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Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting Agenda
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, September 25, 2023
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In this meeting
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- 0:06 to 8:53 1. Call to Order
- 8:53 to 1:18:42 3. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
- 1:18:42 to 1:19:05 4. Closed Meeting
- 1:19:05 to 1:19:53 5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 1:19:53 to 1:44:13 6.1 Strategic Design 1.3 Elementary Literacy Update
- 1:44:13 to 1:49:26 6.2 Katy Independent School District Education Foundation Annual Report
- 1:49:26 to 2:05:17 7.1 Discuss and consider revision to Local Board policy EFA and EFB.
- 2:05:17 to 2:06:32 8. Consent
- 2:06:32 to 2:07:18 9.1 Recap of Board member requests for Information
- 2:07:18 to 2:07:53 10. Future Meetings
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1. Call to Order
Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this regular board meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District to order.
Today is Monday, September 25, 2023, and the time is 5 p.m.
Dr. Grigorski, will you verify that we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to notice of this meeting?
Mr. President, I do confirm we're in compliance of the provisions of Texas Open Meeting Act
for our meeting tonight.
Thank you.
We have some good
on the pledge for
yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
Next item actually two
items in a row.
This is if you've been
any of our board
meetings for a while
we usually do the
pledge but
but we're going to start doing the pledge with a national anthem with a guest speaker for that.
So I'm going to introduce two students today.
First, I'm going to invite up to the podium Brody McFarland to come on up.
He's third grade over at Woolman Elementary, principal.
Kelly Ricks, parents Corey and Nancy McFarland.
He's got siblings, Connor at ninth grade at Katy High School, Mason sixth grade at Wood Creek High School.
Brody loves art, reading, playing basketball.
also loves to travel favorite subject is math because he likes to solve problems
a couple of notes from his teachers for more Lepore third grade teacher teaching
Brody McFarland is a joy but I imagine so is being a classmate of Brody's he is
the first one to help someone in need the class is greatest encourager and
problem solver Brody has the maturity and sense of wonder far beyond his years
He has the ability to reframe a situation, see a positive outcome, and make everyone feel better afterwards.
Every teacher needs a Brody in their class.
But more importantly, everyone needs a Brody as a friend.
And from Lindsey Best, kindergarten teacher, Brody is someone you can count on.
If you need the correct answer, call on Brody.
If you have a student that needs help, call on Brody.
If you want a hard worker, call on Brody.
Or if you just need a smile, call on Brody.
So welcome, Brody, but hold that thought for just a minute,
because I'm also going to introduce Micah Marsh,
who is going to be singing our national anthem after those pledges.
Micah is an 11th grader over at Cinco Ranch High School, parents Paul and Anna Marsh.
He's got some siblings, Avery over at University of Houston, Kinsey at Sam Houston State.
Micah is a member of the Cinco Chorale and Bravo,
and was a member of the 2022-2023 All-State Mixed Choir.
special interest drill instructor for the cougar marching band drum line kryptonite 624 robotics
team disc golf and chess favorite subjects choir math computer science and physics and from his
teacher dorothy wilson choir director micah is an excellent musician talented intelligent and
disciplined he is compassionate empathetic creative and kind micah is skilled in the art of
collaboration he is respected by his peers and teachers micah helps and encourages others to
succeed i am immensely proud to say he is a member of the cougar choir family i know he will succeed
at anything he pursues so we're going to go ahead and stand and get ready for the pledges and then
and then we're going to sing that national anthem.
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 thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Good evening, President Perez, board members, and Superintendent Grogorski.
My name is Brody McFarland, and I am a third grader at Woolman Elementary.
I have been at Woolman since kindergarten.
I really love it there because it is a wonderful place.
place. Our teachers make learning fun, encourage us to be our best, and they show us that we
matter. As an Explorer Scout, I get to show new students about how great Wollman is and
that they are welcome here. One day I hope to be a house leader like my older brother
was. I feel very blessed to be a student at Wollman. Thank you for the opportunity of
being your pledge leader tonight. I am honored.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Micah and Brody thank you so much do we have any scouts in the audience no
scouts in the audience okay now we will move on to the public comment part of
3. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
the meeting at this time the board of trustees will give members of the public
an opportunity to speak in accordance with Katie I see board policy BED local
as defined by board policy speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday September
25th 2023 provided their first and last name and signed in 15 minutes prior to
the start of the meeting would be allowed to address the board speakers
who signed up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to
speak speakers who signed up for non agenda items will have approximately 230
two minutes and 30 seconds to speak if speakers wish to share written material
with the board please provide 10 copies of to the secretary of board services
before the beat 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 officers designee shall advise the
speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate policy finally pursuant to
Texas Government Code sections 551.074 551.0821, the Board will not permit the presentation
of personally identifiable information regarding a student and will not discuss the appointment,
employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer
or employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee.
Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must do so through the appropriate
local grievance policies, FNG local, DGBA local, CKE local, and GF local.
Our speakers will be called forward in the order they signed up to speak, and we will
start with those who signed up for agenda items.
And the first speaker is Wesley Nelson, and after that, Sarah Allen.
Wesley Nelson.
Come on up.
Well, my hearing's gone a few years ago, so I don't hear too good.
Anyway, I'm Wesley Nelson.
We moved here to Katy in 1939.
I went through the Katy schools, my kids went through Katy schools, we all graduated from Katy schools.
We're primarily here tonight just to inform the board and the committee that you're going to form
to name the school out on Katy Hockley Road after our family.
Our family bought that land in 1941 and we, all three of my brother and sister and I was raised there.
We all went to school, graduated from Katy.
and all of our grandkids and all our,
well, not all our grandkids,
but all our kids graduated from Katy.
So we've been a long time resident here in Katy
and been in the school.
I was on the school board for several years back,
but we didn't have the problems that you folks have.
In our class, we had 20 in our graduation class.
And we were the first, in 1948,
we were the first class that graduated
from the new high school here on this campus.
and the school we went to was on the old campus over on the other side of town.
But anyway, we're just here to introduce ourselves and request that the committee would consider naming the school after our family out there.
There were two Nelson families, Clyde Nelson, which was my dad, and George Nelson, which lived just a little further out of town.
and we were all involved in nearly everything that went on in the school.
We didn't participate in much sports because we didn't have time.
We was on the farm working.
We didn't have much time spent on sports,
but we spent a lot of time and effort with Mr. Robinson and the FFA program.
A couple of our deans, our son was an American farmer,
and I had a nephew who was an American farmer,
and most of the boys were lawn store farmers in FFA.
We worked with Mr. Robinson for many years
and helped him with his program.
You can tell what kind of program it is
if you go out to Katie Hockney Road
to see all the buildings they got out there
on the FFA program.
But anyway, we'd like the board and the committee
to consider naming the new facility out there
on Katie Hockney Road on our Nelson family.
family. I drove through there the other day and that's a, you can't believe what that
thing looks like. It's a monstrous facility. But anyway, we appreciate the effort to come
forward with the board and appreciate the consideration that you would give in with
the committee to name the school after the Nelson family.
Thank you.
I can't talk.
I turned my name in, but it's not on the list.
I can't talk, I guess.
Mr. President, clarifying question, please.
Would the Nelsons be given information on how to submit a formal application?
You have that.
Thank you so much.
I'd like to apologize to Mr. Woolman.
He was my eighth grade biology teacher.
I told you it was about 50 years ago.
I think it was about 10 years ago, okay?
Mr. Nelson, thank you very much for, thank you for being such a great American Haiti resident. Thank you.
And the next speaker is Sarah Allen, and after that is Lynette Alidon.
on.
My name is Sarah Allen.
I'm a KDISD parent.
I've had two students graduate from KDISD schools and my third is still attending.
I'm here to speak in regards to the book instructional material policies.
The freedom to read is a human right protected by the First Amendment.
school librarians protect this right by curating book collections appropriate
for their school communities these highly educated specialists should be
trusted to do their jobs instead this Board of Trustees has shown disdain for
these professionals by making themselves the arbiters of what children may read
the results include ninety three thousand dollars worth of books diverted
to storage before allegedly being sent to campuses with no confirmation that
they were able to reach libraries classrooms or students the banning of books such as judy bloom's
are you there god it's me margaret dr seuss's wacky wednesday eric carl's draw me a star and
robert munch's the paper bag princess all of these classics have been in circulation for over 40
years and the board has decided that any two of them can appoint themselves the sole arbiters of
of what children may read, even bypassing the review committee
intended for that purpose.
As this board continues to move away
from its intended purpose of supporting
the education of all students in the district,
and instead focuses on dismantling
the rights of students, I would like
to remind you that the book banners are never
on the right side of history.
Thank you.
Lynette Alidon and then Sam Rich.
Good evening, Dr. Gagorski and the board of trustees.
I'm Lynette Alidon, a retired KDISD librarian,
concerned citizen.
I want to share my thoughts about agenda item 7.1, which
addresses your plans to revise the book selection policies.
Two months ago, I addressed my concerns
to this board about your proposed revisions,
which ultimately fell on deaf ears.
You unanimously voted to pass your agenda,
which included changes to the elementary school library book inclusion
that prohibits, quote, nudity and implied nudity, unquote.
This policy change resulted in recently banned books
like Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss,
Draw Me a Star by Eric Hall,
and Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.
This result made the news and once again tarnished the school district.
I noticed on the board docs posted today
that you plan to add clarity to this policy so that the librarians no longer
have to interpret your miscommunication. I hope that you will admit that the
board made this mistake and remove the blame from it from the librarians
tonight. I hope that you're aware that there is a written court injunction
blocking House Bill 900 also known as the Reader Act. Since this proposed law
prompted your knee-jerk reaction to place $93,000 worth of taxpayer-funded
funded books in a warehouse this summer, you should now allow the school
librarians to shelve these books being held in book jail at the schools. The
librarians have already vetted these books. They followed the book selection
policy which included a 30-day public review before purchasing them last May.
These books belong in the students hands. Please stop this nonsense and do the
right thing by allowing students to check out these new books. You also add
insult to injury by celebrating donations of hundreds of Tuttle Twins
books by Christian nationalist extremist group county citizens defending freedom.
Yet, you deny our professionally trained school librarians to select books for their campuses.
I urge you to talk to the librarians about your revisions before implementing more policy changes.
It is important that you respect and recognize the invaluable contributions of this profession
and stop making them feel worthless.
Please make Katy ISD an A-plus school district again and create more and more inclusive,
engaging and enriching learning environment for our students. Thank you.
Thank you.
Sam Rich and after that
Bridget Spear.
Hello, my name is Dr. Sam Rich. I'm a KDISD
parent, volunteer and an educator. Thank you for listening.
History teaches us banning books is never the answer. Banning books
BANNING BOOKS IMPLIES SOME IDEAS AND EXPERIENCES ARE VALUABLE AND WORTHY WHILE OTHERS ARE NOT.
BANNING BOOKS RESTRICTS INFORMATION AND UNDERMINES A PRIMARY FUNCTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION, TEACHING
STUDENTS HOW TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES.
YET OUR BOARD CONTINUES TO BAN BOOKS EVEN THOUGH WE ALREADY HAVE SYSTEMS IN PLACE TO
ALLOW PARENTS TO CONTROL WHAT THEIR CHILD CAN CHECK OUT AND WHAT THEIR CHILD CAN PARTICIPATE
IN.
PLEASE USE THE EXISTING SYSTEMS.
WE HAVE HIGHLY QUALIFIED FACULTY TO SELECT MATERIALS.
Please trust them. Let them research and discuss the appropriate age, grade level, and use of materials.
The books this board is banning are embarrassing and so sad for our students.
Almost every Friday last year, I read to my son's kindergarten class, and every single time, the student chose at least one No David book, oftentimes multiple, taking turns with them.
They love these books. They connect with these books.
No David motivates them to read, laugh, think, discuss, and learn.
Thanks to this board, No David is now banned.
A favorite book for my family is the paper bag princess which cleverly reverses the princess dragon stereotype and shows the princess
Rescuing the prince when he belittles her she calls him a bum and goes on with her life
It's a great book and a powerful message once again. Thanks to this board. It's now banned too
Unfortunately our board zero tolerance rules for books and lack of trained review committee
Not only means books are being banned with no real discussion and no real context
It also means our board spent valuable time discussing books where a pink kitten wants to be a unicorn and a talking crayon lost its wrapper.
It's called imagination, and it's really critical for learning.
Books are so important.
Reading reduces stress, exercises our brains, builds vocabulary, introduces new ideas and experiences, improves sleep, increases general knowledge, improves literacy, teaches critical thinking, and it's fun.
All around, reading is good for us.
Again, book bans are never the answer. Discussions with a qualified committee
to determine appropriate age, grade, and lessons is an answer. Using the existing
systems in place to allow families to determine what is appropriate for their
student is an answer. I know there are more pressing issues for our schools and
this board. In talking with teachers and administrators, they do not list banned
books in any of their concerns or needs. Already this school year, we've dealt
with lockdowns bus issues communication issues students and parents being hit by cars on their
way to and from school funding issues these are the real needs we beg of you the board
to put your time and energy into thank you thank you
bridget spear and after that jamie watson
Good evening, my name is Bridgette Spire.
This is my 30th year of teaching with 24 of those years in Katy ISD at Williams Elementary.
I want to discuss the wonderful author programs Katy has hosted that were the envy of many
districts.
We had, through the partnership of area bookstores, the opportunity to introduce award-winning,
famous, unbelievable authors to our students and staff.
We were able to offer the students the chance to purchase newly published
autograph books that became a part of their treasured home collection. We have
students who come back after graduation talking about the authors they met and
the autograph books they plan on keeping forever and sharing with their own
children. During back to school staff development, my school along with several
others listened to an educational motivational speaker named Chris Cabano
from get your teach on his presentation was mostly about creating a moment for
students making their time in school memorable and special our KISD teachers
and staff work hard to do this every day having famous authors come to our school
to motivate students to enjoy reading was a huge way we made moments for them
while I've had it Williams several authors one one time we had John Sheska
who at the time was the National Ambassador for Children's Literature.
So that was huge, and that was because of one of the area bookstores.
We can pay for authors to come, which is a huge expense,
but most authors that the kids know well are either too busy to do regular author visits
or only do school visits to introduce their new works.
For instance, one of our colleagues is working on an author visit with Laura Numeroff
for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
She will not be visiting all of the elementary schools
because of time constraints but we have the opportunity to try to sign up to
have her she charges $3,000 for a half a day which is one school plus travel
expenses if every campus paid for her to speak the bill to the district activity
accounts would be a hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars plus the cost of
travel and the cost of a hotel for a little over a month we will pay for
authors to come to our district because the students are always thrilled and
inspired by them. The parents are also very appreciative and our staff members are excited
to meet the authors of the books they love reading to their students. We are creating moments with
these author visits and we would love to create more. We respectfully ask that this policy change
to allow us to participate in these promotional visits once again. We are more than happy to
require parent approval for these visits and of course no one is ever required or pressured to
purchase an autographed book. By partnering with the bookstores our students will meet and learn
from more authors in their time in KISD than we can afford to bring to them. We
would also like to work with you concerning the new ordering procedures.
It is a process that as written feels completely overwhelming with teaching
classes, managing campus technology, and supporting our staff. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Jamie Watson. Jamie Watson. After that, Sarah Malik.
Good evening KDISD community members. My name is Jamie Watson and I'm here to speak about
the library and instructional materials policies that were unanimously passed on July 31st.
local board policies EFA and EFB Rebecca Don and Lance while I applaud you for
making the argument that the board should perform due diligence on the
anti-trans policy that was voted on and passed last month I must say that I'm
disappointed none of you made the same argument before passing these policies
however you've been given another chance and I hope to hear you speak up tonight
when you discuss the proposed revisions. Lance, you were right. Good policy does
take time and the revised policies just aren't there yet. Just in time for
tonight's meeting, the board uploaded revisions to the policies. These revisions
allow poor David's cartoon butt to re-enter our classrooms, but they still
fail to specify that nudity means human nudity and the addition of implied and
and non-explicit to the sexual acts clause
opens the door to broad interpretation
that could lead to other embarrassing books removed
from our classrooms that are going to be plastered all
over the media.
Isn't pregnancy an implied and non-explicit allusion
to sexual acts?
How do you expect the librarians to interpret your policy
when it's written so broadly?
Victor, you released a statement a couple of weeks ago
that said the board policy was not established with the expectation that well-known and harmless
children books children's books would be impacted that may not have been the expectation but that
was the direct result of how the policy was worded members of the board if these policies are
necessary i implore you to seek the expertise of the highly qualified curriculum and literary
specialists employed by our district. Let them help you write good policy that
says exactly what you intended to say and doesn't have unintended consequences
that affect harmless children's books. Victor, you publicly shifted blame that
sits squarely on your shoulders the employees who did their absolute best to
follow the policies that you, Morgan, and Mary Ellen shoddily threw together. You
It is my belief that you owe an apology to the Committee
of Librarians, given the onerous and unnecessary task of coming
through every brook and every classroom and library
across the district.
You owe the public an apology for shunning your responsibility
as a leader and refusing to own your mistakes.
You, Victor Perez, are the president of the KDISD Board
of Trustees.
Please, start acting like it.
Thank you.
VICTOR PEREZ, JR.: Thank you.
Sarah Malik followed by Sophia Peruzzi.
Hi, my name is Sarah Malik. I have been a KDISD resident and a taxpayer here for 16 years.
I now have a 10-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son in KDISD schools.
My son reads all sorts of books, but his favorites are the ones about dinosaurs and, of course, the Dog Man books.
My daughter reads in Braille. You see my daughter is completely blind and she
cannot see. Before my daughter went to school her absolutely amazing librarian
Ms. Matovic spent her whole summer researching books and finding and
ordering Braille books at her reading and interest level. I give my kids over
to Katy ISD for seven hours a day five days a week. I trust the teachers to do
their job. Up until last year, I thought I could trust the KDISD board to do their job as well.
This year, some of your choices are making me rethink my trust. I watched this year as KDISD
broke onto the national news cycle for instituting book bans. You might have felt excited that you
gained notoriety, but this does not serve our children at all. The point of reading varied
material is to be introduced to varying schools of thought. A reader might not
agree with everything that is written but that's the whole point. It teaches
students how to think for themselves. Book bands do the opposite. They
endanger the reader.
tolerance and curb free expression and I get it do I really want my 10 year old
getting her hands on the Fifty Shades of Grey book in our school no but I trust
that my child's librarian knows better than to put that on her shelf and what
is the book ban actually designed to achieve where Katie frickin ISD the
median household income is six figures everybody has access to 24-7 internet
You don't think it's easy enough for students to Google KDISD Book Band and get a list of all the books, a wonderfully clear list, with information on which one is obscene or terrible.
There you go, easy enough. Your job as the KDISD board is to be the leader in educational excellence together with family and community.
That's from your mission statement. Together with family and community. And
involve us. Form a book review committee with broad representation. Parents,
students, librarians, teachers, authors. Invite comment and critique when a book
is identified for review and then obtain consensus for the decision do we ban
this book or not. It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and take you along. It is
the mark of true leadership to stop and say perhaps this is not the best way so
do your own thinking for our school district be the chess player not the
chess piece be the legacy thank you
Sophia Peruzzi after that Shannon Sharon Grinnell good evening my name is Sophia
Peruzia. I'm a resident of KDISD school district. It is my belief that
individual parents or board members should not be the ones to decide whether
a book gets banned. Many of the books targeted in KDISD have LGBTQ content.
These books are windows and mirrors. They allow LGBT students to be represented
and allow others to get a glimpse of the LGBTQ experience. If the board was
was concerned about not making individual students uncomfortable, they would not have
enacted a gender fluid policy that targets a small group of students.
If this is about parental rights, then you need to also protect the rights of trans students
in the district and their parents.
When Trustee Morgan Calhoun said that she's seen books in elementary schools that support
sexually alternative lifestyle, she wasn't saying that having explicit sexual content was wrong.
Her focus was on the words alternative lifestyles and the representation of the LGBTQ community.
And again, when she said there are elementary schools that have pride sections in them,
it is clear to me that this board's intention is to discriminate against the LGBTQ students in our district and their families.
families. Books promote critical thinking, expose students to different viewpoints and ideas, and foster a love of reading. Holding and storage over $90,000 of taxpayer-purchased books hostage does not serve an educational purpose. Thank you.
Thank you.
Sharon Grinnell, and after that, Paul Van Helmond.
Good evening. My name is Sharon Grinnell. I have lived in Katy for 20 years, sent my child through the Katy ISD school system, and have never felt compelled to speak to the school board before.
And yet, now, I find myself here for the second time in two months.
This time I come to implore you to show caution and discernment when it comes to altering any rules about book selections or challenges to books.
Sense and reason are required, and also making sure you learn from credible, unbiased sources what are considered the best practices for challenging or banning books, as well as selecting books.
books. The appropriate way to handle book selections is to trust and rely on the knowledge
of school librarians. They have advanced degrees in this field. Use their expertise. And the
appropriate way to handle a book challenge is to have an impartial review done by educators
and librarians, those who have a working knowledge of child development and reading materials.
It is absolutely critical to have an evaluation process that is objective and not driven by biases, fear, or political agenda.
I want to stress how important it is to have books that challenge our thinking and that open our minds to new ways to see the world and other people that are not exactly like ourselves.
Instead of being afraid of concepts that make our children more tolerant and more accepting of others, we should embrace books that explore concepts of race, gender equality, and yes, sexual identity.
These books can add dimensions of understanding and sympathy to the people who read these books.
If you are someone who, for example, thinks a child reading a book like New Kid by Jerry Craft,
the author who was so infamously disinvited to an author's visit here two years ago,
if you think that book or other books will somehow make your child feel guilty for being white,
instead of recognizing the value in teaching your child to learn to be thoughtfully tolerant,
then that says more about your own biases and nothing about the books in
question. An important part of an education should be about helping to
create future citizens that have critical thinking skills, that can get
along with others, and can be thoughtful members of society. Book bans never serve
serve the citizens of a free society.
Perhaps you should at the very least postpone making important decisions about books if
you have not consulted with librarians, educators, and experts in child development.
Thank you.
Paul Van Helmen and after that Barbara Kosewicz.
Good evening. Thank you board members, superintendent for allowing me to speak to you this evening.
I'd like to address agenda point 7.1. My name is Paul Van Helmond. I'm a resident of Katy
ISD. I'm an engineer and like many Katy residents I work in the oil, gas and chemical industry
and the energy corridor. When we moved back for our second tour in Texas in 2016, having
having children in high school, we chose to move to Katy
for its reputation of excellent public schools.
Our kids did well in Katy's schools,
went on to college and beyond.
The reputation of Katy ISD is now under attack by you.
I wonder whether my wife and I would have made the choice
for Katy ISD if it were presented to us now.
Katy ISD has made the national news too many times recently.
My relatives in faraway the Netherlands alerted me this week about a TV show, the Dutch equivalent of Saturday Night Live.
It featured a part of Texas schools and KDISD made the news in the Netherlands also.
Now, we are being ridiculed.
We can lift all our shoulders, shrug, and wave it off as exaggerations, unfounded, not true,
but I can recommend that the board takes our reputation more seriously.
The policy committee writes its policy too radical, too quickly, doesn't get good advice,
and forces policies through in four to three votes.
The latest EFB specifies that elementary school books shall not contain visual depictions of nudity or perceived nudity.
Librarians are to enforce the rules and have no leeway, and the result is embarrassing, removal of books that nobody in their right mind wanted banned.
What I saw in a social media post after from the president of the board was very disappointing.
point. Librarians are being blamed and he takes no responsibility.
I recommend that the board change its course. KDI SD residents that I speak to are not interested
in being the first, second or third school district in the state of Texas to ban something
or adopt a radical new policy. I've never met a parent that thinks we should have graphic
sexual content in our school libraries. The problem is definition. Where's the limit?
And you know what?
We have highly qualified librarians in our school.
They are ultimately capable
of determining what content should be in our libraries.
This worked well for the last 100 years.
We need to go back to that.
Trust your teachers.
Trust your librarians.
Don't blame them.
Thank you.
Barbara Kotevics.
After that, Ann Russey.
Good evening. My name is Barbara Kosiewicz and I'm here to speak on agenda item 7.1.
I'm a resident of Katy and a mother of three adult children. I'm thankful that they have
all graduated and are no longer in KISD school district. I'd like to start with a quote from
the KISD diversity profile. All learning environments will foster engagement by integrating personalized
learning experiences. KDISD will develop systems where customized resources will
ensure equity in response to the needs of a growing district district with
rapidly changing demographics. How does banning books achieve the goal of
personalized learning experiences? Where are the customized resources that will
ensure equity in libraries.
Banning books with LGBTQ content sends a message to those students that they do not belong
in the school or in the library.
That they do not have the same rights as their peers.
When these students see a book being banned with LGBTQ content, it sends the message that
something is wrong with them.
That their identity is up for debate, their humanity is being discussed by the media,
and members of the community and the school board.
This can be harmful to the students' self-esteem
and how they see themselves in the world.
It sends a clear message of who is valued and who is not.
All students, regardless of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity,
deserve to feel safe and accepted and to be represented in our schools and libraries.
As a public school district, all segments of the public need to be represented.
All voices belong in our libraries.
Thank you. Ann Russi? Hi, my name is Ann Russi. I'm a mom to two KDISD students. As you discuss
Agenda Item 7.1, please consider the following. As of September 18th, House Bill 900 is frozen
by an injunction set by a conservative federal judge appointed by President Trump.
The judge issued a 56-page ruling questioning the constitutionality of the law.
HB 900 should not be used to justify any decisions to censor or ban books.
Four of you shared a statement on social media that blamed librarians for banning picture books like No David.
David. Librarians have been targeted, harassed, and labeled groomers and pedophiles by members of
this board and your supporters over the past three years. They are literally following the policy
this board wrote and adopted. Your EF policies explicitly ban elementary school books that
contain, quote, visual depictions of nudity or implied nudity, end quote. Stop blaming frontline
staff for doing their jobs and fix your broken policy. Please clarify the
parental involvement and acquisition part of your policy. Librarians are being
told the board requires a separate comment period from the public so their
acquisition timeline has jumped from 30 up to 90 days as a result of how your
policy is being applied. Please work with librarians to ensure young readers don't
have to wait three months for a book they request. Perhaps you can also shed
some light on how the 36 dual language Bibles and hundreds of Tuttle Twins
books were exempted from the 30-day public comment period required by your
policy for new materials including donations. Let me be clear, all students
are entitled to the same right to read including conservative Christian
students. I want to know why these specific books were fast-tracked into
to campus catalogs while $93,000 worth of taxpayer purchased books already approved
by this board and parents were held up in book jail pending further review.
Finally, please clarify why the internal review process has become the default track
for book concerns.
Your EF policies lay out two tracks to address complaints, informal and formal,
yet nearly every concern raised this year seems to trigger an internal review.
review. Since restricting books potentially infringes on students' First Amendment rights,
it should require more than an email for a book to wind up banned. Internal reviews should
be limited to professional catalog maintenance purposes, and board and parent complaints
should follow board-approved policies. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Mitzi Cross.
Mitzi Cross.
Good evening, board members, Dr. Grgorski, amazing volunteers, staff members, and fellow librarians.
My name is Mitzi Cross, and I've got to talk fast.
This is my 40th year in education and the last 22 being here in Katy.
I opened Michael Griffin Elementary School 18 years ago as a librarian where my daughter now teaches and my precious grandchildren attend.
My husband recently retired after spending 20 wonderful years as a principal at Cinco Ranch, and my beloved son-in-law teaches here as well.
Even though my parents, lifelong educators, never worked a day in Katy ISD, they took an immense pride in our district.
Seven Lakes High School has a race named the Morris Mile.
My dad, who passed away two months ago, was coach James Morris.
We love KDISD, and our interest in its success and reputation runs deep.
I have to believe all of us here want the best for our students.
We, the librarians here in KDISD, have been completely flummoxed by the happenings of the last two years.
A job that we found to be the best in the world has taken a spin that's knocked us off our feet.
We are out here trying to provide the most amazing books for our staff and students,
teach our students how to navigate a library in a way that serves them for life, instruct
them on technology usage and how to be safe and kind online, run book clubs, troubleshoot
technology, run incentive programs, and on and on and on.
But all of a sudden we're the district bad guys, according to some.
Accused of trying to sneakily indoctrinate kids to all sorts of agendas, this is simply
not the case.
Because of this misconception, those of us who pay for and attended six years of
education are no longer trusted to do our jobs. Will every book we order be a
just right book for every child? Of course not. We run a public library
grades pre-k through five and with the diversity of our families comes a need
for a diversity of books. We want our precious students to be able to see him
him or herself in the pages of a book.
I currently have carts of brand new beautiful books sitting in my office just gathering
dust due to the new policies.
I gladly followed the ordering policies to a tee at the end of the school year, yet not
one has made its way into the hands of a child or teacher.
To add insult to injury, the new process for ordering is overwhelmingly time consuming.
We don't know how we can possibly make this work during regular school hours.
One elementary librarian spent five hours working this weekend. She doesn't
feel like she made a dent. Our jobs are terribly important to us but we have
families and friends, church activities and hobbies that we also need to balance
our lives. I request with the respect you've earned by this elected position
that you allow those of us with the expertise and experience to have a voice
in creating the policies that we see in practice. Please help us find our joy
again joy that thank you thank you so much thank you
for now we're moving on now to the non agenda items and the first speaker is
Beverly Smith. Beverly Smith, are you here?
Is this clock correct? Okay. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me the
opportunity to speak. My name is Beverly Smith. I have three children currently in
the district and I'm here to make a request to the Board of Trustees. This
This request is driven by an incident that happened in May during a district sanctioned physical held at a Katy ISD campus.
We would like to request that the Board of Trustees make it a priority for the Superintendent to create and implement a policy that prohibits the practice of femoral pulse checks during physicals.
In case you aren't aware, that's right here.
Right in the groin area.
This policy would extend to district employees, contractors, and any providers acting on behalf of the district.
Let me tell you more about what happened.
I took my two children to the on-site physical.
I have a son and a daughter.
My son saw one physician.
My daughter saw a different physician.
They both had their pulses checked with a pulse ox while waiting to see the physician.
My son went and saw the physician he was assigned to, no issue.
My daughter went and saw the physician she was assigned to and he put his hand under
her shorts to check her pulse.
We're not quite sure what the driving factor was behind that, but it's irresponsible, it's
inappropriate and it's not okay.
There are eight other pulse points on the body that you can use to take a pulse.
You don't need to use a femoral pulse check on a healthy 13-year-old girl.
We don't feel that this practice is appropriate or necessary
and is definitely not a best medical practice for a 13-year-old healthy girl.
That evening I spoke with an administrator who told me the district is aware that this physician does that
and that he has done it like that for years.
We asked the administration to create and implement a policy.
We were told that they can't tell the doctors how to do their job.
We strongly disagree with that position.
It is the district's responsibility to have policies in place to protect our children
and to reduce the risk of potential sexual assault.
In this case, a guideline or directive is not enough.
Our kids need and deserve a policy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Jeff Smith.
And after that is Julian Whiteley.
Thank you for your time.
My name is Jeff Smith. I'm a parent of three children currently enrolled in KDISD. We've been KDISD residents
since 2012. You just heard from my wife. We brought this issue to the
administration in the spring and have not heard anything back regarding a policy or change to the sports physical sponsored
or sanctioned by the district. My understanding is the Board of Trustees
sets the priorities for the superintendent. My ask of you as the
board is to make this a priority for the superintendent to create a policy to
remove the option of district employees, contractors, or providers to take the
pulse of students using the femoral artery. Given the focus on safety of
students and women, I think this is a prudent policy. Combined with the
litigious environment and press around incidents and allegations of sexual
misconduct and abuse at Michigan State and more recently the U.S. Olympic team. This feels like
a no-brainer. The district has a policy requirement that students need to have a healthy physical to
participate in SAC camp over the summer. The district sponsors or at least sanctions on-site
physicals of students in their schools. My two children had physicals at a junior high in the
spring. My son and daughter had very different experiences. My son had his pulse checked with
pulse ox then he couldn't remember if the doctor checked his pulse again or not. He doesn't pay
attention. My daughter, however, had a very disturbing experience where she had her pulse
checked with a pulse ox and then the doctor confirmed her pulse to her femoral artery.
He laid his hands on my daughter's inner thigh without her permission or even warning. She was
traumatized and fled to her mother in tears. After some due diligence and research on my part,
taking the pulse in this manner was not necessary as the wrist or neck are both valid and less
intrusive ways to check the pulse. We've asked dozens of people and are yet to
find a single person that has had their pulse taken in this manner and every
reaction was shock and then anger that the district allowed this and knew about
it previously. The response from the administration is that's how he does it
or it's not our job to tell him how to do it. I respectfully disagree. It is the
district's job to create an environment and policies to prevent the opportunity
for sexual misconduct and abuse against students.
I would ask you to please make this a priority of the administration and change your policy
to prevent this practice going forward.
Your students are worth it.
Thank you.
Dr. Waworski?
I'm going to go ahead and give a factual response or update so the community knows
what we're doing in regards to what they just heard here.
And I do apologize to the parents if nobody has followed up to share this with you about that but
After the event happened as described by the folks here
We immediately made a change to that no more was that practice?
engaged in this district and
On top of that after I found out about that we have since followed up as well with the organization
For which provides these physicals and in writing
we have communicated to them that that is not the practice in KDISD. So yes, I
agree that it did happen, but immediately the practice was changed and we did
follow up in writing with the group that that was not going to happen. So our
current practice currently is we do not do pulse checks that way. Thank you. The
Tomic Rusak.
I'm sorry, after that, Connor Stewart.
George Scott and then Connor Stewart.
So I think you mentioned Julian's name as the next person up.
Yes, Julian Wiley.
Yes, so he's up and then George, you're after Julian.
Okay. George, you're after Julian.
Sorry, George. You're after Julian.
I am hard of hearing if Rebecca knows.
I'm sorry. After Julian. My apologies.
No problem.
Go ahead, Julian. Thank you.
Hello, Board. My name is Julian Wiley, and I'm a Cinco Ranch high school student
concerned with this Board's interaction with their school district.
Over the summer, I participated in Texas Boys States,
and learned about the importance of political participation and community
involvement. With that, with what I learned at Boys State, I helped found a
club at Cinco that encourages political discussion and involvement called Power.
During this board meeting today, you will hear the voices of different Cinco Ranch
high school students with different perspectives on various topics
concerning our school district. As citizens and subjects of the school
district, one of the few ways we can participate is by talking directly to
y'all so we're here however this time i want to address a general topic regarding the board as
someone who wants to become a politician in the future i find myself thinking about the duties
and responsibilities of a politician the visit the positions that all of you have the board members
have are politically elected elected by citizens despite the pledge for the district to be
non-partisan these elections are politically charged and you all have been passed have
have passed controversial political policies.
Although less than half of the people that represent
voted for you, it is crucial to consider
the opinions of the minority.
This means going to the middle ground
and considering the other side of the story.
This means putting yourself in the other person's shoes,
the person who might be disadvantaged.
This means putting yourself in the position of where
you were a high schooler again and thinking about,
what would my past self benefit from?
What would my peers want? Then reflect on your answer and think, does this harm
anyone? Does this make another group more disadvantaged than others? Your
obligations and duties as trustees of this district are to lift rocks off the
backs of others, not to exert more pressure on an already sore back. In this
light, listening to your district students is crucial because they are the
ones experiencing the policy that you are implementing. If you want to be the
best trustee you can be one that prevents conflict but rises to the
occasion creates a safe but open environment to understand different
perspectives to provide an unparalleled learning experience to everyone thank
you for your time thank you
George Scott my remarks are better never than light and after this talk
Tomic Rusak.
Connor Stewart and then Tomic Rusak.
My remarks tonight are 100% directly correlated to what I have provided you.
I once had the opportunity to directly ask the TEA commissioner in front of the TASB board this question.
How does the TEA define having met its statutory and constitutional burden to close the achievement gap
for economically disadvantaged at-risk students statistically dominated by children of color
in the context of Civil Order 5281 in 1971-72,
the Texas Legislative Senate Bill 7 in 1993 acknowledging the statutory and constitutional mandate,
the Supreme Court of Texas decision in 1994,
and federal court decision in 2000 validating Senate Bill 7.
The cut score of approaches or the cut score of meets grade level?
The commissioner's answer, the cut score of approaches.
Please have the intellectual courage to acknowledge that the commissioner of education
has indicated that constitutional equity in the state of Texas is a de minimis, minimal, functional standard of academic literacy.
I don't know how many white folks in this audience tonight have attended a segregated school.
I'm one of them.
Internalizing that has helped me focus on my career and my life, which has had among many things these meaningful thresholds.
In 1963, Martin Luther King expressed a dream in perhaps the most noble civil rights address in human history.
His dream could not have included the Texas Education Agency's definition of equity.
In 1971-72, Judge William Wayne Justice mandated the
in a noble federal court decision, the TEA must academically compensate minority group children
for past racial and ethnic isolation. After 50 plus years, that journey should not end
with Texas' current perverted mutation of academic integrity. You have my report.
Thank you.
If you're willing to help, please let me know.
Thank you.
Connor Stewart and after that Tomek Rusak.
Hello everyone my name is Connor Stewart and I'm currently a student at Cinco
Ranch High School. I'm here to speak in front of you today in hopes to persuade
you all to see the benefits of our cycling program hoping to reinstate one
in all of our campuses across the district.
In 2012, KDISD officially started a program for recycling other materials
in addition to a program utilized in schools for 14 years
under Abby Bowe's Recycling Paper Retriever Program.
It is obvious that students and staff are passionate about recycling,
knowing its importance in our community for ourselves and the future.
However, now our once promising program is nowhere to be found,
and the district-wide effort is now left campus to campus
with a plethora of student councils and clubs being put in charge of trying to manage recycling
instead of a singular waste management company.
It is no wonder why students themselves struggle to create a full-scale recycling program at a school,
not having the resources nor manpower to fully direct a program that would need to serve thousands of students.
In an article by Katie Magazine, Kathy McDonald, the Executive Director of Maintenance and Operations, said,
We want to demonstrate the importance of being good stewards, as well as the financial benefits of recycling.
recycling. Nine years after this article was published, it seems this statement has been
completely abandoned. If we as a district are not to educate the youth now on the benefits of
recycling, as well as how in which it can be done, how can we expect the maturing students to recycle
in their adulthood? With over 92,000 students enrolled, according to KDIC itself, the amount
of recyclable waste entering the district day-to-day is insurmountable. However, with no outlet of which
to recycle, students are left to dump bottles, paper, plastic, and other materials in the trash.
day-to-day at my home campus of Cinco Ranch High School I see classrooms with
merely one trash can every day students walk through the school with water
bottles and papers they no longer need instead of an easily labeled recycling
bin being present in classrooms and the cafeteria students are left to dump
their waste in trash bins at my home campus alone there are over 3,500
students enrolled and with each student throwing away recyclable material the
amount of waste that could have been repurposed quickly adds up from a couple
papers to tons and tons of recyclable waste. This doesn't factor in staff as
well who only further the waste going through the campuses. I understand that
reading and stating a recycling program isn't an easy process. The district of
Katy ISD would need to hire a waste management company and students would
need to be educated what can be recycled. However, if anything about the
statement that Katy ISD wants to bring about good stewards as well as the
financial benefits of recycling, then recycling is integral for our district
to bring back thank you all so much for your time thank you
tomac bruce after that melissa edwards
hello i am tomic bruce a senior student athlete and representative for the power club at sinka
ranch high school designed to vocalize the voices of the student body on serious issues being
undermined on the campus the lack of accountability for sexual misconduct and loose legislation
towards punishment for such severe acts has placed our district at an increasing rate.
In the last four years at this school, my peers and I have become exhausted with the constant controversies,
allegations, and violations roaming the district.
Through all the cumulative incidences, however, I have only seen one offender ever receive any punishment,
which was minuscule at that.
The increase in sexual misconducts inside and outside of school have created a community within KDISD
where parents have to worry about the safety of their children,
and students have to worry about sexual crimes in an environment meant to learn.
Currently, according to the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, over 80% of Texans
do not report their situations to law enforcement.
Along with this, in Texas alone, over 94% of rapists go unpunished, with only a measly
3% serving any jail time and punishment.
These statistics alone demonstrate how in our state, sexual crimes have become a major
problem.
And as a representation of Texas, we need to increase the severity and punishment of
even minor sexual offenses.
During district-wide required assemblies, the principals and heads of the school do
do a good job of addressing current day issues such as drugs, violence, and weapons.
However, the minimal to no mention at all towards educating students on the
definitions of consent and the serious harms of sexual assault and misconduct
is the reason why I'm up here today. My proposal is simple, to include more
emphasis on consent rules and the severity of sexual crimes into
assemblies to the same degree that we address other problems. Even though
sexual crimes often occur outside of school and become more serious than in
school punishment, the first step schools can take into diminishing
the rate of this problem is to raise awareness and bring serious light to the
the dangers of sexual crimes. The students all agree that undoubtedly within this great district,
the largest problem that is addressed the least has become the sexual misconduct that has begun
to begin to become normalized within student bodies. Overall, the physical safety of this
district has always been comparatively secure to that of the national average of schools. However,
I think it is time that as a collective community within this city, we go past just security against
physical harm and begin to focus on other ways to create a safer learning environment, which starts
with protection of other harms, namely the sexual harms that have been increasing over time. However,
as a district through incidents such as the horrible incident between the Smith family,
we're beginning to lose faith within this district. So I hope that as a community, we
can help to push to educate and not censor the sexual problems that are going on throughout
our school. Thank you all for your time.
Thank you.
Melissa Edwards.
Good evening.
My name is Melissa Edwards and I'm a senior at Cinco Ranch High School as well as a representative
of the Power Club.
I'm here today to discuss an issue that affects all students of KDISD as well as myself, the
current absence and exemption policy.
Roughly 200 students at Cinco responded to a survey and 92% of students answered no to
the question, do you believe the district policy of allowing students only five absences
is fair. In addition, 87% of students surveyed answered yes to have you experienced any personal
impact such as attending school while feeling sick due to this policy. I'm going to share with
you now some of the more powerful responses that we received on our survey when asking students
how this policy has personally affected them. As one student writes, I was very sick with COVID and
as a result of following KDISD policy, I was absent for seven days and lost my exemptions.
As I'm sure you are all aware, the KDISD website states conditions of return to school.
At least five days have passed since symptoms onset, fever-free, and other symptoms have improved.
One case of diligently following COVID protocol is enough to already break the exemption criteria.
In addition to missing school and losing their exemption, students have also reported attending school with COVID in fear of loss of exemptions.
One student writes, my friend had to get eye surgery because her retinas were detaching.
She would have gone blind without this operation and has since forfeited her exemptions to recover.
How is it fair that a student should feel at fault for something as necessary as a sight-saving eye surgery?
There's currently a no-questions-asked, no-excuses-made policy for students and their exemptions,
and it's not fair to students who are already very anxious and overworked in the current school board situation.
Another student also simply stated, I had to take all my finals because I had to attend my grandfather's funeral.
There are students being punished for something so out of their control as grieving a loved one.
In my opinion, I don't believe that forcing a child to take five to seven exams on top of losing a loved one is in any way beneficial to their mental health.
I propose that the exemption criteria is re-evaluated to be more considerate to student circumstances
circumstances by allowing students to submit appeals to schools for situations that are
more serious and may have caused them to break the five exemption rule.
This also allows students to open exemptions up to teacher and classroom evaluation, which
helps students prove to teachers that they're on top of the content regardless of their
absences, which is the point of exams in the first place.
Thank you.
Thank you.
John Everland?
John Everland?
Is John Everland here?
John Everland?
The next speaker then is Jason Asnor.
Mr. President, do you mind if I pass these papers out around?
I have ten copies, President.
Could you...
All right.
Good evening.
My name is Jason Asnar, a resident within KDISD.
Tonight, I am here to speak on behalf of bus drivers, teachers,
district admin staff about the quiet crisis in our district.
This crisis is the ever-increasing health care insurance cost within KDISD.
Many current and former staff members have shared the stories of how despite
pay raises passed by this board throughout the years, they have yet to
feel the impact of said raises because the fact that every one or two years
health insurance rates rise. Just doing some napkin math, as you'll see in your
papers, it's easy to quantify our staff struggles with insurance. So let's do
that. Assuming that we're talking about a first-year teacher in KDISD who is
making $62,400 a year and break it down to bi-monthly checks that leaves us with $2,400
per paycheck.
Assuming the staff member wants to get the cheapest Athena medical plan for their family,
they'll pay $345 USD.
If a teacher pays the average rent cost in the Katy area of $1,795 on top of insurance
in the same paycheck, it would leave them with $260 to live off until the next bi-monthly
paycheck.
That does not sound sustainable to me in any way.
And it is no surprise that many staff members choose to opt out of district provided insurance.
While our teachers struggle, our neighbors in Alief ISD have basic life, A&D, and D insurance for free and have assistance for staff
who struggle to pay for insurance.
So what do I propose as our silver bullet? Well, I don't currently have a solution and that's why I'm here.
I'm here to bring the ball to you guys as court.
Specifically, health care insurance in general is a complicated, obviously expensive problem to solve.
And that's why I and members of the community are calling on the board to create a policy-making
task force that will investigate and attempt to create policies surrounding insurance that
gives KDISD more negotiation power when it comes to rates and gives teachers more choice.
Myself and others don't expect an immediate fix, but rather acknowledgement of the current
issues within KDISD surrounding health insurance and health care.
On top of this, I hope that we move towards as a district to empowering district administrative
staff who can help provide solutions to this problem.
It's not just a board issue, it's also an admin issue that I believe that everyone can
move towards and communicate to find a better solution.
Putting our district in a spot to bid for more competitive rates and reduced rates to
make healthcare more accessible for our teachers in Katy.
Thank you and let's get back to educating.
Thank you.
Sharon Durossig?
Sharon?
Sorry if I mispronounced your name.
After that is Celeste Gou.
I have a question.
I had come early to talk on the book situation.
Is that something I can still talk on during this section?
Because I do have some-
You signed up for non-agenda items.
Okay.
That's fine.
I had both, but I'll do this one.
My name is Sharon Durossig.
Thank you for allowing me to come speak in front of you.
I do support every librarian and teacher that's sitting behind me that has spoken.
I do want to say that as an early childhood educator and trainer for Rice University.
I am here for Taylor High School. We are bringing the documentary My Ascension.
That is a documentary on suicide awareness. It is raw. It is emotional. It is
devastating, but it's a conversation that we need to have here in Katy.
We're bringing it this Wednesday night at 630 at Taylor High School at the back.
It is open to district wide.
It's open to non-district families, but it's a conversation we need to have.
After losing a child here this last month from Tompkins, it's time to shout from the
rooftops that suicide is not an option.
That there are other ways to talk about this.
We have, we are co-sponsoring it.
Taylor High School the PTSA along with Second Baptist students and opening up
it's a 55 minute documentary with conversation after and it's the
conversation after that's the most important part of the whole experience
so I encourage everyone to come bring your high school kids junior high I'm
not quite sure and I have seen it it is it is strong and it's needed in this
district because it's time we start shouting that we're losing kids and not
worry about the bookbinding in the way that we are. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Celeste Gu. After that, Amy Wilson. Good
evening everyone. My name is Celeste Gu, a Mandarin Chinese GT teacher, a
district advisory committee member from my previous school district, and a
veteran wife. Let's begin with a quote from the Bible, enters through the
a narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many
enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find
it. Matthew chapter 7, verse 13 to 14. So, destruction or life, it's all about choice of
which way to go. It's our grant of rights from the creator that we can choose freely between right or
wrong, good or evil, kindness or malignity. Every decision comes with a consequence and defines the
person we're turning into. Yet, not all the consequences are harmless, bearable, or reversible.
According to National Institutes of Health, the front lobes of our brains are in charge of the
executive functions like decision making, planning, reasoning, and judgment, and they may not be fully
fully developed until halfway through the third decade of life.
For that reason, it is the parents, educators, policymakers' responsibility to help and
guide our children to make good and healthy decisions that they would either regret or
suffer from.
Last month we had an extensive debate here, but I'm glad and thankful for the good decision
that our board has made.
Thank you so much for being guardians for our children.
And when I watch the videos of last month's meeting,
I feel like I'm watching a cultural revolution scene
that my parents' generation have experienced in China.
During Chinese Cultural Revolution,
people who didn't agree to comply with the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party
were unscrupulously targeted with crazed criticism and threats.
The key of communism's philosophy of struggle
is to create conflict by psychologically manipulating
susceptible people to believe in their ideology
and fight for that.
At the same time, I think we all need to reflect
on what's been going on in our schools and society
in recent years and recognize the red flags that are rising.
The communism has actually creeped into our nation.
Parents, educators, every personnel that involves
in our children's learning and growth.
Please don't forget, it takes a whole village
to raise a child but it only takes a few bad choices to ruin them. Thanks again to
our board members who stood to stop. Thank you. Thank you.
Our final speaker tonight is Amy Wilson. Good evening. I'm Amy Wilson, a 97
graduate of Katy High School and a home school mom of four in Katy ISD zone to
to Seven Lakes.
Thank you for your service to our community.
Texas Education Code requires schools
to allow homeschoolers to participate in PSAT and AP
exams.
Notice must be placed on the district's website.
It must describe the procedures for a homeschooled student
to register for the test.
For the PSAT, the KISD web page states
that parents must contact the testing facilitator
at his own campus for registration requirements.
However, it doesn't list who the testing facilitator is.
I could not find PSAT registration information
for homeschoolers on all KD ISD school websites if I did find it the location
was not consistent this year Katie ISD changed the PSAT registration deadline
for homeschoolers last year the deadline in Katie was September 20th some
homeschoolers were surprised to find out when they contacted the school this
September that the deadline had been moved to August therefore they did not
get registered this year is it really necessary that the homeschoolers
register by August 31st is this undue hardship on homeschool students
According to the College Board, registration doesn't even open until September 5th.
Lamar ISD allows its homeschoolers to register until September 25th.
In Katy ISD, there was no warning to homeschoolers that the date had moved.
Some homeschoolers searched online in July for PSAT information but couldn't find anything.
Please consider extending the time for homeschool students to register for the PSAT.
Additionally, AAP registration is open today.
I could not find homeschool AP testing information for Seven Lakes and many other Katy ISD schools
Contrary to the Texas Education Code at minimum
Please consider posting year-round on high school websites when PSAT and AP
Registration will be open at a consistent location that is easy to find the testing facilitators contact information and any other
information needed to register homeschoolers
Consistently posting this information throughout the year will save families and school administration frustration.
The homeschool community's desire is to have a good working relationship with KDISD. Thank you.
Thank you.
This concludes the open forum portion of our meeting.
4. Closed Meeting
The Board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under Section 551.001 of the Texas Government Code for the following purposes.
Texas government code five five one point zero seven one and five five one
point one two nine thank you
5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
the border will now reconvene an open meeting today is Monday September 25th
2023 and the time is 6 54 p.m. I'm have 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 september 22nd 2023 the board will receive
information and recommendations from staff administration and the superintendent on these
agenda items at today'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.
6.1 Strategic Design 1.3 Elementary Literacy Update
The next item of business is a report on the Strategic Design 1.3 Elementary Literacy Update.
And our presenter is Dr. Sanay Bell, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning.
Welcome.
Good evening, President Perez, Board members, and Dr. Gagorski.
I'm excited to present this month's literacy update.
We're six months into the implementation, and I think the best way to share this month's update is through pictures.
Just to recap for the board, we've identified quarterly focus goals to help monitor progress
and to make implementation adjustments as needed.
it. Focusing on a specific area in the implementation does not mean that other parts of the implementation
are not in progress. Rather, it gives the organization time to make significant progress
in one area that is essential to the success of the next quarter focus area. Setting quarterly
focus goals helps level set the entire organization, which is crucial to implementing complex change
at this scale. So far this quarter the Reading Language Arts literacy
coordinators and instructional facilitators have walked more than 25
campuses visiting hundreds of K through 5 classrooms to look at classroom
environments. In each classroom coordinators and facilitators have
identified evidence of progress toward quarter one goals and the use of our new
resource. This slide is an example of sound walls which you will find in K
K-3 classrooms and morphology walls, which you will see in 3-5 classrooms, grades 3-5.
Sound walls are an effective tool for phonics instruction based in the science of reading.
Sound walls in the classroom help educators reinforce the importance of explicitly teaching
the skills of letter-sound correspondence.
Sound walls and phonics fit naturally together as sound walls support explicit instruction
of phonics and grouping words by their sounds is an effective strategy for
teaching reading and spelling the ability to decode and identify sounds is
a vital part of learning to become a fluent reader in grades three through
five students are focusing on understanding morphology which is the
study of words how they are formed and their relationship to other words
specifically students are studying root words prefixes and suffixes suffixes
Understanding morphology helps students figure out the meaning of new words.
The goal of these walls is not just to be visually present in the classroom,
but they are to be a teaching tool that students use independently throughout the year.
Teachers have the sound walls and morphology routines they use throughout the modules to introduce new words.
This instructional tool is probably one of the most significant shifts from the word wall that was used in balanced literacy.
The physical structure of the classroom is another key area that is important to the
classroom environment.
A designated space for whole group instruction is needed so that teachers are able to provide
explicit direct instruction to students.
As you can see in the bottom two examples on the slide, students are engaged in whole
group instruction.
The top right hand picture is an example of small group instruction which gives the teacher
the opportunity to plan individualized instruction to students based on areas
of need teachers use recent assessment data that indicates skill areas where
students need additional support the picture in the top left is an example of
student independence in action while teachers are working in small groups
students are engaged in a variety of independent activities that are
connected to the whole group lesson or they're practicing individual skills
These three physical structures are essential in the literacy classroom.
During campus visits, we've seen students engage in literacy instruction where they are reading grade level complex text,
writing about their reading, and engaging in partner talk.
Students seem most impressed with the glossy pages on their My Book that they use in the classroom.
classroom. These pictures visually show different ways students are using
metacognitive skills as they read and write about the different texts they
engage with. Literacy coordinators and facilitators have also observed teachers
engaging in collaborative planning sessions, looking specifically at module
unpacking, weekly planning, and lesson rehearsal. These protocols are being
utilized to help support efficient and effective planning. This month, the
beginning of the year, a mirror learning benchmark was given to over 36,000
students in grades first through fifth grades. This oral reading fluency
assessment is a dyslexia screener and also provides teachers with specific
baseline data on each child's reading performance. Each student's data includes
includes estimated grade level, age, phonemic awareness, phonics, words read correct per minute, and reading accuracy.
Teachers build small groups from these data reports to target specific phonemic awareness, phonics, or fluency skills based on AMIRA reports.
Also this month, our second through fifth grade students took the beginning of the year HMH reading growth measure assessment,
assessment, which is an adaptive, nationally-normed reference online assessment that measures
reading comprehension.
Growth measure does not measure oral reading like a mirror, but instead presents students
with reading passages and questions of increasing difficulty to gain an accurate picture of
each student's reading performance.
Growth measure provides a grade-level equivalency for each student.
Additionally, it identifies areas of growth by TEAC and gives teachers HMH resources to address that standard.
The first module assessment for grades 2 through 5 were given recently to determine if students have met the learning objectives from the module.
These assessments align with the grade level standards taught in the module and are given as a cumulative measure of student progress.
progress. The data from these assessments are reviewed at the campus and district level
to determine what instructional adjustments need to be made in order to ensure student
success. I shared this slide at the last update in August and I thought it was important to
share it again for us to keep in mind the support that campuses need in order to continue
making progress throughout this transition. One of the main adjustments we're hearing
from campus leadership teams is how they are working through the timing of the
literacy block there are a number of components that must happen each day in
order to ensure students are receiving high quality instruction another
adjustment primarily for our primary students in second grade and and
possibly for some third grade students is the implementation of module
assessments these assessments have a different format length text complexity
than what our students in our primary grades are used to.
Navigating the two areas of the literacy block,
the timing of the block,
and the assessment differences or the format
are two areas that continue to be a work in progress.
Overall, there are some exceptional models in action
that the district can continue to learn from
as we move into our quarter two goals.
I'm happy to answer any questions that you have at this time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any questions?
It's really exciting to, I'm sorry, it's really exciting to visit the campuses now
early in the year and see it happening and see the sound walls and morphology posters
and all that.
It's very exciting to do that.
Let me ask you this, the Amira, does it have a spelling component to it?
Does it, besides the reading, does it also have a spelling assessment?
So, a mirror is more of the fluency, the oral fluency of students reading.
They will receive their instruction with spelling and words and working with words during their
small group instruction time with teachers during their whole group.
And that's the benefit of the sound walls and the morphology walls.
In fact, I was at a campus today and they were learning their sounds because it's important
for them to know that the letters make sounds and sounds make words.
words. And so the teacher was doing a whole group instruction on that, introducing a new
sound. And so that's where they're getting the instruction in terms of how to construct
and spell words.
Chair Greg Musil
Thank you.
Chair Greg Musil
Mr. President.
Chair Greg Musil
Ms. Fox.
Ms. I agree with Mr. Perez. It's very exciting to see it in action as we're making our campus
visits. Teachers and principals are very great about letting us kind of see how it's going.
and so the takeaways I have are that this is going to take time it's very
different and teachers know understandably are frustrated because
the cadence is different and the steps are different and they they find
something and they think oh but it's missing this I could add it in and and
someone told me we're gonna do it just this way because we'll see how it all
comes together right it's a recipe let's do the recipe as it's written and then
because our teachers are so incredibly talented it's like I could fill that in
right here but we don't know what's coming so for the teachers thank you for
the patience and for doing all this extra work and being so frustrated
because it doesn't it feels like it's a new clothes or what is it they say about
when you fold your hands one way and then you have to fold them the other way
it takes a minute so I appreciate that I do have a couple of questions so
So it feels like it's more teacher directed and that it's more, let me say this correctly,
that it's directed, that it's teachers are on all the time and it's less guided reading
and it's more teacher instruction.
Does that sound familiar to you?
Well, I think the big difference is the focus on explicit instruction.
instruction. And so more, it is more teacher directed in the sense that teachers do have to provide the direct instruction that students need to set them up so that when they're working independently, they can demonstrate what they know. And then teachers have the opportunity, of course, when they pull small groups to figure out what areas of need different students have. So it's compared to what we were doing before. It's a complete shift. And I think
that's the biggest piece that is probably that feels most unnatural to some teachers if that
is the only way in which they have instructed so it is a big it's a big shift big shift because
they were saying you know it's a lot of instruction so it's hard to pull small groups because they're
you know they feel like they're instructing a lot and and again i know this is very early on
so i'm just i took some notes and i'm asking questions from that um the phonics piece in hmh
This is just an anecdotal something.
Did we switch what they have in their package for something specific for KDISD?
Yes.
Why did that happen?
What's in the regular books was what comes with the HMH component.
But the structured literacy supplement, which teachers have that's not inside the book,
is what we're using that's more explicit.
It's more well defined in terms of phonics instruction aligned to the Texas Reading Academies.
It's what we worked with HMH on and provided them feedback through Dr. Woodruff to ensure that we had a strong phonics program for our students.
So we gave them feedback and they developed something more rigorous for us.
Okay, that makes sense.
time and implementation I think is what's going to take this
a little bit of time and I certainly am seeing the same things, those literacy
walls and the sequencing of how they do everything.
The Amira technology, is it up to speed?
Yes, and so as a matter of fact I was on a campus today and they were testing
some AMIRA pieces out and something wasn't working and the technology team
was out there I was there for a different visit they were there looking
to see what what they needed to troubleshoot so of course when we all
descended upon a mirror everyone was eager to get into it you can imagine
that it's like oh wait what's what's going on but anytime there's an
adjustment that are an announcement about hey something's going on with the
mirror we work with the technology team we get that communication out to
campuses and those issues are resolved pretty quickly good i know it was 46 schools and
i don't know mr dr gregorski it's probably 30 000 children you know trying to get to something they
they weren't quite ready for the assessments i hear are the teachers are very happy with that
that before they had to write down every single thing as they were assessing and amira captures
so much of that so they can add other things and collect plans they really
like the assessment piece because a mirror captures the and they're not you
know it's not just all notes they have to go back and transcribe so they really
like that assessment piece so that was really good I wanted to give you both
good and good feedback and questions and I know that it will continue to change
and I'm looking forward to seeing the progress that's made thank you mr.
president thank you mr. president steamy is there a spelling assessment and if so
So what does that look like?
So there's not a spelling assessment like spelling tests like we took spelling tests when we were in school.
But there are ways that kids are working with words.
So it wouldn't be the traditional let me call out the word and then you spell it.
But students are manipulating words.
They're making words with the sounds.
They do that with manipulatives or they may do that on the smart board with the teacher.
The teacher can assess students in different ways.
We, I believe in October we have Dr. Woodruff will be coming back to work with our instructional coaches and that's one of her big areas of focus is spelling and really working with how we can use small group instruction to ensure that kids are decoding and spelling words appropriately and they have those strategies and skills.
So spelling tests like number one is this word? No. But are students being assessed and working with spelling? Yes.
Do you mind bringing us just some information on what she says?
Because that concerns me that we're not doing any kind of spelling assessment.
I'm not saying it has to look like what I had or anybody else,
but I do think as a parent I would want that assessment.
I would want to see progress and make sure my child was learning how to spell.
Sure, and what I can do for October's update, I can share with the board
what what spelling instruction what that looks like in the classroom that'd be
great thank you I want to piggyback off what mrs. Timmy was asking about the
spelling because I happen to know that when my daughter my youngest one was in
fifth grade was the last time that they did spelling test she's 21 now so I'm
just curious are our children ever graded you know they do a paper they're in fourth or fifth grade
and they've misspelled something in the paper so back even just 10 years ago my child would have
gotten a mark for misspelling a word is that even anything anymore i mean do kids get graded upon
spelling in their work so in the sense of and i can just think back to my days as an english
teacher spelling wouldn't have been the detriment to a kid's grade however if
there was an area of concerns like hey check the spelling of this word and so
to answer your question do is it pointed out to students when they're working yes
because grammar and mechanics is very important to the level in which what the
penalty may be it wouldn't be something that would kill a student's grade per se
but is it pointed out and our teachers working with them through their spelling instruction or through their their spelling mistakes?
Yes, it's corrected.
Okay, because I'm just I'm just
I'm just guessing at this but if it wasn't really anything now
I don't want them to fail because they misspelled a word or anything
But children and people are motivated to do things correctly when they get penalized for doing things incorrectly sometimes
times. So it's just a mark, it's just to say, oh, here's how you spell the word. It's not even a
one-point deduction or anything anymore. We don't have a district practice of that. So teachers and
classrooms and campuses, I mean, they look and assess, but how students are performing and
determine what is the appropriate academic approach to take. I think more so now that we
we have this emphasis on explicit instruction,
especially in phonics and sounds and words.
Like, we're bringing the importance back to, hey,
ensuring that kids understand the rules.
And so, for example, today I was at a campus
and they were learning the I sound,
and the sound makes its own sound,
but what if you put the letter E?
And so students, they spell different words
with the combination of I-E.
And so that's different instruction than before in the sense that it's very direct, it's very explicit, and they have time to practice that in multiple settings.
So in a whole group, and then of course when they go to their independent workstations, and then when they're working with their teachers at the small group table, that's a big part of what was highlighted in the reading academy.
So I think the shift to those practices are definitely going to help support.
It's a big part of structured literacy.
So I think students will begin to grow in those areas whereas before we may have seen
they may not have been as strong because it may not have been as explicit as it is now.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
I have a question.
Mr. President?
Mr. Fredman?
I wanted to say thank you.
I look back at our last year in October when we got an update and it was like are we going
to be able to get this done?
And I know there's still a lot to do and so thankful for the work put out there
But I mean this if you think back just like to celebrate last year at this time
We were still waiting on a lip some material that was gonna list was gonna be given to us
We were talking about November. They're gonna get it to us. We're sure and so to look back and and
Just remember sitting in those meetings
And we're gonna develop a framework
We're gonna select materials and I think how far we've come and I'm just super thankful to you and our
kasky and the entire cni team and our teams out there at the schools are doing things that i don't
even know is happening uh just to celebrate a little bit to think through like where we are
from a year ago when it's just a big honking elephant to eat and we're we're getting there
i'm excited yeah we've come a long way it's exciting work miss kathleen yes um thank you
for your presentation and for all the hard work that you're doing it is incredible to watch it in
in action as we've been doing campus visits.
It's really encouraging to watch them.
I was able to go and watch some story development
during writing in a fifth grade classroom.
It was really encouraging to see them just pulling apart
a story and how those elements come together.
It was really, really cool.
So I think you guys are doing a great job.
I just have a question on the English, the ESL side of that.
Do we have a component that matches what we're doing from the English side with like the Spanish speaking side?
And how does that develop? How does that work out in the literacy role?
So our bilingual program and
works hand-in-hand our ESL team and our elementary CNI along with our special ed team.
They're all working collaboratively.
The resource that our students are using in our English monolingual speaking classes, we have the same exact resource that's in our bilingual classroom.
And so now, I mean, that's different than what we had before.
Our ESL team, our offices of other languages, they would have to translate that, find the resources to supplement for teachers.
Now we have the same exact resource across the board.
So any move that's made from elementary CNI in terms of developing or selecting the assessments for the modules, it's mirrored on our bilingual side.
And so that's a huge shift, and it's a good shift in the right direction.
In terms of our ESL supports, one of the things that HMH has is lots of supports in place for students in different populations.
So teachers have a lot of ESL supports they can pull from to help them support their students that are emergent bilinguals that have language needs.
And so that's another area where, you know, we're bridging the gap and we're working towards ensuring that our teachers on both ends, our bilingual teachers and our monolingual teachers, are working together to meet the needs of all of our students.
Okay.
That's really encouraging to hear.
And how does that, I guess one of the things that I was also curious about, because I know different campuses do it differently, like one campus, they do one week in Spanish and one week in English.
And then you have another campus that will do it to where it's just complete immersion, and then you'll pull in English as needed, I guess, on that basis.
So do we have any data or do we have anything that shows kind of like what works better, I guess?
or is that just kind of you just do what you feel like your campus needs?
No, we have a dual language model, and so we're a 50-50.
So half of their instruction will be in English,
half of their instruction will be in Spanish.
So we follow the framework that's been outlined about best practices
in dual language classrooms by TEA.
And so we work to ensure that we're putting those essentials in the classroom.
We have hired, I think, about 95 new bilingual teachers this school year.
That's a lot of teachers.
And so trying to calibrate everyone and get them all on the same page,
that's what our team is working towards and working with.
One of the things that we've implemented this year to help at the campuses
are bilingual model teachers.
So there's a model teacher in math, science,
and a model teacher in the ELA world so that other teachers who teach bilingual instruction
can go to those classrooms to see the classroom environment, how you're setting up the classroom,
how you deliver instruction based on the framework that we use in our 50-50 model.
We also pull our campus principals of our bilingual campuses.
We're going to have a lunch and learn with them on Thursdays to kind of level set and reset
some of our best practices in bilingual instruction.
instruction. They'll come together on Thursday to talk about, you know, remember our framework,
what are some of the things that they're noticing and seeing, especially now since we have the same
resource in English and Spanish. So that will kind of help move some of our literacy work further,
faster for our bilingual students. Okay, that's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Thank you so
much. Any other questions? Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Our next item is 6.2, and this is
6.2 Katy Independent School District Education Foundation Annual Report
This is the Katy Independent School District Education Foundation Annual Report.
And our presenter is Robin Pye, Vice President, Education Foundation.
Good to have you.
Welcome.
Mr. President, Board Members, Dr. Grigorski, it's my pleasure, on behalf of the Katy ISD
Education Foundation, to direct this report to you in compliance with the Memorandum of
Understanding between our two organizations.
That agreement, plus audited financial statements, board of directors roster, grants at a glance
document, and a complete listing of all teacher grants funded by the foundation over the past
11 years has been provided to you in support of this presentation.
The Katy ISD Education Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization governed by an
autonomous board of directors, many of whom attended our teacher reception this evening.
Our key objectives include adding measurable value to KDISD and our community, upholding the highest standards in managing all funds and programs and ensuring excellent stewardship of all assets, working in a manner that effectively supports district efforts, bringing together the entire community to make strategic investments in KDISD schools.
schools. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation's Board of Directors engaged
in a strategic planning session to outline goals for elevating the Foundation's efforts.
The primary aim was to set goals for enhancing the Foundation's work, one of which was
the initiation of self-funded staffing. That begins with hiring a development director
to lead our fundraising campaigns. Thanks to prudent financial management, consistent
donor contributions and the success of events like Fireflies and Food Trucks,
the Limelight Challenge, Groove, and Dine Out to Donate, we're excited to start the
search for this pivotal role in the coming weeks. Under the guidance of
our Finance Committee, we've set up an independent fiduciary committee. Its aim
is to manage our funds proactively, enabling us to generate a return on
investment that can be reinvested into our fundraising
fundraising activities. In addition, I'm thrilled to share that the KDISD staff has made a significant impact on our work via our Legacy 5050 Initiative.
This year, we will be returning $12,299 to participating campuses offering principals the autonomy to use the funds as they see fit.
Our foremost mission is to provide inspiring imagination teacher grants.
This year the Education Foundation has allocated $415,000 in such grants.
As we commence our 12th year, we take in having distributed a cumulative total of $3 million in inspiring imagination teacher grants.
In 11 years of grants, we've awarded 766 grants to 2,875 teachers, benefiting over 41,000 students per year.
Our success is largely driven by the remarkable backing from leaders in the Katy ISD district, this board, as well as our own board of directors and the Katy community.
Moreover, our foundation investors who commit to regular annual contributions play a significant role.
role. Over 50% of our annual funds are sourced from these businesses and individual contributors.
We're grateful to the KDISD Board of Trustees for your continued support of our Foundation's
work. Special thanks to Ms. Amy Thieme, who serves as your representative on our Board
of Directors, and to Dr. Grogorski and his leadership team, and the Partners in Education
team who are exceptionally supportive of our work. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Not only do you do great work, but you have great fun events.
It's awesome. Any questions or comments?
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Sorry, Ms. Pai. Mr. Perez.
Go ahead, Ms. Fox.
Thank you very much for your presentation.
It's so good to hear the success and see the success as a groundbreaking investor
and being on this board when we put it all together.
there were just such high hopes of its success,
but very difficult to get off the ground.
And so to see the business people and the community members
who come and make up the board in a volunteer way
and make all of those events so successful.
And from an investor perspective,
I just want to say that there's nothing more satisfying
than giving to an organization whose focus is students and classrooms
and knowing that the money that we give
and when we all go to events and invest in that,
that we're investing in children in the future.
And thank you all for all that you do
and it's a worthy cause and a worthy investment
and your success is exceptional.
Thank you, it's an honor to be part of it.
Thank you so much, anything else?
Great, thank you. Thank you.
7.1 Discuss and consider revision to Local Board policy EFA and EFB.
We're moving on to 7.1, which is discussion
Discussion and action.
Discuss and consider revision to local board policy EFA and EFB.
What is being presented is a small revision to one section of policies EFA and EFB for
elementary schools.
These policies were recently discussed at length at two previous meetings in July.
This change provides more clarity for district staff to assist them in the implementation
of these policies.
policies. The amendment is meant to clarify one simple clause. And as I've said before,
the Board's intent was never to remove well-known cartoon-like children's books, but just because
they showed a little drawing of a little boy's rear end. The only change is to provide more
specificity as to nudity, and we have deleted the term implied nudity. This will make the
policy more clear. The goal of this board continues to be to protect children from sexually
explicit material, obscene material, and harmful material. At this time, open it up for any
questions or comments.
Mr. President?
Go ahead.
First of all, I want to thank you for allowing this book policy revision and that you've
worked on the revision to be on the agenda as Mrs. Fox and I had requested. And I really
wanted to thank you for that. I also wanted to say that I don't blame the librarians for
following the new policy the way that it was written about the nudity and the implied nudity,
which also, you know, obviously led to some of our most beloved children's books to be removed.
I happen to know that librarians and most of the people that work for our district are
are rigid rule followers and so they don't kind of leave things up to the
imagination a lot of times and I don't expect them to I would never think that
they would I'm also sorry for the additional work and stress of the
librarians have had to endure the last couple of years as some of the
librarians have stated and tonight and over the last couple of months and I'm
also personally sorry that I did not pay better attention to the implications of
those of the wording in the policy that we voted on a couple of months ago I
want to take ownership of that I wanted to clarify also that it's more than two
board members to overthrow a decision made by committee it's it's two board
members to get it onto the agenda but then it would still have to have four
people approve you know majority so it's not just two board members I wanted I
wanted to clarify that that's actually even written in the policy so let's see
the elementary books that were withheld before the start of the school that was
not really a board decision we did not vote on that that was I just wanted to
clarify that and I want to know I have two questions what is the status of the
withheld books and also um well maybe just answer that one first for me somebody what is the status
of the withheld books miss hack can you give us a update on what's happening with those books
you're referring excuse me to the books that were at the warehouse and then we had them delivered
out to the campus libraries i think it was late july early august once they came out um if the
books are currently in circulation they're being cataloged as fast as our library program
coordinator can once they're in the catalog for those specific campuses that
they're new to then they go on the shelves and so that is in process booked
books that are new to Katy ISD inventory circulation those are being internally
reviewed before we do put them to make sure they do meet the revised EFA and
EFB criteria that was updated after the books were purchased so that's where we
are in the process okay can I add on to that so that's kind of a campus by
by campus thing, you know, depending on how much help that they have or how much time
they're willing to work overtime or whatever to...
The cataloging is done by one of the library program coordinators.
It's a centralized process.
And so once she...
It's pretty intense.
She puts it into the Destiny online and she has to code it and do all that.
And then she notifies the librarians that those books are now in circulation and specific
to their campus.
And then they do their process on what they do to put them on the shelves.
I don't know the specifics. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah, and then my lot, but thank you
my second and last question is I
Have been made aware that there was some books that were donated to the different libraries
I think the total twins and I'm trying to understand what the process was for
Them to be allowed, you know, was there a review process for those or you know
was it a 30-day thing or I don't even know I have no idea how how that works
nowadays you know with all the different rules that we have with library books
and donating books and things because I can't even donate a book to a teacher
anymore you know not that easily so I can't bring my own book into a classroom
to read to class so I don't know how I just want to know what happened and how
that they got in books are donated I think one of the biggest times we get
the note donated books in January lots of times the campuses will donate a book
and the board members honor and so there's a lot of books at that time that
are donated generally the campuses will work with their librarian to do the book
selection so they do meet the criteria they've kind of already been internally
reviewed when they get them and don't name on your behalf and then that
acknowledgement is done on these particular books they were donated and
and they were in the district's possession for a number of days, longer than 30 days.
And so there was time to go through them and look at them,
and they were internally reviewed and deemed they met the criteria to accept the donation,
for the board to accept the donation.
Okay, thank you.
Ms. Champagne, I just happen to know that those were donated beginning of 2023,
and it took until now to get them in.
Thank you so much.
I just want to clarify something.
I don't think anyone was blaming librarians for removing books or anything like that.
I think what was clarified, because there was a lot of narrative out there about the
board actually being the ones that were making decisions on removing or retaining books,
and it was just a clarification that it was not the board that was inserting itself to
make decisions about whether what books were retained or what books were removed.
But it's basically the district process that the books were going through.
Any other questions or comments on this?
Yes, Mr. President.
I just want to say I realize that the process was left up to the district, but they were
following the rules that were in the policy.
I mean, they were following the wording in the policy with the implied nudity because
the implication of something is a broad statement.
You know, I mean, if you gave a baby a bath, they're probably naked in the bathtub.
I don't disagree that they were following the policy.
I'm just saying that nobody was blaming the librarians.
The board was not making individual decisions on books is really what I'm clarifying.
Any other comments or questions?
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
So I appreciate you bringing this quickly to this meeting, even though my request was not 10 days out.
So thank you for that.
I think it's important for us to get it cleared up so our community can understand that that was not our intent,
was a little caricature of a boy's bottom, was not what we meant.
I remember the night when we talked about the policy and one of the public speakers said, nudity and implied nudity, what do you mean by that?
And I paused and thought, hmm, I wonder what books will that apply to in an elementary school?
And I couldn't fathom what it would be.
So I thought, I of course agree with the policy about the explicit sexuality and the vulgar things that we've heard in this boardroom.
But I paused about that for elementary, and I thought, well, we'll soon see what it affects.
And we immediately began to hear about that.
So I thought we'll revise the policy when we need to, which is what we're doing now.
now, but seeing that impact of our policy, even when I had a question and I let it go,
impacted my decision last time when it's like there's a sentence in the policy we approved
about a different issue last time that I had a question about and wanted to take more time
I'm on, and so I didn't vote for that one, and I have been, there have been things said
about me that are so far from true, I don't think people really know who I am anymore.
So I think I'm just going to agree with Mr. Redman.
Good policy takes time.
Revisions to policies when the intent is not what we wanted or the intent was not how it
carried out is important. I appreciate this board for looking at this policy and making this change.
I hope that it takes care of the, you know, the paper bag princess and the wacky Wednesday and
the no Davids, which are beloved books. And so I appreciate that. And I appreciate you bringing it
forward and being able to have this conversation. I appreciate, I did have a question that I heard
from someone tonight that said it takes between 30 to 90 days to get something on a shelf
and as children come and say oh i really wish we could have this book do you have this book
and it's like we have it but it won't be on the shelves until christmas how then the
blue bonnet books or whatever they're doing
it's taking time what did that mean 30 to 90 days this do we know can you speak
to the process that we have in place now based on the new policies yes the
current policy or the new policy right now the librarians are able to submit
their new book their new school year orders if the books are already in
circulation a lot of them have them on the shelves but some of them don't have
them or their new books that are in a series that is already on the shelf so
we're already getting the book orders pushed through book titles that are new
to Katie ISD that is where we need to we needed some more time to what that looked
like because we were going to post those on the website for 30 days for public
review and comment and so we're close to getting that ready October 1st was our
kind of unofficial deadline and the librarians will soon be seeing that
process we want to keep it as simple as possible for them to be able to submit their new book
titles and so that they have vetted them against the new policy they submit them they go up on the
dashboard we're going to call it the new book titles uh public review and comment dashboard
be easily searchable and that those will be there for 30 days and they can submit routinely
and it starts that 30-day window for that particular book once they've been up there
for 30 days the books will come down if there's not any feedback that we receive because you'll
be able the public can put feedback on the books or any concerns then those books will be released
for the librarians to begin ordering and and then that's their lead time to submit the requisition
get the purchase order um cut and then that lead time to get the books delivered so we said 30 to
90 days along that window.
Okay.
Mr. President, I have a comment.
I appreciate
that there are members of the board who
went into this with
hesitancy with this policy, and yet
we were a unanimous board
in voting this book policy in,
and I'm grateful that
we did that with intent for
the protection of
our most valuable resources, which is
our children, and I know that
there was some question
to whether or not what was really going on in the elementary schools and whether or not that there were explicit versions of nudity in the elementary schools.
And we got quite a bit of pushback on that.
And what we saw is that what was implied is that Dr. Seuss was the book that we were concerned about,
or that Know David, which is a funny book similar to Calvin and Hobbes,
where the little boy is mischievous and runs around with his bare bottom
because he's just a little defiant, and it's funny and it's cute.
What's not funny and cute, though, and was on the library bookshelves
at an elementary school in Katy, is UBU.
And that book, which I hold in my hands,
that has full frontal male and female nudity in it multiple times
inside of the book. Unfortunately, this book was not reviewed. This book was not
pulled off the shelf immediately due to this policy. It took a parent after the
policy went into place alerting us that this book was on our shelves, regardless
of whether it was one campus or whether it was all 48 campuses. This book has
full frontal nudity in it and encourages children at the age of five, as it is
described in the book that's what this book is for is for children five and up
and here we can we can all see it it's super cute anybody would look at this
and want to check this out it's got the little parachute that they play with
when they're in PE so of course why wouldn't they want to so they check it
out and they are encouraged or they're helped a five-year-old would be helped
to know that you can have surgical options if you are transgender if you
identify as transgender there are hormonal options for you so no while dr seuss was not the book that
we were concerned about we were assured multiple times that we were being overzealous in wanting
to put this policy in place and yet we found even after the policy was in place there were still
books that had explicit nudity for five-year-olds so i am glad that we are taking the time to make
sure that the clarification is there that no david and that dr seuss will be put back on the shelves
but ubu will not thank you i will now entertain a motion for this item
i move that the board of trustees approves the revision to local board policy efa and efb
I second the motion.
It is moved and seconded that the Board of Trustees
approve the revision to local board policy EFA and EFP.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The motion carries 7-0, passes 7-0.
Thank you.
8. Consent
We will now proceed to the consent agenda
agenda, which shall include items that were discussed and considered at the previous work-study
board meeting, as well as items of a recurring nature.
The board shall be furnished with background material for each item.
Consent agenda items shall be grouped together under one action item.
All items shall be acted upon by one vote without separate discussion unless a board
member requests that an item be withdrawn for individual consideration.
consideration
Are there any items that board members would like to remove from the consent agenda?
Are there any questions about the consent agenda I
Will now entertain a motion for the consent agenda
Mr.. President I move that the Board of Trustees approves consent agenda for items 8.1 through 8.1 3
There a second
second
Second.
We will now proceed to vote.
Please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The ayes have it and the motion is adopted.
The motion passes.
9.1 Recap of Board member requests for Information
And we have, we've been given information
on information items.
items is there any uh did we capture any requests from the board yes um mrs tb you could you could
clarify for me but he wants the update with the spelling from dr woodruff um in october correct
yes yes how that's being taught and how we're assessing okay mr president i was going to see
could we add a um an element where each historically we haven't operated with standing
standing committees. Could we add an element where each of those committees gives an update
each meeting? Sure. Or something. Can we talk about that in the future?
Yeah, absolutely. You bet. Thank you.
Okay. Future meetings. We have a
10. Future Meetings
special board meeting, strategic planning, October 5th.
We have a special board meeting, team building, October 16th.
The next work-study meeting is October 23rd. And we also
have the regular board meeting on October 30th there being no further
business for the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 743 thank you
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 7.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the revision to Local Board policy EFA and EFB.
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 002 · AGENDA 8.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's July 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 003 · AGENDA 8.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's September 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 004 · AGENDA 8.3
PassedIt is recommended the Board of Trustees approve the property tax rate of $1.1194 per $100 valuation. And further recommend the Board of Trustees approve the Order adopting the Maintenance and Operations tax rate of $0.7294 per $100 valuation and the Interest and Sinking tax rate of $0.3900 per $100 valuation for the tax year 2023, as reflected in the Order for a decrease in the actual total tax rate of $0.1854.
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 8.4
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the 2023-2024 claims administration by TASB Risk Management Fund for unemployment compensation.
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 8.5
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees adopts the local policies included in Board Policy Update 121.
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 8.6
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees awards a contract to Stewart Builders, Inc. for the additions and renovations to Cinco Ranch High School for a fee not to exceed 2.75% of the cost of the work.
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 8.7
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the plat for Elementary School #47.
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 8.8
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the superintendent to form a naming advisory committee for the purpose of proposing a name for Junior High #18 per Board Policy CW(LOCAL).
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 8.9
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the superintendent to form a naming advisory committee for the purpose of proposing a name for High School #10 per Board Policy CW(LOCAL).
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 8.10
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the waiver for Remote Instruction.
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 8.11
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the attached resolution nominating candidates for positions on the Board of Directors of the Waller Country Appraisal District, Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, and Harris Central Appraisal District.
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 8.12
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees grants approval for the superintendent to prepare, sign, and submit an application to the State Commissioner of Education for a class size waiver exception.
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 8.13
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the minutes for the August 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 |