Noting that form is present, I hereby call this regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District to order today is Tuesday, January 19th, 2021, and the time is 533 PM. Doctor Gagorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act with regard to the notice for this meeting?
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Madam President, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for this meeting this evening. At this time,
the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance with the KDISD Board Policy, BED Local. As defined by this Board Policy, the first 10 speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, and have provided their first and last names will be allowed to address the Board. 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 three minutes, your audio will turn off. If speakers wish to share written material with the board, you must email a copy to the secretary for board services or board members, the superintendent, the chief communications officer, and the permanent record. If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels as stated in board policy, the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate policy. Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code Sections 551.074 and 551.021, 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 appropriate local grievance policies, FNG local, DGBA local, CKE local, or GF local. Our speakers will be called forward in the order in which they signed up to speak. Our first speaker tonight is Kristen McFarland. Kristen McFarland is here. Okay, doesn't look like she's here. Our next speaker is Jimmy Garcia. All right. And our third speaker is Anne Russi.
ANNE RUSSI, ANNE RUSSI, M.D.: Hi. My name is Anne Russi. I'm a mom to two daughters. My oldest started kindergarten this year. My husband and I both graduated from Cinque Ranch High School in 2004. We moved our family back to Katy to enroll our kids in Katy ISD because we know the schools are some of the best. We love Katy and all it has to offer and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. That said, we know our experiences in this district are not necessarily reflective of every family, and we need to get curious about the disparities that exist so we can do better as a whole. We need to acknowledge and name our problems before we can solve them. When our staff members, teachers, and community members are afraid to ask the district to condemn racism and address racial equity in the district because they fear the same retaliation they've witnessed their peers experience, we have a problem. When our students are vocal and outspoken about the impact of racism in our district and their own experiences with it, but the adults charged with educating, protecting, and advocating for them largely remain silent, we have a problem. When our students of color who attend racially diverse schools only see one or two teachers who look like them, we have a problem. When they see even fewer principals, administrators, and board trustees who look like them, we have a problem. When our teachers and staff members of color don't speak up when they witness or experience racism because they don't know if their bosses or the district will support them we have a problem when a school can make great strides in combating racism and adopting anti-racist policies and practices that are wiped away when a new administrator with different priorities takes charge we have a problem when we don't know the extent of the problems we face because we refuse to acknowledge they exist in the first place we have a problem i know you heard many of these concerns this summer but we're still waiting for response i stand here in support of those who continue to advocate for greater equity in our community i've submitted a petition to you all containing over 300 signatures of fellow parents parents, staff, teachers, alumni, students, and community members who are calling on you to address these concerns. These problems can't be solved in private behind closed doors or led only by the well-intentioned, mostly white people sitting at these tables or working from the offices in this building. We need transparency, dialogue, engagement, and a plan for action. You and other district administrators must condemn racism clearly and publicly so there's no confusion about where Katy ISD stands. Thank you for your time, service, and allowing me to speak tonight. I look forward to hearing how our district plans to address these concerns. Thank you Ms. Rossi. Our next speaker and I'm
no no I'm not gonna get this right. Sadhana Balasubramanian. You can let me know how to say your beautiful name I'm sorry that I butchered it.
Good evening. My name is Sadna Balasubramanian. I'm a student at Seven Lakes High School and I'm a Girl Scout Juliet. Tonight I'm here to represent my council, Girl Scouts of San Jacinto. As a Girl Scout, we are encouraged to serve our community and make the world a better place. As the board of KISD, you are doing just that and leading our school district during a time of challenge and uncertainty. We are extremely grateful for all that you have done to keep us, the students, safe during these unprecedented times. Before the pandemic, school was where I spent most of my time. It was where I learned, socialized, and got involved in extracurricular activities like Girl Scouts, which provide us a safe space to relax, de-stress, and do what we love. Through school events is how I learned about Girl Scouts in the first place. When I joined, I was opened to a world of possibilities. I learned so much through my program. Although this past year has hindered all these activities, left us in isolation and distance from one another. Even for those who have returned to the classroom, school is very different. That is why Girl Scouts is more important than ever. It provides girls like me with a place to make friends, have fun, and gain critical life skills. These skills come from various activities that we participate in, such as selling our famous Girl Scout cookies that everyone loves. we learned financial literacy skills or through outdoor events where girls learn the importance of problem-solving working together as a team the Girl Scout program encourages girls to take leadership and initiate action in order to create change I hope that our schools will find ways to continue partnering with Girl Scouts because I think that every girl has the potential to be a leader and make the world a better place thank you all for all your time and for everything that you're doing to keep our schools safe this year
Thank you, Sardana. Next speaker is Ms. Jenny Alexander. Alexander.
Like many of you, I was taught an adage attributed to both Adolf Hitler and his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. If you tell a big enough lie often enough, everyone will believe it. We're currently living in a time of a big lie, being continuously slathered on by incorrigible media outlets, executive level elected officials, and bureaucratic functionaries. My father told me that in the 1960s and 70s, at the psychology department where he was studying, our government and large corporations were funding very questionable behavioral experiments. I'm going to quickly describe two famous ones that have been successfully weaponized on all of us. The first is the Ash experiment. Imagine there's five people in a room, four are in on it, and one is the experiment. Three plus the experiment are asked a question by the questioner. Identify the longest line on this card in in turns. The experiment correctly identifies number one as the longest line for the first two rounds or so. Then on the third or fourth round he he conforms to the incorrect number three answer given by the other participants 90% of the time. The second is the Milgram experiment in which an experiment he is asked to be a teacher who administers electric shocks to a learner in the next room whenever the learner gives the incorrect answer. Shockingly, over 50% of the women and just under 50% of the men, despite the screaming in the next room, room were willing to increase the voltage to levels which would kill the learner. With the simple prompting of a man in a white jacket saying, go on, you must continue. How do these three things tie together? First, we have a big, big lie. There's a pandemic. It's repeated a thousand times a day in a hundred different ways by every corporation, operation, government entity, and media loudmouth you come in contact with. And second, you know there must be a pandemic because everybody's wearing a mask, just like in the Ash experiment. And third, even if you're in that 90% that knows that the first line is the longest one, you go along because you're terrified that that teacher from the Milgram experiment is going to freak out all over you. You will all be wearing masks until you take them off, or the people behind this come up with something more dehumanizing. And unless you all take them off now, the something worse will come along. And as the mask and the ash and the Milgram experiments have all demonstrated, most of you all are going to go along with the something worse, and that's going to condemn us all.
Thank you, Ms. Alexander. I actually went out of order and I missed a speaker by the name of Catherine Pierce. Is she here? All right. And our final speaker for tonight is Ms. Bonnie Anderson.
Thank you for your time tonight. I wanted to talk a little bit about the role of school boards in the Texas public education system. I have had some interactions, well, sort of had some interactions with the board. I've been speaking a little bit at the public forum. I've sent some communications, some information, some emails. Actually, it's been one way. I haven't received any communications back. I've received communications from an attorney and a paralegal but I haven't actually ever had a board member contact me and I know we have some new ones here but the reason I wanted to talk about this wasn't just because I haven't been getting communication again I did some research just wanted to talk about this because there are some new boards and some of the things I've seen going on One of the things I saw on the TEA website is that the board members, the school trustees are required to receive training in the laws and rules of the state education system. I think it said three hours of training, so I don't know if some of you new guys have had that yet, but three hours is probably not enough to get a taste of the Texas education code, but I just thought that was worth pointing out. Also, another important point is that the board has all powers and the exclusive power and duty to govern and oversee the management of public schools in the district. district. So something that's been interesting, I've received a lot of communication from said attorney and paralegal that some of the things the school board does may be on the advice of a county official. But again, the school board, just keep in mind that you have the power to oversee the management of the public schools in your district. Another important point was that a board member may not act alone. So if a board member was friends or knew somebody, maybe a county official, it would be inappropriate for that board member to be meeting with and making decisions, you know, based on maybe what that county official said. Another thing that hasn't come up but I would be interested to see is the amount of money received under the guise of public emergency funding I haven't seen that anywhere for Katie I see and I thought that that would be an interesting amount of money to see I know that we've got the free lunches going on so that's something that's sort of been given back to the parents but I'm not sure where the other money is
going but thank you for time this concludes the open forum portion of our meeting the board will now convene in closed meeting as authorized under section five five one point zero zero one of the Texas government code for the following purposes Texas government code five five one point zero seven one five five one point one two nine and five five one point zero seven four The Board will now reconvene in open meeting. Today is Tuesday, January 19, 2021, and the time is 721 p.m. On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's regular Board meeting. Each Board member has received the agenda and documentation for this evening on Friday, January 15, 2021. The Board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and a superintendent on these agenda items at tonight's meeting. Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to take action this evening. The Board has just reconvened from closed meeting in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code. Any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting. We'll begin with Agenda Item 4.1, consider Board approval of the naming of the principal for Rhodes Elementary.
CHAIRMAN BRYANT L. Thank you, Madam President. I'm bringing forward for the principal of Rhodes Elementary, Tim Wolfe.
Madam President.
Mr. Redmond.
I move that the Board of Trustees names Tim Wolfe as principal for Rhodes Elementary School as recommended by the superintendent in closed meeting.
Second. A motion has been made by Mr. Redmond, a second by Ms. Champagne, that the Board of Trustees names Tim Wolfe as the principal for the Rhodes Elementary School as recommended by the superintendent in closed meeting. We'll now proceed to vote. All those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0.
Madam President if I may, I believe Tim is with us tonight. He's in the back there. I'm going to go ahead and have him stand and be recognized. And Tim I don't know if you brought anyone out here with you tonight, but if you did, if you'd introduce some guests that are with you.
Absolutely. I have my wife and husband here.
And then we're watching the live stream
and family and friends are watching.
That's awesome.
That's awesome. And just, Tim, I bet you maybe some folks back in Utah, huh?
Absolutely.
OK, so Tim comes to us from Utah, where he is a principal. He's been an assistant principal in the district for a few years as well. And we're super excited to see him take over over at Rhodes Elementary. Thank you, Tim.
Congratulations.
Item 4.2, consider Board approval of termination of probationary contract employee, Opportunity Awareness Center teacher, Pamela Tolliver, for good cause, effective January 19, 2021.
Madam President, I move that the Board of Trustees take action to terminate the probationary contract of Opportunity Awareness Center teacher, Pamela Tolliver, effective January 19, 2021. based on the information provided in closed meeting board finds that good cause exists to terminate the probationary contract and authorizes the superintendent to take all action necessary to notify Pamela Tulliver of
the board's decision second is that you mr. Evan a motion has been made by miss guess off a second by mr. Redmond that the Board of Trustees takes action to terminate the probationary contract of opportunity Awareness Center teacher Pamela Tolliver effective January 19th 2021 based on the information provided in closed meeting the board finds that good cause exists to terminate the probationary contract and authorizes a superintendent to take all action necessary to notify Pamela Tolliver of the board's decision will now proceed to vote all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye aye motion passes 7 to 0 item 4.3 consider approval of the superintendent's annual evaluation as discussed in closed meeting. Madam President. Mr. Redmond. I
move that the Board of Trustees approves the superintendent's annual evaluation as discussed in closed meeting. Second. A motion has been made by Mr. Redmond, a
second by Ms. Gassoff, that the Board of Trustees approves the superintendent's annual evaluation as discussed in closed meeting. Do we have any questions or discussion? All right. We'll now proceed to vote. All those in favor please raise raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes seven to zero. Now we're onto the fun stuff. Pledges of allegiance. Mr. Gorky, Dr. Gorky, how did I do that? Thank you, Madam President. But yes,
we have a special guest this evening who is going to lead us in the pledge. So I'm going to go ahead and invite our special guest from Kilbattrick Elementary, Amelia Reyes, fifth grader, to come up to the podium. And her principal is Maylynn Rodriguez and her parents, Arturo and Anna Reyes. and she has a brother Diego looks like he's over there eighth grader Amelia special interests playing volleyball and doing a variety of arts and crafts favorite subjects reading and writing and from her fifth grade teachers mr. Michael Arnold mrs. Amy Pinkerton Amelia is a bright young lady who faces every challenge with determination and a positive attitude she exemplifies what it means to be a Kilpatrick koala and from fourth grade teacher mrs. Joyce Goldsmith Amelia is a hard-working kind and has a positive attitude she goes above and beyond without being prompted Amelia has a very strong work ethic takes initiative help others as needed Kilpatrick is lucky to have students like Amelia to help our school be a better place and lastly from librarian mrs. Sharon Odello Amelia sweet smile and kind heart brightens our library she enjoys reading and is always helpful and attentive her Her honesty, integrity, and self-discipline make Amelia a role model on our campus. So it is all yours, Amelia, if you will lead us in the pledge, please.
Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, one state under God, one nation under God.
Okay, thank you, Amelia. I believe you have a statement you're going to go ahead and share with us. Go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, President Vann, board members, and Superintendent Graborski. My name is Amelia Reyes, and I have attended Kilpatrick Elementary since I was in kindergarten. kindergarten. Since I was two years old, my mom volunteered as a member of the PTA and I was always by her side when she was at Kilpatrick. So when I entered kindergarten, I already felt like I was at home. I want to tell you a few things I will always treasure about Kilpatrick Elementary. The first one is my favorite thing, my teachers. I cannot believe how blessed I am to have such amazing teachers that have helped shape me into the person I am today. My teachers have have inspired me to become a better person and think about who I want to become. The second is the many great friendships I've had the chance to make. OKE has given me the opportunity to enjoy awesome experiences to share with my friends such as fun field days, musicals, incredible field trips and so much more. The last is one of my favorite programs that I've had the pleasure to be a part of at OKE Special Buddies. In this program I got assigned a friend with special needs and I had the chance to spend time playing and interacting with him or her every week. I can honestly say that I was the one enjoying the most from this special time. I also learned to value and be thankful for everything we are blessed with. I'm grateful to be growing and learning at KDISD. Our multicultural cultural community gives us the chance to have a unique experience at school. I love getting to learn about different things my friends do in their cultures and their traditions. We have the privilege to learn firsthand all about respect and tolerance from everyone in our community to be able to grow into great neighbors and become the best citizens. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication during this difficult time we are having. It is a ray of hope to have great great human beings guiding our school district. Have a blessed evening.
Thank you.
Next on our agenda, I'd like to introduce Dr. Andrea Grooms, our Chief Communications officer who will begin the board appreciation portion of our meeting good
evening president van dr. Gorgorzky and trustees as you know Katie I see has a very active PTA and parent support groups who work each and every day to support our schools the Katie Council of PTAs is here this evening for a special presentation for our board members may introduce miss Kathleen Pittman president of the KDISD Council of PTAs
I'm not much taller than Amelia but I'm a little bit good evening thank you for having us this evening normally this would be a parade of our presidents coming in to present books but as with everything in this school year we've had to pivot a little bit and change and for that we appreciate all of that you have done um for on our board this year um i'm honored to represent our 64 ptas this evening um what we typically do in january is each of one of our ptas will select a book kind of like the birthday book that you would have in elementary school and we will dedicate it to one of our school board members we present it at the january meeting the board members get to read enjoy it with their families and then they they send it back to the campuses so that our KDIC kids can enjoy the book and see the dedication page inside the book. So this is kind of, it'll be just a library book. Different ages will fit different things. It has the year and who the book is dedicated to. This would just be an example. On behalf of our PTAs, I just want to thank you all very much for your service and dedication. It's been a crazy year and y'all are very much appreciated and I know that you don't always hear those things So I think it's important in January and in all times of year this year that we appreciate our staff and our school board and Superintendents, so thank you for your time and I hope you have a great evening Thank you all so much for everything and in front of each of your spots You have a basket of books from each of your PTAs that you are assigned to. Thank you very much
Thank you, Ms. Pittman. Yes, we're going to do a photo with all the board standing behind the desk. Sorry, Ms. Mann.
Thank you.
point two city of Katy proclamation in honor of school board recognitions month. I believe we have, you're going to do something. I will do that. Each year, the Texas association
of school boards proclaims the month of January as school board appreciation month. It is dedicated to celebrating the contributions of school board members who take time to serve our local school districts. The City of Katy is just one of the many entities honoring the work of our Katy ISD school board. The City of Katy has proclaimed January 2021 as school board recognition month. Tonight it is my honor to introduce Mr. Chris Harris, Mayor Pro Tem, to read the proclamation from the City Council.
President Vann, Board, Dr. Gagorski, thank you for having me tonight. It's a great 2021. Normally we meet on the same night, so we're not able to be here in person. So this already worked out perfect. From the City of Katy Proclamation School Board Recognition Month, January 2021. 21. the mission of public schools is to meet the diverse educational needs of all children and to empower them to become competent productive contributing members to a democratic society an ever-changing world local school board members are committed to children and believe that all children can be successful learners and that the best education is tailored to the individual needs of each child I councilmember Chris Harris mayor pro tem of the city of Katy authorized by Bill Hastings mayor of the city of Katy do hereby declare my appreciation to the members of the Katy ISD school board and proclaim the month of January 2021 as school board recognition month in the city of Katy I urge all citizens to join me in recognizing the dedication and hard work of all our local school board members and in working with them to mold an educational system that meets the needs of both today and tomorrow signed by Mayor Bill Hastings thank you and he sends his regards thank you I do have a proclamation you come for a picture
Thank you, Mr. Harris.
We'll now move to agenda item 7, 7.1, presentation on the 2019-2020 annual report to include the Texas Academic Performance Report, otherwise known as TAPER. Ms. Natalie Martinez, Executive Director of Research Assessment and Accountability, will give a brief presentation on the 2019-2020 annual report to include the Texas Academic Performance Report, or TAPER. afterwards the board trustees will receive public input regarding this topic
good evening school board and dr. Gorgor ski tonight I will present to you information from our 2019 2020 annual performance report and we will also have a public hearing as required by statute. The main part of the annual performance report is the Texas Academic Performance Report which is called the TAPER which houses much of our academic data but it also contains additional data including accreditation, special education status, campus performance objectives, and information on our fund balance, counseling services, violent and criminal incidences, and post-secondary institutions. All of this information is posted on our KD web under the Accountability Department. You can see the web up on the screen. Tonight we're going to focus in on the academic information and the district profile. The information may seem outdated to you, but we are in line with TEA guidance. The taper is released in November after appeals and final ratings from the Texas Education Agency. and although we didn't have ratings last year, the timeline is still unchanged. I'll also remind you that some of this data does lag a year due to the data collection process, and I'll remind you of that as we go through the presentation. So the years will be on each slide to help you with the timeline. The 19-20 school year was like no other, and TEA paused all STAR and EOC assessments. For all schools, the agency gave the rating, not rated, declared state of disaster. As a reminder, however, from the last A through F ratings we were assigned, Katy ISD earned an overall 92A. Of about 1,200 districts, Katy is the largest district in the state of Texas with an overall A, so definitely a celebration for us. For the next few slides, again, you will notice that the years represented are behind. Much of the attendance and post-secondary data is lagging due to the data collection process. So although this presentation represents the 19-20 annual performance report, you will see data from the 18-19 school year. For the 18-19 school year, our attendance rates remain strong with a 96.6. And on many of these slides, you will see comparisons to the state and the region. Dropout rates as well remained low and below both the state and regional average. Graduation rate for the class of 2019 was at a 95.4, again higher than the state and region. The top four data entries will get you to the 100% that you might be looking for and shows the small percentage of students who received the Texas Certificate of High School equivalency who continue their high school education for another year or who dropped out of high school our dropout rate for this group of students is again much lower than the state and the region graduates who met the TSI criteria are those annual grads that met or exceeded college ready criteria on the TSI a which is the Texas success initiative initiative assessment, the SAT, the ACT, or by earning credit for a college prep course in our high schools. Graduates who demonstrated college career or military readiness met at least one out of 11 criteria, including meeting TSI, earning dual credit courses, meeting AP criteria, completing an IEP and demonstrating workforce readiness, earning industry-based certifications, and enlisting in the Armed Forces. Our advanced course dual completion data includes all due credit courses and an approved TEA list of advanced courses, many of which are RAP courses, but they also include upper level language courses, independent study courses, and even specialized courses such as forensics or robotics programming. The TAPER report does pull out our AP results so we can see 36.6 participation rate among our 11th and 12th graders and of those who tested, 83.1 earned a 3, 4, or 5 on one of those assessments. AP results are also broken down by content and each of our content areas are well above the state and the region our SAT ACT participation results are next we noticed a dip in participation back in 1819 and since then we have implemented the SAT school day for all 11th graders that was implemented in the spring of 2020 and so we will see an increase in those numbers the next time I report this out to you. Our SAT average score was an 1184 again above state and region and you'll see the breakout of our ELA and math as well. ACT follows the same suit our average score was a 25.2 again in all content areas above the state in the region we also received data on how our students perform after high school as you can imagine since this data is a year after high school the report is lagging two years but it does show that 60 of our students enrolled in a texas institution and i reiterate texas institution and 77 of those completed one year without remediation. Our demographics in KDISD have not changed much in one year. Our largest populations are still Hispanic and white followed by Asian and African American. Our programs are also reported on screen. We saw our biggest growth in CTE population with an increase of 6.3 percentage points followed by an increase with our English language learners by almost two percentage points and then are economically disadvantaged by 1.1 percentage points. Our retention rates are shown for grades K through 8 and show a lower rate again than the state in each of those grade levels. Our class sizes are a bit higher than the state about one to two points in elementary and maybe up to about four points in secondary but may be expected in a fast growth district like ours. Our staff numbers represent total staff by position and teachers by years of experience. We do see most of our staff as teachers and staff that is actually at the campus level as opposed to at the ESC. Our teachers are staying with us as well. You'll see about two-thirds of our teachers with six or more years experience. And lastly you have the student performance in post-secondary institutions. The Texas Education Code requires post-secondary institutions in Texas, again in Texas, to report on student performance during their first year of enrollment after high school. The report simply shows what type of institution reported our students. The full annual performance report also includes their GPA in the first year of public higher ed. Although much of our STAR data was missing, we are very excited to still see great performance in our graduation rate, CCMR and TSI, also SAT and ACT, and post-secondary institutions. It is a very different year and so our focus will just remain on best practices to support our students through the COVID slide and really focusing in on how to support their needs. At this time I'd be happy to answer any of your questions and then turn it open turn it over for a public hearing
board members do you have any questions madam president okay so is this going to be so there's another um set of paperwork that's called the district apr are we going to go over that or should i ask questions on that right now this is the district oh okay because all right so i have a question first of all on those those class sizes on the other document from the Texas Academy academic performance report there's another set of documents here the numbers are different from the class sizes of secondary school but I mean it's it's here on our on our board Doc's I don't know if you have it but but it's on page 25 of the other packet. Okay. I'm just curious.
If I may chime in, Ms. Martinez, do you think perhaps because there's the one-year lag in the data you are reporting compared to a taper, are we looking at the same taper report compared to what was on the slide?
Just to be sure. We should be, but I can double-check that for you, Ms. Chambers, and I can send you some information to be sure.
because it says for example for English language arts the district has an average of 18 students I can't remember what yours said yours was higher okay reported was higher than that it's because 18 sounds good but you know I I can't remember what the other page was.
So I am looking at the 19-20 taper on my phone and for ELA secondary it does say 18.0 which is what is reported in the report. What number are you showing?
Okay. Let me get to that page. On page 25 of the actual taper report? Right. Okay. your class size on page um i don't know your 2019 2020 class size is that because of the covid because on here it shows okay then let's look at one another one okay so maybe maybe i'm wrong about that i apologize for that okay okay but anyway but i do want to say that i i noticed that um the cte classes went up and so that was exciting and that wasn't part of what you showed us but I was looking at it was 55.6% versus 38.7% in the year before and I really think that we should you know have some kudos for that because I think that the district has done a good job at pushing those classes to our students and so you know it gives a good alternative for kids that may not want to go to the college to have something else that they could be certified in so i just wanted to say
that it's a good job most definitely i appreciate that and we'll pass that on we have many conversations with our cte department so we'll certainly pass that on as well thank you for that
president um just a couple quick questions is it it's a standard format right dictated by the state yes ma'am okay uh and so that's why we only look at texas higher institutions yes okay and then just wanted to point out on slide 24 when you look at the percent of total staff our central administration is about half of what the average is for the state which means we do all the amazing things we do with half the leaders which just means that our leaders are fabulous i wanted to
point that out well i love that as well and i'll pass that on too thank you for that thank you
mr gusoff anyone else madam president if i may and i'm going to go ahead and chime in on that one one with you, Ms. Gessoff, just because I appreciate you pointing that one out on that slide. And if you could scroll back to that one, Natalie, that'd be great just so we pop it up in there. Because that's something that Chris Smith, he's going to kick off our annual budget planning tonight. But he talks about that during the budget process regularly to let people know, because that is something we generally hear of that our central office is fat, for lack of a better word in there, that we have a lot of people working over here. But when you look at that comparison on there with the state average of 1.1 percent and we're about half of that i think it points to what you were saying there miss goes off with the efficiencies and how well we're running things over here with some things so we'll take a look at staffing a whole lot more as part of that budget process but i appreciate you recognizing that one madam president i have one one other
thing so i was looking at the graduation rates or not the graduate but going into the four-year colleges and it looks like um because i pulled it up from 2017 on to 2019 are going into the colleges are declining a little bit but i don't know if that means that they're doing you know obviously they're doing something so i don't know if the shift is is because of the additional ct courses and the other opportunities or you know they're going into military instead or what but i just I just noticed that and I wondered if anyone knew, looked into that and knew the answer to why they think that might be.
I don't have the information on why. When I look at that slide, the postsecondary slide, I do have the numbers from last year. The total graduates was significantly lower, about 400 less kids last year than it is this year. But still with that, 200 more kids were at the four-year public university. So I'd have to look into that a little bit deeper, Ms. Champagne, to figure out why they were different. I'm just curious. It's not a biggie, but okay. Thank you. Not sure. Thank you.
We'll move on to 7.2, public hearing on the 2019-2020 annual report to include the Texas Academic Performance Report, or TAPER. Those individuals who requested to speak regarding the 2019-2020 annual report to include the Texas Academic Performance Report, or TAPER, signed it had to sign up today by 2 p.m on tuesday january 19 2021 being that no members of the public have signed up this is the end of the public hearing thank you so much miss martinez thank you move on to the report section of our agenda 8.1 the 2021-2022 budget update mr smith
Good evening, Madam President and Dr. Gorgorski and trustees. So really in the update, it's the kickoff of the 2021 budget or the official kick, 21-22 budget or the official kickoff. And I just want to go over, there's going to be no numbers tonight. just to let you all know that now you can relax rest assured that there's no numbers in the presentation tonight it's really just kind of a 90,000 foot level of the budget process that we're gonna be starting to take for 21-22 and of course we're gonna try our best to maintain a balanced budget we're gonna maintain competitive compensation and with that goes try to maintain our self-insured local funded health plan we're gonna put as always a high high priority on student and staff safety. We're going to plan for opening Haskett Junior High or Junior High number 17 and add the 11th grade at Jordan High School. We're continuing to implement House Bill 3. We learned just before we left for Christmas some more information about House Bill 3, and then we also learned just last week that there's some things in comp ed that are changing with House Bill 3, so we're still trying to figure out how to implement that best we can, and we're rocking through that. And then we're going to watch Austin, and that may be the most important on here. No, it's not. But it's going to be very important because the session did kick off a week ago Tuesday, and with the COVID and with the tough budget, there's a lot to watch there in Austin, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a couple slides. With our values on our assumptions, we're projecting below average growth. We've averaged about 6%. on value growth each year. We're projecting about 2%, which is significantly less. It doesn't make as much impact on the general operating fund, but it does have a significant impact on the interest and sinking fund. So we think we're being conservative there with our initial numbers. Our enrollment, we're projecting average enrollment increases. COVID aside, we are projecting average enrollment increases. It's extremely difficult to try to, even with as good as a job as uh uh passa has done in the past uh we're we're it makes it even tougher with with the covet issue that we're going through to try to project that enrollment campus and staffing growth of course stems off that enrollment projection and then salary increases we're always going to try to do as much as we can for our employees and tax rates are going to be considered and we think that uh with house bill 3 uh and and the way it was intended is as values grow in a district uh if they grow more than than the enrollment growth then it may drive down the tax rate or get continued and over the last couple years we've dropped the tax rate by about 15 cents so okay uh with the budget uh looking forward uh this is just a picture of what our budget looks like now about 88 percent is in salary and benefits so we're very labor intensive um this is the tax rates and you can see there that we've marched along since 2007 2008 we were able to drop it back in 1516 by a penny and we've kind of kept it total until last year we dropped our tax rate by 10 cents and another nickel this year again those are those are largely in part due to the funding law changes of House Bill 3. This goes back to my unknowns, state and local unknowns and the old cartographers with the monsters around the borders when they didn't know. Just as a reminder of the importance of the unknowns or the fear of the unknowns I guess. State budget and and it's a COVID-19 effect. Comptroller Hager did do his revenue and budget estimate a week ago today, Monday morning a week ago, and it was, I don't want to say optimistic, but it was a lot better than, it was better than we had feared. Back in the summer we feared that that was going to be a really, really tough budget. It's going to be tough, but it wasn't as bad as we had thought. So that was, I guess, relatively good news. As you know, back in in June of 19 or May of 19, the legislature passed House Bill three. And at the time it was going to be very expensive to fund because they were going to take that property value growth and drive down tax rates and fund it from the state perspective. And there was some some question about the long term viability of the being able to afford that. And we had a rocking economy and then Cove it hit. So there is concerned about the about being able to fund House Bill three. And again, that's goes back to those numbers last week being a little bit better than expected. That that was good news fast growth allotment you've heard me mention that from this from this position three times uh since it was adopted and my concern for that that's an add-on to house bill three that uh that only fast growth districts get and we are a recipient of that is worth about 20 million dollars per year to us uh if we were had a district of 70 kids and still qualified because of the percentage of growth that we had which is maybe three or four kids students we would qualify But it is a big chunk to us, and whether we fall out because our growth isn't high enough, fast enough, or it goes away is a concern because there is a lot of money in that. The new instructional facility allotment also, when we open those new schools, I kind of look at that as the spoonful of sugar that helps us swallow the opening of the new school or the fixed costs of opening a new school. and that gives us it's gone from anywhere between uh 34 per ada uh to a thousand where it currently is and that is something that again as we continue to open schools it's been very important to help us get that that uh get that online uh the local economy obviously with coven 19 and the oil and gas prices our local economy is in flux we are still going to see enrollment we're seeing these These last few weeks, record enrollment growth every week, every day. I think one school of ours had 23 students enrolled in one day, I heard. We had 48 enrolled yesterday over the weekend or since the last count I had seen. And so we are growing. But what growth and what can this economy sustain is a big question. And then local revenues, those have been in flux as well. ticket sales are down interest rates on our investments are down and trying to budget that's going to be a challenge and we're going to do our best as we move forward so we're going to monitor our expenses we've talked about that we're going to prepare for growth and we're going to open a new school and a new grade level at one school and this is just a different look of the things that we're considering you could add the state in here I probably should have inlaid the state of Texas over it but enrollment growth property value growth both in economic uncertainty and then what's happening in Austin, are going to be very important as we move forward in this budget process. Tonight's the introduction. Next month, Mr. Jeff Robert, our municipal advisor from Hilltop Securities, will be here, and we're going to talk specifically about debt and our interest in sinking budget. We're not going to just look at the 21-22 budget. We're going to look at the 21-22 budget, what would happen if we did a new authorization on top of that, And then even then, like we always do, we're going to look even at four or five more years and what if we did yet another authorization and how that long-term impact looks on our budget. So we're going to go through that at length next month. There will be numbers next month. And then you can see the rest of the year. I won't belabor the point on that. That's all I have for my initial kickoff meeting update.
Board members, do you have any questions for Mr. Smith?
Madam President, just one, excuse my ignorance, but when you talk about another authorization and another authorization, what do you mean?
Well, whenever, like a year ago, we brought our interest in sinking services, when we brought our interest in sinking budget to the board and discussed it, we said, what if we had in a couple of years or a year or two, we had an $800 million authorization? And then what if two or three years after that, we had another $800 million authorization? authorization. We're planning out because we do think that at that time that growth would continue and we're going to have to have other authorizations. And so we're always looking those out, not just planning for this budget, but we want to make things that are this budget that we can sustain knowing that those other needs are going to be on the horizon and how do we best plan with those other needs considered. We're in essence looking way out into the horizon or down the road as we're as we're planning not just the stop sign coming up we're looking at up the hill down the way okay thank you mr.
Smith when you say that just for our public who might be listening and to the presentation when you say an authorization you're talking about a bond authorize yes okay just to be clear yeah madam president mr. Revin mr. Smith
I appreciate it the way I kind of looked at this past years we were expecting a category five hurricane and it's just going to be a two right yes sir yes sir so for if say the community the board wanted to be able to influence something in the state of Texas at this point is there a focus you would recommend that people communicate with their their representatives certain I would say the
focus would be to let's maintain the funding levels established by House House Bill 3 when it was adopted. And if they could maintain that, that would be a win. That wouldn't do things like increase the basic allotment or the tier two yield, which gives us inflationary things. But it would be a win in the fact that we wouldn't go backwards. And that's tough on faculty planning and obviously compensating the teachers the way we need. And students, especially in a COVID environment where they need the resources, not going backward would be a big win in my opinion thank you board members thank you mr smith next up 8.2
2021 community bond advisory committee update dr andrea grooms hello good evening again i'm here
as you said president van to provide an update on the community bond advisory committee process which began last week. They had their first meeting as a group together. You'll recall that last year, around January, February, this time of the year, we had sought to put together a committee of 150 individuals representative of our community, our parents, and also our staff to take a look at our current and future capital needs across our campuses and our facilities. then COVID happened, and so we were not able to meet during the spring. And just recently this fall, we felt that we were in the position to bring that group back together, and this board made a decision to move forward with that bond committee process this January. So again, we met together for the first time last week, January 13th, and Steve is going to pull up a couple slides for me because I'm going to share with you some of the topics that we discussed at that meeting, including a demographic report, which was delivered by population and survey analyst who has presented for this board and community many times. They discussed our long-term growth trends. We also have reports delivered by our administrators on long-range facilities planning, as well as proposed projects based on that long-range facilities planning, building components that will be need over the next three to four years throughout campuses and facilities, safety and security needs. And as you just heard from our chief financial officer, we also heard about our financial capacity to take on a bond should the committee decide to move forward with one based on the data and information that's made available to them throughout this process. The committee also heard about technology needs. And then at At the very end of that process, they took some time to talk amongst their groups and to ask questions of our presenters that evening. You'll see in this slide, there's a list of adjustments. Again at the end of that meeting, our committee was asked, what would you like to see changed? How would you like to see the next committee meeting move forward? We had some safety protocols in place. I should have mentioned that. So you see recycling containers up there. We didn't share utensils. We didn't share meals. Everything was individually packaged. There was a lot of water bottles, a lot of soda bottles, a lot of caffeine going around because it was a late night meeting going to 9 p.m. So our committee asked for some recycling containers, which we are happy to accommodate. We will have that there along with some coffee, some FAQs that we worked on last week that address many of these areas that I just listed, and increased time to talk about the topics that were presented to them, as well as reminders about the COVID. protocols in place. Again, everything was held on the floor of the Merrill Center, socially distanced. Every single committee member had their own narrow six-foot table to sit at. Everybody was masked, and we're going to make sure that we continually remind the group throughout that three-hour process that we're following safety protocols for everybody's health and safety. The group's next meeting is this Wednesday, and here you can see the topics that they are going to revisit based on the conversation from last wednesday it was determined that they want to hear some more about safety and security land acquisition they're very interested in how we purchase land and what our calendar for land acquisition looks like knowing that the school district will likely have to build a number of us campuses until 2030. we're also going to dig deeper into portable buildings and the proposed natatorium that would be for high school number 10 as well as the Agricultural Sciences Center barn that would be for high school number 10 as well as technology and at the end of that process we will ask the group at their tables to do a preliminary pencil paper vote on projects within the proposal so we get a sense of where they're at as a committee and where we might need to do some work in terms of educating some more providing more data and more information the committee will also make a decision on whether they want to move forward with an opinion poll that would be administered to the Katy community a sample size of the Katy community historically opinion poll has helped our bond committees weed out some of the concerns in the community or I should say rather questions the community might have about potential bond projects and that helps them move forward in developing and solidifying the bond that they decide to recommend should they do do so. So that is what this week's meeting will look like. That is it.
MEMBERS, do we have any questions?
Madam President, so Dr. Grooms, thank you very much. I know you're so good at this. I was on the bond committee, as you know, in 2017. But I'm just curious, are you the facilitator?
No, I am not. We actually have an outside facilitator who has done this many times. his name is Greg McIntyre and Miss Champagne you'll recall our previous bond committee facilitator was Michelle Hughes her company was named transcend for Greg McIntyre is actually a part of that company now Michelle has retired but Greg is now moving that process forward along with his partner
Lizzie McIntyre Lizzie Asbury I'm sorry they're married okay so that's I was just curious because You would be a good facilitator too, but I was just curious. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all your work because I know that that is so much work. I really appreciate it.
Well, it's a lot of good conversation. And so we look forward to this Wednesday's meeting as well.
Madam President.
Mr. Redden.
Dr. Rims, I just had this simple comment that kudos to you and your team to put that together when there's been a way we've done it in the past. and then we're saying listen now you have to socially distance and you have to do all this and I walked upstairs and looked over the floor and just saw the process going on and just thought was a big win to make that happen so thank you and there were so many more people than I know just you that put it together and just please from the board please pass on our thanks I will do that was
certainly a team effort from our maintenance and operations crew to our our LMC team, to communications, to everybody. So thank you. We all appreciate that. Anyone else?
I'll just take a minute to echo what Mr. Redman said, seeing the process and all the hard work and all the little minutiae things that were thought of from every single detail. It's well run, and I'm glad, yes, it does look different than we've done in the past, but I think it's going to be a very effective model when it's all said and done. I just have a couple questions. under the fact targeted topics is the natatorium coming back up based on the size is that a question because I know the one we just put in Jordan is the largest one in the air in the that part of the district being our second
district now I might need somebody from operations or dr. G to step in but I think it's a standard size yeah I'm gonna go ahead and jump in on that one
some of the confusion on that natatorium that why that's why we want to cover it again with the bond committee is the state in the last 86 legislative session the state changed some of the things on the bond and the community is going to see this once a bond package is put together should we move forward with one but we need to separate out by law now certain things on propositions so any large facilities that the district's going to construct like an editorium has to be separated out normally we would just add it to high school ten every one one of our high schools in the districts has their own natatorium, but this one has to be carved off as a separate item, although it is no different in size or shape than, say, the Pato Natatorium that we built. Same building design, same everything, but it has to be a standalone feature. Now, you did mention the natatorium down at Jordan High School. The actual size of the swimming pool and everything else at Jordan is exactly the same construction. It's the size of of the facility, of the number of patrons we can hold. We were holding our district events at Katy High School for the longest time as our district facility. There's not enough room in there, so the Jordan was expanded in size for capacity for seating to make sure everybody who has swimmers during a district meet can get in there and watch their kid swim without taking turns and coming in from outside and rotating people into there. So slight difference in that, but the pool size remains the same. The competition size remains the same. But we do we do need to educate our folks just a little bit better on why that natatorium I don't want people out there thinking we've got this standalone huge natatorium Some districts do build district facilities huge natatoriums. This is not one same standard natatorium. We have at every high school
Thank you for clarifying One last question. You mentioned the opinion poll would go to a select number of How about how many are polled and about the percent? What's the percentage of return responses?
do you think in the past? Historically they will try to reach 300 to 400 individuals in the KDIC community. That's the bare minimum.
Alright. Madam President, I have another question because you said that about the natatorium being a separate because it's a large building that needs to be separated but why then is the PAC not considered I mean so that's a large facility also but it gets it's it's attached to the school just like the
natatorium would be yeah I'm gonna let mr. Graham our general counsel who advises us on how that law is written it has to do with educational type facilities but he will go ahead and explain that a little bit better than I
can yeah trustees you'll see the changes in the law in chapter 45 of the Texas education code a natatorium and an athletic stadium holding more than 1,000 people those are actual items that are listed specifically as standalone items you would also have a performing arts center if it was a standalone facility example of that is if you've been to Mansfield they have like a 1200 person big matted a performing arts center that is standalone and it's used for holding performances solely. If you look at really our theater areas in our high schools, we use those predominantly for teaching right now. While the members in this room, board members and and families, you will go see performances there from time to time. I would say 90% of what we do in those class in those large rooms is classroom based instruction and so for that reason and we have not pulled those out as a separate bond item. So, clarify.
Do we have any more questions? Thank you, Dr. Grims. We'll now move on to our discussion action portion of our agenda, 9.1, discuss and consider approval of the November 2020 financial reports. Ms. Feitinger.
Good evening, President Vann, Dr. Bergorski and Board. Item 9.1 is to consider approval of the District's November financial reports. There are four reports. The first two are financial statement reports that present our revenues and expenditures for budgeted funds for the District, including the General Fund, the Food Service Fund and the Debt Service Fund. Expenditures are further broken down in the second part of that report by function and high-level object for the first three months of operations completed in the 2021 fiscal year. November represents 25% of the year and you'll see most of those costs are indicating that they're running below that percent for the budget so far. In our notes to the monthly financial reports, we indicate the Federal CARES Act ESSER funding received by the district which is being utilized to pay instructional salaries in the current year and it's thus reducing costs that you would have normally seen being recorded in the general fund this year. The amount of this funding is approximately $5 million. Remember that the state chose to reduce the district state funding in 1920 last year, and so this is not new money. So our funding was reduced last year. We're receiving and spending the money this year. It's simply a timing thing. Also, the food service fund, there's a note on that. The food service fund revenues and expenditures presented, presented. They vary significantly from the prior year if you look at those percentages on that line item. And that is because revenues and expenditures for the summer food service program fund, which is what's allowing the district to provide free meals to students this school year, are accounted for in a separate fund that is not presented as one of the budgeted funds. So we've added a footnote at the bottom of the report to give you a status of what that other fund looks like and so although the food service fund that you're seeing now is looking at a it's right now at a loss of approximately 600 000 the summer feeding program which is on in another fund is indicating just over a million dollar surplus so between the two right now we still are running okay and this combined position is better than we originally anticipated due to the approval of that summer feeding program which we did not know when we going into this year that they were going to extend into the 2021 school year the construction report represents project costs through november for projects funding with our bond authorizations our e-rate funding inters funding the tax report summarizes our property tax revenues received through november and you can see that the current year tax revenues have begun to come in statements did go out a couple of weeks later than last year so the tax revenue the percentages look a little low still in november but we are still seeing those coming in fast and furious into December and into January. And finally, we have the check register, which indicates our vendor payments made in the month of November.
Board, do we have any questions?
Madam President, I move that the Board of Trustees approves the district's November 2020 financial statement.
Second.
A motion has been made by Mr. Redman and seconded by Ms. Gassoff that the board of trustees approves the district november 2020 financial statement all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye aye motion passes seven to zero thank you so much 9.2 discuss and consider board approval the january 2021 budget amendments miss butterfield
good evening president van Ann. Trustees, Superintendent Gorgorski. Tonight we have two general operating fund amendments, one at $137,000 to cover expenditures related to operating the parent help desk in the technology department, and another at $104,125 to purchase an additional emergency management module in the Raptor system. The remainder of the general fund amendments are direct offsets between different functions, and approval of these amendments will result in a $241,125 decrease to the general operating fund's fund balance. We have six amendments in construction totaling $21,219,747, and that is to include the building management and control systems, the BMCS, BMCS and the increase related to Raines High School that we discussed in last month's meeting, Chiller at Katy Elementary, the campus technology retrofit cycle, furniture retrofits for three campuses, and a recording system software for the police department. department. These are all to be funded from either the CFO's reserve within the 17 bond authorization or from project savings within the 17 bond authorization and results in no change to the construction funds fund balance. Thank you. Do we have any questions?
Madam President, I have one question. uh this motor field for the and this may be for ms gassman uh for the k elementary when we replace that chiller if we were to put a bond forward and and remodel some of katie elementary that that chiller is still able to be used and so the investment made it now is continues on with whatever happens there thank you do you have any other questions madam president champagne i move
that the board of trustees approves the district's january 2021 budget amendments second
a motion has been made by ms champaign and the second by mr redmond the board of trustees approves the district's january 2021 budget amendments all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye aye motion passes seven to zero thank you so much mrs butterfield item 9.3 discuss and consider board approval of the proposal for portable classroom buildings for five campuses. Mr. T.
Good evening, Madam President, Board Members, and Dr. Gagorski. It's recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the proposal for the purchase of 18 portable classroom buildings for the 2021-2022 five campuses to Palomar modular buildings in the amount of $1,231,722. utilizing the by-board contract 556-18. The purchase of portable buildings is needed to support the enrollment growth and special programs at these five campuses. The funding for this project is available from the 2017 bond. Estimated completion for delivery and setup is June 12, 2021. A recommendation for connection services will be presented for approval at the February 2021 board meeting. A copy of the proposal is included for your review. Again, the total cost is $1,231,722. Approval of this recommendation will provide for building construction and delivery time to make connections and gain occupancy prior to the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
Or do we have any questions?
Yeah, Madam President. Yeah, it wasn't clear for me. Was this work bid out or was this just given to somebody that we've been using a lot and we've got a contract already in place with us? Or this work competitively bid out?
This is bid through the cooperative purchasing agreements. This is just the purchase of the buildings. They're pre-manufactured.
Okay.
Do we have any other questions?
Okay.
Madam President? Ms. Gassoff? I move that the Board of Trustees approves the proposal for the purchase of eight 18 portable classroom buildings for the 2021-2022 school year at five campuses to Palomar modular buildings in the amount of $1,231,722 as recommended by administration. Second.
A motion has been made by Ms. Gassoff, a second by Mr. Redmond, that the Board of Trustees approves the proposal for the purchase of 18 portable classroom buildings for the 2021-2022 school year at five campuses to Palomar modular buildings in the amount of $1,231,722 as recommended by the administration. We'll now take a vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you so much, Mr. T. Thank you. Next up, item 9.4, discuss and consider board approval to award a contract for the design services necessary for the construction of elementary school number 44. Ms. Cassidy.
Good evening, President Vann, Trustees, and Dr. Gagorski. I have one item this evening for your consideration. In order to meet a planned opening date of August 2022, the design process for Elementary No. 44 in Kane Island needs to start at this time. The architect, VLK, will commence on this modified repeat, including coordination with the civil engineer, traffic engineer, and City of Katy to begin. Approval of this recommendation will allow this process to begin.
Or do we have any questions?
Madam President, so are we using the leftover bond money from the 2014 bond or 2017 bond to start this?
You have some leftover design money that we're going to start with on this until upon a successful bond in May.
All right. Thank you. Do we have any other questions?
Madam President, I was just going to tell Ms. Kastman congratulations on her award. Sorry, never mind. I withdraw my comment and turn my time over to the President.
Thank you. Yes, congratulations. I'm going to read it. Exactly. The 2020 Southern Region Planner of the Year as given to you by the Association for Learning Environments. Congratulations. Thank you very much. One of another many feathers in our cap. Okay, now we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. I don't think we did a motion. We didn't make a motion. Oh, didn't make a motion. You threw me off.
All right, well, I'll just... Make a motion. I move that the Board of Trustees awards a contract to VLK Architects Incorporated for design services necessary for the construction of Elementary School Number 44.
A motion has been made by Mr. Redman and a second by Mr. Keller that the Board of Trustees award the contract to VLK Architects Incorporated for design services necessary for the construction of elementary school number 44. Now we will proceed to vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you again, Ms. Caspian. Thank you. Item 9.5, discuss and consider board approval of two Ms. Day waivers. Ms. Ashorn.
Good evening Madam President, members of the board, and Dr. Grigorski. Today item 9.5 is to consider the approval of two missed day waivers. These can be applied for when one campus or multiple campuses are closed due to health or safety reasons. We have Cinco Ranch Junior High that required closure on Monday, December 14th resulting from a fire that occurred on the premises the weekend before. and recently West Memorial Elementary required closure on January 12th due to a power outage. These waivers were presented to the Katy Improvement Council and there were no objections. Any questions?
Madam President. Ms. Gassoff. I move that the Board of Trustees approves the two 2021 Miss Day waivers as recommended by administration.
Second. A motion has been made by Ms. Gassoff and a second by Mr. Redman that the board of trustees approved the two 2021 missed day waivers as recommended by administration we will now proceed to vote all in favor please raise your right hand and say aye motion passes seven to zero thank you so much item 9.6 discuss and consider board adoption of the resolution regarding extensions of time to use sick leave in accordance with the family's first coronavirus response act mr graham uh madam president dr gregorowski board members i know
We seem to be at a time where we have coronavirus fatigue. I think we all have suffered it in some form or fashion. What you have here in front of you is a resolution from your Human Resources Department and administration to extend the Families First Coronavirus Response Act funding for employees to use up to two weeks of paid leave if they are suffering from the coronavirus or if they've been exposed to an immediate family member. The reason that this is being brought forward to you is because while certain funding mechanisms from your federal government were extended past the December 31st deadline, the funding for employees in the Family First Coronavirus Cares Act, Response Cares Act, was not extended. And so I know the administration in discussion us in discussion with HR, took a hard look at that and said, this is something that's benefiting our employees. We don't want our employees to come to work if they're sick. We want them to be able to support their families if they're sick. So again, this is just an extension of a one-time paid leave of up to two weeks, which is 80 hours. I feel like the resolution is pretty straightforward, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Board members? Madam President. Champagne.
So you did answer one of my questions, but I just want to clarify. So this is a one-time thing that they get the 80 hours?
Yes, ma'am. And if you're an employee that's already used the 80 hours, this doesn't give you another bite of the apple. It's just extending that, which our employees did have from April until now, that just extends that into this next school year.
Madam President.
Yes.
So this is great that we're doing this. I think it's a great benefit to the employee. what's the cost of the district and extra cost for it um i'm not sure if we have cost numbers
but i can turn that over to mr shuss or mr or dr gregorski i'll speak a little bit to that
mr schulte in terms of the cost to it generally when a person takes off an absence is just that cost of time and workload that somebody has to do the work while they're out so that's part of it the only real cost to that would be is if a teacher uses this and there's the cost of that substitute and that is about $100 a day for a sub in the fall semester and I'll have mr. trust just chime in more to this if we need to we had about a thousand maybe eleven hundred employees take care take a part of this act in the fall I don't know of that thousand or eleven hundred and I don't know if you have that mr. Schuss how many of those were teachers compared to other types of
employees i don't uh we're up to about 1500 now as far as leave days for teachers who are about 2 825 leave days and 833 leave day paras in the classroom
madam president another question about that so so before this the federal government was paying for And so now, is that right? What act was it under before they stopped, you know, through December 31st of 2020?
Ms. Champagne, there are some opportunities, we believe, that there are going to be some federal reimbursements on the expenditures for that as part of the CARES Act. I can have Mr. Smith talk a little bit more in detail of that if you want to get into a little bit more of it. the way they restructured it when they repackaged the second part of the CARES Act on December 27th when the federal government signed that they offered businesses some business tax credits which we don't qualify for that's why businesses can still use part of the CARES Act to do this and support it whereas school districts can't so that's why we would have to take on that cost burden of anything new on that but we hope that there could be some possible reimbursements of those funds that have already been spent yeah questions Madam
President yes I move that the Board of Trustees approves the adoption of the resolution regarding extension of time to use sick leave in accordance with the families first corona response act second
motion has been made by miss guest office second by mr. Keller the Board of trustees approve the interlocal oh i'm reading the long wrong let's start over that's what i get for marking things off a motion was made by miss gassoff and a second by mr keller that the board of trustees approves the adoption of the resolution regarding extension of time to use sick leave in accordance with the family's first coronavirus response act will not proceed to vote all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye aye motion passes seven to zero nine point seven you're up again Mr. Graham and Chief Gough. Yes ma'am I'm gonna speak for the
chief because he's over there protecting us. What we have in front of us is an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program interlocal agreement. That's a mouthful. What this is is an interlocal agreement, a partnership with the City of Houston which does come with a financial benefit for KDISD. It basically pays for one of our officers to be part of this Internet Crimes against children task force so i think we've all discussed and know the increasing online nature of what we're doing especially in light of the pandemic that we have in front of us this is one of those partnerships that our police department has done a really good job of fostering going out and looking for being a part of it's brought back to you you you have approved this in previous years it's brought back to you solely because under 791 of the texas government code it's required required for you to take action on it, or we would have already signed and been done with it.
We're doing the questions. Madam President, Mr. Graham, so this already exists. We're already
doing this now. This is just... This is an extension of a program that we already have in
place. Yes, ma'am. Reapproving it. Is it just funded indefinitely, or the funding is renewed
every year? The funding happens on a year-to-year basis, which is why we bring it to you yearly.
I see. Thank you. Madam President. Ms. Champagne. I was just curious how, where do we get the information from about the internet abuse that's going on? I mean, is it from the SpeakUp app or is it from somebody else reporting it to the police officer? Is it, I mean, do we know how the information has gotten so that the action can be taken against the paper? Yeah, so I think
I think a couple of things. Again, you've got to realize we have a pretty robust police department. We've got a whole bunch of officers there and also security guards, and they get a variety of information from a variety of sources. It could be from a child outcry. It could be from a parent or staff member concern. It could be just something that's a trend that's going on in the community that they see. It also could be from our Speak Up app. We do have the anonymous reporting app that children and adults can use to highlight different things that may be going on. So this is just one of those things. It does target a specific internet crimes, but you think about just like any other crime, you get information about a crime may be committed from a variety of sources, and this is similar to that.
Any more questions?
Okay. Madam President. Mr. Redmond. I move that the Board of Trustees approves the interlocal agreement with the City of Houston through the Houston Police Department and Katy Independent School District for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program. Second.
Second. A motion has been made by Mr. Redman, a second by Ms. Champagne, that the Board of Trustees approves the interlocal agreement with the City of Houston through the Houston Police Department and Katy Independent School District for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program. I will now proceed to vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Motion. ship. passes seven to zero. You have one more time, 9.8, Mr. Graham.
Yes, ma'am. Madam President, Dr. Grigorski and trustees, what you have in front of you is our standard KDISD order of election. It's when you order your board election, which traditionally takes place in May. We did this last January at the same time, thinking that we would have our trustee elections in May, and then we had to wait until November to get Leah and Greg aboard. So hopefully that's not going to be the case now. I think we've sort of gone through that election process once. The May elections, I will remind you, I will remind you are done differently. Those are held by my office. We're in charge of those as the elections administrator. That's one of the things that I run for the district. The November elections are run by the counties and so you saw how the information kind of varied when I gave it to you from when what you traditionally get um you know having to correspond with all those three counties i'll remind you we had a pretty big bill for that november election still haven't got all the bills in so i still can't give you a final total but i will i think it's going to be a historically expensive election for the district but again this is again our standard may election which i think last year we spent about a hundred thousand dollars on um the dates and times that that you see in there are governor ordered. The early voting locations that you see there are five. And the precincts and the 13 precincts in the voting locations you see there, those have been consistently the same in Katy since 2015 or 16. Prior to that, we have had as few as 10 precincts. We have had as many as 18. And so I think that this explains, You've got to remember, we're a district with 184 square miles. And so with our early voting locations, we try and put those as close to where we can serve as many people in the population as we can so we don't have folks that are driving just too, too far. Happy to take any questions that you may have on this topic.
Board, do we have any questions for Mr. Graham?
Okay.
Madam President. Yes, yes. I move that the Board of Trustees adopts the order calling for a regular election of school board trustees to be held on my birthday, not on my birthday, on May 1st, it is my birthday, May 1st, 2021, and authorize the administration to provide official notice of the election as required by the Texas Election Code.
Second. Second.
A motion has been made by Ms. Gassoff, a second by Mr. Redman, that the Board of Trustees adopts the order calling for a regular election of school board trustees to be held May 1st, 2021, Ms. Gassoff's birthday, and authorize the administration to provide official notice of the election as required by the Texas Election Code. We will now proceed to vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you so much, Mr. Graham. Item 9.9, discuss and consider approval of the annual financial audit report. Mr. Smith.
All right. Well, I'm going to go ahead and kick it off while our auditors come in and get seated at the tables up front. Texas Education Code 44.008 requires we have an annual audit. One could argue that our audit is ongoing, but it really formally started in June with our interim audit and where they were here several weeks and then they've been out here for the large part of the fall doing this portion of the audit representatives from our audit firm whitley penn are here actually looks like just one lupe garcia the managing engagement partner for the firm is here and i'm going to turn it over to mr garcia to give you the give you our report REPORT.
NEW SPEAKER Thank you for that introduction. Madam President, members of the board, Superintendent Grigorski, it's my pleasure to be here tonight to present to you the results of the district's financial statement audit. NEW SPEAKER Is there a clicker? NEW SPEAKER I have a presentation that I'm going to take you through. In addition to myself, other members of the engagement team included Laura Lynch. She was the senior manager on the engagement working with Joey Killian as a senior associate. Joey is a graduate of Katy High School, so he enjoys working on this engagement because it helps him see kind of behind the scenes how the district operates and gives them a new perspective and different perspective on Katie ISD and Leanne Karen Dang was the associate. Tom Peterson was the concurring partner on the engagement. His role in the engagement is one of quality control. He reviewed the comprehensive annual financial report, the federal single audit report, and key work papers in our audit file. This process takes several months to complete. It started with the approval of our engagement letter early in the spring of 2019. There's two primary phases to field work. The first phase is interim field work and it occurs during the summer. We focus on internal controls and compliance testing, transaction level testing, meetings with different departments and individuals. Once the fiscal year is completed and the district has an opportunity to post closing entries, we perform year-end procedures and the focus there is on account balances, transaction classes, and preparing the comprehensive annual financial report to be presented to you today. a three each phase of the audit where opinion audit evidence in order to issue an opinion on the financial statements. As external auditors, we can issue one of three opinions on the financial statements. A disclaimer would be a situation where either records didn't exist or they were in such poor condition an audit couldn't be completed. A qualification would be a situation where we would say everything is materially correct except for the items noted in our report. And then the green light on the slide is an unmodified opinion. And so I'm happy to report that that's what our opinion on the financial statements for fiscal year 2020 is. Going through the audit process is the highest level of assurance that an organization can go through in order to present audited financial statements. So having that unmodified opinion is really important because once this document is public, the users of the financial statements are going to be looking to our report to make sure that the opinion is unmodified and that can be found on pages one two and three of the comprehensive annual financial report we issue a second report on internal controls over financial reporting and compliance we didn't identify any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies nor any non-compliance that would be material to the financial statement so a clean report here as well and then the third and final report we issue is on the district's compliance with those requirements that are applicable to its federal programs Every year we go through a process of identifying federal programs to test in the single audit. For fiscal year 2020, the two major programs included the Child Nutrition Cluster and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. We didn't identify any question costs or any noncompliance nor any deficiencies in internal control. So this is incredibly important because at the end of this process, the results of the single audit get reported to a federal database. base and this is how federal agencies and the Texas Education Agency and other state agencies become aware of how the district performed in the audit. Starting with this slide I'm gonna start going through some financial statement highlights from the comprehensive annual financial report. The statement in that position is the district's balance sheet on a accrual basis of accounting. This is the same basis of accounting that's used in in private sector, very similar. So this reports all the assets of the district and all the liabilities of the district including those long-term assets and long-term liabilities so total assets and deferred inflows of resources for of the district were three billion dollars on august 31st 2020 of that three billion dollars 590 were cash and investments and then capital assets were 2.2 billion this is the land buildings vehicles furniture and equipment net of depreciation liabilities were 3 billion of that amount 2.1 billion is your bonds payable and any unamortized premiums then you have two liabilities that you've been reporting for several years related to employee benefits pension and other post-employment benefits is retiree health care this these are these amounts are related to statewide plans TRS the teacher retirement system of Texas and TRS care the net pension liability was 223 million and the net OPEB liability is 281 million. These amounts I'll mention later are estimates. These are provided to the district by TRS, their auditors, their actuaries. We wouldn't be able to issue our unmodified opinion unless you reported these liabilities. This in no way changes the way the district budgets and contributes to the plans. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to as far as contributing to the plan every month throughout the year. This is merely a financial reporting amount to give the financial statement users an idea of how the plans are performing over time. The difference between your assets and your liabilities and outflows and inflows is your net position or $75.2 million. Looking at the district's general fund, which is its main operating account, total revenues for the fiscal year were $824 million. Of that amount, 52% comes from property taxes. 40% comes from state funding, state aid, and then the remaining 8% comes from other state funding, primarily on behalf revenue related to TRS and TRS care. Other local funding, primarily investment earnings there and other miscellaneous local sources, and then federal funding of $10.3 million. General expenditures in the general fund were $779.5 million. Of that amount, out over slightly over two-thirds related to instruction and instruction related services that was 519 million another 13% were for non student-based support services of 104.4 million student-based support services were 10% or almost 80 million dollars and then every other functional category of expenditure was less than 7% or less there's three budgetary comparison schedules that are presented in the CAFR and that's to demonstrate the district's compliance with budgets that are approved by the Board of Trustees. The first one I'm going to go through is the general fund budgetary comparison. Actual revenues of $824 million were over budget by $5.6 million, and then you had expenditures of $779.5 million that were less than budgeted expenditures of $19.5 million. So favorable variances for both revenues and expenditures. Overall, revenues and other sources exceeded your expenditures and other uses by $37.3 million. THAT MEANS THERE WAS AN INCREASE TO FUND BALANCE IN THE GENERAL FUND. FUND BALANCE IS SOMETHING THAT'S LOOKED AT VERY CLOSELY IN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND ESPECIALLY SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN TEXAS. THE DISTRICT REPORTED A $295.4 MILLION ENDING FUND BALANCE IN THE GENERAL FUND. AND THAT'S BROKEN DOWN IN A FEW DIFFERENT CATEGORIES. YOUR NONSPENDABLE FUND BALANCE IS 2.2. THAT'S PREPAID ITEMS AND INVENTORY. COMMITTED FUND BALANCE IS 21 MILLION. These are amounts that have been earmarked by the board for specific purposes. You have assigned fund balance of $50.8 million, which are amounts that have been earmarked for specific purposes by management. And then unassigned fund balance is the amount of fund balance available for spending for any lawful purpose of $221.4 million. That unassigned fund balance represents 104 days of general fund expenditures. So that's the blue bar there in the center of the chart. GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association, recommends having between 60 and 90 days. The Texas Education Agency has indicators that look at this to see how solvent the district is. Anything less than 30 days would be a red flag, but you're in a good spot at 104 days. To give you an idea of where the district was a year ago today when I was making this presentation, you were at 102 days. So you added a couple of days in fund balance, which means things pretty much broke even, even increased fund balance slightly because there was an increase in expenditures from the previous fiscal year. The second and third budgetary comparison schedules in the report are for the Child Nutrition Program and the Debt Service Fund. Revenues in the Child Nutrition Program were under budget by $300,000. Expenditures were under budget by $3 million. $2.1 MILLION. THERE WAS AN INCREASE IN FUND BALANCE OF $1.4 MILLION FOR AN ENDING FUND BALANCE IN THE CHOW NUTRITION PROGRAM OF $8 MILLION. IN THE DEBT SERVICE FUND, YOU HAD REVENUES THAT WERE UNDER BUDGETED AMOUNTS SLIGHTLY BY $23,000. EXPENDITURES OF $317 MILLION WERE UNDER BUDGET BY $500,000. OVERALL, THERE WAS A $2.1 MILLION INCREASE IN FUND BALANCE AND ENDING FUND BALANCE IN THE DEBT SERVICE FUND WAS $60.6 MILLION AS OF THE END OF THE FISCAL YEAR. here. Beginning on this slide are some required communications we have to make to you as members of the governing body of the district. We do review the district's accounting policies as part of the financial statement audit, and so the district's accounting policies are in line with industry standards and current guidelines. The district did implement a new pronouncement related to the reporting of its fiduciary activities and student activity funds. It was a financial reporting change in the fund that they reported in in the report, and so the district went ahead and implemented that in fiscal year 2020. The financial statements do include estimates. There isn't an invoice or a statement that includes every amount that management has to record in the general ledger to present these financial statements. So some of the more significant estimates include the state aid revenue. There's a lot of variables that go into calculating revenue for state aid, and so that's considered an estimate. Your allowances for for uncollectible property tax receivables is based on historical collections. Management's estimate of useful lives of capital assets impacts depreciation expense. And then the fourth bullet, the net pension and other post-employment benefit liability and related amounts, that is the largest estimate in your financial statements. And like I mentioned earlier, that's information that is provided to you by the TRS, the statewide plan from its auditors and its actuaries. We reviewed management spaces for all these estimates and the financial statements and determine that they have been recorded and disclosed appropriately in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Happy to report that we didn't encounter any difficulties in performing and completing the audit. There were some challenges due to the pandemic where we had to work remotely more than we ever have in the past, but anyone that we needed to meet with was made available either in person or remotely. Any Any information we needed to review was provided to us. Any questions we had were answered in a timely manner. So I do want to thank the district for its cooperation and patience through this entire process. We didn't identify any misstatements as part of our audit procedures. No disagreements to report to you that we had with management on any matters. The last form of audit evidence we obtained from the district is a management representation letter. That letter indicates to us that the district has provided us with all the information we've requested and they're not withholding any information that might need to be recorded or disclosed in the financial statements. As far as we're aware, the district isn't consulting with any other accountants or auditors on any matters. And then the last bullet on this slide, during the year, we want the district to utilize this as a resource. So we answer questions, we provide information, we provide guidance. But at no time do we feel the way we answer any questions, the position we take on any matters, is a condition for us being retained as the district's external auditors. So with that, that concludes my presentation. If there are any questions about the financial statements or the federal single audit or any of the audit procedures or required communications I just went over, I'd be happy to take those questions at this time.
Madam President, Ms. Champagne. I would just like to say thank you to the team that Chris Smith has with his team team with everybody that does all the work so that we could have every year a great audit. And thank you so much for all the hard work that you did, too. So I really appreciate it. It makes the district look fantastic.
Anyone else? Thank you, Ms. Champagne. I also, on that note, want to make a couple of acknowledgments on this. Of course, I want to thank the superintendent and this board for the expectations they have of me and the financials of the district. mostly the financials of the district but there's a lot of people going to the business budget managers principals grant managers program managers and of course the financial clerks throughout the district they work hard at this stuff all the time it may not be their favorite subject at times but they work really hard and we work really hard at helping them uh helping them with the transactions that they're part of but really the glue that holds it all together is is back there with liz uh liz is our director of accounting and And Liz is a CPA, obviously, and she does a really good job of working with all our financials. And her and her accounting team, which would be Stephen Johnson, our construction accountant, Sterling Schiller, and Sally Smith, have both retired. But they've always, and still even in this, had a portion of it. And then, of course, now Kayla Smith has taken – none of those Smiths are related to me. Kayla Smith is our new senior accountant and she's taken over for Sterling's role. But then of course, Ann Feiting, our executive director of finance, is also a large part of the document that you're, or the report that you just heard tonight. And we're not done. We're going to post this as soon as we can onto the website for transparency reasons. so any patron can read the CAFR, the 180-page document. I promise you the reader of that will be intrigued. And it really is good stuff. But we're going to publish Schedule C-3 in the paper. We have to publish this report. As Mr. Garcia told you, we're going to also publish it with the MAC, or the Minnesota Advisory Advisory Council of Texas with Texas Department Texas Education Agency posted on our website and and of course submitted to GFOA and ASBO. All this will be reported in PEMS later this month and you'll hear about it one more time when I go over the school's first report in November of later this year. Thank you.
being there's no more questions I'll entertain a motion madam president so
that oh it's tripping yes I move that the Board of Trustees approves the 2019 2020 annual financial audit report second motion has been made by miss
champagne and a second by mr. Redmond that the Board of Trustees approves a 2019 2020 annual financial audit report we will now proceed to vote all those in favor please raise your right hand say aye motion passes 7 to 0 thank you so much mr garcia mr smith 9.10 discuss and consider board approval of the minutes of the december 2020
board meeting madam president miss gas off i move that the board of trustees approves the minutes of board meeting held in december 2020. second a motion has been made by miss gas office second
by mr redmond that the board of trustees approves the minutes of the board meeting held in december 2020 will now proceed to vote. All those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 7 to 0. Item 10, information items, quarterly report investment. The board was provided a copy of the quarterly investment report. Item 10.2, the donated items to the Katy Independent School District. The board was provided a copy of the donated items to Katy ISD. Agenda number 11, 11.1, regular board meeting. Our next board meeting will be Monday, February 22nd 2021 in this room the board will now convene in we are so open right
madam madam president at this point time we are going to continue with a grievance that is going to be in public but any of you who don't want to say cabinet members if you don't feel like hanging around we could have a few minutes it will kind of clear the room and then we'll start with the
presentation of the grievance okay thank you yes the agreement has chosen to have this meeting in public so free to go otherwise
yeah
is everybody ready okay um this proceeding will be accorded to ensure that accurate record is kept daniel are we are still live streaming correct yes we are okay welcome my name is ashley van i'm president of the board and for the record today is january 19th 2021 and the time is 9 0 3 p.m at this time members of the board will move to agenda item 12.2 which is to conduct a level 3 fng complaint brought forward by miss bonnie anderson apparent case number fng 20-10-019 the board is convened and closed we're not convened in closed meeting but the board is convene in accordance with sections are these still the same sections if it's not closed first Justin still the same sections it's not closed it's not closed okay so job three days anyway in accordance with sections five five one point oh eight two one and five five one point oh seven for the Texas government code which is commonly known as the Texas Open Meetings Act for the purpose of this hearing for the record each person is asked to state their name and the reason for attendance we will start with the person on my left and make our our way across the room.
Ken Grigorski, Superintendent of Schools. Lance Redmond, Board Member. Greg Schulte, Board Member.
Dawn Champagne, Board Member. Leah Wilson, Board Member.
Duke Keller, Board Member.
Susan Geshoff, Board Member.
And if y'all in front will.
Leslie Haag, Deputy Superintendent.
Justin Graham, Counsel for KDISD.
Bonnie Anderson, Parent.
Thank you. At this time I would like to instruct all participants to please avoid talking when another person is speaking so the recording will actually reflect the proceedings. Furthermore, please endeavor to make your oral statements as clear and complete as possible. Remember that the recording will not reflect gestures of any, well this is again live feed so you'll see gestures. This hearing will be conducted as an administrative presentation in accordance with applicable policies and laws. It will be based on the record made from the previous level. The Board members have been supplied with a copy of this record in advance of this hearing. No new evidence shall be presented. This record includes student complaint forms at level one, level one response, notice of appeal at level two expedited to level three, audio recording of the level one hearing. Now that we've reviewed the procedures for the hearing, it's time to determine the qualifications of the board members to hear and consider this matter. At this time, I will poll members of the board as to whether they can consider the information presented at this hearing and make decisions in a fair and impartial manner. If any member of the board feels that he or she cannot do so, the board member should so state at this time and not participate in the hearing. Lance Redmond, can you make a fair and impartial decision on this matter? Yes, I can. Susan Gassoff, can you make a fair and impartial decision on this matter? Yes, I Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and impartial decision on this matter. Yes, I can. Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and impartial decision on this matter.
Yes, I can.
Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and impartial decision Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and impartial Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and impartial Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and impartial Ms. Laxm, can you make a fair and
Ms. Laxm, can Ms. Laxm Ms. Laxm
Ms. Laxm Ms. Laxm Ms. Laxm Ms. Laxm Ms. Laxm Ms. Laxm that they can consider the information presented at this hearing and make a decision in a fair and impartial manner. Members of the board, I'm going to ask you to hold your questions, if any, until the conclusion of the presentation by both sides. Ms. Anderson, you have 10 minutes to make your presentation to the board. Do you wish to reserve a portion of your allotted time for any rebuttal? And if so, you must indicate the specific number of whole minutes you would would like to reserve at this time? You can speak for the full 10 or you can
save a few minutes. Yeah I guess I'll speak for the whole 10 because I'm not you know I don't I don't know if they'll be a whole one or two minutes left it you know when I'm done. Can we wait and see when I'm done or we can't? You have to say it right now. Okay I'll just speak for 10 thank you. Okay the board secretary
Miss Gassoff will keep the time and would indicate to you and you have approximately one minute left at the time you specified you may proceed with
your presentation at this time okay thank you for accommodating my request to have this as a public hearing I do appreciate that so I am going to just go through the level one decision letter that I received and just talk about I guess some of the points that were in this letter from Leslie hack Thank You Thank you Ms. Hack. And I guess we can just kind of go from there. So this level one grievance letter I received talks about the grievances that I filed. And then goes on to talk about, it says my investigation regarding this complaint has revealed the following. And then there are some bulleted items about what I guess was determined. I'm going to, I don't mean to be confusing, but I'm going to jump around a little bit. So one of the things that's actually stated at the end of the letter in the finding section, it says my investigation found no evidence to corroborate your claim that the district is in violation of state law. law. So just to address that, if everybody's looked at the materials I provided in the level one and the level two grievance, what I provided and what I stated in the grievance is that the KDISD COVID-19 protocols, the face covering requirement is in violation of Texas Education Code section 37.0023. So to respond to that, found no evidence to corroborate your claim, I'm not sure what else to do other than read it. Again, so once again, the Texas Education Code Section 37.0023 states, subsection B, a school district or school district employee may not apply an aversive technique that, subsection 7, impairs the student's breathing, including any procedure that involves obstructing the student's airway, including placing an object in, on, or over the student's mouth or nose, or placing a bag cover or mask over the student's face. So at the beginning of this same decision letter, one of the bullet points says that earlier this year, it says the state of Texas mandated, but really this was just Governor Abbott mandated that every person in Texas shall wear a face covering over the nose and mouth it pulls a part of GA 29 the executive order that that Greg Abbott passed I've said this before but I will I will say it again regardless of of what is in Governor Abbott's mandate GA-29, I still have not received any response to my question on where and when the school district was granted the power to use any mandate, opinion, medical journal, or other publicly available documentation to supersede existing laws. Again, Article I of the Texas Constitution states, states, no power of suspending laws in the state shall be exercised except by the legislature. The district seems to have forgotten basic civics regarding the separation of powers. We don't allow laws to be overturned by executive orders. Doing so would be permitting the executive to act solely without the checks or balances, thereby making him or her a dictator. So once again GA 29 did not grant the school district the power to bypass state law, Texas Education Code, so I will continue to ask where the power to violate this law has come from and if we allow this law to be violated what will will be the next one. Where does it end? In some countries, the chosen mitigation technique is to have children walk through a mis... of chemicals so just wanted to bring up this point for any parents out there who you know buy organic produce or milk like I do or always buy the paraben free sunblock you really want your children walking through a spray of chemicals as they come through the school two years ago nobody would have agreed to put mass on their children so you think that's not you know feasible but you'll be be surprised what people happily go along with regardless it is against the law so that's the point it is against the law the school district does not have the power to violate the law the level one decision letter also states if Katie ISD did not require face coverings Fort Bend County would close every Kansas campus I actually found this to be fairly alarming so just again if Katie KDISD did not require face coverings. The county would close every school. But KDISD is an independent school district. The county has no authority to close campuses. The county only has the authority granted to them by the school district. So why, if it is unlawful for KDISD to require face coverings, would they give the county authority to close schools if they refuse to comply with violating the law. I don't know if an investigation into whether or not county officials are extorting school district employees as an order, I just cannot understand why the district would voluntarily relinquish authority to protect and educate its taxpayers' children unless it's under duress. I'm acutely aware that the insinuation is not likely to help the board find in my favor but i am not here bringing up these violations because i'm interested in getting favors i'm interested in bringing the truth to light the letter also asserts that kdisd's face covering requirement is not in violation of chapter 37 of the texas education code because it deals specifically with discipline that section of the texas Education Code prohibits specific aversive techniques. Using the definition from Webster, aversive tech, sorry, forbidden means, prohibited means forbidden by authority. So these aversive techniques are forbidden by authority. That is state law. The prohibited aversive techniques identified in this section are not permitted in other sections of the Texas Education Code. They don't cease to be prohibited in or outside of disciplinary action. To state this another way, they are prohibited, remember forbidden by law, regardless of whether or not they are being used for discipline. If they are only prohibited in the course of discipline, and this is the district's opinion, then is it the district's position that these techniques are permitted outside the course of discipline? I would assume the answer to this would be no as such the techniques identified in the Texas Education Code as prohibited are prohibited in any situation or for any purpose the level one decision letter also asserts that a properly worn face covering is not a disciplinary aversive technique employed to eliminate behavior this is patently untrue. The face covering is almost exclusively a disciplinary aversive technique employed to eliminate behavior. For the 2020-2021 school year, the district has implemented dozens of changes to do exactly this, eliminate behavior. Social distancing, restricting access to playground equipment, eliminating physical contact between students and between students and school district employees, placing plastic barriers between students at tables, restricting access to PE equipment, access to friends in any other classrooms, treating the healthy as sick, and teaching children that everyone around them may carry a deadly virus is arguably the greatest effort KDISD has ever undertaken to quote reduce the likelihood of a behavior reoccurring. These behavior modifications have been intentionally inflicted on children as a punishment for violating their normal standard of social behavior at the behest of public health officials and quote in accordance with general health and safety protocols the district has implemented excessive quote interventions and extreme quote techniques very specifically focused on reducing the likelihood of social interaction close physical contact miss Anderson yes 30 seconds thank you use of shared playground or PE equipment or any other social behavior which is perceived as incorrect according to these night new guidelines these behavior modifications are in and of themselves disciplinary to state that the mitigation techniques applied by the school district or anything other than attempts to modify behavior is dishonest finally that the level one decision letter asserts a properly worn face covering does not obstruct a student's airway. In fact, there are thousands of
studies on... Thank you, Ms. Anderson. You're ten minutes is up. Mr. Graham, will you be making the presentation on behalf of the administration? Yes, ma'am. I'm gonna... Can
y'all hear me? I'm gonna make that presentation on behalf of the administration. I've also got Deputy Superintendent Hack here, if y'all have any
questions. I assume you're also gonna do your ten minutes straight through. Sure, let's do
do that. Board if you're ready. I think Ms. Sanderson makes some good points and I'm appreciative that she's brought this forward in the civil manner that she has. You know this is why we had this process is so that the board can sit and make rulings on things such as this which are appropriate for board consideration. I I think if I polled everybody in this room, would we like last January to be the model? Would we like this January to look like last January? I think we'd all say yes, right? Maybe with the exception of the Katie Tiger State Championship, we'd all like to be sharing things with each other, eating with each other, hugging each other, shaking hands without masks so we can see each other's facial expressions. And I think we'd want that for our children. However, the facts are that we're in this pandemic and I don't have to go through the facts of the pandemic with you. It's been well advertised since we went to spring break last year. I'm going to hit upon some points here today and I think it's appropriate for me to do so as opposed to Deputy Superintendent Hack because this may be more appropriate as kind of a broader base civics level, a civics lesson. And I don't mean to be, I don't mean to be simplistic, but I want to walk you through some things that I think make sense, sort of in a hierarchy. I think that word has been used of how do the rules related to pandemic, how do the rules promulgated by our governor, what's the local health authority, what does TEA say, how does the CDC play into here? Right, so let me walk that to you. you. First of all, this level one grievance is suggesting that we are violating state law, chapter 37 of your Texas education code related to discipline, because we're muzzling children, we're putting masks on children, which you and I can all understand, which we would certainly have talked about last January as being, okay, Johnny's acting up. So Johnny, you've got to put the bag on your head right johnny's acting up so we're going to cover johnny's mouth right and we can understand why those would not be best learning practices but again i will i will tell you that chapter 37 of the texas education code is specifically related to student discipline and disciplinary techniques what we did have and what we have have is your texas governor issued order GA 29. He's issued several more since then and that was based upon his authority under 418 of the Texas Government Code. And 418 of the Texas Government Code only kicks in when there is an ongoing emergency. So he's got to declare an emergency. There's got to be a statewide emergency and national emergency. That order was just extended I believe last month. It's going to continue month by month. And so pursuant to his authority granted to him, and I would agree that the governor cannot circumvent state laws, but your legislature has granted him the authority under Chapter 418 of the Texas Government Code when there is an ongoing emergency, he has certain abilities and he has certain abilities to issue orders. We're all real familiar with GA-29 and I I think anybody that's watching this, anybody that's going to listen to this later, understands that the Texas governor said anybody above the age of 10 has to wear a mask in a public place. Right. There are a few limited exceptions. That is the baseline bottom line of where we stand. then you consider on top of that the Texas Education Agency which directly dictates the funding which Katie ISD gets talks about that school districts can also then mandate that children wear masks that are under 10 so long as they so long as we determine as the educators and we determine what is developmentally appropriate for our children pre-k through 10 years old right think about all the decisions that we make in this district about what is developmentally developmentally appropriate for our children in the broad base of curriculum and social structure and how we interact that's just a standard decision that is best left for your administrators and educators that know that know our children best then the TEA goes on to say look you must provide in-person instruction right KDISD must provide in-person instruction but you're only required to provide in-person instruction to those who are going to to follow the public health procedures that you set forward. So I want to talk about our public health procedures that we have because everybody's pretty familiar with our KDIC COVID mitigation plan. If you're not, please go online. We've got pages and pages of documentations. I guarantee you that any question you want to ask has probably been answered in there. We're in, what, month 10 of the pandemic. So when we talk about our public health procedures, we have worked, and I bet Leslie Hackett, her team has worked tirelessly with predominantly Harris County and Fort Bend County, because we only have one school in Waller County and it's on the line, to work on the public health procedures that we have in order to keep our schools open, in order to be able to offer in-person instruction and then online instruction. We've had to close a couple of schools for intermittent home to school instruction. We had to close Seven Lakes because we had an outbreak. We had a little spread. well we closed Nottingham Country Elementary. Now we were not ordered to but we would have been had we not worked hand-in-hand with the county to do so. And we've actually had to close those campuses and we were requiring that every child at every age level wear a mask. I can tell you that I'm gonna speak for the counties here for a minute. I can tell you that their authority to shut down schools, to shut down a specific school, while we do not believe that they can come in and tell the superintendent to close down the entire school district, we do believe that they have a facility authority to recommend that we close down if we're not following our safe and healthy protocols. And that again is under Chapter 418.1015 of the Texas Government Code, because we're talking about are we violating our own laws, and 418.108 of the Texas government code and then chapter chapter 81 of the Texas health and safety code I'm just throwing out a lot of numbers and I'm not gonna cite them word for word for those of you who want to go do a more in-depth research those of you who are watching this that's where their authority comes from to look at individual campuses and so what we know is we have this highly contagious again pandemic and so what I can tell you is and Leslie's here she can answer any questions you may have if we have a case at a campus that county health authority is going to look at our protocols and if our protocols are not mandating that kids wear masks they are going to close that campus for 30 days and then we'll reopen day 31 they're going to as soon as we have one case there they're going to close that campus down for 30 days it's not just your campus it's all your extracurricular activities i think um you know our complainant has a kid that's in band and swimming and you know we we you everybody on this board has kids that are involved in other things that's football that's tennis that's choir that's um uil activities that's uh sending your kid to show his ffa project at the houston livestock show rodeo wide of spanning implications of doing this so yeah there's some folks that can shut us down um i think your superintendent of Schools has a primary authority on that, but again he's tasked his staff to work closely with your local health authorities, which also include the City of Fulcher and the City of Katy and the City of Houston because we have schools in all three of those cities and they would arguably have a say in it as well. So let's go back to the violation of law, the state law, and Chapter 37 and the face covering. Let's talk about the options here at Katy ISD because we're not some school districts, and I talked to my peers in the General Counsel's group often and I look at what other school districts are doing and they're requiring a mask a mask off mask but we have an option of it we have a face covering we decided to do face coverings as an option very early on in consultation with our local health authorities in consultation with the hospitals that we work with so provided you can wear a clear face shield if that's what you want we'll actually provide one for your child if your child has auditory sensory things that they need to do also if your child has a disability and can't wear a mask for whatever individual reason we consider those routinely through our 504 process so if your child has a disability has something going on that they can't wear that mask or face shield then we will then we will look at that child through our 504 process and we've got those plans in place because sometimes it is not that Johnny can't wear the mask all day. Mr. Graham, one minute. Yes ma'am. It's not that he can't wear the mask. He can't wear the mask all day, but if he has 10 minute breaks here and there it works for him. Or the face shield's appropriate. Or you know when he's in the classroom we need to have extra distance for him because he can't really read or learn with the face shield or things like that. You can imagine those one-off situations. But ultimately the bottom line that I will tell you here is if somebody has an objection to the mandates that we have which congruent with the CDC and the American Pediatric Academy's suggestions that all children over two wear a mask. If you have an objection to that, we have an option for you. You can stay at home. We have our KD Virtual Academy. It's going to continue through the end of the school year. So I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all. We have, the best we can in this pandemic try to provide a cornucopia of options for our parents again I'm happy to take any questions trustees that you may have
Thank You mr. Graham members of the board do you have any questions for either miss Anderson or the administration there's no questions from the board members this proceeding is concluded the board may elect to make a decision during tonight's open meeting act in an open meeting act of a meeting meeting January 19th, 2020. Ms. Anderson, you're invited to attend the open meeting when its action is taken. However, if you're not present, you will be notified of the board's decision in writing. At this time, the board will deliberate in private to consider information presented. Therefore, if there's no objection, it's time board members and Superintendent Gorkorski will continue in closed meeting. Thank you very much for being here tonight. The time is 928 p.m. Daniel, please stop the recording at this time. It was all provided to us along with recording of your level one. So we have lots of information. Okay, the board will convene and close right now. The board will now reconvene in open meeting. Today is Tuesday, January 19, 2021, and the time is 946 p.m. The board heard a level 3 FNG grievance in closed meeting regarding case number FNG20-019 in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code. Any action regarding this matter must be taken in open meeting. Do I have a motion on a level 3 FNG grievance? Make a motion. I need a motion and then I need a second and then we'll vote.
Madam President.
Ms. Gassoff.
Sorry, it's not written down for me. I move that we uphold the decision of the district in this level three grievance.
Second.
The motion has been made by Ms. Gassoff, a second by Mr. Redmond, that the Board of trustees uphold the decision made by the administration and level one grievance do we have any comments or discussion this time we'll proceed to vote all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye motion passes 7-0 there being no further business before the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 947 p.m.
Official documents
About the underlying data (7 notes)
- The transcript on this page was produced automatically by speech recognition. No person has checked it against the recording. It is a way to find a passage, not a quotation.
- Speakers are unresolved where a turn reads Unknown speaker: 166 of the 187 turns on this page. The transcript separates one voice from another but does not name them, and no name is assigned to a turn without evidence.
- The speaker turn timeline is not continuous. There are intervals with no attributed turn, so a gap between two turns is not evidence that nothing was said.
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- The recording is played here from the district’s own stream. The archive does not hold or serve a copy of the video.
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Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 4.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees names Mr. Timothy Wolff as the principal of Rhoades Elementary School as recommended by the superintendent in Closed Meeting.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 002 · AGENDA 4.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees take action to terminate the probationary contract of Opportunity Awareness Center teacher, Pamela Tolliver, effective January 19, 2021. Based on the information provided in Closed Meeting, the Board finds that good cause exists to terminate the probationary contract and authorizes the Superintendent to take all action necessary to notify Pamela Tolliver of the Board's decision.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 003 · AGENDA 4.3
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the superintendent's annual evaluation as discussed in Closed Meeting.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 004 · AGENDA 9.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's November 2020 financial statements.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 005 · AGENDA 9.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's January 2021 budget amendments.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 006 · AGENDA 9.3
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the proposal for the purchase of eighteen portable classroom buildings for the 2021 - 2022 school year at five campuses to Palomar Modular Buildings, in the amount of $1,231,722.00, utilizing the Buyboard contract #556-18.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 007 · AGENDA 9.4
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees awards a contract to VLK Architects, Inc. for design services necessary for the construction of Elementary School #44.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 008 · AGENDA 9.5
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve two 2021 Missed Day Waivers.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 009 · AGENDA 9.6
PassedIt is recommended that the Board approves the adoption of the Resolution regarding extension of time to use sick leave in accordance with the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 010 · AGENDA 9.7
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the Interlocal Agreement with the City of Houston, through the Houston Police Department, and Katy Independent School District for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 011 · AGENDA 9.8
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees adopts the Order calling for a regular election of School Board Trustees to be held May 1, 2021 and authorize the Administration to provide official notice of the election as required by the Texas Election Code.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 012 · AGENDA 9.9
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the 2019-2020 annual financial audit report.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 013 · AGENDA 9.10
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the minutes of the Board meeting held in December 2020.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |
MOTION 014 · AGENDA 13.1
PassedThe Board of Trustees denied the Level Three FNG grievance in FNG 20-019, thereby upholding the decision of the Level One and Level Two hearing Officers.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| susan-gesoff | Yes |