Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started. I would like to make a note that Ms. Fox is not
Katy ISD · Special Board Meeting Agenda
Katy ISD Special Board Meeting, August 30, 2021
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able to be here in person, but she is on a attending via Zoom call, so she is listening
and able to speak when needed. Are you there, Ms. Fox? I want to make sure this is working.
Yes, Mr. Schulte, I can hear you. Thank you. Thank you very much for calling in.
Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call the special meeting of the Board of Trustees
of the Katy Independent School District to order.
Today is Monday, August 30th, 2021, and the time is 5.02 p.m.
Dr. Gagorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act
with regard to notice for this meeting?
Mr. Schulte, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act
for this meeting this evening.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome every one of you to this evening's special board meeting.
Each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Friday, August 27th, 2021.
The board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and the superintendent on the agenda item at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to take action.
We're now going to proceed into agenda item two, which is the public hearing.
We're going to start off with agenda item 2.1, which is presentation of the Katy Independent
School District Safe Return to School Plan.
The presenter will be Ms. Leslie Hack, Deputy Superintendent.
Good evening.
Good evening, Board President, Mr. Schulte, Dr. Gorgorski, and Board members.
It's a privilege to be here tonight to discuss our COVID-19 safety protocols and plans for
this year.
I do want to take a moment to introduce some members of some core team members of our emergency
operations management team that have been part of this process since spring of 2020,
and especially during the summer of 2021 when we're going to go back to in-person learning
and how we've built out the protocols.
protocols. Mr. Ted Vierling with operations, Mr. Jamie Hines with business intelligence,
Mr. Ruben Martinez with emergency management, and Mr. Lance Nolman with risk management. So
thank you all for being here tonight. So we'll go ahead and get started.
The agenda topics tonight include our safe return to school goal, which our number one goal is to
ensure in-person learning and student program participation continues. Tonight we will review
you our current COVID-19 ELM protocols. These are protocols that we have continued to enhance,
refine since the summer of 2020 in preparation for the 2021 school year, and then again we adjusted
for the 21-22 school year. We have revised our student classroom and student program communications.
It is a little bit more specific this year to students, and I'll explain that in just a bit,
and our revised COVID-19 stages and protocols, which we updated because of the optional facial
covering. So we did have to make some changes with the protocols. Just to kind of give us an
overview of where we are today, currently in-person enrollment is at 84,000 students.
We have, as of today, 514 active cases with about a 0.61% positivity rate. KVA started today. We
We have 4,192 students that started school today online.
We have two active cases.
And overall, we are at 88,288 students as of today with 516 positives.
This is our Safe Return to School plan.
It is posted on the KDISD website.
It continues to be updated as we receive guidance.
Our Safe Return to School plan serves to meet the Texas Governor's Executive Orders,
GA 38, GA 36, and GA 34, TEA guidelines, UIL guidelines, and federal, state, and local public health department orders as best possible.
Currently, facial coverings are optional.
This is our posting that is at all entrances at all of our campuses as well as non-campuses, locations across the district.
This is what we have built out probably in the last 18 months as we have continued to navigate through this pandemic.
I think everybody's probably very familiar with our buttons that we call on our district website.
We do have the COVID-19 dashboard, which at any time you can click on that and it will show you how many active cases there are in the district.
We have our COVID-19 positive self-reporting app.
have. This is something that we launched in August of 2020 where students and staff are
able to report their positives and there's a lot of protocols that because of that self
report that we were able to take care of to ensure continued safety for our students and
staff out on the campuses. We do have the appointment link. This is for students only.
Our staff are walk-ins, but we have gone back up with testing for free testing for our students
as of last Monday, and we did relocate the test site as of today back out at the Gerald Young Ag Science Center.
And we have the safe return to school plan as well.
This is kind of just a little glimpse of our COVID-19 self-report when the staff or student,
and I'll talk student here, goes in to report their information or their parent.
They click through the buttons that you see, contact information, COVID-19 information, lives with information.
A lot of information that as they put that information in, there's designated personnel
on the team that we see the self-reports and then I'll go through that trigger certain
actions from members of the emergency management team.
This particular one we added this year, Mr. Hines and his business intelligence team,
technology added that if a student reports positive, this year they can request to receive
intermittent school to home synchronous academic support during that extended absence.
And if they say yes, which the majority of them do, then it comes up, do you need technology?
Do you need Wi-Fi assistance?
If they say yes, yes, then we arrange for that and the student can do a grab and go
and go by and pick up their stuff or their parents.
And we make sure they have everything they need for academic support while they're at
home.
And so we kind of call this the Intermittent School to Home Academic Support, the ISH is
what everybody kind of refers it to.
and they are eligible up to 20 days of academic support
and then after 20 days we'll have to request a waiver.
It's not just for COVID-19.
We have students that are on extended absences
for other communicable diseases
and they can call into the attendance clerk,
request this, the campus nurse,
and so we have a number of students
that are receiving academic support at home.
Next steps following a COVID-19 self-report,
And this has been a process in that we, again, we continue to build out and refine.
And, in fact, just about 30 minutes ago, we just concluded our daily EOM meeting about 4, 415.
But every day the EOM mitigation meeting occurs.
It's Monday through Friday.
We start at 330.
And we meet on Sundays to get ready for the next day.
And so there is quite a team of us, and we've been at it together.
includes representatives, the assistant superintendents, representatives from
their departments, athletics, fine arts is represented, CTE when a program is
impacted, and we come together to discuss how we're going to evaluate the reports
of positive and mitigate. This is when we schedule the student classroom and
program notifications. This is one of those things that's been more refined
this year. Last year I think everybody will remember at the end of the day you
you got a general notification, there was a positive reported at your campus.
And so some days you got those a lot of days in a row.
This year, if a positive is reported within your student's classroom or classroom secondary,
then all the students and staff associated with that individual who's positive with their class or classrooms,
they receive the notification because facial coverings are optional this year.
it's very difficult to do contact tracing, which we were doing a lot of that last year.
So we want to make sure that our parents are aware that their child, that there was a positive individual in their classroom.
And then the same with the student program notifications.
If a program is impacted by a positive, let's say it's a volleyball team or football team,
they're in season and it's after hours, and many times students participate in these programs
and they may not be in that specific classroom,
so they wouldn't get that classroom notification.
So we make sure they get the program notification
and all the kids are notified and the parents.
Excuse me.
The EOM team will come together and we look at the positives
and we do have a member on Mr. Martinez's team, Nicole Emedy.
She looks at the reports as they come in
and she starts to identify where there may be possible
what we call cluster spreads within a specific classroom or program.
If there's a second grade classroom at a specific elementary that perhaps in that
particular classroom there's multiple positives, then we need to look at that and
address that and then do some mitigation, which we'll talk about that in just a moment.
We do implement the mitigation protocols, the stages, which we'll go through.
Those are the ones that have been revised for this year.
And we communicate with campus administration.
So, for example, today at our EOM meeting, there were five principals with us.
We bring them in.
They're very familiar with the process and the team.
We zoom them in and we talk about their particular classrooms and the next steps and then they
start contacting the parents.
So it's very specific and intentional.
I'm going to turn this over.
There's a lot of other data set points that we evaluate as well as we're looking to see
when we put mitigations in place, perhaps a classroom temporary closes for five days
which we did quite a bit last year we haven't had to do that this year but we
have put some mitigations in and this is some of the data we look at because we
want to make sure that the positives the report of positives are going down in
the active cases the number of active cases are going down as well so Jamie do
you want to kind of walk through this one you do it much much better than I do
well this president Schulte members of the board dr. Gagorski all of the
information as the self reports come in flows into a database and we're able to
pull that up in some some dashboards that help us analyze it when we're in
those mitigation meetings this is one of them and what it does is you can look at
the top and this shows the number of cases over the next five days they're
actually going to be falling off for this particular campus we can look at it
from the district level or a campus level right below that in the center
that shows the cumulative number of cases that will be falling off in the
next five days for this campus and then at the bottom it shows over the past
five days because those those indicators over the next five days and the past
five days are really important and it shows the cases over the past five days
have been declining so we can see this is actually a campus in elementary that
we mitigated about a week ago and and we were able to look after the fact and see
that this campus the mitigation appeared to be working because the camp the the
the number of actives that we were getting was falling and within the next two days we
would be at a really low number.
Questions?
No, there's not a forum to answer questions.
Apologies.
This is the very last part of the self-report part that we do.
And so right here where you see those buttons that are green, those mean different things
than make sure that certain protocols within the departments, things have been taken care
of.
Some of those buttons, the green buttons, one is emergency operations management.
And when that button goes green, it's that the positives have been reviewed and that
tracing has been determined and if there's possible clusters within a student classroom
or program.
The second button is communications.
That ensures when that's green that that communication went out that day and that parents and students
received it.
One button is for maintenance and operations.
They turned that button green confirming that that impacted area in that classroom or program,
that it was clean and sanitized.
Risk management is one of the buttons.
Mr. Noman, that confirms that the positives were reported to TEA, the Texas Department
emergency management and county health authorities and then there's one button
for health services and that's that our campus nurses are informed and also that
our designee for each county that Teresa high note her team have been in contact
with them and confirmed that those positives and that they have received
them this is a picture of our dashboard as of today we do have 605 active cases
As you can see, the majority of our campuses are what we call stage four.
There is some amount of communication and mitigation working with those campuses to kind of make sure that we're addressing any possible spread of COVID and minimize that so the kids can continue with in-person learning.
These are our updated safe return to school stages.
And, of course, we would like all campuses to be in stage five, which is prevention.
And that is where there's no confirmed cases of COVID.
Our prevention protocols include self-monitoring for the COVID-19 symptoms, frequent hand washing,
practice social distancing of three feet or more.
PPE inventory is made available upon request.
We have it available at all the campuses.
Facial coverings, hand sanitizers in the classroom, wipes are available, and of course desk dividers.
And of course you can always refer to our district safe return school plan for more
details.
details. Stage four, which is a lot of where our campuses are right now, because we do have one or more confirmed cases of COVID-19. And so some of the protocols that we kind of when we're evaluating everything at the end of the day, students and staff identified as close contacts may return to in-person learning with a lab confirmed negative test or elect to self-isolate for up to 10 days. So if we determine that this particular classroom has multiple positives, this is the information we provide specifically and communicate
directly to those parents. Employees can elect to self-isolate for up to 10 days, but we do ask that
they refer to the Safe Return to School Plan to make sure they have all the information when
reporting those absences if they elect to self-isolate. The temporary closure of a student
classroom or student program with a confirmed COVID-19 spread, that has not been the case this
year. With slight mitigation of kids testing and returning the next day to in-person or electing
to self-isolate, we've been able to curb any type of spread within a campus. Students positive for
COVID-19 are students who elect to self-isolate for 10 days or in the event of a temporary closure
of in-person classroom or program, they're eligible for intermittent school-to-home academic support.
Again, our test site is back out at the Ag Science Center. Students can make appointments
and this and it's open Monday through Friday 7 to 5. Stage 3 modified
operations. This is a new level of operations that we have enhanced
expanded this year because the facial coverings are optional. If a campus were
to reach stage 3 modified operations it's because the increased rate of
COVID-19 transmission continues following our efforts with the level four. We don't have any
campuses near stage three, but we are prepared in the event that this should need to be implemented.
Staff and students are highly recommended to wear face coverings when indoors on buses to the extent
is developmentally appropriate. Staff, students, and guests highly recommended to wear face coverings
when attending an indoor after-school event. Large group indoor events may not be held during
an instructional day, events may be rescheduled and held once the campus returns to a level
four or five stage. Lunchroom visitors are not permitted when we're under modified operations.
Guests and volunteers to the campus must be by appointment only. Guests and volunteers
will have their temperature taken as part of the check-in process if they have an appointment.
Campuses are very familiar with these protocols. We had them all last year. We would just go
go back up with those if the campus were to move into modified operations.
The emergency operations team would continue to monitor the positivity rate of COVID-19.
We would hope to evaluate that data and see the trend going down.
If necessary, the district may extend the stage three protocols if it's working or we
think it may need a couple days.
We would like to keep it to five-day increments, but that is something that we would evaluate
daily.
daily.
Posters will be provided to all campuses that in the event they go into a stage three modified
operations, the face covering optional, the poster that is used for stage five and four
would replace with stage three.
The face covering is recommended.
At the bottom, I know it's difficult to read, those are all those expanded protocols that
we just reviewed on the previous slides.
slides, those would be up there reminding our guests and visitors and parents that we
are under modified operations and we're asking for the support and that face coverings are
recommended.
Stage two, facility closure.
We're hoping that with our stage four mitigations and our modified operations under stage three,
that this would not be the case because that is the last thing we want to do is suspend
spend in-person learning and student program participation and to close that.
Because if the in-person learning is suspended,
that does impact all our student programs.
So we really hope that our mitigation efforts leading up to this
does not let this happen.
We did have to close five campuses last year, all five days each, and
then we got them back up, but we're hoping that is not the case this year.
Students will be provided online learning by their classroom teachers.
This is different and separate from Intermittent School to Home.
Intermittent School to Home only occurs when in-person learning is going on and those kids are home because of a communicable disease, including COVID.
So students would continue to learn online through their classroom teachers.
During the campus closure, staff will continue following Stage 3 protocols at their work site.
and during the campus closure staff will socially distance of six feet or more or
work in isolation at their work site it would be the students at home when
in-person learning resumes all staff and students will temporarily follow the
stage three modified operations they will come back in person we'll go back
to stage three with expanded protocols and the recommendation to wear a facial
covering for until we determine that is okay to take them back to stage four and
hopefully stage five and that is something the eom team will continue to monitor stage one's
district closure we do not anticipate this being the case and that's in the event that the
transmission continues and depending on the data it may be necessary to offer remote learning for
all students for a specified amount of time and so those are the revised uh stages and the protocols
protocols that we were some of those we those are ones that we've been implementing now for the last year and continuing this year that proves successful and it's something that we hope that we can continue to support for in person learning to continue and participation in all our student programs.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'd like to proceed to agenda item 2.2, which is update on the statewide legal proceedings
regarding COVID-19 protocols.
To present will be Mr. Justin Graham, District General Counsel.
President Schulte, board members, Dr. Gagorski, if you don't mind, I pulled up a little stool
here.
This is a little bit low for me.
I think that will provide better access to the mic.
So today I'm going to give you an update on the statewide legal proceedings regarding COVID-19 protocols.
If you look at the time on there, it says 8.30, 2021 at 5 p.m.
I'll note it's 5.22 p.m., and that's relevant, and we'll get there.
A couple of things I want to go over.
just as kind of brief reminders of where we stand as a state, where we stand, and why we stand there,
and what does that mean for KDISD.
And I think in order to do so, we need to have a brief civics lesson,
a brief reminder of how our state government works,
then a brief reminder of KDISD's unique size and geography,
then we'll go over to where we currently stand,
and then I'll talk about some considerations moving forward.
So I think everybody knows from their hopefully 12th grade history civics lesson,
the three branches of government in Texas.
We have the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch,
just like we do in the United States of America.
The reason I bring this to your attention is because each one has a separate task that they are tasked to do.
So with the executive branch, your chief executive officer for the state of Texas is your governor,
Governor Abbott, right?
And with your legislative branch, they are responsible for drafting the laws and rules
and regulations, often like a school board does, right?
You have your chief executive, Dr. Gagorski, you have the legislative branch or the board,
which kind of dictates what the policy is, what are the laws and rules that are going
to govern.
And then we've got the judicial branch, and we're going to spend a lot of time with the
judicial branch because they are required to look into specifically what do those laws
and rules mean and is the governor or are your local counties implementing
them correctly I put the I put the legislative branch in here only to say
this during the past legislative session both the House and Senate had robust
discussion on the floor should we at this point in time limit the governor's
power under disaster declaration right because I think originally when the
Texas Disaster Act was implemented and drafted, we were thinking about something like Hurricane
Harvey or the F4 tornadoes in Garland or whatever the case may be, when it is a disaster that
has a short defined period of time.
But here we stand, 18 months into a disaster because there are disaster declarations in
place, and so your legislative branch actually had robust discussion on that.
They decided to take no action on that, which I think ought to tell you, which is an implicit approval of the way the laws are drafted now.
And so if there's a question about whether your chief executive, your governor, is doing something correctly or whether or not the county officials are doing things correctly, that goes to the judicial branch.
So court system in the state of Texas, I'm not going to spend a whole bunch of time on this.
In Texas, every county has one or more district courts, depending on their size.
Part of us live in Harris County.
We have a bunch of courts in Harris County.
Wallach County, I believe they only have one district court.
Those decisions may be appealed.
We have 14 appellate courts throughout the state of Texas.
So if a district court rules, they can be appealed then to an appellate court,
and all civil matters can then be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
They're the ultimate decider, just like your Supreme Court is in the United States.
So we knew this, right?
Everybody knows this because you paid attention when you were in 12th grade, Texas government, taught by your favorite coach.
So we knew this, but why is this so important for KDISD's board and administration and the constituents in this room right now, right?
It's because we're seeking interpretation of and guidance on the Texas Disaster Act and certain provisions of the Health and Safety Code and how do they apply.
So I told you one of the things that we really need to discuss is KDISD's unique size and
geography.
So those of you who know KDISD, we're in three different counties.
They're highlighted here.
We go all the way from Igloo Road, you know where the Igloo plant is, and we go all the
way from there, we go past Derry-Ashford.
That's pretty big.
Then we go all the way from above John Paul's Landing in the north, up by Clay Road, even
even past that, all the way south to the 1093 in the clubhouse where Cross Creek Ranch is.
So it takes forever to get from one side of the district to the other.
You know that if you're coming in traffic.
We're 184 square miles, but again, three different counties, which is different than somebody,
say, like Fort Bend ISD, who's wholly located in Fort Bend County.
Or even Cy Fair, where they are a little larger than us.
They have a few more kids than us, but they're wholly located in Harris County.
County. So different rules in different counties. In Fort Benning Harris County, the rules concerning
what a school district can or must do has changed several times. I'm going to go over a timeline.
I'm going to show you some documents here in a minute. It's been fast and furious really since
the 10th of August is when this started. So we're less than three weeks in. But really, there was a
16-day period, a little over two weeks, where things were changing every day. Now, Waller
County has been consistent. There hasn't been litigation there. At one point in time, we were
subject to three different rules, right? Wallach County has been consistent, so they have been
under the guise of Governor's Orders GA-38, which says you cannot, as a school district,
so if Dr. Grigorski and the Board President of the Board wanted to mandate masks, you cannot do that.
That's been the rule in Wallach County from the get-go. In Forbin County, they had a TRO that
that was issued and that TRO said, well, we're going to, we're going to stay the governor's
recommendation. We're going to stay the orders here. And then Fort Bend said, we're going to,
Fort Bend said, we're going to mandate mask. But then their local health authority actually
came out and said, no, we're just going to strongly recommend them. Okay. And then you
have Harris County who Harris County, they actually, uh, Judge Hidalgo, she issued a mask
mandate through the local health authority before a TRO was even granted. So again, no mask here.
you have to wear a mask here, a recommendation in the middle.
Puts us in a unique position for KDISD.
I'm going to point to you to the temporary nature of the rulings.
It's strange to have your lawyer, I mean, again, I've never sat in this chair before.
I don't think anybody's sat here before.
To have me come up here and talk to you about not what legal guidance is,
but really kind of what the legal landscape is.
because I think we can all get sort of bits and pieces from a Fox News article
or an NBC News article and it's not that they're not doing their job it's just
that they have to condense it down to something that's readable so we have
temporary restraining orders that's the first bite at the apple you get 14 days
there and they can be extended one time for 14 days then you have a temporary
injunction which is a judge can issue a ruling saying yes we're gonna uphold the
governor's decision or no we're gonna uphold the county's decision and that
That can be until trial happens, right, until we have a full trial on the merits.
And then you have a stay, and that is, hey, no, we're going to stay with the status quo.
And that's important because some of those are temporary,
and some of those the judge has authority whether or not to grant them, such as they do like in a TRO.
Some of them are judicially mandated.
So where do we currently stand?
Pretty accurate.
Pretty accurate representation, right?
If you're reading the news, the Supreme Court ruled, Fort Bend County ruled, it was overturned.
What are we going to do?
Well, like I said, different rules in different counties.
I want you to follow along with me for a minute.
So during the summertime, your governor issued an executive order.
And in that order, he says that no school district can require any person to wear a face covering.
pretty straightforward can't happen with the threat of a fine and maybe some
other penalties that are attached to that well then several days later about
two weeks later on August 10th the city of San Antonio and the county of Bexar
County Bexar County is where San Antonio resides they sued the governor they said
we want a TRO court we want you to tell the governor that his order cannot be
being forced. That was actually granted immediately thereafter granted. Then you had Dallas County
followed suit very same day or next day. The Dallas County got a TRO issued against the governor
and then a mask mandate followed that. Then again, you've got Fort Bend County who also got a TRO
issued against the governor, but then they didn't, like I said, they didn't go as far as a mask
mandate, they went as far as a strong recommendation. And then you've got obviously Harris County here,
and they issued this mask mandate before a TRO was even granted. I think the case was filed.
As soon as the case was filed, Judge Chodago issued her order, and then it was the next day.
that the TRO was issued.
Now, the Harris County order, I think the TRO in Harris County is important to focus
upon because that was issued Friday.
That was issued two weeks ago Friday.
And so, again, if you go back to my original slide where I said TROs, they're only effective
for two weeks.
weeks. So this, the TRO, which originally says, Governor Abbott, you cannot enforce your penalties. You cannot say that KDISD or Fort Bend ISD cannot, or Cyfair ISD cannot issue a mask mandate. That was stayed, and then two weeks passed, and during the meantime, the Supreme Court weighed in. They issued a petition, a petition
petition for mandamus, which was originally denied.
Okay?
And so at that point in time, we as lawyers, and I'm talking to the experts in the area,
and I'm talking to our local general counsels throughout the state and the region,
and they're saying, well, we really thought, based upon last year at the beginning of school,
the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the school district saying that teachers had to come back to work.
And that got petitioned straight to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court, you have nine Republican justices.
It was thought that that was gonna happen,
that we were gonna follow suit.
Well, as of the 16th of August, again,
I'm talking about the ping pong ball
that's going back and forth, that didn't happen.
In the meantime, the very next day,
Ken Paxton, your AG, started any school district
or any governmental entity that had a mask mandate,
started sending nasty grants, started sending letters
saying we're gonna withhold your funding,
we're gonna fine you.
you, um, Katie SD has not received one of those because we have not to date,
not, not this school year had a mask mandate then to complicate matters.
Further, you had in our neighboring school district spring branch, you had
a group of parents actually filed a lawsuit against spring branch requesting
a TRO saying, nope, you have to enforce a dog goes mask mandate. Um, for
whatever reason, the judge recused herself in that case was ultimately
dropped and then boom Supreme Court rules right everybody's seen that those
of you that are interested in this issue you're here tonight to speak Supreme
Court rules and they say no the governor's order has to stand they did
so on a procedural issue the procedural issue they is that no we're gonna take
this from the status quo and the status quo is whatever the governor's authority
was at the time that he issued his ruling in GA 38 or his order in GA 38. So
procedural in nature but the Supreme Court is telling you at least in the
Bexar County case how they're gonna rule. Now at this at this point in time the
Fort Bend County TRO, the Harris County TRO which affect our children in this
district have not been ruled upon but we knew that this was going to be the case
right so everything's done everything's taken care of right on the 23rd well lo
and behold Friday evening at 5 26 p.m. the Travis County Court which Harris
County had enjoined in there to try and get relief they actually issued a
temporary injunction the temporary injunction saying that governor's order
Order GA-38 is no longer valid, and you cannot enforce it.
So they issued that order after the close of business on Friday.
Again, I told you it's 535 right now.
This is at 526.
Ping-pong-pong back and forth.
Less than an hour later, you have the governor then file his appeal, an interlocutory appeal, which is an automatic stay.
And so at this point the automatic stay as it relates to Harris County, which is part of the Travis County suit
Says that the governor's order GA
38 is the controlling precedence in in the state of Texas, so
Actually, I showed you the slow ping-pong players. This is more what it was
Okay, I mean literally we're 16 days is what we're talking about between rulings here
And so it puts your administration and your board in a precarious position to be transparent with you, but to also say, look, we're dealing with this from an almost daily basis on what is it that we can require, what are the legal rules here in Katy, Texas.
And so ultimately, going to go back to the original order, the first document you saw and all the documents that I hit you up with.
So no school district may require a person to wear a face cover.
So no school district cannot have a mask mandate.
And that order is affected for KDISD.
So what does that mean for us now?
I think you've seen in the protocols that were presented just a minute ago, there is not a mask mandate that is in there.
That doesn't mean that it hasn't been discussed at length and all options have been on the table and considered.
But we knew that the ping pong ball was going back and forth.
And again, it's not over. It's not over.
The Supreme Court has issued a stay because it's a judicial stay required by law.
Your governor's made his position very apparent.
the Attorney General has with the letters that are threatening those governmental entities that have mask mandates.
So what more can we expect? We're going to look to those.
We're going to look to our highest court when it's right for them to consider the case on the merits.
Go back to our three branches of government. That's where we're going to look.
And we're going to continue to monitor COVID-19.
So at the very outset, I said this is a legal update on COVID-19.
That's the first time in my 20-minute presentation that you've heard me say the word COVID-19.
These rulings appear temporary, Justin.
You're saying they're temporary.
Temporary restraining order, temporary injunction.
When will these lawsuits be final?
Well, whenever we get a hearing on the merits of the matter, a trial on merits.
And that could be a long time.
Some of these have trial dates that are set in next year.
So I would not hold my proverbial breath on that.
And then will the federal government try additional regulation through the CDC or otherwise?
The CDC has kind of stepped in and talked about mask mandates, at least on public transportation.
You understand when you get on an airplane, they have authority over that with the FAA and interstate commerce, right,
anything that goes from one state to another.
even a even a bus even a mass transit system that would go from you know maybe
you get on a Greyhound bus here and then you wind up in Louisiana we do not feel
that the CDC has control over school buses in the state of Texas because
again our buses do not leave our jurisdiction our jurisdiction right they
stay within the three county area that supports your children that being said
I'm going to end it. I left a blank at the bottom. It's 539. I'm going to go back to my computer
and see if any other orders have been issued. And I appreciate your time. And then I think after
we hear comments from the public, we may have time for questions. Is that right?
Yeah. Well, the trustees will be able to answer questions after the public hearing is over.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Graham. Okay. Well, now proceed into agenda item 2.3, which is the public hearing
hearing portion those individuals requesting to speak regarding the KDN
independent school districts for safe safe return to school plan signed up by
2 p.m. on Monday August 30th 2021 each speaker will be given three minutes to
present to the board as I announce your name please come to the podium and
state your first and last name for the record and just just a couple reminders
one is I know we're gonna have the last meeting we had some different opinions
and everybody has the right to be here to speak tonight I request that we may
may retain decorum I'll let the people spot talk uninterrupted if people start
interrupting we're gonna take a recess and come back but we're gonna treat
everybody with respect everybody chance to talk and I'm also going to read the
first two speakers so that the second speaker can get ready and be prepared to
come up after the first speaker is complete okay so the first speaker and
I'm sorry I don't have the name the first name was not given to me so it's
either a Mr. or Mrs. Luckett. No. The second speaker is Vishalakshi Magnum. And then the
third speaker will be David Cuban as soon as Ms. Magnum is done. Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. Okay, here we go again, talking about masks and testing and contact tracing.
Why are we requiring testing for kids, teachers, and staff again?
These tests don't detect viruses or some genes that they are saying that they do.
They are unreliable.
Positive cases don't mean anything.
It doesn't mean kids are sick.
What about asymptomatic carriers?
How are you going to prove that asymptomatic carriers are spreading infection with those bogus tests?
I already told you that they are fraudulent, and I can prove it.
It's all about how they manipulate genes and nucleotide pieces to make it work the way they want it to work.
I emailed you all about why these tests are not meant to be used.
Please search it and read it because I know you're receiving hundreds of emails every day,
and mine may be buried in there somewhere.
But I'll be writing another email explaining in detail about these tests.
It's mostly genetics, so bear with me, and how they are faulty.
Today I'm also challenging all the pediatricians in the town to debate with me about PCR tests and rapid tests.
I'm done listening to lies. Enough is enough.
They're testing people to increase numbers and scare people.
We can talk about why people are getting hospitalized and dying after we figure out about these tests first.
People are dying, yes, but not from COVID-19 alone.
There are deaths because of vaccines, because doctors are biased.
Treatment protocols are neglected.
patients are misdiagnosed and given wrong treatment.
We know medical error is the third leading cause of deaths in the US.
Are the parents and doctors who were here last time aware of children and adults dying because of vaccines?
Are they aware of vaccine adverse events reporting system maintained by the CDC?
I get news from many doctors and nurses from all the hospitals that even vaccinated are dying.
All those deaths are labeled as death from COVID-19.
And what is this 10 days, 14 days quarantine?
quarantine is not 10 days or 14 days it's 40 days. A Persian scholar of medicine
Sina in the 900s suspected that some diseases were spreading by
microorganisms to prevent human to human contact contamination he came up with
the method of isolating people for 40 days. He called it al-arbinia the 40.
Traders from Venice heard of his sexes and took this knowledge back to Italy.
They called it quarantina, the 40 in Italian.
This is where the quarantine comes from, the word quarantine comes from.
So I think you should do your homework, people.
Please stop testing and contract tracing.
It will only add to the problem, and there will never be an end to this.
No more masks and temperature checks ever.
Please.
Thank you for your time.
David Cuban here.
speaker after that would be gina shaffer the next speaker after david welcome
hi thank you for having me um so i have two young children who are still uh too young to be
vaccinated and so really most of my focus is on what we should be doing in elementary schools
uh i think there's a wide gap between the kind of minimum protocols the tea spells out and what we
could be doing as a school district i noticed we've kind of gotten rid of a lot of the things
we did last year that really helped prevent breakouts assigned seating and spacing in the
lunchroom i'm not sure why we got rid of it i don't see how it helps prevent the spread
similar thing with space desks in classrooms why are we getting rid of things that helped prevent
breakouts last year um you know i feel like i sound like a real uh grinch saying this but uh
like unmasked singing I mean all the breakouts we saw or a lot of them early
on were like choirs and things like that and now we have you know a bunch of
unmasked kids getting together practicing for fall musicals I mean
that's what that's what's going on you can go back and read any of the articles
but let's just clamp down on the things that are like low-hanging fruit to just
stop the spread I'd like to also encourage the district that if in the
safe return to school policy they say that face masks are highly encouraged that they put them
on the stage five signs and not just the stage three signs our messaging can be consistent and
not just when things really hit the fan and i'd also encourage you all to let principals
administrators encourage massing at schools i've heard that they are not really allowed to address
it principals with teachers teachers with students um again if it's in the safe return to school plan
you know for most people the contact point with schools are administrators
and teachers and so allow them to promote masking it doesn't have to be
mandated but it can be promoted we have that we have that room to do that I'd
also like to ask a little bit or at least talk a little about the recent
woman elementary outbreak at least my understanding is that teacher came to
school with kovat and across two classes there to switch classes at least around
20 students got kovat it seems most likely a teacher spread to them on
unmasked. So right now that means that there's around 20 kids who are going to be home from
school for around eight days. And if that's two working parent household, that's 20 parents who
are going to have to be home for eight days. That's 160 work days and 160 school days for these kids
that are going to be missed because a teacher didn't want to mask. And so I think we can throw
this notion aside that it's a personal choice because it's not. If it was a personal choice,
you wouldn't have all these kids home for eight days you wouldn't have all
these parents home from work for eight days this affects families in a very
real way and we need to do doing better to protect our elementary school
families and kids and I really hope you guys use the authority you have to put
some little better thank you times up thank you very much
The next speaker was Gina Schaefer.
And the speaker after that is going to be Megan Little.
Oh dear.
I do not want to be speaking today.
Okay.
So I wrote a speech probably five times, tore it up.
I'm just going to give a quick little thing.
So I am a nurse.
I work in a hospital, a major hospital here in Houston, and I see COVID every day.
And I still feel that mass being optional in KDIC is the best thing.
And I can still sympathize with parents who are very worried because this is a very scary thing that we're dealing with.
And when you are not in the medical field, you don't quite really understand what's going on.
And even being in the medical field, I am not an expert on masks.
And I would dare to say that there's no one in this room who's an expert on COVID-19 because it's too new.
It's too new.
So I do want to say that I have three children who attend KDISD schools.
I'm proud that they attend KDI stay schools and their year last year was difficult for them being masked and socially distance and
I'm thankful that they get to attend school regular and be healthy kids getting a great education from a great district.
So I commend you for dealing with this very difficult thing that you're dealing with right now of parents and their opinions and their Google
the Google MD license that they have acquired.
And I just wanna let you know that their anxiety is,
I am so sympathetic to him
and I wish I could make no one sick ever of anything.
I mean, if I could just wave a magic wand and cure cancer,
I would do it.
But the reality is, is that we're living with a virus
that's here to stay.
And we have to get our head around the fact that it's here with us forever, possibly.
And the best that we can do is make it an endemic, not a pandemic anymore.
And that when positive tests come through, it doesn't send us into a tailspin.
And my last thing I'd like to say is I would love to take all the money that we are using
in the ping pong legal battle and put it into our schools and give some kids some books,
give some kids some backpacks, and I'd love to see picket lines outside helping our school
district get even better for everyone.
So that's it.
Thank you. The next speaker is Megan Little. And the speaker after that is Rabathi Mohan.
I'm not a public speaker. I'm here today as a mother to request that KDISD strictly follow
CDC guidelines, actual scientists, not the politicians. We tell our children,
just do your best but you are not doing your best for example just last week I
did not receive notification when a child in my second graders switch room
tested positive for kovat why because the homeroom teacher was not my child's
homeroom teacher my child spends half her day in the classroom touching the
same desks and breathing the same contaminated air rooms are not sanitized
when switching classes hand sanitizer is available if a child so wishes to use it
but just like masks and cleaning you don't mandate it no social distancing the principal's response
to my concerns was that was out of her hands she's not allowed to enforce any further safety or
cleaning protocol let's talk about masks some say no one is stopping your child from wearing a mask
That's right, she does. But science says my mask protects you, your mask protects me.
Our schools are peanut free because one child might, might have a reaction to
another child's food. Should I say, not my problem, and send my daughter with a
peanut butter jelly sandwich tomorrow because she's not the one allergic? No.
because I value all lives, not just my family's. I accept the small inconvenience.
I've taught my children to love thy neighbor, do unto others, and that wearing
a mask, staying home when feeling ill, and wiping our space clean for the next is
an acceptable inconvenience if it saves another life. What are you teaching our
children by the way you're handling this? My teenager asked me if the
administration cares about students at all what do you tell her you're not doing all you can to
protect their lives please help us man demand the ability to mandate masks even if you cannot or
will not mandate masks there's still so much more you can do i too value our freedom but not at the
expense of my fellow americans lives challenge the law for what's right for our children 516
active cases that's it 516 little children innocent children's lives thank
you
to the next week next speaker was Ravati Mohan and the speaker after that is
Sergio Palo Palo Linetti good evening members of the KTISD board parents
parents, members of the KTISD community. I am a KTISD parent and have been one for nine
years. I have pondered over how I will approach my three-minute speech tonight, whether to
appeal to your logical and scientific frame of mind and present data about what safety
measures we need to be incorporating in our school system and how it is the need of the
the hour or appeal to the humane and empathetic side of your personalities and plea for us to do
all we can to ensure our community especially our children who are at the moment the most vulnerable
as they have not been able to get a chance to be vaccinated and be protected. I know that I will
not be sharing anything new that the board has not heard this past month. Yet, here I am.
I am an optimist at the end of the day and I'm hoping you will listen.
If there is one thing that you take away from my speech tonight, it is to request you that no
matter what your political ideology, to please follow the signs. We are one of the best educational
and educational districts in Texas.
Yet, at this moment,
we are going against all advice
that our doctors and medical practitioners
are giving us.
At a time when our medical systems
are overwhelmed
and our doctors and nurses are exhausted,
as a community,
the least we can do
is to ensure that we are doing
all we can to mitigate
the challenges of COVID.
My only hope
is that every board member tonight will vote with a clear conscience knowing
they did all they could to protect the whole community including the most
vulnerable thank you for your time thank you the next speaker was Sergio pale
and Eddie and the speaker after that would be Krishna she Malamar first and
foremost thank you the school district for giving uh parents and our kids the opportunity to make
our own decisions when it comes to their health and for following the governor abbott's executive
order the new school year has started and i will be amused as people lose their collective minds
over reported cases all i hear is endless talk about cases cases cases when the pandemic began
the lack of knowledge throughout the implementation of nonsensical burdens
that children were not equipped to bear. Fast forward to present day, the policy
response to COVID, particularly as applied to children, has been wickedly
inept. The CDC's own research says the following, children 5 to 14 years old
have 0.2 chance of dying from COVID, yet from all causes of death, suicide 1.5,
seven time more. Homicide, 7.7%, cardiovascular disease, 0.6%, drowning, 0.5%, flu and pneumonia, 0.3%.
And no one close to schools asks anyone to wear a mask, nor there is a mandate for vaccines.
Children are not super-spreaded. They are not a reservoir of COVID-19 that is prolonging the pandemic.
Part of the confusion is that our health experts have not recognized the compelling scientific
evidence and have instead rolled out flip-flopping mandates that have shown an abysmal track
record of this issue.
I understand that the school must do everything in its power to avoid a rebound in the virus
transmission but to reimpose the same failed COVID measures, lockdowns, school closures,
isolation, masks that have scarred our kids psychologically and physically is
called insanity. Why? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results. Why don't we stay focused on boosting natural immunity and
protect the most vulnerable? Are we going to allow the endless stream of media and
government telling people to hate each other for the choices we make or for
for questioning things.
I will teach our little ones to live in fear.
I love my children.
I care for my community.
I support 100% the in-person instruction
where parents can decide what's best
for their children's health.
I am here to help the school in any way I can
to raise awareness and have a real discussion.
Ultimately, we all want the same thing for them,
to be healthy, happy, and enjoy quality of life.
Thank you.
The next speaker was Krishna Chimalamar and the speaker after that is Lee Nelson.
I'm ready.
Good afternoon honorable KTISD board members and my fellow Americans.
My name is Krishna Chimalamar.
We moved to Katy, Texas from the great state of California in 2007.
And I'm proud to say that our kids completed their elementary, middle school and also currently
attending Seven Lakes High School in Katy ISD. When we moved to Houston area I
never thought we would be living in perpetual fear of contracting a deadly
virus in the most scientifically advanced city in the world I insist with
the best hospitals and the top-notch medical professionals but that medical
system we take pride in is crumbling under the tsunami of infections caused
by COVID-19. Here are some hard facts about the infection spread across the
Houston area. We are now learning that exponential growth of COVID cases in
neighboring school districts such as Conroe ISD, Humboldt ISD that opened the
doors a week earlier than KTISD with no mask mandate. According to the data
Harris County published since KTISD, majority of KTISD is in Harris County,
There is a 500% growth of infection rate in the past 14 days.
ICU beds are pushed to the brink because of the exponential surge of the COVID.
We must remember that there are several kids that are immunocompromised and are with low levels of natural immunity,
we are all proud of ourselves, that are caught in the surge.
And those immunocompromised kids that are 12 and older are now living in fear because they have no other option to attend the school other than in person.
Unfortunately, not everyone has the same natural immune system to give them the ironclad protection against coronavirus.
a virus and if anyone here who is opposed to wearing a mask can assure me that the virus is
predictable kind when it enters the system of our kids I would love to take them up upon on that
the studies and the current pandemic hospitalizations of our kids have proven
contrary to that argument time and time again the truth is the virus is dangerous and unpredictable
So here is my humble request to the members of this board.
Provide KT Virtual Academy option to all kids K-12 till the situation gets better.
Creating seating arrangements to the fellow CDC and follow CDC social distance guidelines inside the classrooms.
Use the same classrooms for lunches and reduce the crowding.
Install filtration systems for better air circulation.
population and transparent communication is extremely important to fight this
COVID virus and then implement mass mandate if you can but if you can't
please allow us a safe return.
The next speaker is Lee Nelson and the speaker after that is Emily Lewis.
Good evening my name is Lee Nelson. I'm a parent of two in Katy ISD. On the last
day of school, the district's COVID dashboard reported only 55 active cases district wide.
This was due to the multiple layers of COVID mitigation in place.
KDISD started this school year with zero safeguards in place.
After only eight days, the dashboard reported 633 active cases.
controllable spread of COVID-19 is mostly within the vaccine and eligible
elementary students. The district has tried this method of completely normal
operations mask optional. It isn't working. Vaccination and masking is
the number one source of prevention per the CDC and AAP. Thousands of parents
have signed petitions and sent countless emails. Letters from physicians
and hospitals have been sent. The T. A. A. F. T. T. A. S. B. All stressed the
importance of utilizing mitigation techniques to stop the spread of covid and prevent illness not
putting a mask requirement in place especially among the vaccine ineligible is completely
irresponsible considering the covid conditions within this community kitty isd is also failing
when it comes to contact tracing and proper quarantine techniques if two of three children
children in one family test positive for COVID. The third child who is negative should also require to do homebound learning due to the daily exposure. Yet this is not recommended to parents by the district. Child three must return to in-person learning. That's just one example of the inept system contributing to the spread within the district. The district could start temperature checks at school drop offs and require weekly testing of all students and staff. This could be an alternative to masking.
but the obvious, most simple, and cost-effective option is masking.
It's our civic responsibility to fight for our children's right to a free, appropriate public education
in a safe, in-person learning environment.
We all want to be free of this virus.
Right now, the virus is winning because we're giving it power to mutate and spread within our children.
We can beat this airborne contagion with a mask.
KDISD has a duty to provide a standard of care and are expected to take steps to ensure the health and safety of the students and staff.
Failure to do so is negligent and reckless.
You have the ability to save lives and prevent illness.
Issue a mask requirement and make human life and the health and safety of this community your priority.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next speaker was Emily Lewis. The speaker after that is Megan Carrier.
Thank you. And thank you to your legal officer for that awesome breakdown of the legal stuff.
That was really interesting. My name is Emily Lewis. My husband Mike and I have four kids.
Two attend Kilpatrick Elementary and two are in preschool. And I'm here this evening to ask the
the school board to maintain its current mass policy in schools and allow mask
wearing to be the choice of teachers and administrators, students, visitors to
the school campuses. The policy of this board and school district to allow
individuals and parents to make the choice over mask is a sound one. It
reflects the real everyday life situation that we're all living in
churches, businesses, gyms and social places are largely leaving the mask as
as an option for individuals.
And those of us participating in everyday life
can observe that this methodology is working.
Schools should remain a microcosm
of the community that they're in,
so it's logical to maintain the policy
of optional mask in schools.
Separately, I would also like to thank the board
and Superintendent Grogorski
for your leadership and professionalism.
Publicly, it seems that your jobs
have largely become about navigating COVID,
but there's so much good that you all do
that many never see. Dedication to your positions requires a level of energy and sacrifice that
most would be unwilling or unable to maintain. You have each answered a calling on your lives
to serve and to better your community by being leaders and a voice for our schools. By maintaining
your professionalism, you're being a light and an example to other school districts.
By continuing to dedicate yourselves to all of the responsibilities of your jobs,
even those that do not command as much attention of school mass policies you're
making a permanent impact and this is Fox on zoom I taught Sunday school
yesterday with a sinker Ranch high school student who recently met with you
on an FFA project and she was so excited and honored that you responded to her
request for advice and she had the best time with you I know all the board
members do things like this and you take your time to help students and parents
to better our district.
You are in a position of influence,
and it's really, truly wonderful to witness
as you all are using your positions to help others.
True leaders remain standing
when the world around them takes a knee.
So I thank this board and superintendent
for standing tall, keeping your heads up,
and boldly leading.
I appreciate your work.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Megan Carrier.
and the speaker after that is cameron samuels
good evening i approach you today with the firm belief that everyone in this room has the best
interest of our children at heart however as we continue to tear each other apart at what has
become a mask mandate dichotomy we fail to have constructive conversations about all intervention
measures that can be implemented to mitigate COVID-19 transmission. The
research is clear that COVID protection is a multi-layered approach. I'm here
today to plead to you all that we begin discussing and inquiring about the
efforts being put in place to improve ventilation and filtration in the
schools as this has not been sufficiently prioritized over the past
year despite being considered a key mitigation tool. Given that we now know
aerosol transmission is driving the disease rather than droplets, sanitation
Meditation measures have limited effectiveness in mitigating the virus.
Improvements in ventilation can help reduce risk of transmission of COVID-19 and other
infectious diseases and improve students' overall health and ability to learn.
Improvements in indoor air quality are a good use of the COVID-19 relief funds provided
to K-12 schools, as this will reduce student absences due to illness, both during a pandemic
and in more normal times, whatever that might look like when this is over.
While ventilation improvements may often be perceived as a complicated and expensive investment,
the John Hopkins Center for Health Security demonstrated in a cost-effective analysis
comparing ventilation with deep cleaning that ventilation improvements are a cost-effective
public health measure.
Multiple organizations, including the CDC, EPA, and the American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers provide practical and concrete recommendations
for implementing this essential yet overlooked mitigation measure.
It is my hope that we consult experts on this matter, continue to monitor scientific research
and implement protections where possible without political divide and restrictions,
and that we can have constructive conversations and planning on this subject to ensure the health,
well-being, and safety for all students and staff.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
The next speaker is Cameron Samuels.
And the speaker after that is Patty Lacey.
Good evening, trustees.
My name is Cameron Samuels and I am a high school student at Seven Lakes High School.
I spoke to you at this lectern just three weeks ago.
And since then, there have been 3 million COVID cases in the United States, more than
than 10% of those being in Texas.
I recently began instruction at my school
with students not wearing masks
because a mandate was not adopted
at the last special board meeting,
despite the fact that the majority of people
who gave testimony spoke in support of a mandate.
These were vulnerable community members,
parents, teachers, physicians,
and in my case, a student who was forced to experience
the face of the virus firsthand
every single day in the classroom.
A school should be a place for students like me to learn, to connect, and to grow.
It should not be a place where my peers and I are subjected to the possibility of contracting a life-altering virus that could come home to our immunocompromised friends and family.
In late April, my brother contracted COVID just a few weeks after he began face-to-face instruction at his junior high.
Because of this, I had to take on the mental and physical hardship of quarantining at home while at the same time I was obligated to keep up with my classwork.
The pandemic should not have ever become a political debate.
We have been told by professionals in the medical field that wearing masks will mitigate the spread of the virus and allow us to return to normalcy.
That was last year when the pandemic started, and look at where we are now.
now. We have been told by educated professionals that getting vaccinated will mitigate the
spread of the virus and allow us to return to normalcy without needing to wear a mask.
That was months ago and look at where we are now. I don't understand why certain people
feel the need to look past all the educated leaders who say that vaccines and masks work
just to believe the false notion that masks and vaccines don't work, but medicine for
farm animals is somehow a more effective and reliable remedy. I'm sorry if you believe
these notions but they are pure conspiracy theories and utter nonsense the pandemic is
a significant issue that is affecting individual people in their mental health their jobs and their
lives it is not just a simple game of small talk and political banter it is a problem that is
sickening my brother killing her father and causing them to lose their jobs for months
we are wearing masks to protect the unvaccinated and unmasked people in our community if people
would wear masks and get vaccinated this would not still be an issue the people who are dying
are the unvaccinated and if you have to look past the truth to believe phony political rhetoric then
the only person you can blame for the problems our country is currently facing is yourself i
urge you to adopt a mask mandate for kdisd students and staff to keep our communities safe
Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Patty Lacey. The speaker after that is
Dipa Ramabhat. I don't know if I said that even close but apologize. Good
evening. Hey hi my name is Patty Lacey and thank you Justin I'm sorry Mr. Graham
for your lesson. I'm not going to talk about masks one way or the other but I
I do want to say a few things about our district.
Dr. Gorgorski started as a teacher,
for those of you that don't know.
He has over 20 years experience in public education,
and he graduated from the Ohio State University.
It kills me to say that.
And go Tigers.
He got his doctorate at Texas A&M Commerce.
As part of his staff, Ms. Leslie Hack, Deputy Superintendent,
has over 30 years of experience, which I find hard to believe.
She must have started when she was 12,
and started in KDISD in 1998. Dr. Caskey, Chief Academic Officer, over 25 years
experience. Dr. Grims, Chief Communication Officer, over 20 years experience. That is
over 95 years of experience in education, which I have found from my friends on
Facebook and my possible enemies on Facebook that y'all know a whole lot
more than we do about education and what's right for our students. I also
know that a lot of you guys have children or have had children that are
in our district and I know you're doing what's best for them the reason why I'm
pointing this all out is that I think you guys are doing a great job and I
really really appreciate it I know it's not fun I know it's not easy I know
sometimes you're flying a plane and you're making changes in the middle of
the flight and so I appreciate that you guys are doing a great job we are
We are blessed to have you guys here and I commend you Dr. Grzegorski and your staff
for all the things that you've done.
I know it's not easy.
Things are going to keep happening and you guys are going to have to keep dealing with
these different changes and I applaud you for that and for all that you do.
I just wanted to say thank you.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Deepa Brahmabhat and the speaker after that is Elise Markowitz.
Hello, thank you so much for letting me speak.
Hello, my name is Dr. Deepa Brahmabhat, and I was the former Zoonosis Veterinarian at Harris County Public Health.
Emerging diseases are going to be part of our daily life, and 75% of them are going to be zoonotic.
So, what are we going to do about it?
We cannot ignore science and bring politics into our school.
school. Let us prepare for the future by heeding to what the two major employers that are actually
supporting the community here is, which is the medical community and oil and gas. They're
all saying safety first. Bring back the three W's. Used to love saying that to our kids.
Wear a mask, wash your hands, right? Watch your distance. All good things. Let's vaccinate,
test and follow up with contact tracing. The public health discipline has
combated combated pandemics like rabies, polio, smallpox all through good hygiene
practices, vector control and vaccinations. In this pandemic we're
learning a lot about the HVAC system and the size of the particle more or less
than 0.2 microns and how these masks and filtrations are really being effective
about it. So let's prepare for the future and let's think about investing in our
schools HVAC system to control infectious diseases and providing
virtual school as needed. Let's get Katie strong by being prepared and not
dividing our community because of politicians. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next speaker is Liz Markowitz and this speaker after that is Tyler
Good evening. We find ourselves together once again to discuss the health and safety of our children, faculty, and community.
When I spoke to you a few weeks ago, prior to school starting, KDISD had 56 self-reported cases of COVID-19.
School has now been in session for under two weeks, and the number of cases has increased by 980%.
And that includes only self-reported cases, which is traditionally lower than the actual number of existing cases.
Furthermore, based on data released by Texas Health and Human Services, KISD was in the top 20 districts experiencing COVID cases.
Over the past couple of weeks, like I imagine many of you, I've received messages from parents, teachers, and nurses in KDISD regarding their concerns and fears.
Many of these parents are unable to be here tonight to speak because their children haven't been exposed to COVID-19 in this district.
Teachers and nurses fear retaliation and are unwilling to come speak tonight.
The irony that educators and health professionals are unable to speak about evidence-based protocols is ironic at best.
In their own words, teachers feel abandoned, forgotten, overwhelmed, expendable, and terrified.
While Justin Graham and the board has stated that you cannot implement a mask mandate under
GA 38, you do have the opportunity to follow the lead of both Paris and Texas City ISDs
and amend the school dress code to include masks.
masks. Doing so would protect individuals within the educational institutions while avoiding any
legal repercussions. Should you be unwilling to do the aforementioned, I would ask that at the very
least you implement other measures to protect the health and safety of students, teachers,
and their families. We are aware that COVID is an airborne virus and I would ask that you improve
the ventilation systems to ensure that circulated air does not further spread the virus. It is also
a well-documented fact that parents send students to school even when ill particularly for our
elementary school populations who cannot yet be vaccinated temperature checks upon student arrival
could mitigate the spread of coven 19 and other illnesses in your safety plan kisd mentions social
distancing but a look at kisd social media show students crowded together in classes elbow to
elbow at lunch and crammed together during passing and lunch periods surely you recognize the value
of taking common sense safety measures in order to maintain the continuity of learning that was
discussed at the start of this meeting please use your positions as elected officials all of whom
at one point during your runs said that you were running to represent students parents teachers
time is up thank you
the next speaker is tyler crevella and the speaker after that is chloe zhang
welcome um if you can't tell i'm really happy to be here participating in our local
legislative system i know not all of y'all look too happy but um i'm just coming here to voice
some my opinions about the recent actions that we've seen when we started school we had less
than 100 reported cases on the kdisd dashboard but as of yesterday that was over 600 in less
than 10 school days you don't have to take a pre-calculus high school class of math to know
that the graph is not going in the right direction if this continues we're going to see massive
problems and going into those stage 4 3 2 1 mitigation stages is not what anyone really
really wants here.
So I strongly encourage any action you can take
and against COVID-19, whether it be pursuing a mask mandate
or even just intensifying the COVID case tracking if we can.
And I really like the systems
that were mentioned previously.
I think the ISH system, the I-S-H system is really good.
And I think knowledge is power
and to continue that COVID dashboard
is a really good measure that helps keeps us all informed,
which y'all have been doing a great job doing.
And another piece of data that I'd like to share is right now we're at 96% ICU bed capacity in Texas with 46% of those coming from COVID.
We have very little room to continue increasing these cases.
And any more would lead to a surplus of people that wouldn't be able to get the care they need, like is currently being seen in Oklahoma just north of us, where they have reached over 100% capacity in their ICU beds.
people aren't able to get the treatment that they need.
And I'd love for we to be able to do anything we can do
to stop us from getting to that terrible phase
where people can't even get the treatment they need.
So overall, again, I love the COVID testing
that y'all have provided for us
and ensuring that we get any method that we can
to mitigate this virus is within everyone's interest.
And I thank you for your time.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Chloe Zhang, and the speaker after that is Jim Saba.
Let me preface with all due respect.
I am a high school student.
I walk into school every day with a constant fear,
walking into a bathroom full of vape fumes,
someone groping me in the hallway,
someone bringing a gun to school.
But thanks to the KDISD board, now I have one more thing to add to that list.
I have to walk into school with the constant fear of being infected by a student or a teacher.
Not only am I afraid of getting infected, but I also have the fear of infecting my unvaccinated seven-year-old sister,
who could potentially become extremely ill.
I am a high school student.
What I'm supposed to be worried about are my grades, my clubs, my extracurriculars, my part-time job, my family chores.
But due to the inability of the KDISD board to take action, this way of normal teenage life is now impossible.
You are supposed to be my role models, my caretakers during my school hours.
Yet what I receive from you is ignorance, carelessness, and a total disregard for my life.
How embarrassing.
I was raised to respect my elders and learn from them, but here I am, a 14 year old girl, lecturing the people I'm supposed to be looking up to.
I am genuinely scared that these are the people I'm supposed to be learning from and entrusting my own health with.
How embarrassing. The mere fact that this debate is about putting a piece of cloth over your face is hilarious.
You say it's inconvenient? You want these masks required for entry signs to disappear?
Well then do something about it. It takes away your freedom?
Just like how the Freedom Cafe Twitter thread posted on June 28, 2021 said,
We can encourage food food handler employees to wash their hands, but they might be allergic to that soap or simply do not prefer to wash their hands.
It is not our place to tell them what they should do because America is a free country, isn't it?
Water temperature and detergent are highly personal choices and we allow our
dishwashing team to decide how they prefer to wash the silverware you will
put in your mouth because America is a free country isn't it? I respect my
fellow students when I say why do we have to bear the burden of your
irresponsible actions? I have taken the time out of my day to address the KDISD
board to request a mask mandate. I'm scared, I'm disappointed, and I'm embarrassed. With all due
respect, you can do better. The next speaker is Jim Saba. I apologize. And the speaker after that
is Kerry Richardson. I just want to say that God bless you guys and God bless our children
because I think you made the correct decision.
It's our right from a constitutional standpoint
to choose as people, individuals,
not as a government, not as an institution.
We are people.
We are parents.
We know what's right for our kids.
You are educators.
Councilman, thank you for guiding us
on your law demonstration that you did.
Now, what's really interesting is,
is Governor Abbott requested a mask mandate
not eligible for the state of Texas.
However, we had some folks wanted mask mandates.
Well, the Supreme Court said, well, it was unconstitutional.
I don't think you addressed this, Counselor.
Well, on one side, it's unconstitutional, but on the other side, is that constitutional?
Why should you mandate me wearing a mask or my children?
Both sides are unconstitutional.
We are free people.
That's what this country has been made of.
The CDC is not a lawmaker.
They are guidance, only guidance.
We elect congressmen to make our laws, to represent the people of the United States of America.
We are not under admiral law.
We are under constitutional law.
That flag with the braised yellow around it represents admiral law.
That's an education for everybody.
We don't understand that.
Act of 1871 turned us into a corporation and that's when we became Admiral Law.
We don't teach our students that. We don't teach our students facts. We teach them
what people want to hear. I wish you would teach them more history and why
Abraham Lincoln didn't want to go into Civil War, why he wanted to make Black
America free all right and why the bankers supported the south but they
they approached Abraham Lincoln first and he created his own money called the
greenback now if you look at your current dollar one side of it is an
Illuminati side or masonry sign and the other one is a Treasury sign what does
that tell you that people are trying to control this country and it's communism
plain and simple and soon you're gonna find that out everybody's gonna be awake
not woke thank you the next speaker is Kerry Richardson Kerry Richardson here
No. The next speaker is Alan Kirk. And the speaker after that is Dean Roz.
Ladies and gentlemen of the board, thank you for having me here tonight. I come to you as a concerned parent. I've got two students right now at Woolman Elementary. One's in second grade, one's in kindergarten.
the garden. My second grader was a part of the covid outbreak last week. A
woman unvaccinated, not eligible and he was a part of that. But you know, if
you do the math and that means that I still personally have an active covid
case at home right now and I'm curious to know how many of you would be
interested in me taking my mask off and coming and pulling a chair next to you
for the rest of the night.
Maybe I accidentally cough on you. Maybe accidentally sneezed on you.
That's the school that you send our kids to.
I care about you guys more than apparently you care about my kids.
So I will tell you, I'm vaccinated.
I got a test on Thursday and I was negative.
I got a test this afternoon to reconfirm that I was negative before coming here.
But I didn't expose the people here to COVID.
But last Thursday morning at 7.30 a.m. when my oldest student tested positive for COVID,
my kindergartner woke up feeling congested.
And we called the school and we said, what do we do?
And the school said, well, if he doesn't have any other symptoms, send him to school.
Knowing he lived with someone with an active COVID case.
I'll confess, I can't reconcile how a policy that says that also says that they care about
my children.
I can reconcile it actually with the program that started or the presentation that started
it where it said the goal was not to have a safe environment for our kids but to simply ensure
in-person learning the presentation we had on the law fairly basic fairly needed
but what it tells me and you can correct me if i'm wrong later what it tells me is the law is
unsettled it tells me there is no definitive position at this point instead of hide behind
a definitive position is simply wrong it simply relinquishes your responsibility
to my kids to the other kids of the school district there's been a lot of
good suggestions here tonight on what you can do to help make our schools a
safer place for my kids and the other kids represented here tonight I would
us that you strongly consider those you strongly consider a mask mandate you follow the other 48
school districts that are actually leading the way on this i would love it if we were leading
and not following because katie has historically been leaders and part of the reason my family
moved to katie is because this board has done a phenomenal job of helping ensure that we have a
quality education but right now it's sorely lacking it's sorely lacking and i request
respectfully that you reconsider your position. Thank you.
The next speaker is Dean Raz.
The speaker after that is Sarah Orlando.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dean Raz for the record, and I have a new and very enthusiastic
kindergartener in Katy ISD. I appreciate the time to address this board.
I'm here today to represent the hundreds of Katy parents who request the continued right to choose what is best for our children, to choose whether we mask or not.
I support the masks optional portion of the safe return to school.
plan. I moved to Katy five years ago to start a family with my beautiful wife.
Since then I've seen droves of people move to Katy. They are moving to Katy to
get away from mandates. There is simply no need for the whole community to live
in extreme discomfort wearing masks for a virus that has a 99.8% survival rate.
There is substantial evidence that children have been emotionally, physically, and psychologically harmed by masks.
How many incremental changes are we going to allow?
Enough is enough.
Mandatory masks for five-year-olds is crossing the line of what is socially acceptable in Katy, Texas, and I, for one, will not participate.
I beg the members of this board to have the courage to make the difficult decisions and
keep this place a beacon for freedom and choice.
Thank you very much for your time.
Next speaker is Sarah Orlando.
Next speaker is Joseph Casacati.
The speaker after that is Fabiana Pimentel.
Thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity to come up here and speak with you all tonight.
Mr. Graham, I appreciate that law explanation.
I know that you all are stuck in the middle of a political tug of war right now between
the governor and Judge Hidalgo.
So however, it's interesting that many of you
will defer to Mr. Graham's expertise with his law
expertise.
However, those of us who are registered nurses and health
care professionals, you don't want
to listen to what we have to say.
Sorry.
been a difficult year for us.
So I'm a registered nurse,
paramedic, charge of infection control for a local fire department,
and managed to keep my family COVID-free for about 18 months.
But just after about three days at Katy High School,
my oldest daughter tested positive for COVID.
She's vaccinated.
She wore a mask every day while at school.
and her vaccine status and the fact that she wore that mask every day is very important to remember.
My wife is also a teacher in Katy ISD, and her and I were both tested.
The day that she was positive had been tested subsequently.
We've both been negative, so we know that she didn't get it from us.
My biggest fear is that I'm always the one that's going to bring COVID home.
I work with these patients day in and day out,
and I'm always worried that I'm the one that's going to bring it home to my family.
Luckily, my daughter's fine. Her symptoms were mild. However, she's extremely upset the day she got home because she was worried that she was going to expose one of her friends who has a family member who can't be vaccinated because of some health issues.
I assured her that she did everything that she could do to be personally responsible by wearing a mask and getting vaccinated and that it wouldn't be her fault if her friend was exposed.
So mask use has never been about protecting the person wearing it.
It's always been about protecting those against what the person has.
What we can do is wear it to help protect others against anybody that has a viral infection.
They help reduce the distance that these viral droplets and aerosols travel.
But in order for it to work effectively, everyone must have them on and wear them correctly.
If most of us were wearing masks and only one person that happens to be in that room doesn't have one on,
everybody that has one on is exposed to that person and can be potentially contaminated.
As one other gentleman mentioned earlier, as of today, 47.9% of ICU beds in Texas are occupied by COVID patients.
There are 72 ICU beds remaining out of a total of 2239 total beds.
beds. I'm seeing a much younger group of patients being infected severely and increases in pediatric
hospital admissions are rising. Please issue a mass. Thank you. The next speaker is Fabiana
Pimentel and the speaker after that is Shawn Dolan. Good evening everybody. I am here today
to ask you board members and parents in this room to listen to reason and let
parents decide what's best for their kids in the matter of use or not use of
masks in school using their God's given right and brains to analyze the
situation decide by themselves I came to learn about about freedom here in US and
now that I love it please do not take away from me and my kids the right to
decide the freedom to choose today i bring to you a systematic review and meta-analysis about
transmission of covid 19 households that can be extrapolated to school size to school since kids
stay there for many hours with peers and adults teachers this meta-analysis was publicizing the
in the very prestigious journal GAMA.
In this study was reviewed 54 studies in this meta-analysis was reviewed 54 studies with
77,000 participants.
participants. They were divided between PCR positive symptomatic case and PCR positive
asymptomatic case. This meta-analysis concluded that symptomatic cases could transmit only
18% of the time. I want you to pay attention to the small numbers we are talking here.
year. Asymptomatic cases could transmit 0.7% of the time, showing us that there is no such thing as
asymptomatic transmission. And last, in the same study, from those 18% asymptomatic transmission,
children were responsible just for 16% of them.
Those fines align with the district COVID case update
where just 0.51% are students.
Concluding here, I say to you all board members,
don't let fear cloud your judgments.
Let's follow the numbers and reason.
There is no asymptomatic transmission.
Kids have very little chance to transmit.
meet. So let's keep then brief, briefing freely. Say no to masks for our kids in
KISD. Thank you. Thank you. Sean Dolan. The next one is Kelly Pick. Kelly Pick.
And the person after that is you, Bian.
Good evening. My name is Kelly Pick. I'm a parent of four young children that reside and attend school in the Katy Independent School District.
I'm here to personally thank you on behalf of what I believe to be the silent majority of people within your district that are in favor of the freedom to choose.
Your decision to leave masking our children up to their legal guardian benefits the health and safety of our children.
First and foremost is my hope for all to stay safe as this virus circulates our community.
I understand that you are probably faced daily with supporters who believe that a mask mandate is going to do that trick.
However, the safeness and effectiveness of masks on our children have not been tested and therefore cannot be proven to be true.
As a former teacher, education is near and dear to my heart.
I really believe in age-appropriate measures.
I believe that there are going to be long-term effects of our children wearing masks throughout their educational day.
A child's mood greatly impacts their ability to learn, and I could argue without a doubt that there are children's moods that are affected negatively by masks every day.
They not only serve as a distraction in the classroom, but they mask much more than our child's faces.
They are masking their confidence.
They are masking budding communication skills.
They are masking potential teacher-student relationships due to the disconnect that everybody feels when their faces are covered.
They are masking who these children could be, self-assured academic learners who feel comfortable asking questions because they can see in their teachers' faces that the questions are welcomed.
I strongly believe we are doing a disservice to our children by letting them believe that the masks are protecting them from getting sick.
We saw last year in the 2020-2021 school year that cases were rising, regardless of the mask.
I believe that the adults pushing for mask mandates are speaking for the minority of people within your district.
district. Please know that even though you are hearing the voices more often of people that are pushing back, that there are many others who support you and the current back to school plan that you have worked so hard to put into place. I truly believe you have put our students above any political agenda and for that I remain grateful. Thank you.
you. The next speaker is you beyond and the speaker after that is Chris Raina.
Good evening. Thank you. Okay. Katie asked the board for arranging this meeting to discuss the
safe return to school plan to make a proper plan. Understanding current COVID status locally is very
very important.
So here, let's only look at the data
and go through the fact.
From the KTISD dashboard,
it clearly showed that Delta variant
made the positive case number increase
much more rapidly than last semester.
For the 2021 fourth semester,
since school opened one and a half weeks ago,
we had accumulated case around a thousand.
It took 12 weeks to get this number of cases in the 2024 semester.
In 2024 semester, the number of cases was exponentially increased but slowed down when
the COVID vaccine was available by the end of the year.
If we extrapolate the last semester's data without considering the vaccine's effect,
fact it will take around 36 weeks to get 10 percent of ktsd students and staff call it positive how
long does it take now to get 10 percent with the current coveted variant without universal mask
in four weeks now let's look at the covet 19 case count as of last night in a field texas
school district that open school a week ahead of ktisd first food band sd has a 3.2 of positive
accumulated cases that's about one confirmed case every 30 people conroe isd 4.2 confirmed cases
that's about one confirmed case every 21 people if ktisd still doesn't make changes
to the bank and the Congress as this today is ours in seven days.
On the other hand, if we look at the spring SD that also opened the school three weeks
ago, but the ways mask mandate, they're accumulate the case so far is 1.4%.
This is a two to three fold reduction in virus transmission.
mission. We can also look at a few other larger school district that the school
the start of school about the same time as Katie SD, Katie SD and the Fort Worth
SD are currently about the same 1% accumulated kids. But Austin and Dallas
SD, which implement mask mandate about the pond, the 3% which much less than
us. The data I'm showing today clearly tell us following CDC guidelines with mandatory mask is
very efficient way to reduce the virus transmission and with other social distancing screening tests.
Thank you your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Chris Reina
and the speaker after that is Anastasia Galvis.
Dr. Kogorski, staff, everybody in the room and those watching online. Again thank you
for having this forum, having an emergency meeting to display the
mitigation procedures that we have in place that have been updated I really
appreciate that I'll pass it on to my fellow neighbors who are KDISD parents
where I live the Tonneau Lakes where they can rush assured that we have a you
guys have a pretty robust plan and that you're meeting every day you're over the
current cases that's really cool two questions once regarding the active case
ace designation it's defined as 10 days is that an automatic drop-off after 10 days
or is there any follow-up to the the individual who has covered don't expect an answer but just
and the other one was if there's been any nasty grams from the attorney general
to the other school districts that have done the mask mandate by a dress code guideline
I'm just curious if they've received any communications that way.
It is not technically a mandate, but a guideline update.
Because I'll be in favor of the mask in schools.
Yeah, my son, he started virtual academy today.
It was a pretty positive experience for him.
I got to go over shoulder and watch him do his busy work.
His worksheets are watching the presentations online while the teacher watched him in Zoom.
As well as some of his Zoom classes where a teacher was leading the instructions and he was paying attention.
So that's good to know that you have that option, that you guys made that option available for us.
again just another extension of appreciation for that
yeah you guys have a tough job i appreciate y'all giving us time and effort for all this
especially in staying on top of this ever-developing covid situation
i'll be watching and again sharing my information with my other relatives
the neighbors in my neighborhood.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Anastasia Galvas,
and the last speaker is Carmen Nevels.
Good evening, honorable board members and Supervisor Grigorski.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for having those hearings here
and giving us opportunities to express our thoughts.
Recently, we are overwhelmed with divisive communication with officials and public figures
painting everything black and white.
COVID-19 reporting lacking factual information and depths of investigation, missing multivariate
analysis and data driven decision making.
We're exhausted as parents by external negative influence of lobbyist movements that bring
sex and gender education to schools that insist on masks over since mandates without revealing
revealing any credible information.
We exhausted by lobbies that fight to remove parental consent on medical actions to be
performed on teens.
At the same time, no external forces observed put in their effort to introduce ecological
education or mindful consumption to our kids or finally introduce nutritious and hot meals
in the public schools.
I do not believe that anyone has more dedication to kids' well-being than their own parents.
We are the ones ultimately responsible for their failures and their successes.
Our commitment to raising happy and healthy kids cannot be matched by any institution.
But we could get help from well-thought educational or medical care systems and emotional assistance program.
As a parent, I wish for an educational system that provides the foundations to raise kids able to analyze data that are taught to think and derive causational links.
I do not want an educational system to brainwash my kids on a socio-political agenda.
I wish educators teach my kids to reduce bias in their thought process and to be non-judgmental about personal choices of their colleagues.
But I don't want a system to teach my kids what is right or what is wrong.
Even less, I wish educators to set an example of poor decision-making that is based on panic,
fears, conformance.
So if any action of these boards to be taken in regards to the masks over cinema dates,
I wish to see the scientific reports presented by the board on the following statistics of
the age groups on severity of COVID-19 cases.
So I don't want to hear about just positive cases.
I want to hear about the percentage of school-aged kids that tested positive and displayed serious symptoms like difficulties breathing and so on so forth.
To know the percentage of these kids that have been to be hospitalized.
To know if these kids have other morbidities, if they have other health issues that actually promote the severe COVID-19 onset.
I want to see studies on safety of prolonged indoor mask wearing for school-aged kids.
I've seen the studies on surgeons that say that fatigue and their oxygen
saturation decreases with just few hours in service. I want also to see the
studies on observed efficiency of the cloth masks. I have not find anything
except for their studies that show. Thank you, your time is up. Thank you. The last
Last speaker tonight was Carmen Nevels.
Good evening.
Hi, good evening.
I'm here to represent my son, a first grader in KDISD.
I'm here to stand up for my rights to choose what is best and safest for my family.
And I'm here as an American who knows how to respect the liberties of others to do as they see fit for themselves and their children.
I appreciate your stance on supporting parental rights.
Here at KDISD, and I'm here to support you right back.
I hope you don't fold.
My role as a mom, oh, sorry.
I'm new to attending these meetings.
I'm not a doctor nor a lawyer nor a scientist nor a politician.
I'm a mom of two boys that are growing up healthy, happy, strong.
Despite all that they're living through, they are not living in fear.
My role as a mom is one that I take, one that I gave up my career for and one that I take very seriously.
Our home and lifestyle includes maximizing factors that promote good health
while minimizing things that can bring our defenses down.
What I have to bring to the board is my nearly seven years of being a mom.
I'm not the perfect mother, but I have two boys that have never had to take any antibiotics,
never had an ear infection, never had strep, RSV, never had flu,
which we have never masked up for or vaccinated for.
They have had colds, fever, stomach bugs like every other kid,
but I have always been able to treat and heal my kids naturally.
What I want to say is based on my track record, I am clearly doing something right.
I have weighed out the risk benefit of masks for my kids.
I do not agree with their safety and refuse to cover my kids' breathing holes.
Masks do not work at stopping viruses, but they do work at trapping moisture, CO2, and bacteria,
all which go into my minimize and avoid category.
I've made up my mind based on what I have learned about masks for my son.
I do not believe in their safety nor in their effectiveness,
but in someone anyone feels the need to cover up their child that is their
prerogative they're right they the respect should be reciprocated we are
still the land of the free right again thank you for holding the line for
parental choice I it's admirable respectful and it's American all right I
sincerely appreciate everybody that showed up to speak tonight that was the last speaker of
the evening so this ends the public hearing portion of the meeting um the board appreciate
your comments thanks everyone uh we'll now proceed into x item with 3.1 which is consider board
approval of the kitty independent school district safe return to school plan so trustees now is the
time to ask any questions that you have on the presentations that mr graham and mrs hack gave
gave earlier. Any questions from the trustees? Mr. President, I would like to say something and
I have some questions. I just want to say that we hear you and we do get lots of emails and texts,
but we really care about the well-being of your children. And I know that I'm speaking for
all everyone but i know these other board members and we all want the best for your kids and the
decisions that we make are with that in mind i just wanted to say that first of all um also
those numbers include the staff also so the percentages i actually added them all up is 0.75
five percent for elementary and 0.5 for seventh through twelfth grade so just just knowing that
and i and i know that the science is important i'm a daughter of a scientist and i've listened
to the science but there's science on both sides and the emails that we get are about 50 50 you
know that that support and don't support and even tonight i took a a little poll there was 10 that
that are against masks and 13 that are for.
So even that is pretty close numbers.
So I just wanna say that first of all,
I really appreciate everything that Dr. Gorgorski
and Mrs. Hag and the rest of the staff has done
to try to make this the best for everyone.
But I do have a few questions about the mitigation plan.
And I really appreciate the work that was involved
in the stage five stage four and all that and i realize that most schools are in stage four i
think there was actually one school still in stage five which is kind of exciting but what i'm
wondering is and i don't know if there's an answer to this is you know when i read it it says um
if the like for example on stage three it says if the increased rate of covid 19 transmission
continues continues following the level four mitigation uh beginning with the five-day
they increment, the following protocols are required.
But what I'm wondering is, what is the increase rate?
Like, when will it?
I mean, is there a percentage?
Is there a number?
Because an increase rate could just be one, one added to it.
You know, I mean, what does that really mean?
There's really no clear percentage.
We learned last year in our mitigation efforts that we could put in,
we were doing those type of mitigations last year.
First one was if we identified more than one positive within a specific classroom or program,
that is where they would go test and return with a negative or elect to self-isolate.
There's a lot of kids self-isolating last year.
What we found was by quickly identifying a place where there might be a potential COVID cluster that could lead to a spread,
by mitigating quickly, if they were positive and they go test,
We were able to get them out of the campus and home and self-isolating before it spread through the campus.
So we found that that worked for us really well.
The threshold for, I'll use last year as an example, when we made the decision to close four of the five campuses,
one was an advisement by the county, the very first one, Seven Lights,
but the other four went to Dr. Gregorski, and I said the emergency management team is recommending at that time
for those four to close for five days because we could determine that we had
done several mitigations that stage four mitigations and we weren't seeing the
trend for the positives the number of positives continued to be reported
continued to increase and so when we reach a point where we don't can't
identify where we think the potential for the spread is then we have to make
that decision that the campus needed to close for ten to five days and so we
We learned a lot last year with that, and that is what we discussed all summer and planned with the revised safe return to school plan.
What worked last year, what protocols, in the absence of the mandated face mask, these protocols are what we're doing right now in the first days of school.
And we've seen that a couple of the campuses where we have classrooms that have been identified as a potential cluster, that it's working quickly and that number is leveling off.
and then we can track and see how many of the active cases how soon those are
going to come off and then the number goes down okay it is one follow-up
question of that would there ever be a potential of let's say you were at stage
four which is you know most of us actually skip stage three and just jump
to stage two like something happened over the weekend or whatever and you
know suddenly you know you know I guess I don't I don't not sure we could answer
that because we've never had the opportunity to last year because face coverings were mandated we
went from the mitigation protocols of stage four because they were already masked and at that point
where we thought those particular four campuses we weren't sure where the spread was coming from
we went to a closed campus now we have that stage three that we can expand those protocols and do
some of the things we did last year that helped minimize the spread of covid like restricting
visiting visitors lunch visitors and if they do come they're scheduled and we do
temp check on we did all that last year and it would be very easy to go back up
with that and see if we can still get that mitigation to occur okay and then
that's really all I just again wanted to really thank you because you know we're
all parents here and I mean I want the best for all everyone the teachers the
kids and I know everybody else here feels the same way and so I really
I really appreciate what you're doing.
Thank you.
Rebecca, I thought I just wanted to check with you.
I know you're on the, hopefully still with us on the phone.
Do you have any questions that you wanted to ask?
I am here.
Thank you, President Schulte.
I have a couple of questions, and I'm
happy to take a turn and let other people jump in.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you fine.
OK.
So thank you very much for this meeting.
I think it's super important to have open, transparent communication so that our community
can understand the complexity of the choices and the decisions that we're making.
So thank you for that.
I also know that as I said last time, when we, when it's warranted, I believe that this
board and the superintendent and the staff will reconvene and address new things as they
come and as they change.
Thank you for that.
I have a question.
Is it possible for families to get more specific information about exposure happening at school?
We're hearing from people who say, I have three children in the same school.
I got an email saying my child was exposed.
No idea which child.
Was it a program or a classroom?
Is it possible to get more specific for them?
Yes, we continue to refine the communications.
what we call our general notification that goes between 5 and 5.30 each day based upon
the positives that are reported.
Last year, the general notification went to every single student.
So the student, the parent didn't know, it may not have been even associated with their
child's class or classes.
This year, the general notification goes to all students and staff associated with that
individual that's positive with their classes.
So right there, that was a refinement we introduced this year.
The first couple days we sent the notification,
it did not have the specific student's name.
Now let's say if I'm a parent of three children at Seven Lakes High School,
my child that was impacted by that individual that was positive in their classroom,
it would have that child's name on the notification.
So any parents that received the general notification today,
day, their child's name was attached with it so they know it's within their schedule.
Thank you very much. May I ask another question? Yes.
So there's communication circulating in the district talking about 10 percent spread in
the community and they're going to shut down UIL, shut down schools, 10 percent. And
And I think it's important to talk about the fact that the district is not even at
1% yet, and a 10% spread would be much bigger numbers.
And is it my understanding that the schools that were shut down last time, maybe last
year, was not even 10%?
We react closer, quicker than that.
What would you have to say about the 10% scare that's going around that people think
EYL is going to be shut down?
You are correct.
The 10% of last year, I referenced the campuses that we closed.
No, I do not recall them being closed to 10%.
We never, I don't think, I can't even remember us getting over 3%, 4%.
What drove the recommendation to Dr. Gorgorski from the Emergency Operations Management Team
was that every day we mitigated positives in individual campuses.
And specific to these four campuses is that we had done several mitigations
and we weren't seeing the numbers of the positives going down
like we were seeing with all the other times that we were mitigating these campuses.
So when the question is, with the team, we reach a point like,
like can we identify where the spread is or is it maybe a spread that will continue
unless we take the next step, which was to put them at home for five days.
And in all four instances, it did work.
The decline came, went down, they came back, but the 10% was never the threshold,
nor have we come close to a campus or the district being at the 10%.
Thank you for that clarification.
I do appreciate the Stage 3 restricted visitors,
no one in the lunchroom if we get to that.
I appreciate that being explained.
And that, thank you for that.
My last question will be,
people talked about the filtration system
and my understanding is that was upgraded
last at the beginning of COVID or somewhere.
I wasn't a part of the board then.
Can you help us understand what filtration
has been implemented to improve that in our school district.
Mr. Verling, would you like to answer that?
Yes, ma'am.
So talk about low-hanging fruit.
We jumped on that pretty quick as soon as COVID started.
And starting in the spring and summer of 2020,
we started a program where we changed out the filters throughout the district.
So I could give a 45-minute presentation just on MERV ratings
and ASHRAE and EPA guidelines, but as was mentioned in several of the speakers tonight,
we do follow the ASHRAE guidelines. That's the American Society of Heating,
Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers, as well as EPA. They're the gold standard for that.
And the air filters that we put in throughout the district last summer, and they're still there now,
2020, summer of 2020, are a MERV 13 rating, and that's the top of the line stuff.
Give an example, hospitals and surgery rooms use a MERV 14, so we're right under that.
So if you read all that stuff, and I can give you more information, I actually prepared
a document for the board last year, but I know we've got some new members.
I'm happy to update that and get that to you.
Lots of detail on that.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm finished.
Finished? Any other comments from any of the trustees? Mr. Kellett?
Is this on? Yes.
Yes.
Councilor Graham, thank you for that first year law flashback.
I appreciate it.
But I'm glad you gave it.
I actually had a constituent ask me the other day by email if I learned anything in law
school because I was trying to explain the current situation and everything.
And I think it's important that you gave that because some people are not even aware of
the governor's order.
So I wanted to say in front of everybody, you've done double duty during all this.
this. It's not easy to gather all that you've had to track and put it not only in information to us,
but in an understandable form for all of our families. And I just say that because you do
so many things to help us wade through this that the public doesn't see. And so thank you for that.
I also want to say, and I know we've said before, Dr. Grzegorski, a lot of people may not think or realize y'all's regular jobs are very difficult to begin with.
You and your administrative staff, none of that stopped, and you have all of this on top of it.
So I know I've said it before, but I continue to be impressed with the job you're doing.
It's phenomenal.
And we see more than the public because of our roles.
But I just have to say it's phenomenal.
We care about kids.
My son goes to these schools.
My daughter's graduated from these schools.
I'm a product of these schools.
We care about these kids.
And I'm glad we had the meeting tonight because it illustrates where the district is stuck between some political arguments.
And our decisions are not political.
we're making decisions for the districts and the kids so I just want to say thank
you again I not gonna say anything else thank you thanks mr. Keller any other
yes mr. president miss hack the emails did work right nice and big it says dear
parents guardians of and drops the name in so I've got two kids at one school
school. And so now I know which kid to worry about. The simple thing I was going to say
is what I love is how customized the plan is depending on the campus and what each of
those locations is dealing with. So what one school, what I've seen as visiting schools
is each school has a different personality, everything from the way of the principal and
the teachers and the kids. And they're all responding in different ways and at the same
time it's great to watch the dashboard and see how while one school may mask
more than the other and one school may not mask very much they're still being
smart about it and taking responsibility for it so I love that that customization
that we can increase or decrease as we need to so thank you very much hard work
Any other questions or comments from anyone? Mr. President? Yes. I move the Board of Trustees
approves the Katy Independent School District Safe Return to School Plan as presented by
administration. I have, go ahead, thank you. So I have a motion by Ms. Vance, second by Mr. Keller.
I didn't get to speak. I was going to let everybody go first, but I just wanted to say a few comments.
All my questions have been answered by the other people, so I don't have any new questions,
but I do want to, I know people are really tired of this. People wish we weren't here,
and yet we're here. And it's the endurance of the teachers and the administrators and the
emergency response team and everybody, because you think you're done and we're back at it again.
It's just, it's not going away. So I know people are tired. We heard today, people are scared.
People are angry about all this. And I think people are understandably frustrated with the
board. Why aren't you doing more? And I think we all here, I speak for myself only, we wish there
there was a one-size-fits-all solution, and there's just not.
But I commend Dr. Gorski and Ms. Hack and your team for this staged approach,
which I think it's data-driven, and we escalate the response based on what the data is telling us to do.
And if the data is saying that there's no need to do anything, then let's not put everybody in masks.
Let's keep the schools open and keep everybody working.
And when the data starts going the other direction, we're taking measures to make sure we counteract that.
So I think it's a good plan.
And I think we're gonna have to continue to look at it and look for ways that we can improve it
And I also want to I think other people have said it and I'll dr. Gorski and his team
I know the optics may look like why is this board taking so long to have this discussion?
We are getting calls and we're getting updates from dr. Gorski and and mr. Graham every day sometimes four or five times a day
seven days a week
So there's been it's been like the ping-pong was a perfect example of what's been going on
for the last two or three weeks,
and we wanted to make sure we had all the right data
to make a high-quality decision,
and I think we're hopefully going to do that here in a few minutes.
So I just wanted to recognize Dr. Gorski and his team
and certainly all the residents and community that are concerned
and came up and voiced their opinion.
We appreciate everybody's comments and concerns.
So thank you.
Mr. President?
Yes.
Mr. President?
Yes.
Before you take the vote, may I add one more thing?
Yes.
I want to say the same.
I love that this is not a district-wide approach.
One size does not fit all
because not all campuses have the same level.
I very much appreciate, like Mr. Redmond said,
a campus by campus approach.
The other thing I want to say is that I'm so grateful
to Dr. Gregorio and his team for a step-by-step approach.
I think this shows true leadership.
I think KDIC is leading the way
that it's not just mask or not mask.
It is a measured approach, step by step.
And I think that this approach, Dr. Gregorsty,
could be used in any number of ways, right?
Like not just COVID, but maybe flu
or something else that might happen.
I think that this plan that you have in place could be used
in other areas, and I wanted to say that
and say how much I appreciate Mr. Graham's presentation,
Ms. Attack and Dr. Gorski's team. Thank you. I think Dr. Gorski had a few words you'd like to say. Yeah, just to answer a couple of questions that came up with the speakers. I didn't want to leave a question unanswered for our community that came up. One person talked a little bit about the cost, what we might be expensing and legal fees or anything. There are no costs to the district at this time. Right now, however hard, however hard I work, Mr. Graham on these things, whether it's the weekends or nights, he doesn't get any extra money out of me.
out of that or the district, but nothing is costing the district anything. There was a question that
came up about do the cases drop off in 10 days, and they do drop off in 10 days. That's a CDC
recommendation after that, so they just automatically drop off the dashboard. Another one came up about
the list of districts that have gone against the governor's anti-mask mandate, however you want to
state that but there is a list out there you can google it you just go to ag paxton uh schools mass
mandate you can find a list like anyone else can uh but uh they list all the the schools on there
i don't i don't know all the schools but it does exist out there i want to just point to that
reference if anyone wanted to go see who that was but that's all i have on there thank you
mr keller and i'll proceed to vote and no more questions i assume trustees
We'll now proceed to vote. All those in favor, raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye. Thank you. The motion passes 7-0.
Future meetings, we have a special board meeting scheduled for September 13, 2021 for team building.
And then we have the next regular board meeting scheduled for September 27, 2021.
There being no further business before this board, the meeting is adjourned.
the time is 7 14 have a good night everyone thank you
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 3.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the Katy Independent School District Safe Return to School Plan.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| duke-keller | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |