don't leave
this issue without making another comment relative to state finance we
We heard in an earlier presentation, you know we got three more meetings of this,
you heard in an earlier presentation the concern about education funding for gifted and talented,
or the education funding for special education, or weighted programs, what they're called.
waiting programs. It's good to be able to say that our pupil-teacher ratio is 14
or 15 because of these other things, but here's what it simultaneously says. In
some of our core instruction classes, the pupil-teacher ratio is up. Don't think
for a nanosecond that the issue of public school finance and the
the deficiencies, the malfeasance deficiencies of the state of Texas that mandates programs
or federal regulations that mandate programs.
And I'm not saying the program shouldn't be offered, shouldn't be requested,
but it's a shell game in terms of funding.
So when we have to have one teacher to four kids or one teacher to five kids or 10 or 12,
and we magnify that across the school district,
the end result of that is some core instruction classes go up,
and that has an impact on curriculum.
So once again, if you want to stay out of the weeds of what the legislature is doing in public school finance,
you're not going to have the ability to make a full understanding of the impact
that all of these people that line the walls, all of our principals, some of whom
are here tonight, all of our teachers deal with. The legislature sits up high,
they pontificate, they legislate. In many cases they don't give a rat's tail about
the consequences of their actions. They want to come to Austin, they want to go
home and the end result is that these people that line the corridors of this
building and the people in the classrooms end up paying the price and
you can mark my words right now I don't know exactly what the legislature is
going to end up doing in this session but the end result it's not going to be
good for Katie period unless something happens thank you mr. Scott madam
President Champagne I have a few questions Mr. Shush and I'm going to just ask you the questions
and then you can I'll ask all the questions if you want to try to remember them or not
I'm hoping you can remember them first of all I'm going to give a shout out to Mr. Stocks again just
because he was the principal a couple years ago at Taylor High School and I was on his CAT team
and I remember him talking about a lot of the classes that are offered in the course catalog
that if if they weren't running the interest in the class and then we
couldn't have the class I'm trying to remember what he told me the answer to
this I can't remember but you know what the number of students is required so
that one of those classes can be offered so that it would be cost-effective in
other words you're not going to have a class of only one kid wants to be in
that class that's one question also if dyslexia is not part of spend I'm glad
that mrs doyle asked that question um who which teachers are teaching it are they just part of
the regular curriculum teachers that are having to try to fit that in and then the last question is
has to do with instructional coaches are instructional coaches considered teachers
and as far as i know um they don't have classrooms so if they're if they are considered as a teacher
then that would actually you know help the ratio go down because they don't
have any students in in their classrooms they're just there to I guess support
the rest of the staff in that department and part of that question is also I
would like to know how many instructional coaches if you don't know
this answer that's okay I can find out per you know like junior high high
high school and also and do they get paid more so on the on the instructional
coaches they are on the teacher step I don't have the total number of
instructional coaches you know that we have in the district right now I do have
that you know we're adding about seven you know for 19-20 or that that's in the
request as far as dyslexia we we do have department meetings and we do talk about
dyslexia teachers specifically and that is part of the staffing plan okay
Okay, and the number of students required to take a specific course,
that's probably some information we'd have to get back with you.
I think it's probably going to depend, to make it cost effective would depend on the course,
whether it was a CTE course or what it might be.
So I can't give you that number right now directly.
Since Mr. Schuss has only been here for about 60 days, I'm going to bail him out on these.
But next year in the springtime, they're all his.
No, a couple things. They're good questions, Mr. Champagne.
Required to offer, we don't have a minimum as in required to offer.
Those are going to be campus-based and campus-set, like you talked with Mr. Stocks.
Fifteen is a pretty good round number we try to use, but once again, it's going to be dependent on your master schedule.
It's also going to be dependent on what type of course it is, an elective versus something that might be more required.
And I'll give you a good example of that.
let's say it's a CTE type course in a sequence that they that the student
needs for their foundational diploma and if they need that we're going to offer
it and that might be meaning to drop down the number a little bit to make
sure those kids get that as part of their diploma process of a course that
they might have chosen but if it's just a random elective that we might not
offer that year but what most principals do is they put those on a two-year cycle
So over the course of your time in high school between grades 9 and 12, something would be offered every other year to ensure it quote unquote makes as a class.
And so kids would get an opportunity to have that class sometime during their high school career when you have to do that.
The other one you brought up was about the instructional coaches.
I'm going to put Dr. Kasky on the spot, and I bet she knows that number off the top of her head.
Total number, it's around 198, but you asked per campus.
So at the elementary level, can you hear me?
Okay, at the elementary level, each elementary campus has two instructional coaches, one that supports math and science and the other supports ELA and social studies.
At the high school campus, each campus has four for each of the four content areas.
And at the junior high level, most have four, some have three because they split a social studies.
Per content.
No, only four.
Yeah, some have three and some have four at the junior high level because some split.
Four.
Per content.
So there's one math, one science, one social studies, and then one ELA.
Yes, ma'am.
Did we hit them all on there, Ms. Champagne?
Did we miss any?
Well, I'm just wondering, are the instructional coaches,
so they are considered as a teacher, so they would be in the same unit as the teachers,
but they don't have any actual students.
So I'm just making the point that they're going to help bring down the ratio of that, too.
and also do they get paid a little bit more you're correct that they are coded
as a teacher and they don't have students assigned to them per class role
and they are funded on the teacher salary scale anyone else okay thank you
so much thank you agenda item 5.5 consider future board approval of the
instructional materials allotment I am a update sorry let me go ahead and jump in
there there was a two part to the staffing and mr. Schuss had the first
part and special ed was going to give you a short presentation on special
special education and then.
Okay, I'm sorry it went on my.
That's okay.
I don't.
.
It was only mine.
I'm not sure why it was.
.
Oh, I see it's behind.
Okay, I realize.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you President Doyle, Board members, and Superintendent Grogarski.
The Special Education Department presented to the Board on October 15, 2018 to discuss
the growth of special education students, and the Board of Trustees granted the Department
additional special ed units to provide for campus needs at that time.
We want to thank the Board for that support.
We are here this evening to discuss the continued growth of special education numbers in the
district and to articulate the reasons why this extraordinary growth is occurring.
In order to better understand the context regarding the growth of special education
in KDISD, it is important to speak about the current reality of special education in the
state of Texas and nationally.
As you can see, the orange line representing national trends in special education, and
please note that the national data is two years behind lagging what Texas has in their
data.
and then you have the Texas data that is in the blue line. We were basically kind
of tracking along together but in 2004 you'll see a dip in Texas going down
with the numbers in Texas for special ed going down at that point having a drop
off. So TEA has identified the likely reason for the drop off as
coinciding with the Congress's reauthorization of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act of 2004. At that time a provision of the IDEA Act
was clarified to explain the use of response to intervention or RTI as part
part of the ongoing effort to ensure interventions were being provided in general education instead
of automatically referring kids to special education first.
The Texas Education Agency put forth a very robust response to intervention model containing
guidance relative to how to intervene with struggling learners and when to consider a
special ed. referral under child fine.
In the last year, the federal government, through the Office of Special Education Programs,
has partnered with the Texas Education Agency to rework the guidance regarding when to implement
child find procedures so the Texas Education Agency has developed a
strategic action plan the purpose of which is to reimagine the way districts
implement child find regulations and how the state supports that implementation
there are five specific components to the strategic plan however we would like
to discuss the child find component which is the requirement under idea and
which is to identify evaluate and locate students requiring special education
SERVICES. SO THERE WAS SIGNIFICANT EVIDENCE HAS BEEN PLACED ON THE
CHILDFINE PIECE OF THE TEXAS EDUCATION PLAN AS GUIDANCE AND OVERSIGHT THAT HAS
CHANGED. THE TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY PREVIOUSLY PLACED AN 8.5% CAP ON
SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS IN SCHOOL DISTRICTS. THIS WAS DESIGNED TO PROVIDE
AN ESTIMATION TO HELP ENSURE STUDENTS WERE NOT BEING OVER IDENTIFIED FOR
SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS. INTERVENTIONS UNDER RTI LABEL WERE
ENCOURAGED TO ENSURE STUDENTS WERE RECEIVING SOLID INSTRUCTIONAL
components in general education. TA has since abolished the idea of 8.5% cap and has replaced
the cap with the firm expectation that all students will be assessed if there's a suspicion
of a disability exists and that specially designed instruction is needed.
The Office of Special Education Services also noted that some students receiving
Section 504 and or dyslexia services which are provided through general education may in fact
requires special education services. Texas is one of the few states that
serves students with dyslexia under 504 instead of through special education. So
now that we reviewed the state data and discussed the TEA Strategic Action Plan
as the primary driver of special education growth in the state of Texas,
let's discuss how these pieces are impacting KDISD. Gwen Coffey will take
you through the next slides in the presentation. Good evening. So what we
we wanted to present for you tonight was a picture of what KD special education
enrollment looks like in comparison to national trends to state trends and from
several different angles. This first slide is similar to the slide Dr.
Malachek referenced at the beginning of the presentation. The national trend is
what is in blue and as he indicated lags behind. Texas is orange and KD ISD is in
the gray and so as you see if you go back to 2004 which is when this begins
you see that all of them kind of take that dip and then KDISD starts to come back up and
actually surpasses the Texas overall Texas line.
This slide
depicts historical KDISD special education enrollment numbers and it details two important points in time.
The one in blue
reflects the overall enrollment and special education at the October PEMS
snapshot which is usually the last Friday in October it's when the district
reports demographic and other information to the state for a snapshot
picture so for example if you look at the 2017-2018 the blue number is 7803 so
on the snapshot day in October that is how many students during the 2017-2018
school year we had enrolled in special education. The orange line depicts the
end of the year numbers. So how many did we have on the last day when we stopped
serving students for that year during the regular school year? And that number
was 8,400. So between the end of October and the end of the school year in 2017-
2018 we added, what is that approximately 603 students. For 2018 we have projected
those numbers the blue line is a solid number we reported to PEMS 8,647
students on the snapshot day in October of this year of course we've not reached
the end of the year yet but when we look at the number of students that we do
currently have and serve in special education the number of active referrals
we have in our overall eligibility rate we project that by the end of the year
we will be around 10,500 students applying those same kind of predictions
We have guesstimated as best we can with predictions what that snapshot number will look like in October of 2019.
And we are projecting 10,984 students.
I do want to note that Child Find is, there's a large degree of emphasis being placed on Child Find by the Texas Education Agency in partnership with the Office of Special Education Programs.
programs. KDIC has always implemented Child Plan fully. We have tested students who have
needed it and that is why in the previous slide you saw that trend line be above the
state. We did not embrace that 8.5 percent indicator. We tested students as needed. So
I do want to note that. This next slide is a different way to depict our students. What
you see in blue is the percentage of special education students and what you see in orange
is KDIC overall enrollment for that year. So in the 2017-2018 school year we were
at 10.8 percent, special education represented 10.8 percent of overall KD
enrollment. We have again projected for the 18-19 as we don't know the end of
the year we projected both numbers based on our predictions we believe will be at
about 12.8 percent and by the end of next year and this is going out of ways
we think we could be up to 15%. I do want to note if you look historically we're
at about 1, we have a 0.5, then we have a 0.8, so it is has been kind of
going up slightly each year and we think there's a variety of reasons for that
but as you can see in the 2018-2019 school year we have experienced
significantly more growth than in other school years. Why is that happening? Well
Dr. Malachek referenced most of the reasons primarily I think that it has to
to do with the new guidance that's been released by the Texas Education Agency, again in partnership
with the Office of Special Education Programs, regarding the implementation of Child Find.
As a result of that, and I know that Ms. Champagne asked this earlier, we do have, we can serve
students in dyslexia both in general education and in special education, but we have received
some updated guidance in regards to when that decision should be made. That has made some
changes. In addition, moving other students who may have been previously served through 504 or
response to intervention which Katie had a very robust program in both of those
areas and continues to do so into special education because child find has
become a predominant area of emphasis parents are more aware which is a very
positive piece we're getting lots more early childhood referrals and getting
students into that pipeline for early intervention services but those students
are being tested and being qualified and served and then addition to just new
referrals and move-ins to the district.
So what do we do now that we've had all this growth?
So we've been talking about staffing, and this slide depicts the requested campus staffing
for teachers and paraprofessionals at both the elementary and the secondary levels.
And we, you know, increased staffing is required at this point and needed to ensure that students
are provided with the quality instructional opportunities, and it's to help relieve our
current teachers who are experiencing higher than normal caseloads.
and we want to ensure that we are providing students with those quality
interventions and strategies so we're asking for a net total for teachers of
64 that does include 10 reserve units that in case we add students over the
summer and some of those predictions and a net increase in paraprofessionals of
83 campus that's a campus assessment staffing I do want to note that these
These are individuals that directly serve students on the campus.
And the request for those specific positions is noted on these, or are noted on this slide.
Assessment staff are responsible for assessing all students.
They don't only serve our special education students, depending upon the area of suspected disability.
Students are, all students are assessed.
And so, and they also provide critical ongoing services, such as speech therapy, counseling as a related service, and the IEP development and provision.
They are also carrying extremely heavy caseloads right now and increasing staff in these areas will ensure that staff are able to provide needed supports to students.
We did want to include this slide in order to offer a historical perspective about what the board has granted in the past in regards to special education staffing.
So what you see here is on the left we have the school years, of course, and then these are in units.
So I know we don't have, you know, 404.86 teachers, but when you look at the units and the next column shows you the increase from the prior year.
So as you can see just in teachers over the last several years, we've been in 2016-17, it was 29.56, and then 17-18 was a higher number, 42.32 and so on.
And these show you for teachers, for paraprofessionals, for campus speech pathologists, LSSPs, diagnostic specialists, diagnostic clerks, and ARD facilitators.
And our facilitators are a relatively new position that we piloted, well it's very new, we piloted it this year and found that it was very successful in a way to efficiently organize and operate from the special education perspective.
So we're looking to increase that next year to gain even further efficiency in that area.
Okay, so that concludes our formal presentation, but we are happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you. Are there any questions?
Mr. Scott.
Are these full-time staff positions?
Yes, sir.
employees of KTISD. All right, so if the board wanted to say that's just too much
and we want you to come back with 50% fewer employees, would you describe the
state and federal regulations that may come in to apply if we were to do that?
Yes, sir. So the IDEA is federal legislation that indicates that when a
student has a disability, a suspected disability, and requires specially
designed instruction and our committee that is made up of specific members
meets to determine the interventions and programming that are needed in order to
successfully educate the student we are required to do that it's not optional
and the committee looks at the individualized needs of the student
which can be why special ed is so very difficult sometimes to understand
because literally every child's IEP looks different once the art committee
agrees to that we are required to provide those services and can be held
liable if we do not. All right, second, there are contracted services I think
the Harris County Department of Education we use the district a lot of
districts use consultants that are employees of the Harris County Education
Department whatever they're called now. Is there any option to not add to the
employee staff and to use that service? We currently contract our occupational
physical and music therapists through the Harris County Department of
Education. That is the program that we have elected to use rather than offering
full-time positions because we find that it is more economically feasible and
more appropriate for our students that require those services. We do also, when
we are unable to fill specific positions, offer contracted services in certain
areas. We find overwhelmingly that it is more expensive in the majority of these
positions that we have looked at tonight. It is overwhelmingly more expensive to
do that through contracted services than to hire them. Plus it would be truthful
to say that the Department of Ed is not really an elastic operation is it so the
bottom line to these questions is basically this this is something that we
pretty much have to do to come into compliance with all state federal
regulations statutes and administrative fair yes sir I agree with that statement
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions?
Ms. Champagne?
Yes, Madam President.
Thank you very much.
I have a couple of questions.
First of all, the ARD facilitator, I can see how that would be a benefit to the program.
And I'd also like to state that I'm really proud of Katy ISD for the wonderful special education that you all help facilitate.
I have many friends whose children are in the program.
But I wanted to see, first of all, are those people, are they, so they're traveling between campuses?
Yes, currently we have two positions and they are piloted positions. We wanted to try it out, make sure that it was effective.
And they do, they travel within tracks. So they end up supporting the same families.
And we do try to keep it that way. It can't always work perfectly, but yes, ma'am, they do travel.
And so this year we're going to add 14 or 14 more or 12 more?
I think it's 12.
12 more.
Okay, 12 more.
So we're going to have a total of 14.
Yes, ma'am.
And so, okay, so you see that that is a benefit to help the other people that are in,
the other adults that are leading the special ed programs
and helping them facilitate those meetings and such.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, and then the other question I have is are you all aware of this?
this may be off topic a little bit, but there is a pilot program going on in HISD with dyslexia
that they have hired teachers to travel between schools.
Do you know about this?
I actually have a friend that's in this.
It's a two-year pilot program, and the teacher is traveling between different schools.
They're assigned schools, probably like this R person kind of,
but they tutor children for an hour at a time with dyslexia.
And I was just wondering if either of you would be interested in following up, you know,
looking at what they're doing just to see if that's a possible thing that we could do maybe one day.
Yes, I think one of the things about KDISD that is exceptional is that we're always interested in seeing
what other people are doing and ensuring that we are providing cutting-edge instruction.
Okay, because I know HISD has just started that this year.
And I think that the dyslexia department and I know special education would both be interested in hearing more.
Ms. Fox.
Ms. How many dyslexia teachers do we have?
Don't we have one just about everywhere?
Ms. We, most campuses have at least one and I'm not, they're not necessarily mine
but I'm going to answer that question, do my best and somebody will correct me.
Most campuses will have at least one at the elementary level.
Some elementaries have a greater number because they're allocated based on the number of
students in dyslexia.
At the secondary level, there's more variance in that because the type of service that's provided is not necessarily the same because of where they are in their education.
I appreciate always good ideas and best practices in between.
Yes, ma'am.
But when she said a dyslexia teacher that travels, I thought, well, they're full-time and full and they're busy, busy people certainly at our elementary campuses.
Yes, ma'am.
I have a question. At what grade level do we begin testing for special ed?
Is it my understanding that, like, kinder and first, we don't really identify at that level?
We begin prior to that.
So three years old, getting at three.
So we have a three-year-old coming to the program that needs early childhood services.
We have to provide from three to 21.
So there could be children that are coming.
Once we have a rule, three is three, that we have to test them by the time they turn three years old.
So we have kids coming into our programs at 3 and on going up so all the way to 21.
And how have they identified the ones that will be tested? Is it a teacher that identifies?
Can a parent request? All of the above. A teacher can request.
Possibly a physician may say that, you know, some things are deficits maybe need to consider going and calling
Katie and asking for support. And I would guess that those
the process would be rigorous enough that it's not that we don't identify a
child too soon and label too soon but it but it they teachers would be able to
corroborate with the parent that yes we're seeing deficiencies and be able to
get help as early as possible but not get them into a track that maybe has a
something that might just be maybe age appropriate or developmental or right so you have all of that
covered yes ma'am we do it really well but I wanted to bring that up and so they they fill
out a form yes please test and they get in line and then we hire people that test all the time
right those are some of the people that you had on that list I see that need what does an art
facilitator do? I've never heard about that and that's very interesting.
Yeah, that's a great question. So ARD facilitators facilitate ARDs where no
assessment is being discussed. So for example, if a student has an updated
assessment that a diagnostician performed, let's say, the diagnostician
would facilitate that ARD because they would need to be knowledgeable and be
able to discuss and talk about the new and updated assessment information,
how that might impact the student's individualized education program. But
But many times, because the ARD, ARD stands for admission, review, and dismissal.
So in that review piece right there where we're not necessarily putting them in
and maybe we don't have new assessment or new eligibilities to consider,
we're only required to assess every three years in an area.
And so if that's not happening, then an ARD facilitator is able to facilitate
the development of the plan with the consensus ARD members.
So it frees our DAGs up to do more testing.
Right?
Yes.
I love that.
So what kind of qualifications do ARD facilitators have? Do you have something specific?
Well, as we do for all positions in special education, we provide very specialized training for them, and they're overseen and work with our diagnosticians very closely.
We do request that they, or we prefer that they have a special education certification.
And many times our ARD facilitators are special ed teachers who are also in a diagnostic cohort.
So they're learning to become diagnosticians and so they have the benefit of that instruction alongside the benefit of the special education knowledge.
That's excellent. So does it do teachers participate in the art or is it so if a if a child is receiving more than one service,
would with the dyslexia teacher come and the special ed teacher?
and are they all a part of the ARD or is that up to a campus principal or does everyone
come and participate?
It is required that we have general education representation as well as special education
representation and KDISD does work very diligently to ensure that if there are any related services
if a student is in for example academic support or dyslexia or potentially going maybe to
a social skills group that people who can speak to their progress and success in those
areas are also present so that the ARD committee has a 360 degree picture of
the student parents are present and provide meaningful input and we talk
about all of the different sides and facets of a student in that ARD meeting
when determining their program. That's great. I hear over and over like Mrs.
Champaign and everyone the gratitude from so many of our families who receive
special ed services and they're just so grateful you know of the progress that
that boys and girls are making because of the work that your teachers do.
So I appreciate that.
I have an add-on question, Madam President, that is maybe for Mr. Schuss or maybe probably
Mr. Gorgorski.
We didn't talk about growth units when we had the presentation and I just wanted to
– is this the time when we're going to see how many growth units you're going to
ask us for?
I know sometimes we run out of them and sometimes we don't use them all.
Did you have a –
We didn't specifically build the growth units for general education into this budget staffing
request for tonight.
This is just the campus part, but when we get to the final budget and we have yet to
put into our budget departmental staffing, I want to see what that looks like and then
we'll know a better number of what we can come up with.
But there will be some general ed units built into there just like there is some special
education ones.
And all of the numbers they've talked about tonight are built into what Mr. Schuss had shared with us.
All that's part of one big package.
I bet 10 is not going to be enough there.
Okay, Mr. Schuss, I'm coming for you when you bring the big numbers.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you so much for your presentation.
I just have one more.
I'm sorry.
Real quick, I just have one more.
Can children go, so they've gotten on to special ed, but can they come off of special ed?
Yes, ma'am.
That is one of our major goals.
I just feel like I need to make the point that in my numbers that I showed earlier,
it did reflect an increase in revenue based on the enrollment growth that you're seeing in special ed.
So there is a revenue associated with the request of the units,
and I wanted to make sure that that was clear.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Agenda item 5.5.
Consider future board approval of the Instructional Materials Allotment IMA update and Texas Essential
Knowledge and Skills Take Certification.
Dr. Kasky.
Great.
Good evening, President Doyle, board members, and Mr. Gorkorsky.
I'm pleased to be here this evening to provide our annual update on our Instructional Materials
Allotment this evening.
As you may recall, in 2011, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 6, and they did that to
to create the instructional materials allotment fund
from the existing state textbook fund
and also the technology allotment fund.
And this was done to provide school districts
increased flexibility in what we can purchase
to support our instructional programs,
including beyond the textbook, supplemental materials,
technology equipment, and computer software, for example.
It's important to note that this fund,
we receive these funds on a biannual basis,
and it's also based on our per pupil on a per pupil amount and I'll get back to
that in just a second just to reiterate that our KDIAC curriculum is not does
not rely solely on a textbook but as you enter into our classrooms you will see
teachers and students using a variety of instructional materials including online
resources literature libraries technology printed materials and other
hands-on learning tools within our classrooms. This slide depicts our
timeline for selection of our instructional materials in this most
recent proclamation. In September we formulated our instructional materials
review committees. In November and December those committees met to narrow
down their choices to the top three or four selections. In January we solicited
feedback from our teachers and also from our community. Those committees then
reconvened in February to make final recommendations which I'm bringing
forward for your approval this evening. Our largest adoption was at probably at
the elementary level looking at K through 5 our ELA adoption and you'll
see here a number of resources listed not one single textbook but a number of
resources to support our elementary teachers as they teach our ELA TEKS.
Again, in support of our elementary ELA program for our bilingual campuses, we also have a
companion to that.
That would be our Spanish adoption.
At the secondary level, we also are bringing forward recommendations for our ELA courses
in grades six through eight and our personal financial literacy course, which is a high
school elective.
So looking at our expenditures and our instructional materials allotment, we are expected to expend
about $9.5 million over the 2019-2020 school year.
Our current balance on our IMA account is a little over $7 million, which puts us in
the red at $2.4 million.
But as you recall, this is a biennial budget.
So in September of 2019, we're anticipating that we're going to receive an additional
$12 million.
dollars so Chris Smith we work closely with him and his team and they float us
a little loan for that and then come September we'll replenish that so we're
looking at a positive of about 10 million also as part of this
presentation we are required annually to certify to the State Board and also the
Commissioner that each of our courses and our instructional materials are
aligned to the teaks so that paperwork is in your board packet as well and then
looking at our upcoming proclamations as you know this is a budget that we have to watch carefully
but looking at our upcoming proclamations we feel confident that we'll have the budget available to
support our instructional needs so this was a heavy year this year we also have a heavy year
next year so next year we're looking at our high school english courses and also we're looking at
grade 7 through 12 our ela courses for english language learners in 2020-21 it's a lighter year
with health and physical education and pre-kindergarten.
Then we'll have another heavy year looking at K-12 science
and then the health and science and STEM component of our career and technical education courses.
And then you'll see we have another light year with technology applications
and then two more strands in our CTE program.
And that concludes my formal presentation.
If you have any questions, I'm here.
Some of our committee chairs are here as well this evening.
Thank you, Dr. Kasky.
Board members, do we have any questions?
Madam President, I do of course.
Would you go back to the slide that has all the cost on it please?
First question is how many courses are we able to get away from like a really hard copy,
the kind of textbook that we grew up with?
I would say the majority of those.
However, there's a caveat there.
So what most of this all what most of the textbook companies will do is they'll give us a class set of textbooks and then
They'll give us a subscription online
So it's really the textbook companies have really started to marry that hard copy with an online subscription
All right, am I right guys? Yes, do yes, they're saying sort of right we use those hard copies very often
More so classroom sets high school level probably more so than at the elementary
entry they're shaking their heads yes they that children go and actually pick up one of those
antique books they'll find with the cover on it and the pages that turn so my question is the
software license renewal and growth i mean that's a huge number i'm wondering if that is um just
just are we are we paying let me see if i can formulate this question are we are we careful
that once when when we get something new we delete the old and we're not paying
for subscriptions we no longer use you know sometimes it just goes and you know
I've got my Spotify and I'm not really using it but it's charging my credit
card every month right we do so we work closely with instructional technology I
know darling is sitting here going yes yes we do review the usage of our
software on an annual basis and we make really critical you know considerations
when we look at this budget we work hand in hand with Darlene and her budget
because a lot of the software sits in that budget as well.
Okay.
If it's tied to an adoption,
then we have to sometimes renew that subscription for the life of that adoption
until we come up on a new proclamation.
So that's what some of these are, is it was part of proclamation.
So, therefore, we're kind of tied into that software for a number of years.
But we do review those.
Schools are going to have some high usages.
Some have low usages.
We do eliminate programs where we see across the board low usages.
just I like the paying attention to that so I see k5 3.5 million and then I see
the software license 3.3 are those those are not duplicates in any way or they're
charging us for the book and then they charge us a license fee to know those
are all right you need me sitting over here huh is that correct or do you need
separate allocation right so if we have a software allocation that's based on a
per pupil amount based on growth that we have to add that we have to add those
licenses same things with textbooks opening new campuses we have to allot
for growth so they don't give us a class set of software and then we repeat it
seven times through the day no they charge us per pupil that's the big
expense. So if you add students, they add a cost even though you're really just using this. I see what they did there. That's why the numbers are so big. That makes more sense. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Caskey. Agenda item 5.6, consider future board approval of the legal policies and adoption of the local policies included in board policy update 112. Ms. Holland, welcome.
Good evening Madam President, members of the board, Superintendent Gorgorski.
In accordance with board policies BF Legal and Local, the policies in update 112 are
being presented for the board's approval and or adoption at the regular board meeting next
Monday night.
This particular update includes 43 legal policies that have been impacted by either administrative
administrative rules are decisions by the Commissioner of Education.
There are also 15 local policies that are included in the update that are being aligned to the legal policies that are under consideration.
Several of the local policies involve reorganization to create a better flow of information within the policy,
and then there are some of those policies that have been reorganized for greater accessibility by individuals with disabilities.
In several of the cases, you've noted in your review that policy language has been coded, recoded from one code to another,
but the policy language has remained the same.
The administrators in each of the major divisions of the administration have reviewed the policies in update 112 to ensure that we are implementing the requirements and taking appropriate actions.
In addition to update 112, the administration is asking that the board consider a recommendation
to revise the language in the board policy at FDB local on intra-district transfers.
The only change that is being requested in that particular policy is to change the timeline
timeline for considering intra-district applications and making decisions about those requests.
Currently the policy says that we have five business days in which to make those decisions.
But with the volume of applications that are being received, we are requesting that that
language be changed to read ten business days in order to make a decision.
And we think that is a much more realistic timeline than the one that we currently have.
If there are any questions, I'll be happy to try to entertain those at this time.
Do we have any questions?
Madam President.
Mr. Lacey.
Ms. Holland, about how many, you mentioned the number of inter-district transfers.
About how many do we have?
How many inter-district transfers do you think you've processed, Dr. Creech?
This year.
I couldn't hear you. I'm sorry.
She said 3,400.
hundred yes that's far a little over and you're increasing yes thank you miss
Holland anyone else okay thank you 5.7 consider future board approval of the
contract for replacement of the roof skylights at Cinco Ranch High School
mr. T and you're with us for the next five agenda items so I'm gonna let you
you just roll through those.
Good evening, President Doyle, Superintendent Gworski, and board members.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for the replacement of the roof skylights
at Cinco Ranch High to Atlas Universal, Inc. in the amount of $495,605.
I'm sorry, $495,605.
utilizing the Choice Partners Contract 18-060-JN-01
and approves the total project cost not to exceed $538,446.78.
The replacement of the skylight systems at Cinco Ranch High School
is part of the 2017 Bond Component Replacements Program.
District staff worked with BEAM professionals
to develop the project scope and contract documents.
Atlas Universal has successfully completed previous projects in the district and similar sized projects for neighboring school districts.
Work will commence on June 1, 2019 and is scheduled for completion by September 15, 2019.
Work will be scheduled around campus activities.
The total not to exceed project cost includes the engineering cost and a small owner's contingency for any of the unforeseen issues.
A copy of the proposal from Beam Professionals for Services and the proposal from Atlas Universal, Inc. are attached for your review.
Project funding source, again, is the 2017 bond component replacements.
Skylight replacement cost, $495,605.
Beam engineering cost, $17,841.78.
Owner's contingency, $25,000.
for a total not-to-exceed project cost of $538,446.78.
The contract has been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Are there any questions?
Madam President.
Mr. Lacey.
I know that this is the first of the design that we had, Cinco Ranch was, of that building design,
and there were several other schools that were built after using that similar design.
sign. Is this something that we should put in our budgets or just kind of plan on? Yes, sir. In the future? Yes, sir. Okay. Go ahead with 5.8. It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards a contract for the 2019 lighting upgrade project at various campuses to E3 Integral Solutions, Inc. in the amount of $873,431, utilizing RFP number 1827.
and approves the total project cost not to exceed $1,144,431.
The upgrade of the interior and exterior campus lighting at these identified campuses
is part of the 2017 bond component program.
District staff worked with CMTA Engineering to develop the project scope and contract documents.
A total of two contractors responded to the request for proposal,
and after evaluation, the decision was made to award to E3 Integral Solutions, Inc.
as scoring the highest in providing the best value to the district.
The existing lighting will be replaced with LED retrofits of the interior lighting fixtures
and replacement of the exterior fixtures.
Work will commence with the award of the project and is scheduled for completion by August 1, 2019.
The work will be coordinated with the various campuses to limit any interference with campus
activities.
The total project cost includes the engineering cost and an owner's contingency for any unforeseen
issues.
A copy of the CMTA proposal for services, recommendation letter, evaluation tabulation,
and contract AIA documents are attached for your review.
The project funding source again was the 2017 bond component replacements.
campus lighting upgrade cost $873,431, CMTA engineering cost $96,000, owner contingency $175,000.
For a total not to exceed project cost of $1,144,431.
This contract also has been reviewed by district council and approved as to form.
Are there any questions?
5.9.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for the replacement of the field lighting at Rhodes Stadium to LECS in the amount of $665,012.69,
utilizing the Choice Partners Contract 18-036MC-05
and approves the total project cost not to exceed $679,012.69.
The replacement of the field lighting at Rhodes Stadium is necessary
due to the inability to obtain replacement parts and bulbs for the current system.
District staff work with PBK Sports to develop the project scope
code and contract documents.
The lighting will be replaced with LED lighting
adherent to our current district lighting
standards for athletic fields.
Work will commence with the award of the project
and is scheduled for completion by August the 15th, 2019.
The work will be coordinated with the athletics department
to limit any conflicts with field use
during the construction.
The total not to exceed project cost
includes engineering cost and a small owner's contingency for any unforeseen
issues a copy of the PBK sports proposal for services and the proposal from LECS
are attached for your review the project funding source again 2014 bond savings
field lighting replacement costs six hundred sixty five thousand twelve
dollars and sixty nine cents PBK sports engineering cost seven thousand dollars
owner contingency $7,000. Not to exceed project cost $679,012.69.
This contract has also been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Are there any questions?
Madam President.
Mr. Lacey.
I understand that we are able to use the standards that we currently have there, correct?
Yes, sir.
Just for fun, if we would have had to have replaced those, do you have a ballpark estimate of how much just those standards would have been?
It would have doubled the cost.
Wow.
That's amazing.
One other question on this.
I know that the lighting is not really good in the parking lot at Rhodes, especially when you look at the parking lot that we have at Legacy.
Is this design going to have something showing out for safety and for safety reasons to have some illumination in the parking lot there?
Yes, sir.
On the existing standards, we are going to put what they call a security light that will backlight towards the parking lot for safety and security for egress.
Good.
Thank you.
Madam President.
Mr. Scott.
During my math, it looks like PBK is going to take about 1% of the cost for the contract.
Yes, sir.
Wow.
I served three years.
I'm about to go out the door and I get to say something nice about PBK.
Who would have thought?
Agenda item 5.10.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for the 2019
life safety and special systems upgrades at multiple campuses to Ansel O'Brien
construction LTD in the amount of $1,756,000 utilizing the competitive
steel proposal method and improves the total project costs not to exceed
$1,847,200. The upgrade of the life safety systems at these
identified campuses is part of the 2017 bond component replacements and safety
and security improvements programs. District staff work with Salus O'Brien
engineering to develop the project scope and contract documents. A total of five
contractors responded to the request for proposal and after evaluation the
decision was made to award to the highest scoring contractor Ansel O'Brien
Construction LTD. Work will commence with the award of the project and is
scheduled for completion by July 26, 2019. The work will be coordinated with the
various campuses to limit any interference with campus activities. The
The total project cost includes the engineering cost, very small owner's contingency for any unforeseen issues,
a copy of the Salas O'Brien proposal for services, the recommendation letter, evaluation tabulation,
and AIA contracts are attached for your review.
The project funding source, the 2017 bond component replacements, package A, Jim Sound reinforcement,
reinforcement, Beckendorf Junior High project cost is $111,000.
Cinco Ranch Junior High project cost $114,000.
Salis O'Brien engineering cost $7,700 with an owner's
contingency of $1,000.
Second project funding source is the 2017 Bond Safety and
Security Improvements, package B, elevator code updates, Cinco
Mexico Ranch High Project Cost $221,000.
May Creek High Project Cost $141,000.
Package C, Generator Replacements,
Alexander Elementary Project Cost $77,000.
Williams Elementary Project Cost $76,000.
McMeans Junior High Project Cost $143,000.
In Package D, fire alarm and PA replacements.
Alexander Elementary project cost $282,000.
Williams Elementary project cost $261,000.
McMeans Junior High project cost $80,000.
Alternate number one, the emergency power expansion.
Alexander Elementary project cost $126,000.
Williams Elementary $124,000.
The Salis O'Brien engineering cost was $76,000.
Owner's contingency was $6,500.
And again, the total not to exceed project cost, $1,847,200.
This contract has also been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Are there any questions?
Ms. Chazan.
Thank you.
I would like to know what is a Jim Sound reinforcement?
It's the PA system in the gymnasium competition gym.
So that's $111,000 at a junior high. Okay. Just was asking. Thank you.
Any other questions?
Okay. One more.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards a contract for replacement of portions of concrete pavement at the support services complex
complex to Brunner Route in the amount of $1,080,026, utilizing the national IPA contract
number R160402, and approves the total project cost not to exceed $1,170,026.
The replacement of portions of the concrete pavement at Support Services Complex is necessary
due to the failing base creating unsafe driving conditions and damage to our vehicle fleet.
District staff work with PBK Architects to develop the project scope and contract documents.
Work will commence with the award of the project and is scheduled for completion by August 15, 2019.
Work will be coordinated with transportation and other departments working at the site
to limit any conflicts with traffic flow during the construction.
The total not to exceed project cost includes the engineering cost, materials testing, and
an owner's contingency for any unforeseen issues.
A copy of the proposal from PBK Architects for Services.
The proposal from Brown and Root are attached for review.
Again, the project funding source is 2014 bond savings.
Pavement replacement cost is $1,080,026.
$126.00. PBK engineering costs $64,802.00. Owners contingency $25,198.00. For a total not to exceed project costs $1,170,026.00. And this project has also been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Are there any questions?
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Agenda item 5.12, consider future board approval of a proposal for the construction of elementary school number 43.
Ms. Kastman.
Good evening, President Doyle, Board of Trustees, and Mr. Grigorski.
Tonight I'm bringing three items for your consideration.
The first two are construction contracts for Elementary 43 and the kitchen work at Cinco Ranch High School, Cinco Ranch Junior High, including floral coolers at multiple campuses.
Both these contracts use the competitive seal proposal delivery method as approved by the Board in December 2017.
The CSP method is one of the delivery methods outlined in the Texas Government Code 2269, which awards a project based on best value for the district.
This method includes evaluation of designated criteria, which includes price, experience and reputation of the contractor, the quality of the services, the safety record, proposed personnel, financial capability, and then the past relationship with the district.
The first item is the recommendation that the Board of Trustees awards a contract to
Dramala Construction Company for the construction of Elementary 43 in the amount of $24,796,000
and approves the total project costs not to exceed $31,682,772.
Construction of this school is required to accommodate elementary school enrollment growth
in the rapidly growing northwest quadrant of the district and will open in August 2020.
Seal proposals were received on February 21st for the school, which will be located in the Ellison subdivision.
Six seal proposals were received, with Jemala ranking first overall.
Jemala has successfully completed projects within KDISD, including elementaries and junior highs.
The project team includes KDISD project manager Megan Connell, VOK Architects, as well as Jemala.
Are there any questions?
Okay, go ahead to the next item.
The second item is the recommendation that the Board of Trustees
awards a contract to Madison Construction LP for the renovation of the serving lines
at Cinco Ranch High School, Total Kitchen, and serving line renovation at Cinco Ranch Junior High
and the installation of floral coolers at Cinco Ranch, Morton Ranch, Seven Lakes,
and Tompkins High Schools in the amount of $3,036,000 and the total
project cost not to exceed $3,758,882.
Seal proposals were received on February 14th and Madison Construction
ranked overall of the four that we received. Project team includes KDISD
project manager Art Campbell, Stantec Architects, as well as Madison
in construction. Are there any questions? Agenda item 5.14. The final item is the
recommendation that the Board of Trustees enters into a joint
participation into local agreement with Harris County for sidewalk construction.
Subsequent to the completion of Pato High School and Stockdick Junior High, it
was determined by Harris County that the sidewalks along Peak Road from Grand
Vantana to Stockdick School Road need to be reconstructed to accommodate roadwork
in this area. KDISD will contribute $75,000 to this project as outlined in the agreement.
Ms. Are there any questions? All right. Thank you.
Ms. Thank you.
Ms. Next, we'll move to agenda item 5.15, consider future board approval of a
proclamation for National Library Week. I will go ahead and read the proclamation.
National Library Week. Whereas libraries have long served as trusted and
treasured institutions and library workers and media specialists fuel
efforts to better their communities, campuses, and schools through the power
of reading. And whereas library media specialists are organizers and
information experts who for centuries have guided people to the best
information resources. Librarians provide more than facts. They provide the
expertise and services that add meaning to those facts. And whereas library media
media specialists.
continue to fulfill their role in leveling the playing field for all who seek information
and access to technologies, especially regarding the changing information landscape and the
skills needed to thrive in our digital world.
And whereas library media specialists work collaboratively with classroom teachers to
support the curriculum and teach skills which are vital for student achievement and success,
and whereas libraries open a world of possibilities through innovative STEAM programming, maker
maker spaces, job seeking resources, and whereas libraries continuously grow and evolve in
how they enrich the educational experience in the district, and whereas libraries, library
media specialists, library workers, and supporters across America are celebrating National Library
Week, and therefore be it known that the Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees
does hereby proclaim National Library Week April 7th through the 13th, 2019.
2019. We encourage visits to the library this week to explore what's new at your library and to engage with your library media specialist
because of you and our experts in the library.
Libraries transform.
Agenda item 5.16 consider future board approval of a proclamation for public school volunteer week.
Whereas public school volunteer week offers the opportunity to honor the contributions of Katy Independent School District parents and community
volunteers who through the gift of time and resources contribute to the success
of KTISD students, teachers, and staff that advance the goals of public
education and whereas parental and community involvement is a significant
factor in the quality of our schools and the success of our students and whereas
we appreciate the dedicated volunteers who give their time and talent to assist
professional educators and support staff and whereas volunteers reflects the
highest values of our society and become role models for students by demonstrating an interest
in education.
And whereas volunteers are called upon to assist teachers and staff with the day-to-day
activities involved in providing a balanced education for our students and are an important
part of a team that strives to ensure each and every one of our students succeeds.
And whereas it is fitting to recognize and thank the volunteers who invest in public
education and play a key role in building the legacy.
and whereas the parents when parents schools and communities work together
they provide a strong foundation in preparing the students of today for the
world tomorrow therefore be it known that the Katy Independent School
District Board of Trustees does hereby proclaim public school volunteer week
April 15th through the 19th 2019 next we'll move to our open forum portion 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 does not entitle 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 allow. As defined by this Board Policy, the first 20 speakers who signed up at least 15 minutes before this meeting began and have provided
provided their first and last name will be allowed to speak.
A maximum of 30 minutes has been allocated and the time divided equally among those who
have signed up.
However, the maximum amount of time for any one speaker is three minutes.
If you are not finished speaking at the end of your three minutes, your microphone will
turn off.
If speakers wish to share written material with the Board, 10 copies must be provided
for the Secretary for Board Services, for Board members, the Superintendent, the Chief
Communications Officer, and permanent record.
Due to posting requirements of the Open Meetings Act, the Board is able to respond only to
a statement related to a posted agenda item with a statement of specific factual information
given or a recitation of an 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 for a person with the
intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting to substantially obstruct or
interfere with the ordinary conduct of a meeting by physical action or verbal
utterance and thereby curtail the exercise of others First Amendment
rights. Board policy BED Local provides for removal of any member of the
audience after at least one warning who disrupts the meeting by his or her words
or actions. Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code sections 551.074
and 551.0821, the Board will not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information
regarding 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 charge against an officer or an employee. Should a speaker wish to address one of these
issues, they must do so through the appropriate local grievance policies, 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 this evening is Mr. Nick Funditas.
Thank you, Nick Funditas. I would like to once again talk about the district and fiscal responsibility.
At the board meeting last month, a contractor of the district presented a slanderous report that cost this district a minimum of $38,000.
This theatrical display was performed by someone with no legal investigative authority, no
subpoena authority and no arrest authority.
The Sheriff's Office has all of the aforementioned authority and could have investigated at no
incremental cost to Katy ISD.
If we look closely at the report produced, there are many points that should alarm members
of this community.
Unfortunately, I only have time to highlight a few.
First, noticeably absent from the opening statement of the written report is any mention
of the fact that the Littler-Middleson law firm are the former employer of the KDISD General Counsel.
The absence of this information raises serious questions regarding the objectivity of this investigation.
The contractor claims to have interviewed over 50 people and reviewed thousands of documents
going far beyond the claims, trying to, quote, find any corruption or abuse of process
or a simple violation of department rules, end quote, but came up empty except for an incident in 2003.
This for me is the most obvious example of how superficial this investigation was.
A simple Google search will yield unedited body camera footage from November 30, 2016
of a Katy ISD Police Department employee using a taser on a 17-year-old special ed student
that was just trying to exit the building to get fresh air as per his plan.
Other staff can be heard in the video pleading with the officer to quote,
cut it out, let him go, end quote, but the officer continues to use the less lethal force of a taser
to achieve compliance. Once the student is on the ground in his own urine, feces, and in handcuffs,
the officer engages in a verbal assault of expletives against the special education child.
I guess the contractor determined this incident did not violate any department rules and thus
did not deserve mention in the report. According to the report, less than 50% of the KDISD police
Police Department were interviewed and according to the report they were unaware they would be
interviewed. I would like to invite members of this community to walk into the Katy ISD Police
Department and conduct interviews of the police force. Your success rate will confirm the
probability that the officers were unaware that this was going on. Ultimately at the conclusion
of the performance last meeting Mr. Scott asked a very important question to paraphrase
can the district sue a taxpayer to recover the cost of hiring a contractor with no investigative
authority to generate a report based on the results of that report. This question
of course was not directly answered. To answer this does not require a JD. The
answer is no. No more than I could sue the district to recover the cost of
hiring my friend to write a slanderous report about the district based on the
results of that report. Mr. Graham if you would like to confirm conclusively that
the district can pursue a lawsuit to recover such costs I would invite you to
please clarify. I think this is very much in line with the presentation today on
on the budget and how we're consistently trying to scrape together funds and look at the discrepancies
introduced by the state.
And if perhaps this Board would be a little more fiscally conservative on how we spend
money.
CHAIRPERSON WONG.
Mr. Funditas, our next speaker is Susan Wallace.
I'm sorry, Mr. Funditas, I didn't realize you corrected me.
MS.
There seems to be a system of corruption in the community, in this community, in KDISD,
where people get promoted after having performed duties that would not be in the best interest
of the students or the teachers.
Recently we had a principal nominated and awarded Principal of the Year, I think.
And I have a list of about 40 different things that that person did.
Blocking unemployment benefits for a staff member who was forced out by untrained riders.
Please turn her microphone off.
Okay.
All right.
Everybody stop.
Yeah.
Ms. Wallace, let Mr. Scott speak.
Everybody stop.
I think that what I have heard here is that somebody recently was appointed district principal of the year.
Say what?
District principal of the year.
So at this point in time, I'm going to have to shut this line of conversation down.
If you have a complaint to file against that individual, and you obviously know who it is, the 40 different complaints,
I will encourage you to go through the district's robust grievance process, as outlined by the board president earlier this evening.
There's someone in here that allowed an art teacher to groom and have sex with a student
and he's now up here.
The one that allowed that person to move from one school to another school had a school
named after him.
So this list of 40 things is a few years old.
the fact that this person was after having done this at this school for all
these years and now she's being awarded something is is just ridiculous you want
to hear something else that there's a person everybody okay not the time go
ahead under libel and slander law one does not have to use a name to
to establish identification.
I'm not aware of who she's referring to individually.
I am.
OK.
Is that sufficient for identification?
At least I'm reasonably positive that I am.
I could not gather that from her commentary,
so I'm going to let her continue down that questioning.
So let me just ask a follow-up question.
We're not using a name here, so this is a broad-based clash
against anybody.
This is a broad-based, we're making specific allegations against an individual.
We can't allow them to name an individual, but we're going to let them to do a broad
brush?
That's correct.
Okay.
Continue, Ms. Wallace.
Just so we know what's going on.
Go ahead, Ms. Wallace.
You good now?
Thank you for listening and paying attention.
This list, this is common knowledge.
This has been out here for years.
This is a letter that was written to the board before you guys, maybe not you, were here.
Okay, so this is not something new. But some of these things,
you try to block unemployed benefits for a staff member and a former teacher has to testify on the behalf of this staff member
to the state unemployment office to help them overcome the punitive action by this person.
That's just one of numerous things. And I got it. I was going to read a whole bunch.
Thing is, that's just one elementary school. I had a conversation with a woman
hours from Katy, just ran into someone, an acquaintance. We got to talking about
this, that it's not a junior high bullying incident, this mess that we are
in here now trying to do something about. Yes, I have other things to do too and
I'm tired, but I'm here because I care and because it's the right thing to do.
So this conversation with this woman, she lists at least half of these same things
for a whole different elementary school.
And you guys are okay with that.
You promote these people.
You are promoting this culture of intimidation towards our teachers.
That's just a shame.
You really need to do a better job.
We need a better legacy.
Thank you, Ms. Wallace.
Next, 7.1.
Madam President.
Yes.
Madam President, at this point in time, I think it is appropriate for me to go ahead
and recite some policy and give a little bit of factual information for those of
you who may be paying attention to tonight's meeting in accordance as
dictated by our board president at the outset of every one of these public
forums if you have specific complaints against specific employees if you have
specific factual information which you believe needs to be brought to this
district's attention anybody may do so in accordance with our robust grievance
process. To date, I can confirm that we have no specific factual allegations that have been raised
through the robust grievance process that you have in front of me. That would lead me to believe
that there has been no violation of policy. Again, I'm going to reiterate what the Board
President said. At KDISD, we have a robust grievance policy. So if you actually have
information that somebody has violated law let's please bring that to our
attention through that process and we will move forward appropriately thank
you mr. Graham our regular board meeting is Monday March 25th 2019 there being no
further business before the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 9 17
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.