The Board will now reconvene in open meeting. Today is Monday, August 19, 2019, and the time is 6.46 p.m.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, August 19, 2019
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Dr. Grigorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding the notice for this meeting?
Madam President, I do confirm we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act in regards to this meeting tonight.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's Board Work Study.
To prepare for this meeting, each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Friday, August 16, 2019, and have had three days to study its contents and to seek clarification from the superintendent.
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 has just now reconvened from closed meeting.
Do we have any scouts in the audience?
Okay, great.
We are actually going to move on. I would like to at this time move agenda item 6.20 up to the very beginning and it's consider future board approval of the naming of high school number nine as recommended by the naming advisory committee. Dr. Grigorski.
Thank you, Madam President. So the naming advisory committee for high school number nine met about a week and a half ago, and their challenge was set before them as it is every time trying to select a name for one of our campuses.
Many of very good names were submitted for that, but I'm proud to announce that the committee did come up with a recommendation, and that recommendation, there's a large group of the family out here tonight, but that recommendation to name high school number nine is after the Jordan family.
So that would be Jordan High School.
And if I may, I'd like to share some of the Jordan biography for those of you who may not know about the Jordans.
But in 1913, Henry Elmer Hank Jordan and his wife Olga left Kansas and set out to create a better future for their family in Katy, Texas.
As one of the first pioneering families in the community, they began farming their homestead just north of what is now known as the city of Katy
as a means of stability for their children Chester, Leonard, Melvin, and Blanche.
Five generations of Jordan family members have made their contributions to KDISD, education, and the community over the past century.
Hank Jordan served the school board trustee from 1932 to 1939.
During his tenure, he was instrumental in obtaining the KDFFA charter in 1932,
building the first gym, and securing two new buses in 1934,
and beginning the first music program for students in 1935.
In addition to his role as farmer, rancher, and bank manager,
he also helped to establish telecommunication for the rural residents and farmers of the Katy Prairie
by working with the Fort Bend Telephone Company in the early 1950s.
Mr. Jordan's oldest son, Chester, extended the family farming business southwest of the town
near the site of Adams Junior High.
He and his wife, Bess, arrived in Fulcher in 1936.
Life on their ranch included barn dances, supporting the local FFA chapter, and building bridges and roads that brought people together.
Chester followed in his father's footsteps by serving Brookshire ISD as a trustee in 1946.
Chester's brother, Melvin, was born on the North Homestead across from the Young Agricultural Sciences Center in 1926.
He is believed to be the oldest living male of an original farming family, as well as the last living students from the original Katy High School.
He has lived his entire life in the Katy community, and like his brothers Leonard and Chester, Melvin was very active in FFA.
His great-grandson, Caleb Dautrich, is a third-generation Katy FFA student who went on to become a vice president of the Texas FFA in 2015.
At 93 years of age, Melvin still resides near the original home site and continues to raise cattle.
Melvin's daughters went into education, teaching special education and speech.
These sisters poured their heart into the expanding the minds and the worlds
of our children. They inspired several of Mr. Jordan's great-grandchildren to
pursue teaching careers and serve the students of KDISD. Five of them were even
honored as Teachers of the Year within the last decade. Beginning in the 2019-
2020 school year, KDISD will have 11 Jordan family members teaching in its
schools. So welcome and congratulations.
If you're part of the Jordan family, will you please stand?
I just want to show everybody, look at the support.
Thank you so much.
Next, we'll move to the public hearing portion.
4.1, presentation of the 2019-2020 proposed budget and tax rate.
Don't make a...
Ray, are you going to take a picture of the Jordan?
do you want to bring them up here before we move forward okay okay okay great
thank you all for coming thank you we appreciate it we'll give them a few minutes
Go ahead, Mr. Smith.
All right, well, good evening.
Good evening, President Doyle, Superintendent Gorgorski, and trustees.
It's my pleasure to present to you this last budget update for the 2019-20 budget.
We've gone this far.
We have tonight left.
And as I promised you last week, it would be quicker than last month.
Texas Education Agency or Texas Education Code requires that we have a budget adopted by August 31st.
We're on track to do that. The budget has been materially complete and continues to be tweaked, but it is materially complete and ready for adoption.
It is assuming a 4.2 percent enrollment growth.
I'll tell you now it's a little early to get too excited but it does look like
our enrollment growth number was a good number at this point nothing to panic
over new campuses of course we have two new campuses Adams Elementary and Leonard
Elementary and then of course we're adding the final level grade level at
Pato High School salary increases far above what the state required a little
over 4% increase for the teacher pay group and 4% for the non teacher pay
group and then of course the 1% lump sum for all staff in December. Has a tax rate
that would be a 7 cent to 7.3 cent drop in the tax rate the total tax rate and
is what this is built on. Again House Bill 3 is a big change game changer from
how we calculate state funding. It's 308 pages long. It's very complicated at this
point and still being on the rules are being written. It's becoming a little
clearer every week but it increases the basic allotment, reduced the CEI and it
changes the weights. For chapter 41 districts, not us, it reduced recapture
and it does compress the tax rate. There is a 3% hold harmless and I think that's
important when it comes to KDISD. We hover even with the fast growth
allotment we hover around that 3% so that 3% is very important essentially
based on our demographic makeup of our students it's not allowing us to get
much more than 3% gain. State share is going to increase from around only 32%
to about 42% again it's the state is increasing their portion of
funding tier one and the local taxpayer is paying less towards tier one so the
the state share is going to go up naturally.
And then it shifts to current year values.
And I'm required to put this in a formal presentation.
And I've talked about it.
But since we verified just last week
that we are going to be required to document that we've submitted
this to the board, even though it's no longer, in my opinion,
necessary, the agency is wanting us to do so.
Because the prior year values is such an important discussion.
If you'll recall on some of my old talks, the local taxes generate that green box and the state aid fills up the difference based on your number of students.
And if your wealth increases, the amount of state aid is still going to be the same.
But because that wealth increased, you see that little bit go above that basic allotment line.
That was a gain for districts like Katy that had fast growth.
And the next year you know by based on those rotten apples that I've talked about the state will take that gain away
The next year, but if managed correctly and Katie ISD managed that gain correctly
Over the years it was a it was a benefit
Well, they went to current year values and they raised the basic allotment in order to make up for those districts like Katie
That have gains in their values
this was
done so again if you see the increase in value immediately not the next year immediately the
state's renewed portion of funding is reduced so I kind of consider that a little bit of rotten
apples too but again the state did increase the basic allotment to try to make up for this I
think that was a benefit to school districts that don't have any property value growth and districts
that did have above state average property value growth I think that was a hit or are not a good
thing because I don't think they raised it enough for property gains that we've
had over the last several years but I've touched that base and on schools first
next year I'm gonna be able to answer that and document it all right so with
the new allocation of the tax rate essentially it's taking our dollar 1466
and compressing it to a dollar five now if you'll recall last year and our plan
this year was we we did the tax rate swap and we went to a dollar 1466 to
generate significant state dollars or return and we made our debt service fund
hold and so this is that was our course of action we're using the dollar 1466 as
a starting point it gets compressed to a dollar five and that total tax rate
ends up being a dollar forty four again that's the course that we set off on and
and that's how I've gotten everything here documented anyway,
to move forward with a $1.44 tax rate, and that's that $0.073 reduction in tax rate.
And again, I think it's $0.08 statewide on average, at least that's what I last read.
Who knows what it is now?
But it's around $0.08, and we're at $0.073 reduction in our tax rate.
And this is just it over the years.
In 2015-2016 is the last time we were able to reduce the tax rate,
and it went from a dollar fifty two down to a dollar fifty one and now we're of
course reducing it down to a dollar forty four so again that is a direct
result of the compression of House Bill one House Bill three our revenue looks
like this fifty five percent comes from the local revenue still again that's
taxes primarily an interest income gay sales etc forty three percent from the
the state and 2% from federal. We're, as I've said before, we're salary and
benefits necessary to watch those children and so 88% of our budgets and
salary and benefits and 12% is in non salary and benefits. With the gains of
House Bill 3 there were some strings attached and they said that we were
required to spend a certain percentage on salary increases. That ended up being
about 12.3 million dollars for teachers, counselors, librarians, and nurses and 4
million for other staff other than administrators, 4.1 million dollars.
And I'm proud to say that this board did double that and what was required in
compensation increases. So you're far above the required minimum in my opinion,
more than double. Again payroll is 88% of this budget. Utilities is the next largest piece and
again that's the next largest line item in our budget, utilities and contracted services. Where
we're putting this money in the budget, again this looks almost identical to last year other than the
dollar amounts change because of our growth, but it's 526 million dollars is in the classroom and
And that's where our money should be, and it is there because instruction is obviously the most important thing that we do.
Administrative cost portion of that, that little blue piece there in the middle, is still low.
You'll hear a report from me in a couple of months on how low that historically has been as a percentage of our budget.
budget. So in the general fund we're looking at revenues of $795 million, expenditures
of $786.6 million, transfers out, that's transferring mostly federal money, income to our debt service
program, our BABs program, and that would lead to a balanced budget or a small surplus.
Again, it's a $2.9 million surplus, but in a $795 million budget that's less than one
less than one half of 1%, so it is what I would call a balanced budget.
Food service fund, it shows $33.1 million in revenue.
Total expenditures are 35.8, so it does have a use of fund balance of almost $2 million.
That is projected.
We've historically been conservative in our expenditures and putting in higher expenditures
than have come in in the past, and so I don't expect at the end of the year to see such
a large decrease into our fund balance.
But I'll remind you, the Board, that this is one where we have to watch that fund balance
because it can grow too big, and the auditors tell us to make sure that we spend it down,
and we've done that with construction projects etc in the past. Debt service
fund 162 million 162.4 million dollars obviously the majority of that's in
property taxes are in our 39 cent tax rate interest income is becoming more
important has become more important again at a million and a half that's the
interest on our fund balance and the tax was until they're spent. Principal and
interest payments along with trust and other fees is 166.6 million dollars and
then the transfers in a little over three million dollars of that is that
what I talked about the federal money coming over from the general fund the
remaining balance of that is interest income when we sell our bonds until we
spend it on our construction projects we invest those monies many school
districts take those investment proceeds and they do extra things with their
construction dollars we use it and historically have used it to manage our
debt service tax rate and it's been very helpful and and again with interest
rates doing what they've done in the last 18 to 24 months it becomes it's
become a significant number again so with that there would be a net change to
fund balance or a break-even budget as well 166 million dollars a four hundred
$136,000 increase to fund balance is what I would consider a
balanced budget.
So all funds, all our budgeted funds, you're looking at $991 million in revenue,
$988 million in expenses
for
our three budgeted funds.
This is the TEA format that you will see them in and I want to say this all of
this information this presentation the schedules that were required to put and
this these two schedules that you've just seen are on our website. I'm not
sure if the presentation is I forgot to look but but but it will be and it has
historically been out there and we put several years worth of budget as it is
adopted in August out there for transparency reasons on our website. The
the graphs that show where our percentage of revenue is, an Excel spreadsheet, where
we're spending our money, all of that is is on the on the financial services
website. So that's what it looks like by function and we're done with all of that.
Moving forward we're going to closely monitor the budget once it's adopted.
We're going to prepare to grow and open new campuses yet again, the Jordan High School being one of them, and elementary 34, or 44, 43.
As we move forward, we're going to have enrollment growth, likely, and then we're going to continue to monitor the economy.
You know, there's already signs of, you hear it or read it, at least I do, about the federal economy and concerns and even the state economy.
So we're watching that closely as well as we move forward.
That's it.
That's my budget hearing presentation for you,
and I'd be glad to answer any questions if you have any.
Board, do we have any questions?
Madam President.
Mr. Lacey.
Mr. Smith, thank you so much.
I do have one quick question.
I don't remember where I read it,
but I do remember seeing something that said something to the effect of KDISD is eclipsing
or is expected to eclipse the size of Austin ISD.
are we still going to be tied with the way that our allocations are as we have
in years past to the Austin ISD Austin Austin's wealth per student the yield no
sir those golden pennies are no longer tied to Austin's wealth remember under
old law those golden pennies that we had and then we had six of them we were
planning on I'm sorry I can count we were planning on six of them with going
going back to the 6 and 26.08 a of the tax code back when we started this in
January and those six golden pennies if you will generated significant yield and
investment House Bill 3 changes that definition and now we're going to get
eight golden pennies in Katy anyway notice that we're going to get eight
those eight no are no longer golden they're still calling them golden I call
them gold plated because the value of the Austin's penny was at a dollar 26
and the new value of the new golden penny is at $98.56.
So it's not quite as golden as it was.
It's gold-plated.
And it's no longer tied to Austin's wealth.
It's tied to the basic allotment.
So as the basic allotment increases, the golden penny yield increases.
But no longer is it tied to Austin ISD.
Good.
Good.
Good to know.
Thank you.
Any other questions, Madam President?
Okay.
I'm going to go Ms. Champagne and then Ms. Gassoff.
Go ahead.
Mr. Smith, thank you for your presentation.
And I'm wondering on page 18, the budgeted fund balance, the $2,911,000, that's, is there
any stipulations as to how that can be spent?
Are there rules about that, the extra?
The $253 million, is that what you said?
How much?
Oh, wherever you said that the excess was.
2.9 million.
Right, the 2.9 million.
No, there's not.
In fact, in a district our size, when it grows, we do grow, that three-month savings should grow.
So if you take, again, your financial condition in your house, you're supposed to have three-month savings.
If you're going to get an increase in your income because you have another family member or just another job,
you should increase that three months.
And every time we grow we're increasing our expenditure budget and our there's a need to have our three our
Our three months increase as well. So again, I consider that a surplus
I'm not a certain I'm not going back to a break-even budget because it's such a small increase
But it is an increase nonetheless and that is that's a good trend. It's nice. It's not a deficit. Okay. Thank you very much
My question you mentioned that
interest was going to become more important why well it's there were so many years that we are
the interest proceeds that we had on our investments were so small the the yields
were less than a quarter less than point less than 25 basis points or 0.25 of a percent and
now they're back to the three you know two and a half three three half percent so they're
significantly higher and they're generating significantly more dollars and helping helping
us make the budget's balance if you will.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions?
Okay.
Thank you Mr. Smith.
Yes.
Dr. Gorsuch.
Thank you Ms. To.
And I just want to say this about Chris and his team.
They've done an outstanding job this year and I think that ought to be acknowledged
publicly for what they've done with this budget.
especially when you look at the challenges that came through through the House Bill 3 which was very
Transformational and the governor had just signed that into law in June and they've been scrambling all summer to try and figure that thing out
Put a lot of stress and pressure on those folks to figure that out and come in with a budget
But they've come in with a budget that works for kids and I certainly appreciate that and right along with that
I know it doesn't have to do specifically just with the budget, but I know the district recently got their first rating and Mr.
Mr. Smith, what was that rating your team earned?
A-plus.
It was on my team.
It was this Board of Trustees and the superintendent, but it was A-plus.
You bet.
We appreciate it, Chris.
Thank you.
And I did not say this.
I brought a prop up here, but this has been advertised.
This hearing has been advertised in the paper,
and it has the tax rate business and all that stuff that we're required to disclose.
It's also on our website, so I should have mentioned that earlier.
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
And that leads us to Agenda Item 4.2.
The public had an opportunity prior to the start of this meeting
to provide public input for the 2019-2020 proposed budget and tax rate,
and we do not have anyone sign up to speak.
So we will move on to reports.
5.1, Strategic Design Specific Result Report.
7.5, Parent and Community Engagement.
Our presenter is Dr. Scruggs.
And Dr. Grooms.
Yes, we've got two of us this evening.
Okay.
So good evening, Board President, Mrs. Doyle, Board of Trustees, and Superintendent Grigorski.
This evening, Dr. Carlson and I are here to talk to you about strategic design, specifically
goal 7.5, which speaks to parent and community engagement.
As you recall, in the spring of 2017, we set out as a district to involve our community
in a district-wide strategic planning process, which involved thousands upon thousands of
parents and community members and business owners and staff.
staff. And out of that process came seven goals, one of which included parent and community
engagement. Specifically, within the next five years, that team of strategic planning
participants had asked us to take a look at our existing parent engagement opportunities
on all of our campuses and see if there's ways or if we need to enhance any of those
THOSE ACTIVITIES IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT EVERY TYPE OF
PARENT HAS OPPORTUNITY TO BE INVOLVED IN OUR SCHOOLS.
AND THAT'S WHAT THIS REPORT ABOUT, THIS REPORT THIS EVENING
IS ABOUT.
IT WAS A FOUR-PART STUDY THAT INVOLVED A PRINCIPAL SURVEY AS
WELL AS A PARENT SURVEY.
THE PRINCIPAL SURVEY, THE PURPOSE OF THAT SURVEY WAS TO
DETERMINE WHAT ARE WE CURRENTLY OFFERING AT OUR CAMPUSES,
EVERYTHING FROM TEACHER CONFERENCES TO MEET THE TEACHER
staff night to performances to sporting events. About 71 of our campus
administrators participate in that survey. That's more principals than we
have. That's because on some of our campuses we had perhaps the assistant
principal also fill out a survey for the same campus and we had about 5,000 a
little over 5,000 parents complete the survey on their end and the
participation varied from campus to campus. Some campuses we may have had 20
parents participate in the survey. In other campuses it was up to 200 parents
participate. Part two of that study was really digging into some of the survey
results that we received from parents. We really want to know from the parent
perspective what does involvement look like on your campus? How do you feel that
the campus is doing in terms of reaching out to you and seeking you to be engaged
in what's going on on their campus. So we have we held focus groups in our four
quadrants of the district including the Northwest quadrant, the Northeast
quadrant, and the Southwest and Southeast quadrant. And again those participants
ranged from five to twenty individuals per group but really gave us an
opportunity to really hear on a more intimate level some of the concerns and
some of the celebrations that take place at campuses. What we found out of those
studies being the survey and the focus groups is that about 76% of our
participants who are mostly parents feel as though they're informed they know
what's going on other schools and in their buildings 76 of those participants
were also mothers and about 95 of the participants who are part of the focus
groups were also mothers we also learned that the preferred mode of communication
communication with our parents is digital communication. So that may include our school e-newsletters, our campus incident
notifications, emails directly from the principals or from the teachers. And
we also found from the parent perspective, they see volunteering and teacher conferences as the activities that are most readily available
to them on their campuses.
We also learned that parents often feel as though they cannot participate in campus activities because of work
conflicts, scheduling conflicts. Other reasons, many of them feel as though they just don't know
how to participate or there's a lack, there's a perceived lack of communication about how to get
involved on their campus. And then we looked at some components of successful parent community
engagement, including two-way communication. And these are areas that were cited by the parents
as being successful for their needs. The campus being flexible with scheduling, meaning that
maybe they schedule a conference in the morning during the day and after school
after dinner hours also parents cited inclusiveness meaning they're looking at
providing opportunities to different types of parents maybe parents who have
language barriers or parents who have again those different scheduling needs
and then it was important to our parents that the activities available to them
were meaningful to them somehow. We also broke down these results by grade level,
elementary and secondary grade level. You'll see the most valuable engagement
activities for our elementary parents or meet the teacher night, parent-teacher
conferences. I will say that I'm not sure we found anything that our campuses, our
principals and staff didn't already know. The same survey went out to elementary
parents as did the survey that went out to secondary parents so when you see the
last the least valuable engagement activities for elementary being booster
clubs it's because well you don't see booster clubs on an elementary campus
per se or even the sporting events that you would see at a secondary level so
that's why the elementary parents cited those as least valuable interesting our
elementary parents also cited family networking opportunities as one the
least valuable engagement opportunities on their campuses and reasons for lack
of engagement I already mentioned some of these but again the conflicts of work
and not knowing how to participate but you'll see that childcare pops up as an
issue at the elementary level looking at the secondary level same thing valuable
engagement activities meet the teacher night parent-teacher conferences and
sporting events and child's performances, least valuable, and again because they got the same survey as elementary,
you'll see some of these things kind of
are geared more towards the elementary campus, class celebrations, family networking opportunities, and parent workshops, and
reasons for lack of engagement. Again, we see that conflict with the work schedule and not knowing how to participate.
Part three of this strategic design study,
had us going to the principals, presenting them with their data,
and then asking them to meet with their staff to develop a strategy
for their campus improvement plan, which would be
rolled out during the 2019-2020 school year.
And I'm going to ask Dr. Carson to speak to that piece.
So good evening.
On part four, one of the things we needed to do
was identify best practices.
A district-wide tool was created in order
to gather input from all of our principals and campuses
as to what best practices they had on their campuses
that yielded really high attendance
rates for their parents.
And then that document is shared across the district so as principals could peruse that and look for different activities or events that they thought might fit their campus and be good for their parents, they could then contact the principal at the campus that's listed, ask questions, get clarification.
So then the principals analyzed the data so that they could inform their
For informing their CIPS, which you will get to see next month
Some of the things that we found
Divided up more toward there were academic focused activities and then more kind of family-friendly activities
the academic activities all
being at night
steam nights curriculum nights literacy nights
that got the parents involved.
And then we have more family-friendly activities,
which not every parent is comfortable doing a lot of academics sometimes at school,
and so that's something they need to learn.
But we also want to provide those opportunities for families to just come together
and be together at school.
We know that if we can get parents in the door and start building relationships,
if they become more comfortable, they're more apt to be more involved
and more engaged in the school after that.
And those types of activities were the family game nights, father-daughter, mother-son dances, the health fitness nights, glow runs, the town pep rallies, which are coming up right around the corner, and then coffee with the principals or lunch and learns with the administrative team.
So as for next steps, this is an ongoing process.
The school principals will use this year to implement their new ideas or new events or activities.
activities, they will gather information from stakeholders and get feedback as to how things
are going and then in the spring they'll reflect back on what things went well, what worked,
what may not have worked, what they may want to do differently to determine what they might
want to implement for the following year.
But the main purpose is always increasing our communication between school and home.
So that concludes our presentation.
We're happy to answer any questions.
Do we have any questions?
Madam President.
I'm sorry.
So one of the recurring themes, you know, work, childcare,
not suggesting that we offer childcare or anything like that.
But, and I'm sure that it's already part
of what you're considering, but where can we use technology
to engage people literally where they are, Skype, Microsoft Teams?
teams, what are your thoughts in that area?
Sure.
Well, it's certainly something we can explore, and I know that the campus principals are
meeting to discuss what the possibilities are, and like you said, there are digital
opportunities out there.
We can report back once we learn some more from our campuses about specifically what
they're doing with technology to enhance practices.
Do we even have Skype?
Is that something that we use within the district, or Microsoft Teams, or some way to have video
conferencing?
We do utilize Microsoft Teams.
I will say that we have campuses that have created videos or little webinars for parents
so that they can log in if they have questions about academics or curriculum,
and they can log in and the teachers are doing lessons for the parents
so that they can help their students at home.
So there are some things that have been created to increase that without parents coming to school
and maybe feeling uncomfortable by having to ask teachers to show them how to do math
or what does something look like.
That's awesome.
But I'm like really, you know, what else is possible thinking outside the box?
Can we do conferences?
I mean, you know, teachers, I know, I was one.
Like I don't want to hang around until 6 o'clock when mom and dad get off work.
But, you know, I mean, I know it's crazy, but like could we do a Teams call?
Could we do the conferences, you know, at different times that work better for the teacher
and for the parents?
I don't know.
or stream more stuff so that the parents who can't come can maybe pop in like used to at daycare you
know you could watch your kid have snack time or whatever i know there are millions of privacy
concerns i know that's not an easy answer but just trying to kind of push the envelope on what else
might be possible to get more engagement through technology thank you thank you anybody else madam
president champagne um thank you for your presentation and i'm really impressed with
with it actually. I just want to know a couple of things. First of all, when you did the
five to 20 parents and you surveyed them, was that per school or was that just random
people or did you have representation from each school?
We requested each quadrant of campuses to recommend three to four parents or community
members to participate on those focus groups. So they were representative of that specific
quadrant. Okay and then also next year when we when you do the campus
improvement plans how are you going to measure the success of those? So how will
you know that you that we did better than we had done before? So I think every
campus is probably a little bit different and how they would gauge that.
They obviously can look at the turnout of how many parents come, how many
students come a lot of times they have sign-in sheets and so they are being
able to see how many people attended it also could be a reflection of if if
attendance increases throughout the year then obviously the right things are
happening so that more parents are coming to more events as the year goes
on but it's it's really about building those relationships I think if you you
You can look at multiple factors.
We had feedback here.
The campuses send out surveys to parents and then also to their teachers and sometimes
to their students and they gather feedback.
The feedback from the parents would be one way to see if things are going better, if
they're getting the attendance at the events, if they feel like they're being involved.
One more question about that.
will you try to capture the information somehow and at the end of the school
year reflect on on the success of the program I am sure that we will be
gathering feedback from the principals throughout the year they have to update
the CIPS every quarter and so since this in parent involvement and engagement is
part of their CIP that will be updated and those are actually on their websites
Any other questions?
No?
Okay.
Thank you both so much for your presentation.
Next.
6.1, consider future Board approval of the proposed 2018-2019 Final Amended Budget and
the August 2019 Construction Budget Amendments.
Mr. Smith?
And is Ms. Butterfield?
Oh, there you are.
Ms. Butterfield.
I think we're going to book in these next four items.
So I'm going to start off and finish, and Ann's going to do the two in the middle.
But the final amended budget you have presented before you, and I want to just say a couple things about it.
First of all, there is a $15,000 increase in expenditures to be spent at May Creek High School.
We are at the maximum price that the board approved on that project some time ago.
go, but there are some signs that need to be put out so when you're driving across
that campus it can locate you to things like the natatorium or the gymnasiums
etc. That doesn't have the kind of signs that other campuses have and so that
expense is going to increase the not to exceed price and so that's why we are
presenting that to you. The other things that you see are all general fund
related and I'll just say that what we've done is we've gone through and
updated our general fund, finally what we think is going to be our interest
expenses, what our final state funding we think it's going to be. That includes
some audits that Mr. Pruanka, not all the audits, but one of the audits that Mr.
Pruanka provided on our behalf with the comptroller, helps increase our state
funding. Again, it's through our PEMS final amended budget, or through the
PEMS resubmission that was made in early July, interest income, etc.
We also have expenditures that we've gone through and we've done two things.
In some areas we reduced the budget because we didn't think we were going to spend it.
We see underspending.
And then we increased the budget by $6.8 million in some capital.
And in the budget that you just heard the presentation, there's no capital in there.
But with Senate Bill 500 monies, again, Senate Bill 500, a result of Hurricane Harvey
and appropriations made by the state legislature through Senate Bill 500,
that sent us monies that y'all were able to amend the budget in July to defuse or to redeem bonds,
pay down bonds, which saves us taxpayers' interest and creates potential capacity.
That was where we spent a portion of it.
We spent a portion of the Senate Bill 500 money on the 1% to all staff that came back on August the 15th.
This is the remaining, this budget amendment recognizes the remaining Senate Bill 500 revenue.
It also reclassifies some construction expenditures of about $6.8 million for things that are in the construction budget that I, you know, from a cash management standpoint would rather see in the general fund.
And so we've shifted that from a, this just makes better cash management sense.
For example, some technology servers that service this whole district,
we pay off our bonds in enough time to pay those off,
but I would rather it looks cleaner to just pay cash for those,
and Senate Bill 500 gave us the ability to do that, along with some buses, et cetera.
So there's $6.8 million in the final amended budget that I am requesting to be reclassified
That still will leave an increase to fund balance and still puts the general fund, its portion of funds, into fund balance.
And there's some offset between functions, and I don't expect what will happen.
I don't expect that we'll spend the entire budget.
In fact, I would request that we keep this off a consent agenda and talk about it again next week.
or next week that gives my staff the time to go through and after a couple more payrolls have run
and check runs have run to be go to make sure we're not going to blow up a function i don't
think we will but we want to make sure because we don't want to get in trouble with tea or the
auditors overall we're not going to spend the entire budget but we just want to make sure
there's an abundance of caution and i would request that that this be pulled off the consent agenda
Madam President.
Ms. Champaign.
I move that this be removed from the consent agenda until next week.
You want to pull this off of consent?
As Mr. Smith recommended or requested.
Okay, we don't need a second.
We'll just move it.
Okay, we'll move it to action.
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Feitinger for the next item.
Okay, item 6.2 is to consider a resolution to commit and assign fund balances.
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board adopted GASB Statement No. 54,
and it became effective for fiscal year starting June 15, 2010.
This statement requires the district to adopt a resolution to commit a portion of its general fund
unassigned fund balance and to delegate the responsibility of signing fund
balance to the superintendent or his designee. The resolution presented
tonight commits a portion of the fund balance to the district's health
insurance program and the local campus special revenue funds. Thank you. Mr. Graham,
do I need to read the resolution? Okay. Okay, thank you. You can proceed. All
All right, item 6.3 is to consider board approval of the 2019-20 state compensatory education funding
and other end-of-course assessment funding as required by House Bill 5.
Texas Education Code 29.081 requires the district to budget funding for accelerated instruction
for students failed to perform satisfactorily on EOC assessments as required for graduation.
Included in the 19-20 budget is presented in the following item 6.3 to 9, the district has identified $116,000 of general fund budget for accelerated instruction related to EOC assessment remediation.
This requirement was established several years ago and the district includes this board item each August to ensure we document our compliance.
Are there any questions?
You may proceed.
All right. On this, I would also request that we move this from consent agenda on the adoption of the 19-20 budget because it should be adopted right after we adopt the final amended budget.
That may be not technical, but that's the way I work OCD-wise.
But it would just make me feel a little bit better.
Plus, again, it's always a living, breathing document.
If we tweak it, we'll obviously disclose what we tweak, and I don't think we will.
but if we do that gives us the ability to to make that change and me disclose
that between now and next week but with that said the I've gone over in detail
every for nine months now or eight months I guess the the 1920 budget I
want to thank mr. Gorg or ski for his leadership from day one on this and I'm
going to thank the board for their guidance and understanding actually
understand what appears to be understanding of some of the stuff that
in the challenges that we've had and I appreciate y'all getting that stuff. The administration
throughout the district and the financial clerks throughout the district have done a great part
in layman's yoke job and putting this thing together and of course my staff and Sherry
Butterfield and her staff especially Sherry and her staff as I've said before she's the glue that
holds it all together and this is a big document that are actually a combination of many many many
many many big documents and then just with that said is again once the
adoption has happened HB 3 is evolving and we'll probably address that and I'll
try to give updates as necessary as major milestones are hit to the board so
they see how the impact that would have on the district again I'm pretty fairly
confident that that this information is being interpreted right now and if
anything I think things that could be better as we work down the road but
But there are a lot of rules that are still being made and interpretations that are happening.
And I will have to address that with you in the future.
So with that said, if we could pull this off for consent agenda, I will appreciate everybody's work.
And we'll address this next week.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Board, we're going to pull agenda item 6.1 and 6.4 from the consent and take it to action next week.
Thank you both so much.
Thank you.
6.5 consider future board approval of the 2020 health plan design. Mr. Nauman
and you're with us for four so we'll just ask questions and roll through them.
Oh yes ma'am. Good evening Dr. Gagorski, President Doyle, Board of Trustees. When the
district moved to a self-funded health care plan in 2004 the main objective was
to reduce the effect of long-term medical inflation while providing
providing quality health care options to its employees.
Since inception, the annual rate of increase to the district health plan has been 2.7%,
while the national average currently continues to climb at an annualized rate approaching 10%.
Effective April 1st, 2018, KDISD began self-administration,
resulting in significant savings to the administrative expenses of the health plan for
plan year 2018 and carrying forward to plan year 2019. Current consulting
services are provided from Arthur J Gallagher benefit consulting. Following
preliminary projections to the board in July 2019, various options were
considered for the 2020 plan year. These options considered were to evaluate the
teacher retirement system TRS health care on an annual basis, to maintain
base premiums to follow current medical inflation along with the implementation
of the premium support payments option 1 the future instability of TRS and
double-digit premium increases along with significant significant increases
in deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums does not support district goals
and would place hardship on employees option 2 after consideration has been
been determined that the district should maintain self-insured status for plan
year 2020. Base premiums should remain constant with the premium support program
included as part of the premium calculation. The premium support program
is reviewed annually and is based on the performance of the plan during the prior
year. The amount of the premium support is subject to change. However, the support
Port of each offered tier will not be changed from plan year 2019.
Additionally, there are no recommendations at this time to change program design,
including deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.
Following in form, there will be no changes to the pharmacy plan in terms of formulary or co-pays.
The estimated share of the deficit to be funded by the district is approximately $2.2 million.
This amount will be covered from the general operating fund designated in the 2019-20 budget.
As per board policy CRD legal and CRD local, the board annually shall determine the district's contribution to employee health insurance premiums as part of the budget development and adoption process.
It is recommended that the board of trustees approves the 2020 health care plan design.
Are there any questions?
Okay, thank you.
Board Policy CR Legal states a district may procure contracts with any insurance company
authorized to do business in Texas to insure its employees.
Voluntary benefits made available to district employees through payroll deductions are offered
to provide access to services that promote and enhance the health of employees and their
dependents. The benefits are presented to the Board of Trustees for approval on an annual basis.
The Risk Management Department recently approached the Marketplace through a Request for Proposals
to evaluate existing plans in terms of structure and pricing along with new offerings
available to staff. The voluntary product offerings are fully funded by employees except
the Guaranteed Term Life and the Employee Assistance Program. The proposed current offerings
are as follows. Dental PPO. The current renewal saw an increase of 4.3% with the RFP reducing that
by 8.14%. We are moving from MetLife to Guardian. The dental HMO saw a renewal premium increase of
9.46 percent and as a result of the RFP we saw a reduction of 4.08 percent.
We will be moving from United Healthcare to Guardian.
Vision the current renewal with Davis Vision increased 4.96 percent and we are moving to
a Vsys resulting in a negative 11.18%.
The supplemental life saw a rate guarantee and flat schedule for three years.
We are staying with Aetna.
Short term disability, the renewal saw an increase of 7.5% with Unum and was flat with
MetLife.
life. Long-term disability saw an 8.3% increase with Unum and a 16% decrease by MetLife.
Credit monitoring, we will be switching from ILOC to InfoArmor, which is an 8.5% increase.
Legal, we will be moving from LegalGuard to LegalShield, which resulted in a negative
12% reduction in premium. The basic life, which is paid by KDISD, was flat. We'll be
staying with Aetna. As part of the RFP process, risk management explored
increasing options to further protect employees. New choices are as follows. A
new accident policy will be implemented, which will cover hospital confinement,
hospital admission and it also has a neat feature for those family members
that have import or students involved in athletics the benefit increases by 25
percent next we'll be offering a hospital indemnity plan otherwise known
as illness this covers admissions ICU stays and it also provides a daily
benefit while in the hospital this can best be described as a deductible buy
down for staff to cover those large losses if they get admitted to the hospital as a
result of an accident or an illness.
Also we will be adding critical illness which is commonly known as cancer covering heart
attacks, paralysis, stroke and major organ failure.
Lastly we'll be offering an air ambulance service which is in three tiers the employee
can get a good, better and best.
This provides additional ambulance service and air support for staff who
may be injured outside the network and covers in the best situation possibly
the employees car coming back to to Katie if they're airlifted through a
through a covered event. It is recommended that the Board of Trustees
approves the voluntary benefits products for 2020. Do we have any questions?
Questions?
Ms. Gasoff?
Ms. Real quick questions.
The critical illness, is that long-term care?
That's not long-term care.
Mr. It is not long-term care.
Ms. Any consideration to offering that sometime in the future to our employees?
Mr. We can begin to look at that next year.
That is, that can be a very expensive offering.
Ms. Right.
Mr. And it's something to consider.
Ms. But as an option, right?
Mr. Yes, it can be considered as an option and noted.
Ms. And then I noticed we changed carriers on several.
So the RFP was that for a period of three years or five years or these these rates will be guaranteed for three years
They're three-year commitments, which you will see in the industry
These are a little history. We have not gone out to the marketplace in quite a while and it was time to test the waters
We're a large enough entity that we can demand
The pricing considerations of a group our size and these are big providers
So I just, you know, as a mother of three, you know, oh gosh, we've changed providers.
It's like, oh my gosh, you know, is my doctor on that schedule?
So I'm glad that it's for a longer period of time because if you have to switch, you don't have to switch every year.
We try to avoid network interruption at all costs on the health side and the benefit side.
Sometimes there is, but for the most part, we avoid that at all costs.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Okay, we can proceed to 6.7.
Board policy CR legal indicates a district may purchase reinsurance for a risk covered through a self-insurance fund.
To protect against very large specific workers' compensation claim occurrences,
Katy Independent School District currently purchased reinsurance for its self-funded workers' compensation program.
program. Risk management seeks the renewal of the excess workers' compensation reinsurance
policy through Midwest Casualty. This policy has a renewal rate which is the same as the
expiring rate, however, the actual premium increases as payroll volume increases accordingly.
This policy is audited at the end of the term. The plan carries a retention of $550,000 per
per occurrence. The policy term is September 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020.
Expenditures for this insurance will be paid for from the Workers' Compensation Fund,
a budgeted internal service fund approved by the Board of Trustees.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the renewal of the Excess Workers'
Compensation Reinsurance Policy offered by a Midwest casualty company with a $550,000
specific retention for an estimated deposit premium of $85,496.
Are there any questions?
Okay.
You may proceed to 6.8.
Board policy CRE legal states the district shall extend workers' compensation benefits
to its employees by entering into interlocal agreements with other political subdivisions
providing self-insurance.
Administrative services for the Katy Independent School District self-funded workers' compensation program have been performed by the Texas Association of School Boards TASB Risk Management Fund through an interlocal agreement since 2006.
The scope of services to this agreement has not changed for the renewal period starting September 1, 2019 and ending on August 31, 2020.
2020. Claim handling fees have increased for medical only claims from $125 to $150 per claim,
along with an increase in indemnity claims from $725 to $775. No other fee increases are noted.
The claim handling fees represent life of claim pricing and are not subject to change based on
any claim status changes. Expenditures for these services are based on claim frequency
frequency with an estimated cost of $160,000 for 2019-2020.
The cost is budgeted and paid for from an internal service fund for
workers' compensation as authorized through CRE Legal.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the interlocal participation
agreement for the administration of workers' compensation claims administration
with TASB risk management fund for the period September 1st, 2019 to August 31st,
2020.
Are there any questions?
Okay.
Thank you so much. Next on our agenda
6.9, consider future board approval
of the district performance objectives.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Good evening, President Doyle, Dr. Gorgorski,
and members of the board. Each year,
the board is asked to review and approve
the district performance objectives
that guide the district improvement plan
process. The DPOs are all aligned to the eight goals and are created through two
different processes. Eleven of the 23 proposed district performance objectives
are from our strategic design process and then 12 are created from an
extensive needs assessment process involving district departments. You've
received a copy of the proposed DPOs and at this time I'll answer any questions
you have about them. Are there any questions? Okay I'm sorry Ms. Gasol.
Dr. Matney, really quickly, I had some, I'd asked some questions to understand better what underpins these performance objectives because, you know, what we see is very high level and I understand it's the district improvement plan.
and I just I guess would encourage that as we continue to develop that we look
for measurable metrics things that actually show that all these tasks that
underpin what we're going to do deliver a change you know whether it's a step
change or it's just a percentage change in the right direction so just an
observation from my world of planning and performance but you know measurable
and you know not I'm not saying a suite of measurable things but something that
shows that all these things we did move the peg absolutely thank you thank you
any other questions I have a question and a comment thank you for the
presentation and so I wanted to say on the on the gold five with the teacher
and survey I really appreciate that it was it's kept anonymous and the teachers
feel that they can respond to that. I just wanted to make that comment. But again, how are we, I just sort of want to piggyback off of what Ms. Gassoff was saying, how are we using the information and
going forward with what we gather for that goal and that objective specifically or any of the
goals but maybe that one specifically you could so each of them are developed independently and
so um like what miss gassoff said there there are pieces of how we measure each of them and um and
so in the process of creating the district performance objectives we look at the previous
year and where we were with the progress did we make progress did we not make progress um what
what came out of the strategies that we implemented.
And if we need to continue a performance objective through the next year
because we weren't as successful as we wanted to be
or we want to continue that trajectory,
then we continue that performance objective.
You'll see several that we had last year that we're continuing
because we want to continue to move the needle positively.
And then there will be some performance objectives
that are only one-year performance objectives,
like a lot of the strategic design.
We check off all of the things that we need to,
and then we see the results we either present something to the board for consideration um
results like you saw today with the family piece and then it's a cyclical process of
reviewing that and making sure we don't need to add something else in to continue to act on it
okay thank you dr man thank you agenda item 6.10 consider future board approval of the
the proposed changes to board policy EIC local. Ms. Hack.
Board of Trustees and Superintendent Gorgorski, we're here to present the proposed changes
to EIC local. Ms. Sherry Ashhorn is here, too, to help walk us through those changes
as well. Let me get through the health plans. I can't help you with that.
We have three slides prepared for you tonight to kind of break down and highlight the changes
within each of the classes.
And so beginning with the class of 2020, our current incoming senior class, the change
there is noted by the elimination of the D from the 2019-2020 grading scale and replaced
with the C-.
minus there's no change to official gpa for the grades earned no change to the grade weight or
the gpa weight calculation and no change to the release of official class rank early admissions
opened on august 1st for the class of 2020 so they're well into the trenches of applying for
college so we don't want to cause anything that may disrupt that process but at least eliminating
eliminating the D from the grading scale when being evaluated by outside rubrics,
matrixes by colleges, NCAA eligibility center, scholarships.
We are hoping that that will benefit our students.
Moving on to the class of 2021 and 2022, our current juniors and sophomores.
Again, the elimination of the D from the grading scale to replace with a C-.
minus no change to the current gpa weight calculation through graduation however the
change does for our juniors and sophomores the top 10 class rank will be released the spring
semester of their 11th grade year we will only apply class rank through the top 10 to meet the
requirement by state law house bill 588 we will apply first second and third quartile rank
rank to our 11th graders or in the spring of the 11th grade year and that will be official and
verified and this will apply to both our juniors and sophomores one thing to note with our ink with
our current sophomores this is where the dual credit weight changed and so when you see the
4.5 3.5 that is the class of 2022 and thereafter the dual credit weight change
change. With our freshman and thereafter, this is where the significant change comes
in, the elimination of C-minus from the grading scale. And if you see that it is 70 to a 79
is a C for that whole nine points. And then, of course, the weight calculation changes
with that. The top 10 percent class rank will be released the spring semester of the 11th
grade year and then the first second and third quartile will be released the spring semester
of their 11th grade year we do plan to turn on a feature in e-schools that our sophomores juniors
and seniors will be able to see their transcripts they will be able to see their unofficial class
rank and their unofficial gpa verification is done in the spring semester of their 11th grade
grade year when it is official and verified.
And those are the three slides we have tonight.
Ms. Ashland is here in case you have any questions regarding EIC local.
You did get an addendum.
It's on blue paper.
We made one change, and Ms. Ashland, correct me if I'm wrong, I think the only change we
noted was changing it to 69 and below on the grading scale.
If there are any questions, either of us are happy to answer.
and Ms. Maker is here too, has been a big part of this process.
Madam President.
I'm sorry, Ms. Vann.
I have a question.
Many of the incoming freshmen this year are coming with high school credits from eighth grade year,
some even from seventh grade year, that will be treated more like the sophomore, junior.
Because if, say, they got a D in Spanish, it's not going to, it's, you know what I'm saying?
It will be a C. Their grading scale will change to a C.
They'll change across the board whether they took it a year or two ago.
Freshmen and thereafter.
Okay.
And we checked.
We didn't have very many Ds in the incoming ninth grade.
Probably not.
Just for clarification, because I know all three of mine started high school with already high school credits.
We wouldn't want to do that because they happen to take a high school credit course in eighth grade,
and then we apply to D weight to it, and then they get the freshman year,
and the kids take those classes that they took in eighth grade.
The same classes.
It needs to be fair within that cohort.
That makes a lot of sense.
I'm very glad to hear that. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Madam President?
That's okay. Ms. Hack, thank you for the presentation, but I have a question for
you. Is this so that our students can be compared apples to apples across the
state because other people are doing this and if we don't do this, our
students have a lower GPA, you know, we're in a different scale than other
other students from other school districts?
Every district has its own grading scale internally.
And they either do A, B, Cs, A, B, C, Ds.
The district's grading scale is within itself,
and it's how we're calculating the kids' GPAs within our district.
What happens is when all our kids apply out post-secondary for college,
for scholarship, for all the things that they apply for,
That's where we got to make sure that our grading scale is working to benefit our students
because of all the way they variously, all the rubrics and matrices on how they recalculate our students GPA.
A lot of outside entities will say districts send GPAs that are called inflated because of GPA.
In Katy and most districts, we count everything.
They're athletics, they're electives, they're non-core, and that's what kind of sometimes
those grades will inflate that GPA because that's where they may earn higher grades.
Generally outside entities will eliminate all the electives and they just take those
core classes and that's where they recalculate that GPA.
But they will use the district's grading scale.
So if the district is recognizing Ds, that outside entity will award a D weight.
weight by removing the D's and we just have C or C minus in our grading scale, then they
will award the C weight when recalculating the core GPA.
Thank you for that explanation.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
Madam President.
Mr. Lason.
Mrs. Hack, are we still going to have the number grade on the report card and on the
official transcripts or is it just going to be the letter grade?
On the report cards and the transcripts, you get the number grade.
And so on any semester, you may have a 92, 84 on your report card, and then you get that
for your three report cards, your final exam, those all average, and then you get that number
on your transcript for that course.
No other questions?
Okay.
Thank you, Ms. Hack.
Thank you.
6.11, consider future board approval of growth units for police officer staffing for the 2019-2020 school year.
Mr. Shush.
Good evening, President Dool, Dr. Kogorski, and members of the board.
Tonight we are here recommending the addition of eight police officer growth units for the 19-20 school year.
And you have a slide here that has the rationale for these increases.
First and foremost, increased visibility and security at our junior high and
elementary campuses, providing law enforcement campus support during
identified peak times during the instructional day, the ability to
participate and support campus events programs and initiatives like Speak Up,
leading campus education initiatives focused on increased student awareness
of bullying, alcohol, drugs, and vaping, and also the continued building of
relationships with our students and staff. Next slide shows the placement of our junior high
campuses. And with that, we are again recommending the addition of eight police officer growth units
for the 19-20 school year. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.
6.12, consider future board approval for Cisco Enterprise Agreement for the KD
ISD Voice Solutions. Mr. Christofferson.
Good evening, President Doyle, members of the Board, and Superintendent Dr. Grogorski.
The Technology Department recommends the Board of Trustees approves a five-year Cisco Flex
Agreement for the purchase of annual licensing, maintenance, and support for the district
voice communication solution from Presidio under Texas DIR contract, DIR TSO 4167.
This solution includes the IP phone system, voicemail, and E911 notifications.
This is a five-year flex agreement that is paid annually that allows for 20% growth without the increase of cost during the five-year term.
The total estimated cost savings is $250,000.
The funding source is the General Operating Fund, and the annual cost is $352,932, and the total five-year cost is $1,764,660.
Are there any questions?
Okay. Thank you. 6.13, consider future board approval of the proposal to replace the live action media broadcast system, LAMS, at Rhodes Stadium. Mr. T.
Good evening, President Doyle, board members, Dr. Gagorski.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for the replacement of the live-action media broadcast system at Rhodes Stadium to Dictronics in the amount of $1,338,399.
and the not-to-exceed amount of $1.4 million, utilizing the by-board contract 512-16.
The live-action media broadcast system currently in use at Rhodes was installed in 2010.
It has met its life expectancy and has become increasingly unreliable in its operations.
The system will be replaced with a new Dektronic system similar to what is installed at Legacy Stadium,
but scaled to the size needed for the road stadium field.
Installation will be scheduled with the Athletics Department
and is expected to be completed prior to August 1, 2020.
The total project cost includes an owner's contingency amount
for any unforeseen issues during the installation.
A copy of the proposal is attached for your review.
The project funding source is General Operating Fund.
The LAMS Board replacement cost again is $1,338,399.
The owner contingency is $61,601.
For a total project cost not to exceed $1.4 million.
The contract has been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as to form.
Any questions?
Okay.
Thank you so much.
Next is 6.14.
And so proceed.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contracts for the repair of a chiller and cooing tower located at Seven Lakes High School to Hunton Services utilizing Choice Partners Contract 19-036-MR-03,
along with the contract for the rental of a temporary chiller to Hunt and Services utilizing Choice Partners Equipment Rental Contract 18072-KC03-2017
for a total not to exceed amount of $481,368.45.
45 cents. Chiller number one and the cooling tower at Seven Lakes High School were both
damaged by a recent lightning strike to the central plant of the facility. A temporary
chiller was rented and connected to the plant in order to maintain full cooling capacity
for the high school. The existing chiller and tower are 17 years old, however, the repair
costs are less than 40% of the cost to replace with new equipment. The total cost includes
a small owner's contingency amount for any unforeseen issues found during the
repair. Copies of the proposals are attached for your review. All work will
be scheduled around the campus events and is expected to be completed by
October the 1st, 2019. The project funding source is the General Operating Fund.
chiller rental cost $76,442.36.
The cooing tower fill cost repair is $109,407.10.
The cooing tower motor parts cost $8,373.29.
The chiller repair cost is $262,145.70.
$470.00.
Owner's contingency $25,000.00.
For a total project cost not to exceed $481,368.45.
These contracts have been reviewed by District Legal Counsel and approved as per law.
Are there any questions?
Madam President.
Mr. Lacey.
What's the normal length of time that these chillers last?
Not getting hit by lightning obviously, but normal you can get 24 to 26 years out of them.
Wow, and to be able to get 17 without, I'm sure we didn't anticipate the lightning strike, but that's amazing.
Yes, sir.
It makes me feel old that I now know that Seven Lakes has been there for 17 years.
It hasn't, it's 15.
But the chillers, yeah.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Oh, you have one more.
6.15.
Go ahead.
It's recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the interlocal agreement
with Municipal Utility District Number 346 in Katy Independent School District
for a shade structure installation at McMeans Junior High School.
The Harris County Municipal Utility District Number 346 has agreed to fund the shade structure
for an outdoor classroom area at McMeans Junior High School.
The total donation by MUD number 346 is $14,874,
which is the total cost of the project.
The Maintenance and Operations Department will oversee the installation of the shade structure
and provide future upkeep and routine maintenance.
A copy of the interlocal agreement and proposal for the installation of the shade structure
are attached for your review.
the interlocal agreement has been reviewed by district legal counsel and
approved as to form are there any questions okay thank you so much mr.
thank you next six point sixteen consider future board approval of the
delivery method for the vehicle stacking project at Jeanette Hayes Elementary
School I have miss Cassman welcome
Good evening, President Doyle, trustees, and Dr. Gagorski.
I have four items this evening for your consideration.
The first item is in regards to future approval of the construction delivery method
for a vehicle stacking project at Hayes Elementary.
The competitive seal proposal method is being recommended for this project.
The scope of work will include a design and construction
to provide for additional stacking space on the campus as well as other
improvements to traffic flow to lessen the impact of vehicles congesting the
adjoining neighborhood. This project is supported not only by the campus but by
Harris County as well. Are there any questions? The second item is in regards
to the current prevailing wage rate schedule that has been in effect since
since March 2016 and should be replaced by this updated wage schedule, which was prepared
in June 2019 by PBK Architects.
The new schedule will be effective once approved and will be included in construction documents
and update rates previously identified.
Are there any questions?
You may proceed.
The next item is recommended approval for construction manager at risk for the above
ground fuel tank project.
In June, approval to change the delivery method was approved to a construction manager so as to benefit in scheduling, phasing, and material procurement.
Three sealed proposals utilizing the Seam at Risk delivery method were received on July 30th.
A tabulation of the proposal ranking is attached.
As a result of this process, we are recommending the construction manager at worst contract for the replacement of the underground fuel tanks at East and West Transportation Centers
centers be awarded to Ansel Bryant Construction for a fee not to exceed 3% of the cost of
work and for pre-construction services totaling $5,000.00. Scott Walker will be the KDISD
project manager and we have representatives from Ansel Bryant here in the audience this
evening.
Are there any questions? Okay. Final one.
Final item is recommended approval to award a contract to AccuTech Technologies
for the construction of district-wide safety and security upgrades, Package 1, in the amount of $942,800,
and approved the total project cost not to exceed $1,132,800.
This is Package 1 of the four and follows the plan of my previous items for project approval and hiring of the engineer.
SEAL proposals for Package 1 were received on July 25th for 16 campuses.
Four proposals were received with AccuTechnologies ranking first overall.
Ryan Wojtyla will be the project manager from Katy ISD.
Are there any questions?
All right, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Next on our agenda, because we already completed item 6.20.
Okay, Dr. Gruborski.
I just wanted to remind the Board, because I didn't mention it earlier when we did 6.20,
But it's been customary to go ahead and move that as an action item to where after we have the public meeting this week
That gives us an opportunity to come back and talk about that the naming of facility
So we'll put that on action to give us another opportunity to discuss that if need be. Yes. Thank you for reminding me
All right open forum 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
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 KDIC 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 their first and last names will be allowed
to speak. A maximum of 30 minutes has been allocated, with 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 to 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 existing policy in response to
to the inquiry. If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through
the proper channels as stated in Board Policy, the presiding officer shall advise the speaker
to seek resolution through the appropriate policy. Board Policy B.E.D. Legal states that
it is a criminal offense for a person with intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting
to substantially obstruct or interfere with the ordinary conduct of a meeting by physical
action 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 employee.
Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must do so through the appropriate grievance policy,
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 Amber Deolos.
Okay, hello members of the board. My name is Amber Marie. I'm a parent to three KDISD kids,
two at Maid Creek Elementary and one at Maid Creek Junior High. I am also a graduate of Maid
Creek High School back in the early 2000s. Since then, we've had immense growth. We talked about
it tonight quite a bit but KDISD really needs to do more than just pat
themselves on the back for that growth if this district has grown so much why
have why are we still using a one-size-fits-all rule where I live in
this district three schools and a bus barn share land parking and traffic the
The junior high and elementary with the late high schoolers and I-10 commuters all share the same flow, not in a neighborhood, but on greenhouse.
It sounds like a rural traffic nightmare, right?
So imagine your 11-year-old has to walk in that every day.
But wait, there's more.
This year, KDISD added pre-K as a full day.
As you can imagine, I was ecstatic.
This was really going to help out, but then I found out that you would not only be not busing my pre-K, but the 75 other students as well.
So you have now added us as parents to that already congested traffic on Greenhouse.
So just to be clear, you guys are busing one of my three kids going to the same parking lot.
I have complained about this to everybody.
teachers, principals, the transportation department. I'm a little disappointed
that the transportation department could not tell me why they won't bus my pre-k
they actually just don't know. Just saying out loud that we have created
that nightmare. One minute. Thank you. It's silly. We have created that nightmare. I
drive in that traffic on Greenhouse when school is not in session and it is not
bad so not only have we created that nightmare but you want me to allow my
junior high kid to walk to school in that I began this year lost I didn't
know how to transport my children I imagine a lot of made Creek parents felt
that same way but I will end this year lost I will be here or whenever I can
and trying to figure out an answer for this because those three schools two of
them you guys have changed within the last year begin at the same almost the same time so we've
added traffic to an already congested area so i'm just wondering as a board since i have reached out
to every other entity i know what are we going to do about this thank you thank you our next speaker
is Kelly Hicks. Good evening my name is Kelly Hicks and I have two students at
Seven Lakes High School and I wanted to address a couple of issues with the
cheerleading program mainly the transportation to and from events as
required by KDISD the school is required to provide transportation to
to events and competitions that the squad is attending.
And the past several years,
we have had to transport and to and from Galveston
for camp ourselves.
And then when the girls attend the UIL competition
in Fort Worth, the school takes them there
and we are required to bring them home ourselves.
We have to drive to Fort Worth and pick them up
and bring them home.
And they also attend a competition in Houston
that the same thing happens.
we're required to take them to and from the competition. So we just wanted some
clarification on the rules with Katy ISD as far as transportation for the girls
and about the UIL competition itself. We've addressed this with our principal
and our head coach as far as if it's mandatory for all the schools to attend
the competition and they have told us that it is but I believe in the rules it
it says that it's up to each school whether they attend UIL or not.
They get to decide whether they attend and if they require it,
if it's mandatory of the children to go or not.
Some schools let them try out,
and then they're only allowed to take 30 kids to the competition.
So if they have more than that on the squad,
then they have to try out to be on the mat at the competition.
So we were just wondering about the clarification on the rule
as if the if it's mandatory for all the schools to attend or not and we also
wanted to address how the judges are chosen when one of the coaches has a
child that's in the program we don't feel like that it's a fair system for
the coach to select the judges that are coming in to judge tryouts and to
interview for officer positions within the squad whenever their child is trying
out for a position on the squad or for an officer position. We would like to
have some sort of system in place so that an outside panel is selected by
somebody not affiliated with the school to judge the tryouts and the officer
competitions. I think that's all I have to say. Thank you, Ms. Hicks. Thank you.
Dr. Gnabryski.
Yeah, Ms. Hicks, I'm going to go ahead and ask Deputy Superintendent Mrs. Hack to get
in touch with you tomorrow.
Sounds like you've got some unique concerns in there regarding the chair and UIL, and
I think she can help clarify some of those and get you some answers.
Thank you.
Ms. Hicks, clarifying question.
Do you currently have a Seven Lakes High School cheerleader?
Okay.
Okay, thank you.
Our next speaker is Georgia Strickland.
Hello, everybody.
I'm back.
Thank you for letting me speak this morning.
evening I wanted to share some PTA updates with you guys during the summer
we got to go to Ohio to the National PTA conference and I learned that at the end
of the last school year our membership for the KDSD Council PTAs all 63 PTAs
in Katy and was larger than 35 statewide PTAs ending our membership
year with 30,494 so to reiterate that 30,494 is larger than what 35 states had
for a whole school year so we're really excited about that we also learned
during our conference in Grapevine Texas that during the 2018-2019 school
year we grew by 3,000 members from the previous year 2017-2018 school year so
So we got this super cute award that we need to find somewhere to put it.
Right now it's in my kitchen.
Anyhow, already many of our PTAs are submitting outstanding numbers.
Just to name a few, Exley has 628 as of today.
Patterson, 815.
Hayes, 211.
Katie Jr., 164.
Memorial Parkway, 80.
Sundown, 88.
Morton Ranch has 100, 50 of which are students.
students. So that's really exciting that they're buying into their own PTA. I'm positive that these
numbers have already grown in the past few days. We're only four days into the school year and our
PTAs are rocking it. Clearly our members see the benefit at their campuses. I can't wait to see
what this year brings to our PTA and our district. Just so everybody knows, if you want to join a PTA,
go to joinpta.org. Thank you so much. Thank you again for all that you do for the PTAs. We really
really appreciate you. Our next speaker is Sherry Gillespie. I'm hoping I said that right. Okay,
thank you. Good evening, Board of Directors. My name is Sherry Gillespie, and I live in Wood
Creek Reserve just south of I-10 and 1463. I know this was not a topic of discussion tonight.
However, I'd like to be able to present and discuss why I'm here today because I know this
topic will be coming up over the next few months I want to address the
proposed rezoning and that impacts my neighborhood from Katy High School to
Tompkins High School we are in lose 52 F so there are two sections of Wood
Creek Reserve section 8 section 10 that comprise of 80 homes and 70 students and
based on utilizing the past report from the fall of 2018 2018 that's where we
got the data of the 80 homes and 70 students. So I'd like to point out a few
things to reconsider when y'all are making these decisions and improving the
rezoning. From our front door of our house we live 1.7 miles from Katy High
School. Whitt Creek Reserve, you know, neighborhood, most of the neighborhood is
zoned for Katy High School and then the two sections of our neighborhood is
being proposed to be rezoned to Tompkins and we like to have that considered to
be proposed to one high school and not be separated out. We live in the city of
Katy. We are paying city of Katy taxes. Other neighborhoods that are currently
zoned to Katy High School are not paying the city of Katy taxes and
as a result are not contributing to the city of Katy tax base. We'd also
like to consider subdividing Luz 52F. It's stated on the Katy ISD website that
the ABMs are designed to keep neighborhoods together rather than
lose um so i would you know and also states efforts are made to minimize the splintering
of peer groups while improving feeder patterns when practical you know please to please take
in consideration a few of our points while approving and considering the rezoning and the
upcoming october meeting you know i understand as a board of directors that you have a few
district responsibility to consider all students in kdisd and i appreciate your time this evening
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gillespie. Our next speaker is Sean Dolan.
In addition to the amazing work teachers do to make a difference in the lives of our students,
there are also people behind the front lines that make a significant contribution to the education
of our children. Over the weekend, I received numerous messages, calls, and met with staff
members who worked for Chris Cardiff. For those who don't know, Mr. Cardiff retired last week as
the Assistant Director of Maintenance Grounds. After 13 years in this district, the Cardiff
family should be a familiar name because they've lived in Katy for over 118 years and six generations.
I've never met or communicated with Chris Cardiff myself, but here's what I've learned from his
staff. Your team members want you to know that it has been a privilege and an
honor to work for you. Those who have worked with you know you as a true
leader and a man of character who treats others with respect, especially those
under your leadership. They will continue performing their jobs to the best of
their abilities despite the frustration they feel in losing someone who could
easily make the shortlist of best employees this district has ever had. His
30 plus years of experience will be missed. His 13 years of leadership in the
the maintenance department will be missed.
The way he treated his staff will be missed.
The integrity he brought to the department will be missed.
Coming to the defense of his staff at his own expense
will be missed.
I present this small token of appreciation.
They called it the Community Appreciation Award
in honor of the contribution Mr. Cardiff made,
made not just to this district, but to his staff and the community as a whole.
Would anybody like to take a picture with the award?
No?
Okay.
I think so.
Thank you, Mr. Dolan.
Our next speaker is James Strickland.
Good evening, Board, Madam President.
Dr. Gagorski, little men on campus update.
Dads are some of the busiest people I know.
To make matters worse, they aren't always aware of or have the opportunity to serve in our schools,
where research and numerous statistics say they should.
As touched on in the parent and community engagement report earlier,
seeing the educational system from a classroom perspective is eye-opening, exciting,
and necessary and is a must to understand the day-to-day challenges our
students staff and schools face men on campus wants to provide that opportunity
it's needed more so today than ever in a culture that allows men to easily shy
away from volunteering in our schools due to time and other things although we
have seen a shift in this paradigm in recent years I would like to continue
that shift by making it the new normal for men to be a major part of our school system
as a priority, not an afterthought.
With one of my favorite mantras in mind, go big or go home, one of my goals for this school
year is to reach out to some of our busiest local community members with and without children
and KDISD to lead by example and to participate in Men on Campus. I'd like to
start by inviting our male school board members to come and serve as a watchdog
alongside me for as little as an hour at one of our fine campuses throughout the
KDISD school district at some point throughout this 2019-2020 school year.
Already having several launch events on the calendar, I'd like to give everyone a
few days naturally to settle into the new year and I want to thank you for
your time as we are excited to be a part of KTISD and if you want more
information with men on campus it's menoncampus.com or you can definitely
reach out to me thank you for your time thank you so much for all that you do as
well future meetings 8.1 our regular board meeting is scheduled on August 26
2019 there being no further business before this board the meeting is
adjourned the time is 8 25 p.m. thank you all
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
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