Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started.
Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting Agenda
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, May 15, 2023
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In this meeting
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- 0:04 to 4:28 1. Call to Order
- 4:28 to 28:19 3. Citizen Participation
- 28:19 to 33:45 4.1 Consider Board approval of the canvass for the May 6, 2023 Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees Election.
- 33:45 to 34:43 4.2 Consider Board certification of the May 6, 2023 Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees election for Positions 3, 4, and 5.
- 34:43 to 57:02 5. Oath of Office
- 57:02 to 57:25 6. Closed Meeting
- 57:25 to 58:11 7. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 58:11 to 1:07:45 8.1 Consider and elect officers for the 2023-2024 Board of Trustees.
- 1:07:45 to 1:47:55 9. Recognitions
- 1:47:55 to 1:48:17 11. Closed Meeting
- 1:48:17 to 1:49:25 12. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 1:49:25 to 2:36:23 13.1 2023 Community Bond Advisory Committee Recommendation
- 2:36:23 to 2:45:08 13.2 Strategic Design 1.3 Elementary Literacy Update
- 2:45:08 to 3:04:55 13.3 2022 Health Plan Update
- 3:04:55 to 3:12:10 13.4 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) Annual Report
- 3:12:10 to 3:13:47 14.1 Discuss and consider Board approval of the 2023-2024 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) representatives.
- 3:13:47 to 3:15:15 14.2 Discuss and consider Board adoption of the local policies included in Board Policy Update 120.
- 3:15:15 to 3:20:47 14.3 Discuss and consider Board approval to temporarily waive the TEA state assessment requirements within Board Policy FMH(LOCAL).
- 3:20:47 to 3:28:02 14.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of additional department staffing needs to address growth for the 2023 - 2024 school year.
- 3:28:02 to 3:30:31 14.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of RFP 2218SP Single Sign-On (SSO) Platform to ClassLink Inc.
- 3:30:31 to 3:31:33 15. Consent
- 3:31:33 to 3:31:59 16.1 Donated Items to Katy Independent School District
- 3:31:59 to 3:32:16 17. Future Meetings
Full transcript
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1. Call to Order
Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District to order.
Today is Monday, May 15th, 2023, and the time is 5.01 PM.
Dr. Gagorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regards to notice for this meeting?
Mr. President, I do confirm we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting tonight.
night. We'll now proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance. Dr. Borgorski. My pleasure. Thank you.
We've got a special guest sitting right up front. I can see him sitting there. Jude Filson, a fifth
grader at Robertson Elementary. Principal there is Martha Pulido. I see her sitting in the stands
as well. Parents Duane and Brooke Filson has a couple of siblings, Maya and Isla. Special
interests, baseball, the Houston Astros, spending time with family, sports cars, music, fashion,
and student council. Favorite subjects math and science and from Tracy Hudson
fifth grade ELAR and social studies and student council sponsor Jude is an
outstanding student as the Robertson Elementary Student Council president he
has shown exactly what it means to be a leader I am proud of him and know that
he will continue to do amazing things and from Courtney Caldwell fifth grade
5th grade science. Jude's heart for helping others is special. So welcome Jude. Come on up and go ahead and lead us in that Pledge of Allegiance, please.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one indivisible.
Good evening, President Schultz, board members, and Superintendent Grigorski.
My name is Jude Filson. I pride myself on being a well-rounded student.
As the current and first Robertson Elementary Student Council president,
I strive to demonstrate strong leadership skills and a passion for helping others at school.
My dedication to my academic pursuits has resulted in exponential grades and reputation for hard work that I am very proud of.
In addition, I also have a love for baseball and I can often be found on the field practicing or playing in tournaments.
with my team, the Katy Chiefs.
My commitment to both academics and baseball
showcased my ability to balance various interests
and excel in all aspects of my life.
I am thankful for all those who have helped me along the way,
including my parents and my teachers.
Thank you.
Great job. Congratulations.
Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening that would like to come forward?
How are you this evening?
Would you like to tell us, introduce your name, what troop you are,
and what badges you're working on, and what rank you are?
My name is Enzo Migliavaca. I'm in Boy Scout Troop 1103.
three I'm second class rank and I'm working on the cooking marriage
congratulations thanks for being here tonight
3. Citizen Participation
we'll now proceed to the citizen participation on non-agenda items in
accordance with BED legal and BED local the board shall hear from
persons who desire to make comments to the board on non-agenda items a maximum
of 30 minutes has been allocated for speakers who signed up to speak on
non-agenda items with the time divided equally among those who have signed up however the
maximum amount of time for any one speaker shall not exceed three minutes if the speaker is not
finished speaking at the end of three minutes the audio will turn off no presentation shall exceed
three minutes and only the first 20 speakers who signed up shall be allowed to speak on non-agenda
items if more than 10 speakers sign up the 30 minutes will be divided amongst the speakers
if the speaker wishes to share written material with the board you must provide 10 copies
to the Secretary for Board Services before the meeting begins for board members, the superintendent,
the chief communications officer, and permanent record.
If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels,
as stated in board policy, the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker
to seek resolution through the appropriate policy.
Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551074 and 5510821,
the board will not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a student
and will not discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline,
or dismissal of a public officer or employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee.
Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues,
they must do so through the appropriate local grievance policies, FNG local, DGBA local, CKE local, or GF local.
Now we will call up speakers who sign up to speak on non-posted agenda items.
By policy, again, a maximum of 30 minutes has been allocated,
with the time divided equally amongst all that have signed up.
I believe every speaker tonight gets three minutes.
Is that correct, Dr. Smear?
Yeah.
The first speaker tonight is Shelly Keating, and the second speaker tonight is Phillip Haddad.
Good evening.
Good evening, and thank you.
My name is Shelly Keating. I am the president of the KDISD Council of PTAs. PTA is a member-based
organization. Our goal was to achieve 30,000 members this year and get back to things doing
pre-COVID. I'm happy to report we have achieved, are you ready for it, 30,378 members.
Special thanks to Dr. Grgorski, Leslie Hack, and Janet Tice for joining all of our PTAs.
We really appreciate you.
And we appreciate everyone that has joined any PTA this year, helping us maintain our
record of the most members of any district in the state of Texas.
The Platinum Voice for Every Child Award is a very big deal and I'm very pleased to report
that Kilpatrick Elementary PTA and Randolph Elementary PTA have both achieved this goal
and were awarded with a banner and photographed with Leslie Hack and myself and our membership
chair at our delegate meeting.
We organized two new PTAs at Youngblood Elementary and Fowden Elementary.
So we now have 69 PTAs and I'm very happy to report that all will achieve good standing
by the end of this week.
We have had countless programs addressing hot topics facing our youth today.
27 campuses participated in the Reflections Art Program.
Even one made it to the national platform.
platform we had a wonderful Founders Day dinner and we all enjoyed going to rally day at the Texas
Capitol in February we brought back our vendor fair this year with 28 vendors countless numbers
of PTA members attended and this is our first time back since 2019. as we approach the end of
the school year with anticipation of all the wonderful things that summer brings before you
know it it will be august and the school bells will be ringing again in preparation parents will
buy new backpacks lunch boxes and tennis shoes but is that everything we need to back to go back to
school texas pta will launch back the future in august and we need communities across the state
to support it this campaign is designed to increase membership and awareness of the importance of
community engagement successful students are everyone's business and successful
schools build successful communities it will take all of us and that includes
you to back the future join PTA and ask others to do the same you don't have to
be a parent to join you just have to care about the community anyone who
cares about the community can join because there is no community without
without you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next speaker tonight is Phillip Haddad and the speaker
after that is Amy Trainer. Good evening. Good evening. How
you doing? Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I
know I believe based on elections, some of them will be
changing other guards. So, those of you who will be
leaving, congratulations on probably getting some family
time in. So, congratulations on that and it's been nice
engaging with you guys over the past few months. The reason I
want to speak tonight is about I know upcoming bond or
proposal bond and I know that anytime you ask for money it's always a big ask
I heard one time I don't remember who said it may have been a former president
he said you pay it now through education you'll pay it now or you'll
pay it later through with the criminal justice system so either way you're
gonna pay so pay it now through the education system I want to thank Mr.
Perez who recently attended a scrimmage or at the RSC the Robert Shaw steam
center I know that's going to be a potential bond issue is expanding the
Robert Shaw Center and it's been my experience being a mentor for a team and
being there for last four years because of a son of mine who's been in robotics
program for four years it's a tremendous tremendous opportunity for young ones
this summer to be summer camp so there for very young ones and legal legal and
have you and I think expansion the RSC is critical to the future of all the
future of Katie and the students and it gives a great place for students to to
to be on a Saturday afternoon building robots
versus roaming the streets or whatever else kids may do.
So I hope as this bond issue comes to your attention,
I hope you will find it
and to move it forward to the voters.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next speaker tonight is Amy Traynor
and the speaker after that is Renee Glasscock.
Good evening.
Good evening, President Schulte,
Board of Trustees, and Dr. Rogorski. Greg and Leah, it seems like such a short time
since we were gathered at your election party celebration until I really think
about how long it's been and how much has transpired since that moment. It's
hard to believe that tonight is our last night to address you as board members.
Leah and Greg, you have invested countless hours of time and energy into
making our schools a better place for our students to learn and grow. All of
your learning, all of our conversations together, and with other literacy experts, all so we
could make sure all KDISD teachers are equipped to teach all students in KDISD how to read.
We recognize the sacrifices you have made in order to fulfill your responsibilities
as a member of the school board.
Your efforts have not gone unnoticed, and the impact you have had on our students, staff,
and community will be felt for years to come.
Your tireless work has resulted in a district who is embracing the science of reading and implementing instructional best practice with science of reading aligned resources.
Your leadership around literacy will leave a lasting legacy not just in Katy ISD and our Katy community, but is already having a ripple effect across Texas and our country.
Your dedication to ensuring that our schools actually teach all children how to read has truly been remarkable.
On behalf of the Katy Literacy Coalition and our entire community, I would like to extend
my heartfelt thanks for all that you have done.
You have truly made a difference in the lives of our children and we will never forget your
contributions to literacy.
I wish you all the best in your next adventures and I am confident that you will continue
to be a part of our community for many years to come.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
you the next speaker tonight is Renee glass cock and the speaker after that is
Alicia Calvis good evening good evening president Schulte trustees and dr. G I'm
Renee glass cock a lifelong resident and proud member of Katy high school's class
of 2001 I want to take a moment to acknowledge the outgoing board members
Ashley Vann, Leah Wilson, and Greg Schulte for their service, as well as their family members.
Many in the community lack the understanding of the extensive time commitment and sacrifices trustees and their families agree to upon election,
and all for the grand total of $0.
Thank you, guys.
President Schulte, at the last board meeting, you said someone recently asked you what was the thing you were most proud of during your time on the board.
You stated that you didn't have to think about it and inferred you are most proud of the collective work the board and administration
have accomplished by bringing structured literacy to Katy ISD and I cannot think of a better legacy to
Leave than one impacting the quality of life of every single student who passes through our district. Thank you
Thank you for hearing and answering the literacy call others have dismissed or deemed too difficult to shoulder
and for taking the time to understand all parts that work together to ensure every child has the opportunity to learn to read the way the brain is wired to do so.
Whether you were reading articles explaining the research, participating in calls with SOR experts,
or sitting at the kitchen table listening to complicated presentations addressing the accountability system in the elementary literacy teaks,
you did so with the heart of a lifelong learner and with one bottom line in mind.
what was truly best for kids and not what was easiest for the adults. I
applaud you and your subcommittee's dedication in ensuring Dr. Bell and her
team are empowered and supported with the correct resources and qualified
personnel to continue the successful transition from balanced to structured
literacy. I would hope the newly elected trustees as well as your successor as
president of the board understands the importance of following the trail you've
blazed and recognize they will be held accountable by those of us who have been
advocating for years for all KISD students and their right to research
based tier one literacy education as the three of you embark on the next chapter
of service in your lives please know that I am grateful for your time and
efforts here in KDISD best wishes to each one of you and your families thank
Thank you.
The next speaker tonight is Alicia Calvas, and the speaker after that is Jason Asnar.
Good evening.
Good evening, President Schulte, Dr. Kigorski, and trustees.
I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Mr. Schulte and Ms. Wilson.
What began as casual conversations has grown into something so much more.
KDISD is becoming a leader in literacy with a full transition to the science of reading
and it's a monumental Herculean change.
And it's safe to say that none of this would be possible without either of you.
Mr. Schulte, you did more than get curious about literacy.
You spent your free time many days and evenings on phone calls or Zoom meetings with professors,
professors, experts in literacy, and other trustees on the same literacy journey.
You got more than curious about the science of reading.
You've become an expert.
Armed with knowledge, you helped lead this district through the discomfort of what they
did not know to best serve the children you were elected to serve.
Children in Katy will have a more literate future because of your brave and bold leadership.
What a remarkable legacy.
legacy. Ms. Wilson, from the beginning, your compassion and dedication to our children
with dyslexia was unmatched. Thank you for your wisdom and bravery and for always listening
to the parents in this district. Through this literacy journey, you remain committed to
bringing evidence-based reading instruction to our district even when it was an uphill
battle. This full transition would not have been possible without your unwavering commitment.
commitment. What a blessing you have given our students. Few people understand all of
the blood, sweat, and tears that has gone into making this transition possible for our
children. Those of us that do are forever grateful for your time, your leadership, and
your expertise. Thank you.
Thank you. The next speaker tonight is Jason Asnar and the speaker after that is Andrew
Andrew Cummings. Good evening. Good evening and congratulations to our newest board members
staying in our audience. Tonight I'd like to speak about the importance of KDSD bond
2023 and why I believe as long as others in our community that this bond is in our board's
best interest to approve when it comes to their desks and also our future board members'
desks when it comes to their desk. KDSD has been a district that's long managed to stay
competitive due to its ability to upgrade and meet the ever-changing needs of its students.
Today as a community we stand at a crossroad. Do we spend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars on
our students futures or do we become complacent in an increasingly competitive educational field?
This bond has the ability to expand our overcrowded facilities and in some cases restore
our facilities back to KDIC centers and all at the same time being able to secure our district's
future as the place we as a community want our kids to be in. For example, the
Robert R. Shaw Center can only support seven out of the soon-to-be ten schools.
The bond can fix this. Another example, right now the Miller Auto Shop
has been quoted by students as a chop shop and currently lacks facilities to
support more than a few students working on the cars at the same time. The bond
can fix this. Additionally, I can attest as a former band kid for the last four
years that with the current state of Rhodes Stadium it's not what I call KBSD
quality it's fallen below quality it's gone to the point where there's holes in
the roofs when you enter the bathrooms are dilapidated and it's just
not a good environment to be in or perform or enjoy for our community and
that's why I believe the importance of this bond can save our district and keep
us up to date in a modern day once again keeping a theme the bond can fix a lot
of our issues that we currently face and keep us a competitive district where our parents,
our voters, our taxpayers and your constituents will want to keep their kids in because how
competitive KBIC will continue to be. This bond can secure our future and in our community
I think it's very valuable as we want our children to make sure that they are able to
have a solid future where they know that their kids' education is going to be valued by the
board. Thank you so much and have a good night.
Thank you.
The next speaker tonight is Andrew Cummings, and the speaker after that is Alfredo Castro.
Good evening.
Good evening.
My primary reason for coming tonight was to congratulate the new board members and also
to thank all of the current board members for all the work you've done.
I expected to enter an empty room.
You have exceeded my expectations.
I wrote down a couple items I wanted to talk about.
I've had two students in KDISD. One has graduated in the military. The other will
graduate next year and we've had an excellent experience. I'd like to thank
all of you for your hard work to provide that experience for our children. Not all
parents have had the same experience and I know a lot of parents personally who
are homeschooling their kids and I wanted, I don't know if it's possible, but
if there's a way to extend an olive leaf to those parents and invite those
those parents and Children back even on a part time basis. I was thinking a lot
of those parents, they may feel very qualified to teach their Children
history, but maybe not calculus. They certainly don't have a band, a football
stadium, a baseball stadium. So um, I'm not sure what the state law allows and
if that's possible, but a way to bring the community together. These parents
are still paying taxes. They just had usually an experience that drove them
them away and invite them back I think would be a good thing to do.
Secondly, we all appreciate the administration of the school system.
If it weren't for administrators, we wouldn't be here because all this is put on by administrators.
But when you end up with more administration than you need, people tend to come up with
a different word than administration.
They call it bureaucracy.
And bureaucracy in my view is the enemy of education.
I really encourage the board and the administration to look and see where we can allocate dollars
out of administration, or what I'll call it, bureaucracy,
and back into the schoolroom in the form of teachers, teachers' aides.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the board.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next speaker tonight is Alfredo Castro,
and the last speaker tonight is Logan McLean.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Thank you for your time.
I appreciate it.
I've been in KDISD since 2001.
One, I have two proud graduates of a local Katy ISD high school.
I love this district.
It's been really good to my family, which is why I'm here to express my amazement.
And I guess you can say shock at the soon to be makeup of this board of trustees.
It's quite disappointing to see what Katy ISD is, seems to be becoming,
which is a haven for wacko alt-right conspiracy theorists and fear mongers.
A place where bad behavior is rewarded with election to the school board.
I mean we'll soon have a board made up of the following a censored trustee
Who I've seen did tell what was said in a closed meeting to a family member of a litigant
Who had an active case against KDSD?
another board member
Who cowardly and perhaps illegally wrongfully?
blocks his constituents from commenting on his forward social pages and who in my mind is responsible bringing this recent wave of outside PAC money
to our volunteer school board elections.
And by the way, he also protests other people's churches.
Let's also not forget our career politician over here,
whose only real purpose seems to be, all these many, many years,
seems to be taking incessant photo ops,
which in her mind probably shows the public she's actually doing something.
And then later tonight, we're going to install three new board members over here
who also rode into their positions on a mountain...
on a mountain of partisan money who allowed libelous statements to be made on their behalf
against their recent board opponents. Sure, they feigned ignorance. Yeah, how convenient.
But they still, I haven't seen, had the decency to apologize for such despicable actions.
I mean, some of these PAC puppets didn't even send their children to KDISD schools to graduate.
And one of them also is a protester of people's churches. I mean, it's unbelievable. So there we
have it a board of trustees not to really be proud of it's baffling to see how far we have fallen as
a community hopefully the majority of the eligible voting public in kdisd will soon wake up fast
start paying real attention to what's happening here and just maybe in the coming years we can
correct these mistakes we now have on the board thank you for your time thank you
and the last speaker tonight is logan mclean
Good evening.
Hi, Board.
I promised to make this short and sweet.
You guys remember me.
My name is Logan McClain, and it's my last week here as a senior at Cinco Ranch High School.
I've been in KDISD since kindergarten, and for 13 years, this school district has given me the best opportunities and the best education I could have ever asked for.
I have the privilege of going off to college already knowing some of the things that I've been taught, and I'm going to be doing that.
of my values, my interests, my passions.
This just gave me the chance to forge my identity
and prepare me for the future.
And I wanted to take a moment to thank you, board members,
from now and the past for making that possible,
particularly Ms. Wilson and Mr. Schulte for listening to me
and making me feel like my voice was heard as a student.
I might be leaving now, but I want my younger friends,
my siblings, my future generations
to get the same experience in KDISD that I got.
As the new board members are sworn in today, I ask everyone sitting at your table and the new trustees behind me to continue to serve its students to the best of your abilities.
I might not always agree with the political opinions of trustees, but as long as the job can be carried out without those being a chief factor, I'm confident that education can continue doing what it does best, raising the next generation of leaders.
I can look past who endorsed who as long as my freshman friends have enough
teachers to teach them and enough bus drivers to drive them. It doesn't matter
to me how you feel about removing books as long as students can continue to see
themselves represented in them and learn to love to read for it the same way that
I did growing up here. I don't care who you vote for in elections as long as
students continue to have access to the vital resources especially those mental
mental health resources like the Trevor Project and my Gay Straight Alliance at my school
that helped me get through high school and I'm sure will continue to serve the students
of the future.
I'm graduating next week and with everything I need to be successful.
I'm supported, I'm educated and given the opportunity to explore my passions and I have
KDIC to thank for that and off the script I got to serve on the bond committee which
is crazy to me.
I got to get certifications from Miller in healthcare that I am going very far away for college
And I am telling my friends that and they're like wow you got to do that
That's crazy, and I have you guys to thank for that
I
Also have partisanship
Partisanship stayed out of my education and allowed me to be where I am today
When these new trustees are sworn in I ask that all seven of you set aside the things that make you different and your political
opinions and work towards keeping KDIC the haven of learning and opportunity
that it has been for me from kindergarten until now thank you for
your service trustees and good luck to our new board
mr. Gretzky mr. Graham mr. Graham before you leave I had somebody said they had
sign up to speak that did not show up on my list tongs engine um i showed they did not sign up in
time yeah so you the the list that you have includes everybody that okay thank you signed
up ahead of time and thank you that closes the open forum portion of the meeting we'll now
4.1 Consider Board approval of the canvass for the May 6, 2023 Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees Election.
proceed into into agenda item 4.1 which is considered board approval of the canvas for
the may 6 2023 katie independent school district board of trustees election the presenter tonight
is Justin Graham, General Counsel for the District. Good evening.
Mr. President, Dr. Gagorski, members of the board, it's a little bit unusual for me to be here in
front of a packed audience normally when we canvass the vote. It's a separate meeting that
only requires two members of the board to attend. I'm actually glad that we get to do this at this
at this publicly posted meeting. Traditionally, the way that we do it is a little less fanfare,
and that's just because of the timing of when we have to canvas the election. We're governed by
state law. We have some very strict rules on the last day for our early ballot board to meet and
then have to canvas the vote. It just so happens that this May election coincided with it, so we
didn't need to have to do a separate election. That being said, everybody's aware we just had
a may election as we do every may i have some facts and figures i want to go over for this
board's edification and then i'm going to read the results in and ask you guys to certify the election
i traditionally hear when i hear about elections in kdisd they said you know what's going on with
kdisd elections well we have over we have about 227 000 registered voters within kdisd so for
perspective on that we have 256 counties in Texas. We are bigger, KDISD is bigger
than all but 11 counties in Texas. So the elections that we
behold here in Katy ISD take more effort and more staff and more time and quite
frankly more headache than they do in almost every County in the state of
Texas you will see the turnout that's on the canvas report and anybody that wants
to look at it that's also publicly available online our turnout this year
was the highest we've ever had almost 12,000 voters still guys that's five
5.13 percent of the voters right so we talk about voter engagement how do we engage our voters um
unfortunately that is a statewide trend during local may elections um our the ballot board met
friday at four o'clock to certify the last a few ballots that came in timely um this is the first
year that we uh contracted with the city of katie and we actually held for those of you that live
within the city limits would have seen uh ward a would have seen that on the ballot the overwhelming
feedback i've gotten from the city of kate leadership and their councils that things went
very well hopefully as a partnership we can continue uh hopefully save a few local tax dollars
this is the first year we moved early voting from morton ranch high school to paytoe high school
again we did so seeing the growth that we have up on the north west quadrant we didn't have great
turnout at payto but we never had great turnout in wharton ranch that's something we're going to
continue to look at as we provide as we come next year in may and say hey how do we best allocate
our resources right because we have a finite amount of resources i will tell you as far as
voter engagement and enfranchisement this board has always been committed so long as i've been
here um to extend early to extend early voting hours well we go from seven to seven we go 12
hours a day and we also have weekend early voting hours which is not required by the state law right
We understand that we've got a diverse group of parents and schedules and community members.
And so, again, trying to enfranchise our voters.
I would be remiss before I go ahead and read in the results.
I think Ms. Hebert is sitting back over in the corner.
I think she's probably trying to hide.
But I think every one of you as trustees knows, because you've had to file reports of her.
You had to get information from her.
She really is sort of the boots on the ground that make this engine run.
That being said, I'm going to go ahead and give you some notes on the canvassing report and ask that you guys form the canvas.
So in position three, we had Sean Miller with a total of 933 votes, Amy Thieme with a total of 6,254 votes, and Bruce Bradford with a total of 4,405 votes.
And in position four, Ms. Calhoun had 5,772 votes,
Cecily Taylor with 3,190, Erica Patel with 2,601 votes.
And then finally in position number five,
we had Ms. Cuzela with 6,058 votes
and Ms. Peterson with 5,537 votes.
That being said, board members,
if you take any questions you have
have him but also love a motion on this are there any questions board members if not i'll entertain
a motion president yes i move the board of trustees approves the canvas for the may 6 2023
katie independent school district board of trustees election as reported by the central
counting station and declares the winner of each position as follows position three amy teamy
position four morgan calhoun position five mary ellen Cuzela second we have a motion by mrs van
and is second by Mr. Redman.
We'll now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote
on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes 7-0.
Now proceed to add into item 4.2, which
4.2 Consider Board certification of the May 6, 2023 Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees election for Positions 3, 4, and 5.
is considered board certification of the May 6,
2023 Katie Inman School District Board of Trustees elections
for positions 3, 4, and 5.
Mr. Graham, do you have anything new to present for this?
Well, trustees, I would tell you,
if you look at the official candidates,
we're required by law to present the numbers by precinct.
Again, those numbers are publicly available.
now this next step that you're doing is just certifying the results of the
election and then we're gonna swear in some new trustees if there's no question
to entertain a motion mr. president yes I move that the Board of Trustees
certifies the May 6 2023 Katy Independent School District Board of
Trustees election for positions 3 4 & 5 or by Amy Timmy for position 3 Morgan
Calhoun for position 4 and Mary Ellen Kizella for position 5 were duly elected
Second.
We have a motion by Mr. Redmond, a second by Mrs. Champagne.
We'll now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes 7-0.
We'll now proceed to agenda item 5.1, administer the oath of office to newly elected members
5. Oath of Office
of the Katy ISD Independent School District Board of Trustees.
Mr. President.
Yes.
Before we do that, I wonder if this, maybe the superintendent will help, this would be
an opportunity for board members to have closing remarks.
I think we're going to do that after after the swearing in after swearing after swearing at it. Thank you
Thank You mr. Fox. I didn't see that. I'm said
Yes
So we're doing the oath of office
Raise your right hand and repeat after me.
I, Amy Teamey, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the Office of School Board Trustee
for the Katy Independent School District of the State of Texas.
and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend
the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state.
So help me God. Congratulations.
In the name and by the authority of the state of Texas, I am now about to administer the
oath of office.
I Morgan Calhoun do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the
office of school board trustee for the Katy Independent School District
of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability
preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the
United States and of this state so help me God.
So help me God. Congratulations, Miss Calhoun.
In the name and by the authority of the state of Texas, I'm now going to administer the oath of office.
I Mary Ellen Cuzela I Mary Ellen Cuzela do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that
I will faithfully that I will faithfully execute the duties execute the duties of
the office of school board trustee of the office of school board trustee for
the Katy Independent School District for the Katy Independent School District of
the state of Texas of the state of Texas and will and will to the best of my
ability to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend preserve protect and defend the
constitution the constitution and laws and laws of the united states of the united states and
of this state and of this state so help me god so help me god congratulations
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Well, Ms. Simi, Ms. Calhoun, and Ms. Cuzela, welcome to the board.
I look forward to working with you, each of you, and what we can do to continue success
for this school district.
I'd like to say to Ms. Wilson, thank you for your service.
from the first coffee we had at Summer Moon two and a half years ago.
The relationship and trust, and I'm honored to call you my friend, Mr. Schultz, Greg.
I'll call you Greg now.
He's not a board member anymore.
Last two and a half years have been crazy.
We've spent a lot of time together.
Quick conversations that turned into long phone calls.
And I guess I would say I would go into battle with you anytime.
Ashley, we didn't know each other at all before serving together.
You've been here, well, we've added 30,000 students to the district
and three superintendents and Hurricane Harvey and COVID
and probably a lot of things that I have no clue about.
But you've sacrificed your time, your money,
lots of emotional energy fighting for the kids of this district.
and as a board member I'm incredibly thankful for the fact that you were willing to sacrifice
that for so long and I would we'll be praying for Leah, Ashley, Greg just continued success for
whatever whatever it is you decide to donate all this extra time that you no longer have to do on
the board anymore and probably make a lot more money doing it so thank you.
Okay, the three of you, first of all, together, I'd like to thank you for your service.
It's not easy to be on the board.
It's so hard.
But it's hard, but it's rewarding.
I know that.
I know you all feel that way.
Ashley, I want to say to you, I've known you for a long time.
You're one of, actually, the people who don't know this, but you're amongst the first person
I met you know I had a group of friends and mother share group at our church and
that was 22 years ago so I've known you a long time and of those 22 years nine
of those years you've been on the board and so for that I have a lot of respect
for you that you served that long that's a long time Leah and Greg I want to
thank you both for your leadership and the literacy things that the speaker
spoke of and your dedication to that and I think that that's going to be a true
legacy for you all and so I really admire you for your service with that
too
you know I'm really sentimental so I'm gonna do my best here
No one gets what this role is like except for those who have sat in these chairs.
The difficulties, the challenges, the struggles, the sleepless nights thinking about the decisions we'll make and the visions we have for students.
It's a lot.
And Leah, I mean, Leah and Greg had a delayed election because of COVID when they held no elections in May.
So your term has been shortened two and a half years.
It's the shortest, I guess, of anyone maybe that I know with an elected position that chose to stay.
But you've made the most of it.
And Mrs. Wilson, your insight on so many things, special ed, literacy, you made an impact, and I'm grateful for that.
Mr. Schulte, you came in, your expertise, your business sense, your ability to learn an incredible amount of information,
and your desire to look at other districts around the state
and make sure that we are better and doing more
and excelling on every question,
everything that we changed and made improvements to.
Impressive. Impressive.
No wonder you're so successful in your work and your family
because I see your work ethic and your strength
and your ability to work with everyone.
one. I appreciate you very much. Ashley, just known you a long time. And while we've disagreed
many times and been differing viewpoints on a lot of things, I appreciate your commitment
way before you came to school board and for your school board service of nine years.
It's a sacrifice from our families and you watched your children grow up. I've watched
my children grow up and move on, right? And we know the importance of what that means
is to whom much is given, much is required. And so because our children thrived, we stayed
to contribute to future children's success. And so I recognize that and thank you for
your service.
I'd just like to add, Greg, Ashley, and Leah, we haven't been on the board together
together very long, but I know it's been a sacrifice for everyone that serves on the
board and your service, exemplary service, and time and commitment to the district and
all the hours and everything.
So really appreciate it.
Appreciate your service.
All right, so I'm going to wing it because I didn't prepare specific remarks.
marks. Wow, where do I start? So when I retired from the military, I had a choice.
I looked at what the needs of my children were, having special ed, GT, and everything in between,
band kids, all the things. And I decided Katy was where I wanted to bring my children to finally
have a place to call home because they're military brats and they've been
they've been in a lot of places a lot of states like eight school districts to be
exact in eight states so I'm deeply honored as I watched my freshman in
college like do amazing things in college with a 4.0 GPA and I didn't I
knew she was ready I just didn't know like how ready and so I find that such a
blessing and even for my special education student we have had challenges
we will have challenges for many many parts of his life continuing but the
district has always met me head-on may not have always gotten everything I
wanted because I haven't but to be listened to to be heard to work together
as a team those are the things I'm always going to take from this district
as a parent, as a board member.
The relationships with everybody here have been amazing.
Greg and I had like the longest running election time ever.
And running during a national election is no small feat either
because your election ballots were like eight pages long that year
because of all of the delays.
And we were out there gunning it and talking to each other.
and Barb was out there and our families are out there and people are supporting
us and it's such an amazing thing to have gone through that and I can't
imagine a better person to have gone through that with and I'll always think
back to that fondly and painfully at the same time but not because of you
thankfully to Ashley we did not know each other really just names before we
got here but you've really truly become a confidant and helping me through this
process and serve here and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that
Lance had no clue other than I knew who you were when you got elected to the
board but only because I was out there and knew what was going on in our
district I have enjoyed our conversations maybe not our first one
and and we've had some disagreements on on how to get things done and I think
that's what a lot of people don't realize we don't all agree but we
We listen to each other.
And then we come out here and we do our best to vote and not hold grudges against the people that we serve with up here.
To Rebecca, boy, I've known you for a long time, probably longer than most everybody.
Well, definitely longer than everybody up here as a trustee and inviting you as a PTA president way back in the day when even my baby girl was still in elementary school.
So I have been grateful for our talks and all of our things, and we've had our blips, too.
I make no bones about it.
But it's been great, and it's been great to have discourse with you and to be challenged.
So I appreciate that.
Dawn, again, we have had some hard times together, but we've had good times, too.
And so I appreciate that, and I appreciate our dialogue, our discourse, and getting to the points that we're at.
And to Vic, we haven't really gotten to know each other too terribly well, but I do wish you much success.
Much success.
With that, I thank everybody.
I have become more and more impressed after serving here of our school district and all the things that they do and accomplish that I had no idea of.
and I still don't know everything under every rug but I've learned a lot and the
willingness of each one of you to answer questions to accept the challenges that
we're giving at times because it's not always easy but it is so appreciative
and I know that from my my children that are still at my child my child that's
still in the district to everybody coming up I know that they're all in the
the best of hands. And I wish y'all and this district all the future success. So thank you.
I like Ms. Wilson. I actually prepared something because I couldn't do it as eloquently as she just
did right there off the cuff. And I also had a nice seven-hour drive with my husband from
Norman, Oklahoma on Mother's Day after moving two children out of college. So I had some time in the
the car so I'm gonna read my remarks first I'd like to say how honored I am
for having served as a trustee for this amazing school district the district
that my husband and I are proud products of and that we're equally proud that all
three of our children graduated from as well in the nine years I have served so
many amazing and positive things have happened many schools and facilities
were built and challenges we could never have imagined imagined were managed and
handled in ways that others throughout the state took notice thank you the
amazing cabinet and administration that makes what we do from this day us look easy the district is
great because of the many things you all do and how hard you work thank you also to officer howard
daniel ray maria and i'm sure i'm missing a whole lot more for always having our backs and helping
the board meetings run so smoothly thank you to our amazing secretary debbie for all her hard work
and dedication to the board your thoroughness has not gone unnoticed and the attend and your
attention to detail is simply amazing and to bj alvarez also known as dr g's boss for everything
she does to make the superintendent's office run so efficiently but mostly for her huge heart and
thoughtfulness thank you lee and greg as you also step down from serving kdisd tonight your service
has been consistent purposeful and without personal agendas all decisions you've both made
have been for all the students and all of the staff of kdisd it's been my honor to serve with
you both and I'm lucky to call you friends which I don't think we thought
we'd be friends but I'm very honored to call you both friends Lance thank you
you are dedicated purpose-driven and a strong trustee you're a friend that I
respect very much more than for so very much for so many reasons the district is
very lucky to have you serve and lead it keep up the great work and know that I
would miss working with you but in the role of the trustee but I know our paths
will still cross often maybe on the lake or if you ever go back to skiing again
tell you right to the remaining trustees and the incoming ones thank you so much
for your service as has been stated tonight this this highly paid job does
take a lot of time away from family and friends and and it is not always fun no
we don't always agree but at the end of the day I think it's most important that
we do do what's best for all the students it's my hope that going forward
the remaining trustees and the incoming ones,
that every decision you make and every recommendation you share
and every request you present and every question you ask
and every action you take is for the very best for all students
and all staff of KDISD,
not just for those who only stand on a certain side of the road.
Thank you, Dr. Gorski.
I have truly enjoyed serving alongside you,
and I have learned so much from you,
except to love the Ohio State University.
That's not happening.
Sorry.
KDIC is truly blessed to have you at its helm.
Your calm demeanor and level head is always consistent.
It's my hope that the leadership and the community of this district knows how much you do as a superintendent.
I'm just working with you regularly, but as we discussed, I don't plan to be a stranger.
And finally, thank you so much to the KD community.
All those that I've volunteered with over the past 21 years.
my friends and my family, and most importantly, my husband, Jay Scott.
The support, encouragement, and confidence you've all given me
throughout the years is truly the greatest gift. Thank you.
Okay, I know it's getting late, so I'm going to try to go really quick here. So this all started
as an experiment for me to get outside my comfort zone. I tell my kids the magic happens outside
the comfort zone so all my kids ride the house to the try the school board
that'll be fun they said you'll make a lot of friends they said everybody will
love you they said well it's been a hell of an adventure I gave it a hundred and
ten percent and I think some of the hardest things you do in life or some of
the most rewarding things you've done like no regrets holy cow what a blast
it's been fun to the board I'm not going to call everybody individually just out
of time it has been an honor to serve with each and every one of you we have
not always agreed boards don't always have to agree i've never felt any board member here
treated me with anything other than respect even if we don't agree and never once did i ever
consider a board member was doing something other than what they thought was the absolute best
for the kids the staff and the community so hats off to you guys and best of luck going forward
to the new board members good luck it's a challenge and uh i think you guys are going
going to do great and then two other people I'd like to thank it's this has
been a huge I've got my own business I'm working 60 70 hours a week as my
business and some weeks it was 20 to 30 hours on the school board the impact
this has had to my family is it's just indescribable so my wife made it here
tonight to my wife Barb thank you and all my kids hopefully I'll be around a
little bit more I'm sure I'll find something else to do but thank you for
allowing me to do it and then lastly to dr gorski and the staff uh dr gorski i've had so much fun
working with you and i never know what's on the other side of the call when i see a call from
dr i wonder what's going on now um it's in like ashley said you're always calm what i like about
you and your team the admin team you guys generally already have the problem identified
and solved before i get there but in those situations where you don't we work together
other it's collaboration I always feel like we're all pulling in the same
direction and when you're working with the team like that there's just nothing
you can't accomplish so Wow I really have enjoyed work I'm looking to the the
cabinet here but but you guys are first top shelf nothing nothing but good
things to say and to the staff everybody knows I'm a big I want my own company
and my my employees are my number one asset and to the KDI see the staff of
KDI sees absolutely our number one asset we obviously are our clients our
our children in the community but but the staff the amount of work that you guys put in every day
sincerely appreciate it tried to give you guys as much money as i could i wish i could give you a
heck of a lot more you guys did great hope the new board's gonna take what i started and go further
but uh to the staff we appreciate you keep up the good work thank you board any other comments
The Board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under Section 551.001 of the Texas Government Code for the following purposes.
6. Closed Meeting
Texas Government Code 551.071 and 551.074 and 551.129.
The Board will now reconvene and open meeting.
Today is Monday, 15th, 2023, and the time is now 625 p.m.
7. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's regular board meeting.
Each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Friday, May 12, 2023.
The board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and the superintendent on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to take action.
The board has just reconvened from closed meeting in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code.
Any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
We'll move on to Agenda Item 8, Reorganization of the Board of Trustees.
8.1 Consider and elect officers for the 2023-2024 Board of Trustees.
Item 8.1, Consider and Elect Officers for the 2023-2024 Board of Trustees.
trustees. Trustees will now move on to item 7.1, consider and elect officers for the 2023-2024
Board of Trustees. Nominations are now open for the position of president.
Mr. Vice President, I nominate Victor Perez for the position of president.
The nomination was made by Mary Ellen Kozilla
TO ELECT VICTOR PEREZ AS PRESIDENT.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER NOMINATIONS?
NEW SPEAKER NOMINATED LANCY REDMOND FOR PRESIDENT.
NEW SPEAKER NOMINATED REBECCA FOX.
TO ELECT LANCY REDMOND TO PRESIDENT.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER NOMINATIONS?
NEW SPEAKER NOMINATED DO THESE REQUIRE A SECOND?
NEW SPEAKER NOMINATED THEY DO NOT REQUIRE A SECOND.
Thank you.
The chair will entertain a motion to close nominations.
I move to close nominations.
A second is required for that.
Second.
A nomination was made by Mary Cosella that the board elect Victor Perez for the office of president of the board of trustees for the 2023-2024 school year.
Nominees shall be voted on in the order in which they were nominated.
We will now proceed to vote board members. Please record your vote on the screen via keypad
If you would like to like Victor Perez as president for the Board of Trustees for the 2023-2024 school year
All right, congratulations, mr. Perez you're now
the president thank you very much
nominations are now are open for the position of vice president mr. president
I nominate Amy Timmy for the position of vice president a nomination was made by
Morgan Calhoun to elect Amy Thieme as vice president. Are there any other
nominations? Mr. President, I'd like to nominate Rebecca Fox as vice president.
The nomination was made by Lance Redmond to elect Rebecca Fox as vice president.
Are there any other nominations? The chair will entertain a motion to close
nominations mr. president I move that the board closed nominations for the
office of vice president second nominees will shall be voted on in the order in
which they were nominated we will now proceed to vote we proceed to vote first
for or Amy Timmy in the order that it was that she was nominated we will now
proceed to vote board members please record your vote on the screen via your
keep at congratulations to Amy Timmy
Nominations are open for the position of Secretary.
I nominate Don Champagne for the position of Secretary.
A nomination was made by myself to elect Don Champagne as Secretary.
Are there any other nominations?
If no, the Chair will entertain a motion to close nominations.
I move that we close nominations.
Second.
A nomination was made by Victor Perez as the Board-elect, Don Champaign for the Office
of Secretary of the Board of Trustees for the 23-24 school year.
Nominees shall be voted in the order in which they were nominated.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
This concludes the election of officers.
Congratulations Don Champagne.
I just want to say a quick comment to thank you everyone for this.
and it's a great honor and I look forward to working with all the board
members and in representing the doing the best that we can for the district as
a whole for all the students of the district or being advocate for parents
and for working to improve the student outcomes for all students around the
district representing parents as well as teachers and we look forward to all this
working together collaboratively and look forward to the valued input of
board members like Rebecca Fox, Don Champagne and Lance Fredman in this
process for all of us to collaboratively work together and look forward to that
very much. This concludes the election of board officers we will now move to the
the next agenda item. Mr. President, please excuse me. May I make a comment about the elections?
I echo your sentiments that my vote, while different from others, is about
the experience that I have sitting at this desk for 17 years and the importance I believe that
being a trustee with experience brings to a board with three new members. I've served in that before
where we had three members new and two new.
I've served with 25 trustees, so I understand the dynamics of that.
And so my vote reflected my belief that the experience is critical to the leadership
and all that happens.
It takes an entire year to see the cycle of a school district.
And to our new trustees, you're going to love it.
It's an intense amount of work.
Joe Adams told me when I was elected, it's like drinking through a fire hose.
And I was like, you don't know how much involved I've been, you don't know all the things I've done.
He was right, because the role now changes from volunteer, substitute teacher, PTA president,
to governance and policy making.
And on this side of the desk, it's completely different.
And I told Dr. Merrill, all the things I'm good at are now no longer any of my business.
And that was quite an eye-opening experience for me.
So my vote reflects that, but it does not reflect the excitement I have for you being here
and the hard work that you put into campaigns.
And I agree with President Perez that it's imperative that we work together
because our students teachers community deserve it and so I look forward to
working with you collaboratively Thank You mr. champagne for your service and
all the things so I appreciate you being willing to step up to leadership and and
I'm excited for what's coming you know did oh thank you very much miss Fox and
and thank you also for the dittos.
I appreciate that.
I look forward to working also with Dr. Gorgorski, of course,
as a board together.
At this time, we enter into our recognition stage, if you will.
Katie Deer, Independent School District,
recognition of the Class of 2023 valedictorians and salutatorians.
Mr. President, if I could,
and I do apologize to all of our valedictorians and salutatorians
that are here tonight. I would like to ask the board if I could quickly flip the script,
and I hate to do this, and you know I normally don't do it. I've got a couple of recognitions
of principals that we're honoring tonight in new positions, and they have campus events they need
to get to at 7 p.m., so I'd like to get them recognized really quick and out the door, and
I'll move quick because I know you guys have been patient tonight as well to be recognized before
the board, but I'd like to move quickly through that and then do the vows and sows and give them
that time honored if that's exactly good yes okay so let's go ahead and I've got
a couple of folks so I'm gonna move to item 9.2 which is recognizing new
principals and some central office employees first up after many years with
9. Recognitions
Katie ISD Debbie Decker did retire this year and we have approved Lance Carter
and he's out there as our new executive director of athletics
Lance, if you have anyone with you there that you would like to recognize.
Awesome.
You bet.
And after a long career in education, far over to my right over there, both Dawn and Vonda are retiring, and I hate to see them go.
They are two of our three assistant superintendents for elementary school leadership and support.
but tonight replacing those those huge shoes to fill Kristen Harper where you
at tonight congratulations Kristen
Kristen's currently the principal over at Seven Lakes junior high if you guys
don't know her but did you bring anyone with you tonight
Awesome. Congratulations, Kristen. Thank you.
And our other assistant superintendent tonight, Deb Hubbell. Where's Deb at?
And Deb is currently our principal over at Morton Ranch Elementary.
And who did you bring here tonight with you?
Awesome, outstanding, thank you.
And last tonight we have Dr. Mitzner who is retiring.
I saw her out in the stands somewhere.
She's leaving Tice Junior High and her new replacement is Tara Haworth who is stepping
into that role upon retirement.
So welcome Tara.
And do you have some folks with you tonight you'd like to introduce?
Awesome. All right, thank you.
Chris is trying to hide there, but thank you, Chris. We appreciate everything you've done
for KDISD and our families. It's been outstanding. Mr. President, may I
please say something? Before you leave, congratulations to everybody. I just
wanted to say that. Y'all are going to be missed. And to the new people, Deb
Hubbell and Lance Carter and Kristen Harper, congratulations. And I think it's
so exciting that we're gonna see other people. I'm sad to not see the other
other people but oh well we're happy to have you so for a moment when you said
mr. president I was going who's she talking to you that for me okay
dr. Dorsey you want to continue yeah thank you and I do appreciate you guys
let me flip that around a little bit to get our folks back to some campus events
they need to attend to I'm gonna go ahead and welcome up right now at this
time introduce Maria de peta general manager for media relations for the
RECOGNITIONS PORTION OF OUR MEETING.
THANK YOU.
GOOD EVENING, PRESIDENT VICTOR PEREZ, TRUSTEES, AND SUPERINTENDENT REGORSKI.
TONIGHT WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT THE TOP TWO STUDENTS FROM EACH HIGH SCHOOL RANKED HIGHEST
ACADEMICALLY IN THEIR RESPECTIVE GRADUATING CLASS.
AT THIS TIME, PLEASE WELCOME DR.
K.
WILLIAMS, PRINCIPAL OF SINGLE RANCH HIGH SCHOOL, TO INTRODUCE THE CAMPUS' SALUTATORIANS AND
valedictorian good evening board members and superintendent Krakowski it's my
honor to introduce the valedictorian and salutatorian for Cinco Ranch High School
for the class of 2023 our salutatorian is Juliana Zhao she's the daughter of
of and .
Julianne is graduating with a 4.8615 GPA.
She will attend Rice University studying computer science.
At Cinco Ranch High School, she is the president of the Key
Club, where she plans volunteering opportunities
for over 150 members.
Julianne is also the president and founder
of the school's Civic Engagement Society, which
helps students register to vote.
Julianne has been on the varsity debate team for four years and is currently the debate captain.
During her debate career, she competed in both public forum debate and biomedical debate.
She currently holds the title for being the 2021 Biomedical Debate National Champion.
Last summer, she developed a new algorithm for the cyclic tower of Hanoi puzzle under the mentorship of Professor Shen,
and her research is currently slated for publication.
In her free time, she enjoys running and spending time
with friends and family.
Her decision to attend Rice University
was primarily influenced by her desire
to stay closer to her parents in Houston.
One more.
One, two, three.
Our valedictorian for the class of 2023 is Haley Saxman.
She is the daughter of Timothy and Barbara Saxman.
Haley is graduating with a 4.8852 GPA
and will attend the University of Pennsylvania
to study at the Wharton School of Business.
She served as class president for three years and was a member of the superintendent student leadership circle.
Haley is also bilingual and completed the two-way immersion program at Fielder Elementary and the Spanish for Native Speakers program at Cinco Ranch High School.
She is president of the Spanish Honor Society and a member of MU Alpha Theta, National Honor Society, Best Buddies, Cougars Achieving Through Service, and National Charity League.
Haley was a varsity pole vaulter and enjoys attending CrossFit classes in her
free time. Congratulations Haley.
One, two, three, one more, one, two, three.
Let's give Juliana and Haley a big round of applause.
Thank you, Dr. Williams.
Now I would like to introduce Dr. Ethan Crow, Principal of Jordan High School.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Well, he will be studying computer science and business
in the Honors College with the goal
of being an investment banker or a quantitative financial
analyst.
He's been a member of the Jordan tennis team
and is also a founding member of the Jordan FBLA,
as well as founding a local organization called Green Earth
Tennis, which helps students connect
a passion for the sport of tennis and environmentalism.
Due to his father's work, Evan has
traveled to over 20 countries all over the world
where he's experienced many cultural perspectives.
We would like to thank Evan's parents for all their contributions to his education.
We are very proud to have Evan as Jordan's first salutatorian.
Evan, come on up.
I can have you all come up.
One, two, and three.
One more.
One, two, and three.
Our valedictorian is Piyush Ole.
He will be graduating with a 4.8657 GPA and will be attending Texas A&M in the fall where
he plans to study computer science.
He is the VP of Computer Science Club, President of the Investment Club, and a member of NHS.
At four years old, he moved to Katy, Texas, leaving behind his friends in India and joining
his family in their pursuit of the American dream.
Starting fresh, he began his studies at Exley Elementary in pre-K and later moved to Shea
for second grade. He continued his education at Seven Lakes Junior High
School and later Tompkins High School for ninth grade before moving to Jordan
High School. I'd like to recognize his parents and for all the effort and time
and energy they put into his education. We're very proud to have Piyush as
Jordan High School's very first valedictorian. Come on up Piyush.
Let's give Evan and Piyush a big round of applause.
Thank you, Dr. Crown. Now I would like to introduce Dr. Rick Hall, principal of Katy High School.
President Perez, members of the board, Dr. Gorgorski, for 124 years, Katy High School has had a proud tradition of outstanding students.
Our graduates have gone on to become doctors, politicians, educators, leaders in their fields.
They have contributed to society in many ways.
The 2023 graduating class will continue this legacy of excellence.
It is my honor and privilege to present the valedictorian and salutatorian for Katy High School's class of 2023.
Our salutatorian is Mr. Rohan Srinivas.
He will be graduating with a 4.7692 GPA and will be attending the University of Texas in the fall where he plans to study biomedical engineering.
engineering. He has been involved in many clubs and organizations while at Katy High School,
including Academic Decathlon, Science Olympiad, Mu Alpha Theta, and National Honor Society. I'd
also like to recognize Rohan's parents, Bala Srinivas and Nitya Ramaswamy, and ask them to
stand. We're very proud to have Rohan Srinivas as Katy High School's salutatorian.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The valedictorian for 2023 is Mr. Hudson Rhodes. He will be
graduating with a 4.7925 GPA and will also be attending the
University of Texas where he will be studying biology. He has
been a member of the KD high school tennis team and also a
member of the National Honor Society. We would also like to ask Hudson's parents
to stand and be recognized, Kyle and Laura Rhodes.
I'm very proud to present Katy High School's valedictorian Hudson Rhodes.
All right, a little bit to the left, and then come up about two steps.
Let's give Rowan and Hudson a well-deserved round of applause.
Thank you, Dr. Hall.
Now please welcome Ms. Gina Cobb, principal of Maid Creek High School.
Good evening, President Perez, board members, and Superintendent Gagorski.
It is my honor and privilege to present to you the valedictorian and salutatorian for May Creek High School's Class of 2023.
May Creek has many rich traditions and inspires students to develop their maximum potential,
to build healthy relationships and to facilitate a smooth transition into a
competitive global society. Students at the Creek are made to believe, lead and
achieve. Our salutatorian, Ms. Jasmine Bonneau. Jasmine has a 4.8281 GPA and
will attend the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in business honors and
finance. She's the president of our Key Club and National Honor Society, Vice
Vice President Area 5 Future Business Leaders of America,
Secretary and Historian of FBLA,
and is a member of our Spanish Honor Society
and National English Honor Society.
Jasmine is a College Board National African American
Scholar and AP Scholar with distinctions
and served on the Katy ISD Safety and Security Advisory
Board.
Jasmine's favorite high school memory
is our May Creek High School Town Pep Rally
her senior year.
Jasmine is the daughter of Tony Bonneau.
please stand. I am proud to present to you May Creek Salutatorian Jasmine Bonneau.
Thank you.
The May Creek High School Valedictorian is Mr. Sidias Goulam.
Sidias has a 4.8361 GPA and plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin.
He's planning to major in computer science with a specialization in
machine learning. Currently he serves as the vice president of our computer
science club, is a member of National Honor Society, National English Honor
Society, Spanish Honor Society, Key Club, wrestling, and our tennis team. His
favorite high school memories are winning his first tennis match and being
on prom court.
Sidias is the son of Farzana Goulam, if you'll please stand.
It is my privilege to present to you May Creek High School's valedictorian, Sidias Goulam.
Congratulations to Jasmine and Sodias.
Thank you, Ms. Cobb.
Now I would like to welcome Ms. Julie Henson, principal of Morton Ranch High School.
Good evening, members of the board and Dr. Grygorski.
Tonight, I'm honored to present the 2023 Morton Ridge High School Valedictorian and Salutatorian.
Our salutatorian is Ms. Alex Heliger.
All right, Alex.
I know I'm going to break how everybody else has been doing it, but you have to come up here while I talk about you.
You don't need to stay seated.
I know you love this.
I would also like to introduce you to Alex's parents, Joseph and Tracy Heiliger.
Please stand and be recognized.
Alex is graduating with a 4.7143 GPA.
During her time at MRHS, Alex was a member of our AP Ambassador Program, My Principal Communication Network, National Honor Society, and Rho Kappa.
She was also able to fit in a part-time job at the Katie Vet Clinic.
clinic. The thing that Alex feels makes Morton Ranch so special is our spirit of inclusivity,
our diversity, and that anyone can do anything, and those achievements are all celebrated
by our school community. Alex will be attending the University of Houston to pursue a degree
in psychology with hopes of a career as a therapist. Please join me in congratulating
our salutatorian, Alex Heiliger.
Our valedictorian, and this is pretty amazing, for a second year in a row is a drum major
of the band with a first name of Logan. This time Logan Pedersen.
I would like to introduce you to Logan's parents Spencer and Crystal Pedersen.
Logan is graduating with a 4.8302 GPA.
During his time at Morton Ranch, along with being drum major for the Maverick Band,
he was also a member of National Honor Society, National English Honor Society,
Science National Honor Society, Rho Kappa, Mu Alpha Theta,
and was part of the 2023 Frisco State Champion Academic Decathlon Team.
The thing he will miss the most about Morton Ranch High School is all the activities he participated in.
especially football games and competitions with band. Logan will be
attending the University of Texas in Austin for the fall semester then will
be attending a two-year mission trip prior to finishing a degree in chemical
engineering and his destination is yet to be known on his mission trip so kind
of exciting for him. Please join me in congratulating our valedictorian Logan Pedersen.
Congratulations to Alex and Logan.
Thank you, Ms. Henson.
Now I would like to introduce Dr. David Paz,
principal of Pato High School.
Good evening President Perez, members of the board, and Dr. Grzegorski. It is my
honor and privilege to stand before you tonight to present our valedictorian and
salutatorian for Pato High School. Both students have been an integral part of
our student culture at PHS and in the short time that I have been their
principal I have quickly seen why they represent the best of the best at Pato.
As I introduce both of these students you will see the dedication and effort
that they have put not only in their academics but into leading their peers
to impact student life at our school. Our salutatorian is Fatima Shayk. She will be
graduating with a 4.7 031 GPA and will be attending the University of Texas in
Austin in the fall where she plans to study biology that will eventually lead
to med school focusing on radiology. Fatima is an extraordinary student who
has done so much in her four years of high school that I don't know when she
slept. Fatima was the vice president of our student council, participated in UIL math,
and was the math honor society president. She was also a member of the Spanish Honor
Society. Fatima was also a member of our academic decathlon, National Honor Society, HOSA, and
was an AP ambassador helping increase student enrollment in advanced placement courses.
She loved her ceramic art classes, and when she ran out of organizations to join, she
she decided to start her own.
Fatima was the co-founder and president
of the Muslim Student Association,
ensuring that students felt connected to Pato High School.
Fatima is joined today by her father, Kaseer Shaikh,
and her mother, Sadia Shaikh, who is a valued teacher at PHS.
Would you please stand?
I am very proud to present Pato High School's salutatorian,
Fatima Noor Sheikh.
International Studies. Sitting down with Muhammad the other day I was impressed
with how much leadership this young man has provided for our school. His charisma
and drive for excellence is inspiring to witness firsthand. He is our National
Honor Society president, his sophomore class president, a varsity wrestler, he
was also a leader among the academic decathlon team as their team captain and
through his efforts was a state medalist. Muhammad was also an AP ambassador
dedicated to increasing our AP enrollment at PHS. Finally, he was also
our school's representative in the superintendent student leadership circle,
giving a voice to our student body. Muhammad is the son of Manal Bakir and
Mutaz Yagi. It is my privilege to recognize Pato High School's
valedictorian Muhammad Mutaz Yagi.
Congratulations to Fatima and Mohammed.
Thank you, Dr. Paz.
Tonight, Ms. Carrie Finneson, principal of Seven Lakes High School,
could not be with us as she is with the girls' golf team at state competition.
So at this time, I'd like to introduce Dr. Jenny Lopardo, 12th grade principal.
Good evening, President Perez, members of the board,
Dr. Grigorski, Seven Lakes High School has a proud tradition of exceptional
students. Our graduates have shown that they are not only capable of achieving
personal success but have a strong desire to make a difference in their
community and beyond. The two students that I'm here to present have achieved
the highest academic standing in our graduating class and I believe the
district and have also contributed significantly to our school community. It
is my honor and privilege to present the valedictorian and salutatorian for Seven
Lakes High School. Our salutatorian is Ayushi Gandhi. Ayushi will graduate with a
4.8889 GPA and will attend Stanford University in the fall where she plans
to study human biology. Ayushi has been involved in multiple clubs and
organizations while at SLHS. She served as president of the Pre-Medical Society
where she mentored other students. She is a six-year member of Science Olympiad
and she is also a member of Partners in Health, HOSA, and DANCE. Somehow she also
found time to complete internships at Hope Compounding Pharmacy and My Eye
Doctor. Ayushi is a recipient of the 2023 National Merit Scholarship, the G Family
Association Education Fund, and the Craig and Galen Brown Foundation Scholarship.
I'd like to ask Ayushi's parents Ajay and Swati Gandhi to stand and be
recognized.
guys. We are very proud to have I use she as our seven links high school salutatorian.
2023 is Akash Joseph.
Akash will graduate with a 4.8955 GPA and will attend the University of Texas at Austin where he plans to major in electrical and computer engineering.
Akash is a senior captain of Science Olympiad and he helped lead the SLHS team to a state championship.
He is also Quiz Bowl president and is a member of Science Bowl and the Technology Student Association.
Akash completed research internships with both the University of Toledo and Texas Woman's University, and he is also a recipient of the 2023 National Merit Scholarship.
I would like to ask his parents, Joseph Das Irudaya Raj and Priya Peter Raj, to stand and be recognized.
We are very honored to present our Seven Lakes High School valedictorian, Akash Joseph.
Congratulations to Ayushi and Akash.
Thank you, Dr. Labardo.
Now please welcome Dr. Melinda Stone, principal of Taylor High School.
Good evening, Board of Trustees and Dr. Gagorski.
Taylor High School has had over 40 years of academic excellence.
Our graduates have gone on to accomplish great things in their careers
and have made a significant impact in our community.
Tonight it is my honor to introduce the valedictorian and salutatorian for
Taylor High School's 2023 graduating class, both of whom will no doubt be two
more Mustangs who will continue to do great things. Our salutatorian is Minkyu
Mike Lim. His parents are Yungab Lim and Hee-Yun Oh. Mike are your parents?
Mike will graduate with a 4.8333 GPA and will be attending the University of Texas in Austin
next year where he is enrolled in the honors business program.
He eventually would like to have a career as a business consultant.
When asked to describe himself, he says that he is just a typical teenage boy who likes
to play video games and hang out with his friends.
I would argue that he's anything but typical as the salutatorian of Taylor High School. His activities at THS include varsity orchestra,
FBLA, Mu Alpha Theta, National Honor Society, Houston Korean School.
He has an AP capstone diploma and was awarded a National Merit Scholarship.
Please join me in congratulating Mike for his accomplishments.
Thank you.
Next, our valedictorian is Melissa Wong.
Her parents are Yong Hung Wong and Jay Dung.
Will they please stand?
They're not here?
Okay.
All right.
Melissa will graduate with a 4.8615 GPA and will attend the University of Texas at Austin
next year where she will major in computer science.
She's a creative person who likes to tell diverse stories and has a great interest in
fashion and film.
She loves interacting with little kids and started a program to teach elementary students computer science.
During her time at Taylor, she was the co-founder of AIM Comp Sci.
She was a member of Student Council. She was the historian for the class of 2023 and a Yale Young Global Scholar.
Please join me in congratulating Melissa on all her accomplishments.
Congratulations to Mike and Melissa.
Thank you, Dr. Stone.
And next I would like to introduce Mr. Mark Grisdale, principal of Tompkins High School.
Good evening, President Perez, members of the board, Dr. Gorgorski.
It's my honor to present the Oberde Tompkins High School class of 2023 valedictorian and salutatorian.
The Tompkins High School salutatorian is Alex Hai Shi.
Come on up here, Alex.
Alex is the son of Shin Hai and Shundan Shi.
If they would please stand and be recognized.
Alex has a grade point of 4.8676.
He is a National Merit finalist.
He is a four-year member and co-president of the Tompkins Science Olympiad team, which
happens to be the fifth best team in Texas.
He's a cellist in the Tompkins Orchestra, and he has served as the orchestra historian
for two years.
Alex has served as the Tompkins Key Club historian, and he has volunteered at Houston Methodist
West Hospital and Memorial Hermann Katie Hospital.
And Alex has demonstrated science experiments to many elementary school students all around
Katie ISD.
A freelance photographer and avid runner, Alex recently completed the Houston Aramco Half Marathon.
He is a recipient of the National Merit Chevron Scholarship, and he will be attending Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,
where he will be majoring in economics and sociology. Please join me in congratulating Alex I. Shih.
Thank you.
Sanjana, come on up.
Sanjana is the daughter of...
Sanjana is the daughter of Shakrant and Sunanda Paringulum.
Sanjana has a grade point average of 4.8857.
She is also a National Merit finalist.
She is an officer in the National Honor Society,
a member of Mu Alpha Theta, the Math National Honor Society,
and the Science National Honor Society.
She serves as an officer for the Tompkins Girls in STEM Club and is involved with the planning of their biannual science night that receives over 500 attendees each semester, and she founded the OTHS TED-Ed Students Talk Club.
Sanjana volunteered as a nurse's assistant at Ibn Sina Community Clinic in Houston for over a year during the peak of COVID to help support clinic administration in the local community.
She has conducted research at the University of Houston on the intersection between maternal morality rates and minority groups, as well as research on the fetal maternal interface.
Sanjana has completed various shadowing internships at hospitals over the summer, working in NICUs, radiology, and maternal fetal medicine.
And she most recently interned at a Memorial Hermann-affiliated family medicine clinic for over 15 weeks.
Sanjana is a recipient of the Whipple Science and Research Scholarship and a Research and Innovation Grant,
and she will be enrolling as a REM scholar in the Pre-Med program at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York,
one of the nation's premier research institutions.
Please join me in congratulating Sanjana Perangulam.
Congratulations to Alex and Sanjana, as well as to all of our valedictorians and salutatorians.
Let's give all of them one more round of applause.
This concludes our recognitions portions for this meeting.
Thank you.
Congratulations to everyone.
There are no speakers who signed up for agenda items.
So therefore, the board will now convene in closed meeting
11. Closed Meeting
as authorized under section 55.001 of the Texas Government
Code for the following purposes.
Texas Government Code 551.072 and 551.074.
Thank you.
Good evening.
12. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
The board has just reconvened from closed meeting.
In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code,
any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting
must be taken in an open meeting.
I will now entertain a motion for the item 12.1.
Mr. President.
If there are no other questions.
Mr. President.
I move that the Board of Trustees approves the purchase of property for a district facility.
Second.
I have a motion made by Ms. Fox and a second by Mr. Redman.
Please record your vote on the screen via your pad.
We have five a's and i's and two abstains.
The motion passes.
I vote of 5-0.
Now we return to report 13.1, and that is the 2023 Community Bond Advisory Committee recommendation.
13.1 2023 Community Bond Advisory Committee Recommendation
The presenter is Dr. Andrea Grooms, Chief Communications Officer,
as well as Alejandro Avendano, Community Board Advisory Committee Chair,
Chair and Chris Smith, Chief Financial Officer.
Good evening, President Perez, Trustees, and Superintendent Grigorski.
This evening, you will hear from the Community Bond Advisory Committee regarding a recommendation
for a 2023 bond that they will bring before you for consideration.
And as you indicated, we also have with us this evening presenting our Bond Committee
committee chair Alejandro Avendano, our CFO Chris Smith, and also joining us this evening
is our bond facilitator Greg McIntyre.
Should you have any questions about the process at the end of this presentation?
Before we get to the presentation itself, we're going to talk about how we got here.
As you recall, this past November, Population and Survey Analysis, also known as PASA, presented
their annual demographic update to the board. And we know that Katy ISD and the Katy Greater area
has grown tremendously over the past few decades. We're one of the fastest growing suburbs in the
state of Texas, as a matter of fact. We're one of the only districts in the state to actually grow
during COVID. Here you'll see the PASA projections for the next five years going into 2031.
just within the next few years, this district will surpass 100,000 student enrollment.
It is because of this fast growth that the board at the time authorized the superintendent
to form a bond committee for the purpose of reviewing the needs for new campuses
as well as needs for aging campuses and to make a determination about a bond moving forward.
So a little bit about the bond history in KDISD.
These next three slides you'll see the past 27 years of bond history throughout our school
district beginning in 1994.
We have been on a bond cycle of three to four years since that time.
I'm just going to flip through these and you can see these in front of you.
Our most recent bond in 2021, 83% of those 2021 bond projects have been completed or are in the planning process.
And now I would like to introduce Alejandro Amendano, the Community Bond Advisory Committee Chair.
Hi, good evening.
Good evening to the board, good evening to Superintendent Grygoski, good evening to the
people who stay for a little bit longer to hear this part of the presentation too.
Again, my name is Alejandro Avendano.
and I was one of the, I will say, over 400 applicants
that put their names in the ballot or in a hat
to be selected for the Board Advisory Committee.
There were 142 of us, and then after that,
I was elected to be the chairperson for the committee.
I would like to recognize the people that are here today,
part of the committee.
A lot of them stayed tonight, so thank you.
If you can stand so they can see you.
So thank you.
I know there were a few more, but they stepped out.
We actually had one of the students that was part of the committee,
and she spoke to some of you earlier today.
I'm a parent of two kids.
Not kids anymore, but one is graduating from Tompkins in a week and a half,
and my daughter will be leaving Tompkins in two years.
So I've been kind of part of the process of going through the KDISD.
Okay and so we're gonna go and present a little bit of a background and if you
have question I'm assuming it's at the end my first time by the way this is
first time I'm in the bond committee board meetings or any stuff like that
okay so bear with me because I have no experience doing these type of things.
THINGS. ANYWAY, HERE WE GO.
KDISD, AS YOU KNOW, IT'S INVESTED IN THE OUTCOMES OF
OUR SCHOOLS AND STUDENTS, RIGHT? IT GIVES THEIR TIME AND ENERGY
TO MAKE KD ONE OF THE BEST SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN THE STATE.
IT'S BEING RANKED THE NUMBER ONE SCHOOL DISTRICT IN THE
HOUSTON GREATER AREA. IT CONSISTENTLY EARNS A RATING
FROM THE TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY.
OUR DISTRICT FINANCIAL INTEGRITY IS RECOGNIZED
BY THE STATE ON AN ANNUAL BASIS.
YOU CAN SEE IN THE NEXT SLIDE THAT WE HAVE BEEN RECOGNIZED
FOR BEST COMMUNITIES FOR MUSIC EDUCATION.
OUR TEAM HAS WON A TOTAL OF 26 STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
ACROSS BOYS AND GIRLS.
YOU ALSO HAVE SEEN THAT WE NORMALLY RECOGNIZE
FOR STEM, ARTS, AND OTHERS.
Again, you saw some of the kids here today going to Stanford, UPenn, Cornell, I mean, Rice.
So, again, good school, right, that we have been going through.
Our kids normally score 17 points higher in average than the state, 19 points higher in math.
Okay.
Okay.
Our district has appeared on the Advanced Planes Honor Roll for 12 years in a row.
Our families and business are drawn to our district for its academic programs and opportunity.
I'm actually one of them.
Moved to Katy eight and a half years ago from Spring Branch.
So, yeah.
So it's a good thing we moved for the schools.
Right.
So we're going to be, you're going to be hearing about this package that we're going to be recommending to you.
It's basically to make sure that we can continue the development for Cadean that we can maintain.
So that's kind of the plan.
So I want to tell you a little bit more about the board committee, the bond committee, sorry.
So for your direction, actually in the previous board, but some of you were there,
we were charged to review and analyze the campus and facility needs for all the projects to understand and determine if a future loan is needed.
As I mentioned before, there were 142 of us, and participants came from all the areas from the district.
I think all of them were volunteer, right, volunteer into this bucket and were selected.
to go through the process.
We had parents, grandparents, business owners.
Again, you can read them on the screen
across all type of businesses, experiences,
going through it, okay?
We also have people that were opposed to previous bonds
as part of the meetings to go through the discussions.
Here you can see the list of all the participants there.
We had 104 members of our community
that were parents or community members.
We have two high school students
and part of our committee
and 36 current employees of KDISD.
Okay?
And again, thank you to all of them
for the time and efforts that they put through.
We got around six or eight weeks
that we work on this thing together.
Okay?
So like I was telling you,
in the last two months, right,
We reviewed the enrollment growth that we are going to have over the next few years.
And Andrea already kind of showed you some of the projections.
I'm pretty sure you will get a binder with a lot of more information and details.
We went through lifecycle components.
We went through value growth, taxes and areas, a lot of discussions, some of it within project cost.
Okay. We understood why some of these campuses needs improvements and also why
we need some new schools to accommodate for the new people that are moving to
Cady. Okay. As you probably have seen we went through demographics projections
right and we're now understand a little bit more the growth that Cady ISD is
going to have especially on the northwest quadrant of our district okay
yeah I mean the right one um like I said in that we have four meetings as a bond
committee okay the first meeting was more to understand a little bit more the
demographics that grows the projections that we were going through right we went
through a list of all the projects meetings two and three we got into a
little bit more detail where we have a lot of the experts from Katie is the
explaining to us in detail what we were trying to do or what they're trying to do.
And we went through the projects through all that, right?
We got consultants.
We had a lot of Q&A after each session.
We discussed in our tables and then we have Q&A sessions across the whole committee.
We were able to bring questions that if they were an answer, they try to provide the answer
in the following meeting.
And so that was kind of the process that we went through.
And in the last meeting we actually voted through the 55 line items or projects that
we were presented.
Here's a little bit, like I said, 142 of us, a total of 1700 plus hours through meetings,
data review analysis and decision making processes that we went through.
Okay.
These are some of the projects.
You probably will have the full list.
I'm going to just highlight a few of them.
The new campuses, you will see that we will be building four new schools and also acquiring
land if the bond passes to, again, accommodate for the demographics.
Here are the schools that we're going to have.
Here are some of the existing campuses and facilities that are going to require renovations.
Here are the safety projects that are included on the bond proposal that we're recommending.
Just to let you know that the school district is not only meeting the state,
but it's exceeding in a lot of the cases the requirements for the in the safety and security perspective, okay a
Lot of the components replacements as you can see and I think it has been mentioned before right we have to go through H back
Flooring I mean roof replacement a lot of these schools some of them have been 25 30 years old
So it used a lot of work that has to be done there
from the technology perspective
We have the main
A project that we have is the one-to-one computer for a student from third grade up. Oh
Well from third grade to 12th grade so each of the kids will have a computer that they can take home to work
Through all the homework. I
Mean exams and all that kind of stuff, right?
All their projects I mean infrastructure portable all the buses requires and
Furniture and equipment. Okay the way that we went through
We got 20 tables, and each of the tables
require that we get 2 thirds of the approval
to move forward with that line item.
And then we were required to have 2 thirds of the 20 tables
to get that line item, including on the potential bond
proposal.
All the 55 items were approved.
I think, going from the top of my head,
but I think like 95% of them with 100% of approval
from the tables and the people within the tables, okay?
So again, those 55 line item projects represent $840 million.
Actually, $840.6 million, the recommendation for the bond package, okay?
So what we will be bringing is these four propositions that you see here,
and the way that this is split it's by legal requirements so he can definitely
explain that to you in all the details. Most of it is related to Proposition A
which is where we're gonna have the replacement, refurbished, reconstruction
and new schools are included there so that will be 80% of the package and then
the second largest proposition will be Proposition B which is the one included
for the technology portion, which like I mentioned,
is the one for the one-on-one computer.
It's one of the main items there for the kids,
the one-on-one computer for the kids.
Then you've got Proposition C and Proposition D.
And again, it's split based on the required state legislation.
In total, we're doing four new campuses.
I think I mentioned that.
62 campuses and facilities will receive repairs
and replacement for components like flooring, chillers,
cooling towers, and stage cartons.
I think I pronounced that properly.
26 campuses will be seeing facility renovation and expansions.
84 campuses and facilities will receive an upgrade from a safety and security systems.
And 100 campuses, which are all of them in facilities, will receive technology upgrades.
rates. This bond will add approximately 4,500 seats which will cover the
projections that we need for growth over the next few years.
This map that I'm showing on the screen basically will let you know which of the
schools are being touched by each of the areas that we are trying to do including
including the blue dots that you will see in the northwest corner for the new schools
that are proposed.
I think with that, I'm going to pass to Chris and he will walk you through the financial
information.
Everything sounds fun until you have to pay for it.
And I've got to be the one to explain how we're going to do that.
so but we can back going back to the ten years ago or nine years ago in 2014 we
were talking about when we were at this stage with the bond committee possibly
increasing the tax rate that didn't happen we were actually able to decrease
the tax rate by one cent because the values in 2014 and if I remember I'll
point out that huge increase in values the highest value increase we've ever
had happened in the fall of in the summer of 2014 2017 we said it wasn't
going to change the tax rate that election and it did not 2021 the same
thing and say in 2023 we do not think it'll change the debt service tax rate I
do think like what happened as a result of 2000 and or the House Bill 3 and 2019
we are going to continue to lower our tax rate I'll show you that on the next
slide but I am confident that the total tax rate will go down between now and
the time we start assuming that we call an election and we start construction
projects if it passes I'm confident that our tax rates going to go down each of
these next two fiscal years what gives me the confidence well if you look back
over since 2019 with the adoption of House Bill 3 we've lowered the tax rate
21.2 cents. Heard today, you know, the House and the Senate there in Austin are at a difference
on what they're going to do, but they both are going to lower the tax burden on property taxes.
That's the primary reason why they have that huge surplus in Austin that they're dealing with,
and it's because of rising property values, and they're going to continue to buy that tax rate
down and saw today as much as 15 cents. So this is a history about what our over
the last 10 years of what our tax rate looks like. You can see that we are
paying more than we did back then. In 2011-12 we paid $2,852
at a $1.52 tax rate. That tax rate is now down to a $1.30. That's the 21 cents,
but you can see that we're paying quite a bit more at $4,230.
This is the average market value of the average residence in Katy ISD,
which is $383,000.
So we are paying more in taxes, even though the rate's lowered by 21 cents.
How is that a benefit?
Well, back in 2000, and this is the same information that was on the slide,
just a little simpler format.
Market value of 201,000 back in 2011-12.
They paid $2,852 in taxes.
Now that value is at $383,000 or $4,230 in taxes.
That's a tax increase of what the individuals are paying in taxes of $1,378.
Again, that's with a 21-cent lowering of the tax rate plus the increase of the homestead exemption from $15,000
up to $25,000, and then again up to $40,000.
So those two things, tax rate and significant increase in our homestead exemption,
you're still paying significantly more.
But the equity in a house has increased by $181,000 since that time, which is good.
That's supply and demand,
and that's one of the reasons why Katy is a destination district or evidence of
Katy being a destination district as our values continue to go up. Now they're
going up statewide but they're going up at a faster rate in Katy ISD because
people want to live here and that's proof in the number of turnover that
we're having in regeneration in current housing and the new housing that
continues. There is our history of value increases and I'll go back to the 2014.
You can see it was a 17.8% increase that high water mark that's what
enabled us to lower that rate a penny. We weren't expecting that but
over five years we've had a 7.6% value growth that's new construction, new
new houses, new businesses that support those houses, et cetera,
but it's also an appreciation or higher values in the current homes that are there.
And so we've averaged over 10 years 9.6% growth and 15 at 8.6% growth.
You can see that 23, we're using 6%.
That's pretty conservative if you look at the averages.
And even in 24, since that's even further out, we've gotten more conservative.
But using those conservative growth numbers, if you look at that blue line, that's what our existing tax rate would do.
So based on our existing debt, that blue line is going to drop off.
And eventually that tax rate will be lowered substantially because that's the way our debt is structured and it's done so purposefully.
because in a growing district, when we've had to go back to the voters every two to three years to continue,
we need to have that so when we add on more debt, which is the green shows,
that we can do that without increasing the tax rate.
But over time, that will go down, too, as we continue to grow and we're paying down that principal and interest.
interest. But this slide shows that in the purple that we've not just considered this
$850 million bond election, but we've considered an $850 bond election. And can we do that
under our conservative assumptions without increasing the tax rate? So three or four
years from now, when we're having this very same meeting, two or three years maybe, when
we're having this very same meeting, we can confidently stand up there and say, we're
we're not going to have to increase the tax rate.
We think we can do that.
Now, that purple line does go out a little further,
if you look at it, compared to the green,
and that's because we've stopped the value growth
and we've been so conservative, like 1% and 2%
in some of those out years, because we just don't know.
But as conservative as that is,
we're still able to do that
without increasing the tax rate in the future.
What are our debt management tools? Well, we refund bonds when we can. Since 2017, by refunding bonds, or let's call it refinancing our mortgage, a lot of us can relate to refinancing our mortgage.
We've saved taxpayers $72.4 million by replacing those bonds, refunding those bonds with a lower interest rate when we can.
We've defused bonds. We've basically just paid them off. It'd be kind of like those folks that have credit card debt and their aunt gives them $1,000 for Christmas and they say, okay, I'm going to take that $1,000. I'm going to pay down my highest interest rate credit card. Boom. Gone.
We do that same kind of logic with our value growth, and we see that we can defuse bonds.
We're going to defuse bonds, and we've redeemed, paid off $70.8 million, and it saves $17.8 million in taxpayer dollars,
and it helps release our debt burden quicker, pays it off faster.
And then we have a fund balance, which is a very hefty fund balance of $59.9 million.
Bond now versus bond later, we're exploding.
We came 12 shy of 94,000 last week.
We're not going to get over 94,000.
We're kind of about 50 shy right now of 94,000.
We usually peak that last week in April, first week in May.
But let's just call it 94,000, and the kids were coming.
at an alarming rate this year, especially after the peem snapshot at 50, 60 a week,
which is when I mention that amongst my colleagues in other parts of the state,
their jaw drops and goes, you're adding 50 or 60 kids a week?
Yes, we are.
And they're coming.
They want to be in Katy, and they're coming.
By not having a bond now, construction inflation risks,
had it not been for COVID, instead of having our bond in November of 2021,
I'm sorry, in May of 2021, it was gonna be, the plan was,
according to our plan, to have that in May of 2020.
I'm sorry, yeah, May of 2020.
I'm sorry, November of 2020 is when we had planned on it.
And COVID happened, and that delayed it.
Well, then we got stuck in inflation.
inflation and so anytime you know hopefully inflation gets under control as we move forward in the future and it's not as much of a risk but who knows but anything we don't know is is a risk and interest rate risk interest rates on issuing bonds has increased.
We are paying still a great rate when we borrow money with bonds, but not as great as it was a year and a half ago.
Not near as great as it was a year and a half ago, but still very good.
And then additional pressure on the general operating fund.
If we have a retrofit cycle and if we can't fulfill that retrofit cycle of technology and that technology starts wearing out,
then the general fund will be forced to pay for it.
and that puts pressure on competing with teachers and raises
and the kind of stuff that we really want to try to take care of.
The ballot, it's not new.
We did this in May of 2021.
It has to have this wording for all of our props.
Every one of them will say this is a property tax rate increase.
That's required by law, at least for now.
Who knows what will happen in Austin in these next couple of weeks, but that is required by law, that statement.
We've got some, what's on the very bottom of that slide is this is an increase in our debt, but not a property tax rate increase.
It is a liability increase.
We are increasing our debt.
If this board calls an election and the community votes for an $850 million election that increases our debt, our borrowing will increase.
The tax rate will not increase.
Our liability will grow.
Our tax rate will not grow.
Appraisal values, you saw how the appraisal values have gone up so much over the time.
I spoke about that.
That's set by the county appraisal district.
This board and this administration has nothing to do with the appraisals statewide.
Statewide appraisals, all appraisal districts are reviewed by the state comptroller's office.
And we all know that state funding is determined by how much property value school districts have.
And if school districts don't do a good or if appraisal districts don't do a good job of appraising in their particular county, they'll assign state values.
And that hurts because the state says your property values are here.
Your local appraisal district said they're here.
Guess what?
You're going to earn taxes on this amount, but we're going to pay you all state funding because you should earn this amount on taxes.
And it really hamstrings or hurts districts that get state values.
But that's the state's mechanism of making sure that appraisal districts across this state are doing their job, and they are because appraisal values across this state, not just in Katy, more so in Katy than other areas, but are going up because people want to move to Texas.
And they want to, and because of that, the sales data that's happening across the state has gone up.
up. Appraisal values increase. Yes, we pay more in taxes. I was very clear on that a few minutes
ago, but the state receives no, the district receives no additional monies. Y'all, I think
most people have heard me talk about when state funding goes, when local taxes go up, state funding
goes down. It's like a teeter-totter or a fulcrum, and unless the basic allotment or those funding
mechanisms that is set in state law changes we could double the property
values tomorrow in the district and we're not going to raise any more money
than we did currently before that before that value would increase it's offset by
state funds and again because that's happening statewide that's why the state
has so many billions of surplus that because they've not had to to fund
school districts at the level that they did but the school districts are per
student are still getting the same amount of money since we since 2019 so
this is an increase in our debt but it's not an increase in the property tax rate
and again that's just same thing saying the same thing tax rates gonna decrease
it's gonna decrease I'm confident that it is gonna decrease I don't know how
much at this point but I'm confident the total tax rate will decrease or drop
between now and these next couple of years.
And I think that's all I have.
Yep.
Dr. Grims, turn it back over to you.
Okay, and just as a reminder,
the last day for the board to call for an election
would be this August 21st.
The last day to register to vote, October 10th.
Early voting begins in October, October 23rd.
and election day is November 7th.
Just information for you to consider as you move forward with this.
Are there any questions for any of the presenters tonight?
Any questions?
Yes, Mr. President.
Dr. Grooms, thank you very much for the presentation,
along with Mr. Smith and Alejandro.
Sorry.
I have a question about the advertising.
So, you know, because we see the presentation
and we hear that 100 schools are affected through technology,
and I love the demonstration of where the schools were
and the color-coded and what school is going to get what and all that.
But I think it is important that the community understands
that every school is affected.
For example, I know Taylor High School last week had a, you know,
this is just one of the things about the new roofs at certain schools.
And Taylor High School had two classrooms that flooded.
I don't know if it was last week or the week before.
But, you know, it's just important, I think, for the community to understand that everyone's going to be affected.
Also, alongside with that, how are we going to communicate that to our voters?
Sure.
Very important question.
Our bond committee has actually formed a communications committee that is working on just that, the messaging piece.
and messaging to the informational needs of specific voters,
our parents versus our taxpayers who may not have students in the school district
or our senior citizens.
You'll see a lot of information on our website,
a lot of information in our schools via posters and flyers.
Our bond committee will also be part of a speaker's bureau
in which we'll send members from that committee as well as our administration
to different community groups like the Rotary, like the Lions Club,
club like the EDC, the chamber, to share information about the bond with those groups.
So those are just some examples of how information about the 2023 bond program, should the board
decide to move forward with it, would be shared.
Okay, that's all I had.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
I have questions for Mr. Alejandro.
I attended several of the bond committee meetings and I saw the process, but I wasn't intricately involved as as maybe a couple of our board members.
Can you explain to us how deep the discussions were, how, you know, just kind of the dynamics of these people who have spent so much time?
and like I know you said they talked through and had had processing but can
you give us a little more intimacy in in how that worked and how hard it was to
come to decisions or was it hard sure I'll give you my perspective right we
were in a table of approximately seven people each okay we went through
through different activities, right, line by line.
We saw pictures of the schools.
We saw demographic growth, the requirements of some
of the schools that are aging.
Then we went and had discussions within our table
and what we thought, I mean, why we needed or why we didn't.
There were some interesting discussions.
They were not all, I will say, yeah, we all approving.
I don't think that's the way it went from what I saw.
There were challenges and there were a lot of some, I will say,
some difficult questions that some of the people from KDISD has to step up during that day
to answer or has to prepare for the following session.
I know Chris has to put together some additional scenarios because of questions
that we ask from a financing purpose and tax rate implications, right?
So we went through that process.
There's a lot of discussion also within the one-on-one computers,
within the tables, and within the Q&A session.
Like I said, every time that we went through one of the sessions,
we have like a 20-minute for Q&A.
I think that we spend probably 30% or 40% of the time in Q&A
within the community, within our committee, sorry.
Again, different perspective, different behaviors.
from my side I can tell you that I learned a lot of stuff that I wasn't
aware when I came in for example the implication of how property taxes and
appraisals works towards the money that actually Katie is the receipt I I show
up in today's completely unbiased but again I'm not happy to pay more taxes
you're not thinking for my perspective but now I understand a little more
because I also I always question or wonder well what is Katie doing with all
this money that they're getting because I didn't know that you're actually not
getting that money right so again eye-opening for some of us I will say to
get that type of information through the discussions through the session so
that's kind of what the process was do you feel do you and do you feel like
your other 142 committee members feel like their questions were heard given value answered were
they were they intimidated not to ask questions or was it open and i wouldn't say that we were
intimidated to not ask any questions i felt comfortable asking all the questions and i
think there's a few of them here and i'm more than happy to ask them directly if they failed
at any time if they were uncomfortable but i will say probably not yeah and all your questions were
answered by experts you had all the knowledge you needed to come to this
recommendation to us I will say so again it's not perfect right I cannot tell you
that we went into the details to analyze all the costs that were in each of the
line items right but we trust that your group within KTISD went through that
process because if we have to go through that then we don't need four meetings we
you need 40 meetings to go through each of your projects and challenge questions and
those type of things, right?
So there's a little bit of, I mean, we trust the work that has been done that was presented
to us, but I think they answer all the questions and more that we put together in front of
them.
Were you able to ask questions outside of just that 20 minutes of Q&A?
Oh, yeah.
Could you send emails?
I mean, well, no.
I didn't have any...
Did some people send more emails than someone else?
I receive email from some people externally.
Some of them were not even related to the bond.
I have passed those to Andrea and to Ken just for them to read and respond to those people.
But I think people got most of the answers that they were asking.
So it felt transparent and comfortable.
In my perspective, it did.
I have a question for Mr. Smith.
Sorry to get you back up there.
Go right.
I wonder, this could be a follow-up thing, but if you could quantify for the district,
what would be, let's say, for example, if we were to lower the tax rate from 39 to 38,
what would be the impact from the standpoint of being able to,
the loss in terms of cash flow collections to the district from that for the debt service,
what would be the impact on being able to pay down debt and have the bonds outstanding longer,
you know some sort of analysis of that in other words if we were to let's say
if we were to lower the tax rate to by a penny what would be that impact okay
I'm doing math in my head while you're asking that question and basically
you're probably looking at about five and a half million dollars per penny on
the tax rate that's what we can raise with our property value so five and a
half million dollars if you lower that penny a penny here is five and a half
million of less principal that we'll pay every year. And so we'll push that principal out
30 years or 25 years, depending on it, and you're going to pay interest on that for that amount of
time by lowering it. And it'll be about $5.5 million annually by one penny. What does that
mean to the average taxpayer? About $32 a year. Right. The other thing is, you know, in that chart
that you showed the tax rate, the projected tax rate
and the dropping down.
I think it'd be useful information to know,
because I know you make this statement in the presentation,
that while the tax rate is staying the same,
the taxpayer is paying that rate for longer,
because you're layering in another.
Yes, sir.
I think it'd be useful to know in terms of, OK,
here's what the rate goes to without the bond,
and here's what not the rate but the what the individual pays so let's say
over the next five or ten years to vent individual are paid you know let's pick
a number $10,000 for that five-year period I'm just making up a number but
with the new bond he's gonna be paying fifteen thousand over the five-year
period in other words just to quantify the impact to the taxpayer by layering
on the bond. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think this slide helps with that. You know,
again, that blue line shows a dramatic drop, and that's a planned drop in the next couple of years,
and so that looks like a 10-cent drop, but we're in a growing district, and it's looked like this
going back to my initial time in KDISD because we pay it down, and guess what? It's time,
and that's why we go back to the voters two or three times or every two or three years versus
going out and getting a billion five five years ago and we wouldn't be having this conversation
we'd already have it we wouldn't have sold that many much in bonds because we wouldn't need to
have sold that many bonds at this point we would still have those sales annually
but we do it every couple of three years and it's it's structured this way it's called a declining
declining debt structure because we know we're declining it that way on purpose because of the
growth we're going to have to go back to the voters and that's what that green shows uh
is us having to do that um going back to that 39 cent that 40 to 39 cent
As a chief financial officer and a taxpayer of the district, I regret it.
I wish we'd just be at 40 cents because, yes, it would have given me, on an average house, $30 a year in savings.
But as a taxpayer, I'm going to pay a whole lot more because we lowered it that penny.
KDISD is all on its own when it comes to selling bonds and paying back bonds.
We get no help from the state of Texas and haven't for about eight years, nine years now, eight or nine years because our wealth is per student is too high.
Believe it or not, we're a property poor school district, but our wealth per student is too high when it comes to issuing bonds.
So that when we go, the voters of this district have to pay that money back all by themselves.
And we have been for eight or nine years.
and but because we lowered it a penny we're paying more in interest between
now and the end of those bonds and like I said as an individual and as a CFO I
wish wish that wouldn't happen thank you mr. president may ask mr. Smith so we've
called this the mountain slide right yes that's we call that the mountain slide
and it has looked like it for all the bonds for as long as I've been around
Right. It's it's like it's going to drop. But every three years, because of our growth, we ask our voters to support.
We're buildings and renovations to our our schools the way we do have to renovate our houses or do repairs in our homes.
One time, I remember. Help me if I'm wrong about this, that we went four years instead of three.
And that was the year where we had children everywhere.
We had portable buildings wrapped around Wood Creek Junior High, like onto the street, right up to the front street.
Is that right, Mr. Behrling?
And it was almost 2,000 children at a school not equipped for that.
And here they are, right, in portable buildings at the street, vulnerable, all those things.
and we were just like, oh, we're never going to put it off again
because that just puts, because the students keep coming
and to not prepare for growth is, it overcrowds our buildings.
It wears our facilities out.
It makes a lot of stress on buildings.
My children were at schools that were way overcrowded.
There were, you know, you couldn't get to lunch.
You couldn't get through lunch.
the lunch line things like that right so um i understand the need for this been through it a
long time i no longer have children in kdisd i don't want to pay more to the literacy
do you mind if we move on to the are we having more questions on this yeah mr president i have
one question um i'm not sure it's for you though chris i'm curious why the decision was made for
a super majority versus a simple majority when voting was made on the items to include on the
wish list for the bond typically we go with a super majority from the bond committee it's the
most knowledgeable committee that you have in the district they've been through more information
asked more questions and had more discussion than probably any other committee this one was 142
too strong. What we have found in our experience with Transcend is that if it's a simple like 51-49
majority with the committee, that recommendation typically isn't as successful when it goes to
the community for a vote. We have found more success when there's a higher threshold with
the bond committee at two-thirds, and then taking that forward should the board decide to do that
typically has more success when the community comes to vote how were the tables formed
hello again the question was how were the tables formed we tried to get a good representation of
individuals from across the district represented at each tables the best way we could from what I
understand each table had one vote is that correct on decision well i'm going to let
not quite i'm going to let greg mcintyre our bond facilitator speak to that voting
process because there are different levels of voting okay thank you
hello again uh yeah typically what we did was that we went through all 55 items uh in a mock
vote and also in a final vote so in the third meeting we had a pretend vote just to kind of see
where everyone was, have table discussions, and take that vote. We came
back for the final vote. Each table, in order for an item to be approved, had to
reach that two-thirds threshold. So let's say that you had a table of nine people.
Six of those had to say, yes, I'm in favor of that, in order for that item to
be approved and to move forward. And then with the entire committee, we had
had to have two-thirds of the tables vote in favor of that.
So it's two-thirds at really two different levels.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Mr. President, can I ask a question?
Can you tell me if all of the 55 items
were passed out of the bond committee, so nothing was cut?
Mr. President, as one of the representatives on the bond
committee that was one of the comments that uh people at my table made was they were hoping
there was like an easy item to cut and so multiple times they're like i mean i wish
there was like a third stadium or something that we could just be like let's get rid of it
um but what they ended up coming back down to was i mean the engineering companies that
have gone and dug through the buildings and everything they did is it was what do we have
have to do to move forward.
And so that was just my experience on the committee.
Thank you.
Thank you for the presentation.
13.2 Strategic Design 1.3 Elementary Literacy Update
We're moving on to item 13.2, the strategic design
elementary literacy update.
And the presenter is Sandy Bell, assistant superintendent
of teaching and learning.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
good evening president perez board members and dr gregorski i'm here this evening to give the
board the monthly update on elementary literacy just to recap for the board
specific result 1.3 focuses on creating and utilizing a district literacy framework as a
guide for all literacy instruction decisions we're currently in the final bucket of phase two which
which is focused on providing instructional guidance to support resource implementation.
The outline of this work has been developed this spring and will continue to be built on throughout the summer.
Tonight, I want to focus on the training plan for the summer and hit the highlights for what ongoing support will look like during the 23-24 school year.
Summer training on the new materials will begin May 31st and conclude July 27th.
The training is organized by grade levels.
Teachers have been instructed to attend training for the grade level in which they teach.
Getting started with HMH into reading and introduction to Ariba Lectura
are interactive trainings where participants engage in a variety of hands-on experiences
to learn about the organization, design, and support resources within the instructional materials.
Through direct instruction, guided practice, and cooperative exploration,
Participants will experience the program's resources both from a student
and teacher perspective. The overarching goal is to build deeper understanding
and confidence with the new materials. AMIRA Learning Level 1 training is a
half-day training designed to engage participants in learning how AMIRA,
which is the new assessment system, fits into the core curriculum. The session
This session will also cover how to analyze data and how to make instructional decisions using AMERA reports.
Additionally, virtual asynchronous trainings will be held,
will be available to support understanding around the transition from balanced literacy to structured literacy.
These courses will remain open throughout the year and they're available through our learning management system, Canvas.
campus. Teachers who are unable to attend training this summer will be trained during the district
training days in August, which is August 3rd and 4th. During the August 3rd and 4th district
training days, teachers will receive level 2 HMH and level 2 AMIRA training. In level 2 HMH training,
teachers will get a more in-depth overview of how to implement structured literacy and whole group
and small group instruction.
AMERA Level 2 training will share a deeper overview
of how to analyze and make instructional decisions
using the AMERA reports.
Additional breakout sessions will focus
on grade-level band-specific topics.
Ongoing support throughout the school year
will be provided in a variety of ways.
Administrator support will be provided
during regularly scheduled principal PLC meetings
and AP toolbox sessions. Instructional coaches will also receive ongoing
training and support during regularly scheduled IC meetings. This ongoing
support will not only focus on implementing the new instructional
resources but will also focus on building knowledge and structured
literacy instructional practices. Into reading and Arriba la lectura office
hours will be held throughout the school year. These office hours will be
open to teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators, and they are designed to give
KDISD staff a direct line of communication with HMH professional development staff.
Teachers will also be given the opportunity to provide feedback after each literacy unit.
The just-in-moment feedback will give the elementary CNI department, as well as our
our offices of interventions and offices of other languages,
the opportunity to make instructional guidance adjustments as needed,
as well as being able to tailor support in a timely manner.
I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have at this time.
Any questions?
Mr. President, I have one question.
What is Ariba La Lectura specifically?
specifically that is the Spanish language arts program so we're delivering that yes so it's for
our bilingual our students who are in our bilingual program that's the Spanish speaking thank you
Mr President I have a few questions and some of these you've already answered but we do have new
board members here and I thought it would benefit them to hear um but one thing I haven't heard is
Is the training online or is it in person?
The training is face-to-face.
Okay.
And do you know how much time is involved?
I saw the one thing was half a day, but...
Yes.
So the Level 1 training that will happen this summer is a full-day training,
and then the AMIRA is a half-day training.
So we're talking about a day and a half of training in July, over June and July.
And then in August, we have district professional development days.
These are the days that teachers attend before students come.
So there are several days.
So two of those are allocated to the district when teachers are back on contract.
So they'll receive two additional days of training.
Okay.
Do you mind if I just have a couple more?
All right.
So what are the lab sites?
I saw those mentioned.
So that's part of our support plan that we're working on throughout the year,
which will involve a campus, a couple of our campuses that will be utilized to
help administrators kind of calibrate, possibly do some walkthroughs on the use
of the materials to learn from each other. We often do that now, we have those
things in place, so the best way to learn is to go see the practitioners in action.
And so the lab sites will be dedicated spaces where we can learn together as
administrators and instructional coaches on the implementation of the new materials okay and um
i've asked this before but i just i just want to hear it again from you so if a child is already
in third or fourth grade and they're i mean is it going to be difficult for them to transition
into a new way of learning or is it i mean have they lost something by being an older
elementary child who wasn't taught the same way you know from K through third
or whatever and now they're in fourth grade well the the only thing that's
changing is the resource the teaks are the same the teaks aren't changing we've
always taught the teaks and will continue to teach the teaks the
structures that are utilized small group instruction that biggest emphasis on
on what's changing is probably just more alignment
to the science of reading in terms of what teachers
experience during the reading academies.
The whole state of Texas is shifting to those pieces.
More structure literacy approach in the classroom.
But students have and will continue
to receive the same quality instruction
that they have received in KDISD.
And the TEKS is what drives everything
that we do in those classrooms.
OK, Dr. Bell, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you, Mr. President, for letting me ask those questions.
Any other questions?
Mr. President, can I ask, just where are, can you tell me where we are with the K-3 curriculum?
Weren't we waiting for that from the state?
We received the list, the commissioner's list, and we are using the HMH program, which was one of the very few that actually was on the commissioner's list.
We're using an updated version, more structured literacy approach that we've been able to provide a lot of feedback on.
And so we're set and ready to go.
That will be launched in August as well with the new instructional materials.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Thank you, Dr. Bell.
The next item is health plan update.
13.3 2022 Health Plan Update
and the presenter is Lance Nelman, Director of Risk Management. Welcome.
Thank you President Perez, Dr. Gagorski, Board of Trustees. Here this evening to
bring you up to date on what's going on with the health plan. We're going to start,
we're going to look at a high-level review of plan year 2022, then we'll
proceed to plan year 2022 projection versus the actual results. We're going to
review what we're doing currently in the health plan. I'm going to try to give you an update
what's going on with TRS. We're going to also review our plan year projection for 2023 and
then talk with you about our next steps. In this slide, you'll see in 2021, we had a negative
loss of $13.1 million. In plan year 2022, we had $16.9 million loss, and we projected,
from an underwriting perspective, to have a $5.1 million loss for plan year 2023.
Oh, is it on my slide? Yeah. Okay. There we go, as you can see.
Here you'll see for plan year 2022 our operating results.
We had projected a loss of 7.599, and we came in at a negative 16.8.
And you will see I'll point out two things in terms of actual expenses.
The medical shot through the roof, as we all expected, and then pharmacy, it is pretty hard as well.
And I think I'll point to that a little bit further, but that's primarily dealing with specialty meds that we see happening in the marketplace.
So let's look at what happened by plans.
If you'll recall, we have three separate plans.
We have the Memorial Herman ACO, the High Deductible Health Plan, and the Choice POS-2.
Now, I will kind of put a caveat to this is that this was in the middle of COVID, if you'll recall.
So people were experiencing a lot of bad health issues that were previously in 21 bubbling up, if you will, and continued with the impact of COVID.
Memorial Hermann ACO operated very well, as well as the high deductible health plan.
But as you can see, the Choice POS2, which is an open, very broad network, is where we saw our losses take place.
And I will point out one thing that over the years the Choice POS 2 has always been our
loss leader.
It always continues to lose money year over year and the reason we have this plan is we
have to be in compliance to show a similar plan that TRS has.
That is a rule that we must have as an open access plan.
This slide just basically shows the distribution of employee contributions against the district
contributions and the cost per covered employee in 2022 was $9,875. The cost per covered member
was $5,646. In a normal day, as you will see, we paid $151,977 in medical claims.
And then in pharmacy claims, we paid an average or an average per day of $48,311.
Again, here's the projection, but I think it's important that we look at the factors.
We saw plan member growth decline by 2.2%.
Medical trend.
That medical trend is another word for inflation, how things develop and our claims develop
over time.
Memorial Hermann ACO saw a negative trend of 18.9%, and that's good because costs are
being maintained by that program.
The POS2, as I alluded to a few slides earlier, saw cost increase and trend of 25.1%, and
the high deductible health plan saw a negative three-tenths of 1%.
Again, you will see I point out to you that the pharmacy trend increased by 23.1%, and
that's driven by specialty meds.
Specialty meds, as I will call them, are your Saturday morning drugs.
Those were sitting around drinking coffee on Saturday mornings.
They advertised.
We were bombarded with advertisements about these specialty meds.
This is the cure-all.
And they are good meds, and we want to make sure people get them.
But that is a big cost driver.
And then if you look in 2020, we had 80 large losses.
We had 81 claims totaling $18 million.
2021, we had 113 claims totaling $25 million.
million dollars. 2022, we saw things starting to decline at 91 claims at 20 million point two.
This slide basically just shows what our premiums are for 2022.
So what are we currently doing in the health plan? Right now, we have an RFP on the street
for benefit consulting. This is a normal cycle. It's part of our plan, so we're out to the market
to see what is best for the district in terms of benefit consulting. Plan year 2024, we will be
looking at voluntary benefits again. We'll seek new pricing options and program design for all
of our plans except long-term and short-term disability. Last year, I brought to you new
changes for those for that plan so we won't be repricing that express grips
express grips is our pharmacy provider will be engaging membership with the
health connect 360 this program reaches out to members who have prescribed
medications for chronic diseases to in our attempt is to avoid unnecessary
doctor visits a lot of times employees will have to go to a doctor just to get
a prescription unnecessary expense to the health plan and I will show you a
later slide of statistic that I think this is working and it's going to be
really successful and this is another way in which we're able to help fight
the specialty meds problem that's chronic through all health plans in our
area and then I'm we're also excited about ask Amy ask Amy is utilizing AI
technology for members visiting the ready MD website who is our virtual
medicine provider to ask medical questions to get a comprehensive one-stop for answers.
It's a first step if I have a question about diabetes. What is diabetes? Do I have heart
disease? What is that? So it's a first step that's a free resource for our staff members.
And then one of the things that's really been it's good that's really helped the health plan
is our dependent verification process.
As I brought to you a year and a half ago, this process,
we have rules and eligibility that sets out who can be on the health plan.
So we began auditing that process.
We had a complete audit, and we also now going forward,
you must prove on your eligibility whether you're legally able to be on the plan.
And that can tie back, if you'll recall, in a slide three or four ago,
go, our participation went down. And I think that is a sign that people went, they're going to check
me. So we're going to see some migration. And I think that was a good thing. And it's fairness
and it's equity. And it allows people to be on the plan who are legitimate and can be on the plan.
Pharmacy, I was talking, we were talking about specialty meds, but I want to kind of point out
some things that we've done that are really really positive to bring savings
to the plan and to the membership pharmacy management we have
pre-authorization step therapy and quantity management which garners 8.7
million dollars in net savings pain management we know about the pain
management our pain pills that people can get hooked on so we implemented
initial script fills from 15.9 days to 7.55 days. We don't want to restrict
people's access to pain medication, we just want to make sure that they get the
adequate days and that money is not erroneously spent on those medications.
Also, if you may see in the news and in plan year 2023, we will begin to see
seven specialty meds that will be converting to generic or biosimilar options, leading
to lower plan costs in the long run.
These drugs have met their patent protections, so they will hopefully be moving along, and
we can get those at a much lower price to the plan and to the membership.
Pharmacy rebates.
Last year, we garnished 6.649 in pharmacy rebates, which helped offset plan savings
or plan expenses and gave us some savings.
And then we have a Save on RX program.
This equals an additional $1.6 million,
and plan members save an additional $2.1 million.
And this is a program that's a, if you will call it,
sort of a backdoor to get deeper discounts with manufacturer coupons
that they reach out to the employee and help facilitate those savings.
And I'm very encouraged by the last point here is our generic fill rate increased by 2.5%.
And again, specialty medications saw a net increase in costs by 27.6.
Plan design changes and enhancements in 2022.
We didn't change any of the plan program or design change that we, as a district, decided not to do.
pharmacy changes focused on quantity restrictions alluded to earlier and then
if you'll recall we had an HRA program which the district contributed to that
went into effective sunset effective on 1 1 23 we lowered we did not increase
premiums and we enhanced our voluntary benefits as well this is this is an
encouraging slide. While we saw an increase in cost, I want to bring out the point is, you know,
in my world, we look at PEPM, and another word for that is per employee per month, and for medical
spend in 21, we were at $596. We lowered that to $577. Pharmacy, here's the, it went from $156 to $169,
and virtual medicine visits, we're at 10,307, plan year 9863.
I think that's a very interesting statistic
because we're seeing more people use virtual medicine
in place of going to the doctor.
And I think COVID really helped.
If one takeaway from COVID that was positive was people think,
okay, I can do this virtually.
I really don't need to go see the doctor.
I can get my meds refilled in a timely fashion.
And you'll see where we're trending right now, we're doing really well.
And we're beginning to see right now in the first three, four months of Plan Year 23,
a bending of the cost curve.
We're getting into a more normal process, if you will, of claims and what we're seeing come in.
And that's happening across districts and the industry as well.
Large losses, I alluded to that earlier.
This exhibit just breaks it down by member and spouse and child.
As you will see, it went down, but we have a large number of spouses that continue to drive costs,
the frequency, but costs went down, so that was good.
A lot of times people ask us, well, how do you value your plan?
People say, well, my plan when I was at this employer or I was at this district, my plan was better.
When the Affordable Care Act came into play, the federal government had to create some sort of model that said,
well, let's categorize these plans into a bronze, a silver, a gold, and a platinum, sort of a grading system.
So in terms of it's based on employer contributions, employee contributions, claim payments,
and there's a criteria that's presented,
and I thought I would share this with you to say
our actuarial value right now is a high silver.
It's 76.1 compared to our neighbors.
These are districts within our area,
and to show that we have a good value and plan,
and I would also add, too, you know, over these years,
the last two years where we had COVID,
the district funded those deficits.
It did not fully pass those deficits onto the plan members.
So if you take that deficit and you divide it by those plan members,
the richness of the plan is really greater than this.
But this is as close as we can get actuarially,
trying to get apples to apples to what our neighbors are presently.
What is our total program cost?
These are other districts where I'm comparing our per employee per month to our total spend,
and we're at the lower end of that spectrum, and that's a good place to be.
We're at $832.50.
So what's going on in Austin with our friends with TRS Active Care?
As the presentation was presented to you this evening,
TRS has not been come forth with their plan year 2024 design changes or premium structure at the moment.
They're waiting on the legislature.
to see what funding will come forth.
TRS went to a regional pricing model.
In the past, they lumped all health care expenses across the state.
So someone who was paying for premiums in Houston
might be paying for higher cost of care out of the Dallas market.
So they went to a regional pricing.
And right now, there are two bills before the legislature
that are proposing funding.
additional funding of $875 million to bolster the underwriting loss of TRS,
and another one for $588 million.
I want to point this out.
It's very important that KDISD will not be included in any of that funding.
That is strictly to TRS plan members, which is disheartening.
And this past summer, we were asked to participate in a survey
resulting from Senate Bill 1444, which was the bill in the last legislative session that allowed districts to leave TRS.
And just in a real high-level summary is, you were able to leave, but if you left, you had to stay gone for five years.
And as a part of that bill, the legislature said, well, we want to see what's going on out in the marketplace.
So the regional areas assimilated a group.
I was asked to be a part of this, and we made some recommendations.
And we're waiting to see the formal results.
They haven't been formally distributed.
I haven't seen a copy of it yet.
But our area, if you will, is really kind of in a unique position because we have a lot of self-insurers.
And from that, the general consensus is having a combination of plans with TRS is just really not feasible,
It's primarily because every school district has different objectives and goals and desires
for their plan members.
This is currently where we are.
Our projection I alluded to earlier was a negative $5.1 million.
Year to date projection, if you look that out for three months, it's negative 1.2.
And year to date actual, we're at a negative 1.3.
And as I stated a few moments ago, that we're starting to see things kind of fall into place in terms of expenses and claim expenses.
If you'll recall, in plan year 23, we made some adjustments.
We increased premiums and we moved for PLS-2.
We changed deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.
And as a result, we saw significant migration from the PLS-2 down to the high deductible and the Memorial Hermann ACO participants.
And we saw several spouses leave the district's health plan as well that were not active employees.
And again, our total participation in the plan dropped by 2.02%.
So next steps, we are just now beginning to look at plan structure and underwriting for 2024.
We'll determine what our projections will be.
We'll come to you with options possibly in June and present to the board in the summer of 2024 our recommendations for premiums and design structure and where we plan to go for plan year 2024.
And I would welcome any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you very much.
Any questions?
Mr. President, I would just like to say thank you for your presentation.
I know that was very lengthy, but I enjoyed it.
I just want to say on the next time that you present us with the premiums and all that,
you're not going to present this again because we've obviously already seen it.
So in the next presentation, what exactly?
Are you just going to show us the premiums and that's it?
As I've done in years past, what I plan to do is I will probably highlight a few slides from here
just to kind of refresh your memory, and then we'll look at what are our projections going to be.
And then I'll allude to say, well, if we move premium dollars here, if we don't do anything,
thing, here's the outcomes, if we change deductibles, if we see to do that, I will
allude those to you and say, here's where we are.
Chair Greg Musil
Any other questions?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Chair Greg Musil
13.4 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) Annual Report
Our next presenter is H.C. Grimmett, Curriculum Coordinator, Health and Physical Education
for the School Health Advisory Council or SHAC annual report. Thank you.
Good evening, President Perez, members of the board, Superintendent Gagorski. The purpose of
my presentation tonight is to provide you with an annual report of our district School Health
Advisory Council, otherwise known as SHAC, as required by Senate Bill 283. Our council is
comprised of members representing each of the categories listed any person who
wishes to be a part of the council is invited to attend meeting agenda items
and topics relate to one of the eight focus areas for coordinated school
health meeting notices are posted in advance on campuses and sent out to all
parents via Katie cork board our committee met twice in the fall and
twice in the spring. Meetings were held at the Food and Nutrition Building. Our meeting dates
are listed before you. All meetings are recorded and minutes are posted on the KDISD
SHAC page in accordance to changes made by House Bill 1525. So here's a summary of our four
meetings. So at our first meeting, Senate Bill 9's requirements for implementing the new health
TEKS and physical education TEKS in grades 4 through 12 was reviewed. The TEKS and adopted
resources for health and physical education had not been updated by the state since 2004.
Last spring, the Board of Trustees approved state resources for health and physical education.
The state now requires districts provide opt-in instruction to parents and students for the new TEKS related to human sexuality, human trafficking, family violence, dating violence, and child abuse.
The district's plan for opt-in instruction windows for fall, which is high school students enrolled in health, and spring for grades 4-5, 6-8, and high school health students was reviewed with the committee.
Updates relating to health and nutrition was also provided.
At our next meeting, members were able to view the district's lessons covering Senate Bill 9.
The committee approved the lessons and the district's plan for implementation.
Information relating to health services and community involvement was also provided at that time.
The third meeting primarily focused on our district's plan to provide a safe
school environment. Information regarding safety protocols were reviewed and the
committee also received information regarding the updated coordinated
approach to child health which is catch our curriculum resources utilized to
provide instruction to students in grades K through 8 in physical education
education in accordance with the new TEKS for physical education.
At the final meeting, I reviewed legislative bills relating to each of the eight components
of SHAC.
Members reviewed and approved the annual report, which I am presenting to you tonight.
So this concludes the annual report.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Any questions?
I just wanted to ask, does the committee review all the human sexuality courses before they're
presented for opt-in?
Yes, sir.
So last year during our new curriculum, we went through all of our lessons during last
last year's SHAC meetings and approve those.
And then that's what we then brought before the board to approve for this year.
Okay.
Thank you.
And are there any resources that we, whether it's online or what have you,
that we make available perhaps to parents because of the human trafficking
and the sex trafficking?
Is there any of that available?
Do we know?
Do you know as far as like that's part of our curriculum,
but in terms of any resources that we can make available to the community?
Well, that's something, like I said,
the counselors do a phenomenal job on providing information for that,
especially like all the topics to Senate Bill 9.
And so we always could provide some information when requested.
it okay the sex trafficking is just a huge huge uh problem in this houston area
any any questions yeah i have one question um about the membership for the council you said
anyone who wanted to be on that is on that committee yes ma'am any anyone uh is available
to come to our meetings that you know and we post those on our shack website okay uh or are any is
Is anyone vetted?
You know, there's health care professionals, community members,
nonprofit health organizations.
Does anyone vet those?
They contact me, and we see what benefit is it to our school system,
our students, and therefore when they come in, they present.
And that's also another line for us to be able to check them out as well
because it's not just me looking at them.
It's all the other members that are there to ask questions
questions and see what benefit that has for our students and staff.
Okay.
So when you say membership, you're talking about taxpayer parents or?
It could be parents, community members, it could be clergy, law enforcement.
So it's a whole host of different things.
That's the coordinated approach to SHAC.
Thank you.
Yes.
I have a question, Mr. President.
What kind of background checks, if any, are run on any of the community members that join this group?
I do not have any background checks because, again, these are parents that come in from the school.
So when we open our meetings, people go around, present to the whole committee where they are from, what they represent.
And so as far as background checks, we don't have any, you know, as far as background checks
I don't I do not vet them myself as far as you know through the police or anything like that
Okay. Thank you
Any other questions, thank you so much. Thank you for your presentation
We'll move on now to 14.1, which is, again, H.C. Grimm at Grimm Curriculum Coordinator
14.1 Discuss and consider Board approval of the 2023-2024 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) representatives.
Health and Physical Education for discuss and consider approval of the 2023-2024 School
Health Advisory Council Representatives.
representatives. So I have provided you with a list of the school health advisory shack membership
for your approval for the upcoming school year. The board of trustees shall appoint at least five
members to the local school health advisory council. A majority of the members must be persons
who are parents of students enrolled in the district and who are not employed by the district.
One of those members shall serve as chair or co-chair of the council.
I'm happy to answer any questions regarding that membership list before you.
Are there any questions?
I will now entertain a motion for this item.
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees approves the proposed 2023-2024 School Health Advisory Council representatives.
second we will now proceed to vote board members please record your vote on the screen via your
keypad. The motion passes 7-0. Next we will consider discuss consider board
14.2 Discuss and consider Board adoption of the local policies included in Board Policy Update 120.
adoption of the local policies included in board policy update 120. Thank you
President Perez, members of the board, Dr. Grogorski. As you will remember, the first
reading in accordance with board policy BF was last month. So here we're asking at the second
reading of policy update 120 for your adoption of the local policies. As a reminder, this is for
legislative and regulatory changes mostly. And there were five local district administrative
administrative recommended changes that had to do with super superintendent qualifications and duties other revenues and investments and food nutrition management.
So just to clarify that there's a lot of material included there, but we're only approving the the local updates the ones that you mentioned that were highlighted.
Yes, all of the local policies both in the TASB update in the five that were recommended by local administration. Thank you. Any questions.
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees adopts the local policies included in Board
Policy Update 120.
Second.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes 7-0.
Item 14.3, discuss and consider board approval to temporarily waive the TEA state assessment requirements within board policy FMH local.
14.3 Discuss and consider Board approval to temporarily waive the TEA state assessment requirements within Board Policy FMH(LOCAL).
The presenter is Justin Graham, General Counsel.
Mr. President, Superintendent Gorkowski, trustees, we're kind of in a unique situation here.
We haven't had to bring one of these, certainly in my tenure here.
If you look at, this is one of those things that the board has direct control over, right?
This is a policy decision.
So if we look at your FMH local policy, which is fairly short, but it talks about what is required to participate in commencement activities, right?
What does a graduate have to do in order to walk with their class at graduation?
In there it says, and your board policy says that the student shall meet all state and local graduation requirements.
and I'm going to end quotes, including all applicable state testing, okay?
Meaning you have to have your STAR EOC scores in.
You have to be approved.
We are in sort of a really unique position here because for the first time ever,
TEA is releasing the scores to us late, right?
Graduation commencement activities begin later this week.
We will not actually get preliminary results back until the 22nd or 24th of the month,
then those won't actually be certified until actually all of our graduation ceremonies are
over so uh when superintendent uh when deputy superintendent uh pack brought this to our
attention superintendent and i sat down looked at policy and i said look our hands are tied because
this is a board policy so uh basically what a waiver would do this is a one-time waiver of your
policy we're talking about district-wide we have 6,300 kids that are going to
graduate in nine ceremonies over the next two weeks pretty awesome this may
affect 55 to 60 kids total so you're talking about less than 1% of kids who
would say hey we would say hey they've completed all the coursework they've
done all of the things that they need to do however they're just waiting on their
final testing results back from TEA on their end of course assignments and the
reason that it's so few kids most of what you have here are kids that have
moved in from some somewhere else moved in from out of state and they're just
trying to that they've done all the legwork to get here and they're just
literally waiting on results so if the board was to go ahead and approve this
this would be a one-time waiver of this local policy and we do we have reached
out to TEA, we do not anticipate that this will be the case in 2024. We anticipate that we'll have
those results sooner. So I don't see a reason to change your policy. And again, this is just a very
few students who have, again, done all the legwork and they're just, hey, they're waiting on a test
result. And traditionally we would have those test results by then. This will not, if the board
chooses to waive this policy, this is just to participate in the commencement activities.
activities, let's say that a kid fail is waiting, you're one of the 50 kids that's waiting on
this and you fail the end of course assessment and you're going to get a failure back from
TA but you're not going to get that until the end of the month and you have already
walked with your classmates at Tompkins High School.
You still won't get your diploma and you still won't get your transcript from the district
which trigger a lot of things, right, in employment, college applications, et cetera.
you will not get those until they've satisfied the state assessments.
So it's a lot of information, but since it does pertain to the commencement activities,
and this is really just a one-off, we haven't had this before,
I wanted to provide that information.
I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Yes, Mr. President, can I ask a couple questions about this?
First, I'd like to make a statement that having had three kids who graduated from KSD,
none of them got their diploma on the day that they graduated.
We had to go back a few weeks later to get it.
Okay, first.
Second of all, this is not important, I guess, but in college also they just take, you know,
they take their exam and then two days later they graduate, you know,
and we don't really know if they passed or not either.
But the question I have about this is you've said that you taught the TEA
and you don't think that this will happen again in the future.
But why, do you know why it happened this time?
Ms. Hackett, can you explain?
Yes, there were some circumstances this year with TEA.
The star redesign was implemented this spring, and with the new redesign, TEA established a new reporting timeline.
So they were going to be somewhat delayed in getting their scores back to us.
They don't anticipate this being the case moving forward 2024 and thereafter.
Okay.
Any other questions?
I'll now entertain a motion for this item.
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees approve the temporary waiver of the commencement requirements of FMH Local as recommended by administration.
Second.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
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14.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of additional department staffing needs to address growth for the 2023 - 2024 school year.
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the 23-24 school year. This is something that we bring to the board each year in May to
address growth in the district. As we all know, we're an extremely fast-growth district
and as we add students and other staff, we also need support staff in the district to
continue the support that is expected in KDISD. What you have before you this evening in your
agenda packets is a list of 59 positions that... Is that mic on? I don't know if I can hear
you very well. Is it? Is that better? Yes, please. I'm sorry.
Sorry.
What you have in your agenda packet this evening
is a list of 59 positions that are being requested
from our various departments.
One thing I would, I think it's important for the board to know
how this list comes to be.
It's not just a situation where we're
in the middle of staffing season.
We say, OK, departments, go ahead and give us
a list of everything you need, and we're
going to take it to the board for approval.
There are many conversations that
happen throughout this process.
This list was approximately 80 or so units when it was first compiled.
But, of course, we know we have a budget to work within.
And so I go back individually to all the cabinet members and say, hey, we need to prioritize.
I will say all 80 of those requests certainly felt that they were needs.
But this is something that we do every year.
We've got to prioritize this list and do our best to work within a budget.
We also know that we have a very low administrative cost ratio.
That's something that we're proud of and that's something that we certainly do not want to
Move the needle on other conversations that we have
To maybe maybe look at gaining efficiencies in areas when we're adding positions, especially with department staff is you know?
We look through and we look at our current vacancies. Sometimes we have vacancies in departments that have been there for quite a while
So, you know we asked the question of that department are
Can we repurpose some of these positions to these new positions or can we absorb some of these vacancies?
And one thing that we have done this year when it comes to that, so this list of 59 positions about $3.4 million, about $400,000 of that is grant funding.
So it's about a $3 million add to the general fund.
But we've actually gone through discussions that I've had with Sherry Butterfield, Mr. Smith, Dr. Gagorski, and have actually absorbed about a million dollars in vacancies.
Again, just department staff vacancies.
We're not talking campus about a million dollars in in department staff vacancies
So that makes this a net add of about two million dollars to the general fund for these 59 positions
And I can certainly take any questions
Any questions
Mr. Sorry
Mr. President I have one question is it are these mostly because of new growth or new words come from?
Yes, so this is based on district growth and this is, you know, each department doing their own needs assessment to determine what do we need to continue the support that our department offers.
Questions?
I had a couple questions.
One is, is instructional officer, is that a new title?
I've never seen it before.
No, well, we do have several instructional officers in the district.
For this one specifically, I could have a member of Dr. Kasky's team speak to this position.
I've just never heard the officer designation on the instructional.
Yeah, that is a position that's been within the district, gosh, I've been here 13 years, so that time.
time and really depends on the different departments. So here you'll see three instructional officers.
One of those is for secondary curriculum instruction. One of those is for our GT department and
the other one is for the Office of Other Languages. So they're all they all they look similar.
Mr. Sussan I talked about this earlier today but they are different on the pay scale and
the number of days that contract hours and the pay scale is different.
And are some of them like to facilitate or specialists etc. Are they at a campus or are
they here so those are so the facilitators the instructional facilitators those are to support
our literacy program as well as the reading language arts coordinator okay we talked about
this process and how we're going to sustain this change and how we're going to support the campuses
so while they're here we deploy them to the campuses so they're in classrooms working
side by side with teachers develop uh also delivering professional learning okay thank you
Mr. President, can I ask a question?
Go ahead.
Do you know offhand how many new positions you added last year in 2022?
Yeah, I believe it was 37.
I've got it here.
Okay.
Yes, 37.
Now, last year, though, it was 37 total.
It was 32 different positions.
So in contrast to this year, we've only got 28 new positions
We just have more of those that have multiple requests like for example, the police officers at five instead of just one so
And I believe the dollar addition last year was about one and a half to two million dollars, okay, I
Notice I had a question on the police officer five is that
For the time
we're good there as far as five I mean of course everybody's focused on safety
and security and we're trying to hire additional officers soon as possible as
soon as we can is that the five is what has been requested absolutely and you
know one we want to get fully staffed and police officers and then we're
requesting these five I can have chief go speak to this if you would like but
you know also understand if we get to a position where we're fully staffed and
and we are able to hire these five police officers
and then determine we wanna add more,
next year we would also have growth units
if we wanted to tap into that
for additional police officers.
Mr. President, I move that the board of trustees
accrues additional department staffing
needed to address growth for the 2023-2024 school year
as recommended by the superintendent.
Second.
We will now proceed to vote. Board members please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes 7-0.
Item 14.5, and the presenter is Joe Christopherson, Director of Technology Operations, to discuss and consider Board approval of RFP 2218SP, Single Sign-On Platform to Classic Link.
14.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of RFP 2218SP Single Sign-On (SSO) Platform to ClassLink Inc.
Thank you.
Good evening, President Perez, members of the Board, Superintendent Dr. Gaworski.
The current single sign-on platform, MyKD, will no longer be supported beyond January of 2024.
The recommended replacement solution was selected through an RFP process conducted by the technology staff, campus staff, central office staff, and the purchasing department.
The SSO platform would be the best fit for the KDISD students, staff, and parents.
An overwhelming response was given to the vendor ClassLink Inc.
This modern SSO platform solution will provide a single point of access to all KDISD digital
resources.
It is recommended that the contract be awarded to ClassLink Inc.
incorporated. The first year cost would be $204,550. Annual recurring cost would be $227,067.
The funding source would be ESSER and the general operating fund.
How does that cost compare to what we've had? It's a more expensive platform than our current
solution, but in the long term it will displace another application as well,
so offset some of that cost but the current platform is no longer available
beyond January board members any questions
mr. president I move that the Board of Trustees approves the word
the proposal for the purchase of a single sign-on SSO platform to class
link Inc for students staff and parents with the total first-year cost two or
four thousand five hundred fifty dollars in a recurring yearly cost of two or
twenty seven thousand sixty seven dollars second we will now proceed to
vote board members please record your vote on the screen via your keypad the
The motion passes 7-0.
15. Consent
We will now move to the consent agenda.
Does anyone have any questions regarding any item on the consent agenda?
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees approves the consent agenda for items 15.1 through 15.9.
Second, we will not proceed to vote. Please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
Motion passes 7 0.
The board was provided the donated items list.
16.1 Donated Items to Katy Independent School District
And Madam Secretary, do we have any requests for information?
No, I don't believe so, but if I'm wrong, please correct me now.
Any board members have any kind of requests for information to be provided?
17. Future Meetings
our next regular board meeting will be on Monday June 26 2023 there being no further
business before the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 1020 thank you everybody
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 4.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees canvasses the results of the May 6, 2023, Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees Election as reported by the Central Counting Station and declares the winners of each position as follows: Position 3, Amy Thieme, Position 4, Morgan Calhoun, and Position 5, Mary Ellen Cuzela.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 002 · AGENDA 4.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees certifies the May 6, 2023 Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees election for Positions 3, 4, and 5, whereby Amy Thieme for Position 3, Morgan Calhoun for Position 4, and Mary Ellen Cuzela for Position 5 were duly elected.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| greg-schulte | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| leah-wilson | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 003 · AGENDA 12.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve the purchase of property for a district facility.
5 Yes · 0 No · 2 Abstain
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Abstain |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Abstain |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 004 · AGENDA 14.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the proposed 2023 -2024 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) representatives.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 005 · AGENDA 14.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees adopts the local policies included in Board Policy Update 120.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 006 · AGENDA 14.3
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves a temporary waiver of the commencement requirements of FMH(LOCAL) as recommended by Administration.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 007 · AGENDA 14.4
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the additional department staffing needed to address growth for the 2023 - 2024 school year as recommended by the superintendent.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 008 · AGENDA 14.5
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the award of the proposal for the purchase of single sign-on ("SSO) platform to ClassLink, Inc. for students, staff and parents.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 009 · AGENDA 15.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's May 2023 budget amendments.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 010 · AGENDA 15.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's March 2023 financial statements
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 011 · AGENDA 15.3
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for Fiber Upgrades to Accutek Technologies, Inc.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 012 · AGENDA 15.4
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees awards the contract for Elementary School Security Camera Upgrades to Accutek Technologies, Inc.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 013 · AGENDA 15.5
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the additional department staffing needed to address growth for the 2023 - 2024 school year as recommended by the superintendent.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 014 · AGENDA 15.6
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the Interlocal Agreement with Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) for the provision of occupational, physical, and music therapy for the period of September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2024.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 015 · AGENDA 15.7
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the Interlocal Agreement with the Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) for specialized services at the Academic Behavior School West.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 016 · AGENDA 15.8
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the contract for the replacement of piping in the science labs at Cinco Ranch High School to Brown & Root Industrial Services, LLC utilizing Ominia JOC Contract No. R200102 for a cost of $307,858.00 and approves the total project cost not to exceed $330,858.00.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 017 · AGENDA 15.9
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the minutes for the April Board meetings.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |