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Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting Agenda
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, July 29, 2024
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In this meeting
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- 0:04 to 1:23 1. Call to Order
- 1:23 to 38:35 3. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
- 38:35 to 39:00 4. Closed Meeting
- 39:00 to 48:14 7.10 Consider naming a portion of a facility at Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Don Clayton, as Don Clayton Field House.
- 48:14 to 49:49 5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 49:49 to 2:22:59 6. Reports
- 2:22:59 to 2:24:56 7. Consent items
- 2:24:56 to 2:44:09 7.11 Consider Board endorsement of Dawn Champagne as delegate and Lance Redmon as alternate delegate to the 2024 Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Delegate Assembly.
- 2:44:09 to 2:58:25 7.12 Consider updates to the Board Operating Procedures.
- 2:58:25 to 3:01:17 8.1 Discuss and consider Board endorsement of a nominated individual for the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Director for Region 4, Positions A and C.
- 3:01:17 to 3:13:06 9.1 Board Committee Updates
- 3:13:06 to 3:13:11 10.1 Board Work Study Meeting – August 19, 2024
- 3:13:11 to 3:13:24 10.2 Regular Board Meeting – August 26, 2024
Full transcript
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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, July 29, 2024, and the time is 5 PM.
Dr. Rogorski, we verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to the notice for this meeting.
Mr. President, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting today.
Thank you very much. At this time, the Acadians Independent School District Police Officer to lead the Pledge of Allegiance, Chief Henry Gaw, if you would lead us please.
Please.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation,
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God,
one and indivisible. Do we have any scouts in the audience? Any scouts? No. Okay. We
will at this time the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an
3. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
opportunity to speak in accordance with KDISD Board Policy BEV local. As defined
by Board Policy, speakers are signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, July 29, provided
provided their first and last name and signed in 15 minutes prior to 5 p.m. will be allowed to address the Board.
Speakers who signed up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to speak.
Speakers that signed up to speak on non-agenda items today will be allowed also three minutes to speak.
If a speaker is not finished speaking at the end of their allotted time, the audio will turn off.
off.
If speakers wish to share written material with the Board, please provide 10 copies to
the Secretary for Board Services before the meeting begins.
For Board members, the Superintendent, the Chief Communications Officer, and permanent
record.
If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels,
as stated in Board policy, the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker to seek
resolution through the appropriate policy.
Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Codes, Section 551.074 and 551.0821, the Board will
not permit presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a student and will not
discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal
of a public officer or employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or
employee. Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues they must do
so through the appropriate local grievance policies FNG local, DGBA local,
CKE local, or GF local. Our speakers will be called forward in the order they sign
up to speak and we will call up the speakers that are speaking on agenda
items and our first speaker is Lissa Lister-Brown followed by Ann Russey.
Welcome. Thank you. My name is Lisa Lister-Brown and I'm addressing agenda item 711
relating to sending a representative to the TASB Delegate Assembly. I wish to
preface my comments by saying that I'm not here to attack anyone on the board personally,
but to respectfully offer a point of view for consideration on some comments that were made
during discussion of this item last week. One board member said that they found TASB offensive
because in the training last year an individual on a single panel stated that the purpose of public
education was to create taxpayers. This proposition does not appear in the TASB mission statement
statement, its statement of beliefs or TASB's value statements on the TASB website. So it's
incorrect to say this is the official TASB position and its guiding principle. But even
if it was, I wouldn't necessarily disagree or think it was a bad thing. For one thing,
to be in a position to pay taxes you need to have a source of income and for most people
that means having a job. I like the idea of public education leading towards people being
being able to have a job. I don't want an education system that results in people unemployed
or incarcerated or motivated not to contribute to society through chipping in for the common
good. To my mind, taxpayers are people who contribute to society and its future and I
think an education system that results in people contributing to society in the future
is a good thing. We rely on taxpayer dollars to fund, for example, this nation's military might
to enforce control at the border, provide emergency relief when there's natural disasters,
and provide law and order, national parks and major infrastructure, and all the initiatives
that make this country great. Imagine if these things were only funded at the whim of private
benefactors instead. That would be unreliable, inconsistent and much weaker
overall than when it's governed centrally by people who are accountable
to the voting public. By the people, for the people, not by those who can afford
it for whoever they favor from time to time, accountable only to the free market.
I don't see that as the way to make America great. We all have a part to play
in keeping our society strong, safe and prosperous. And having a society full of
taxpayers is just one way to keep those privileges. The taxpayers in particular
have a vested interest in this democratic republic to hold government
accountable and for me that's how government by the people for the people
happens. As a mum I want my children to be taxpayers in the future. That's
another way of saying i want them to have jobs and to contribute positively to their society
i'm not against education system that at the end of the day thank you
our next speaker is ann russey followed by james ratcliffe
welcome my name is ann russey i'm addressing items 7.1 7.10 and 7.11
Our district is making cuts and implementing purchase freezes to address what you say is this board's priority
minimizing a budget deficit
Why are we spending?
$13,000 on renaming an existing facility
How are we going to manage the 10 other requests that have been submitted so far?
Which if the same amount is budgeted per renaming could amount to a hundred and thirty thousand dollars out of our general operating fund
fund. Other districts are considering creative solutions to generate revenue through inviting
financial sponsorship at their facilities. Maybe we could pair businesses with potential
namesakes. If that's not an option, then please consider last week's suggestion of a nice
affordable plaque and a meaningful dedication ceremony. Educators deserve endless praise
and acknowledgement for their decades of service to our community. But if we can't afford paper,
library books, professional development, or support staff that directly benefit
and improve student outcomes and staff satisfaction, why are we spending $13,000
on what most would consider a want versus a need? In addition, I'd like to
address the discussion over TASB delegates from last week. The same debate
has played out all over the state by boards that have been taken over by
PACBAC trustees. A few have left, but the vast majority stay because they can't
afford to replace what TASB offers, especially when the preferred alternative, TEE, is a grifty
sham of an organization run out of a temporary mailbox registered to a roller skating rink
promoter with ties to pro-voucher millionaire Monty Bennett. It is as incredible as it sounds.
Please look it up. The PACs who endorse four of you hate TASB because it's a powerful and so far
unbeatable lobbying force against vouchers in Austin. Objecting to the
terms diversity, equity, and inclusion and systemic racism in their mission
statement is a dog whistle used to rile up your base in a make-or-break
reelection year for your current board majority. You either know it and are part
of the political machine intent on destroying public education or you are
ignorant to the pro-voucher PAC puppet masters pulling your strings. Please
Please stop debating words that signal safe, inclusive classrooms and schools for all children.
The most vulnerable and marginalized students, staff and families that you all serve do not
see DEI and acknowledgement of racist systems as a threat.
They see it as necessary in their fight for equality.
Thank you.
Thank you.
James Radcliffe is our next speaker.
Speaker?
Welcome.
Hello.
Thank you, Board members, for having me.
My name is James Radcliffe.
I'm going to be speaking about line item 710 in honoring Coach Don Clayton at the Cinco
Ranch facilities.
I played football under Coach Don Clayton from 2006 to 2010.
2010. From there I graduated and went on to play football at Rice University. Excuse me. Coach Clayton played a very big part in my success, not only in high school, college, but in my after football career as well. I moved from quarterback to linebacker after my freshman year and that was due to Coach Clayton and his vision and seeing me succeed on the field at a different position. From there I went on, I was all district all three years.
got a full ride scholarship, played four years at Rice University where I started
and had multiple honors there as well. All of this I can credit back to Coach
Clayton and what he saw as a young kid. Coach Clayton was a players coach. He was
always looking out for the success of all of his players not only in on the
football field but in the classroom as well. All of our kids
graduated with high honors, went on to college, successful careers from then on
out he was the most winning his coach in Cinco Ranch history we won district
went to deep in the playoffs all he's done for Cinco Ranch not only in the
athletic program but also for the school as a whole naming a facility after him
at the school would be a minimal honor and I think that he deserves a lot more
but I'm here to speak on behalf of the athletic facilities and his role and he
He has done an amazing job.
All of his players speak very, very highly of him.
Parents speak very highly of him.
He keeps in touch with his former players, current players and everything,
always keeping tabs on them and their current success.
And like I said, he's played a very big role in many, many lives.
So this would be a very minimal honor,
but we should definitely honor him in this way for sure.
Thank you so much, and I appreciate the time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
our next speaker this is the non-agenda items is tana weiss
and after that it's eric heppin
welcome thank you
good evening dr gregorski and ward my name is tana weiss and i've lived in kdisc for 32 years
You might say, Katie is now in my blood.
I would like to acknowledge the positive words of Ms. Calhoun during last week's work-study meeting
regarding her wish to work together to overcome the divisiveness on this board.
I appreciate this offer, and I look forward to her future efforts to make this board a more cohesive team of eight.
I would also like to acknowledge how we got to where we are now.
The Quad, as the community calls you, actively campaigned to unseat Ms. Fox and Ms. Champagne
prior to the May 2024 election.
You participated in rallies and fundraisers for their opponents,
appeared on controversial and ultra-conservative podcasts,
lambasted their actions, and most importantly,
maligned their reputations in public, on social media, and in print.
Ms. Fox and Ms. Champagne stayed above the fray when they could,
and when they couldn't, they defended themselves.
and they were both overwhelmingly re-elected by this community.
A community who also figured out that Katie was in their blood
and they needed to step up and defend their beloved school district.
I would also like to acknowledge the behavior of Mr. Perez and Ms. Kozella
prior to being elected to this board. Mr. Perez attended school board meetings as
a community member touting critical race theory and calling
our educators groomers. Ms. Kizella appeared on national television calling
for our librarians to have criminal charges brought against them for any
books they provided that included pornographic material. I just finished
reading the book They Came for the Schools by Mike Hicksonbaugh. Ms. Kizella
is featured in one of the chapters where he describes suddenly receiving text
messages on his personal phone from unknown numbers calling him a pedophile,
threatening to file charges against him for interviewing a 17 year old student
his personal cell phone that miss gazelle had access to because he'd been
interviewing her as well I wonder how that number got released as board
members what you are experiencing is nothing new there was a certain
community member whose behavior toward previous board members was atrocious his
His attacks on board members, board members' children, administrators, teachers, and the superintendent at the time made national news.
And this community member came to the board meeting in May of 2023 to congratulate Ms. Teeny, Ms. Calhoun, and Ms. Cozella on their election.
Mr. Perez, I do not feel as if any of you have been personally attacked.
when in reality this is the example that the four of you have set. Thank you.
Thank you.
Eric Heppin, followed by Meishun Hou.
Welcome.
Thank you very much, Board Members.
I first want to tell you that I've been a part of the KDISD community for about a decade, a little bit more.
I've been a part of multiple bond meetings, campus advisory groups, quite a
few different organizations. I work for the government so a whole bunch of you
know me in a variety of capacities. This is my first time ever coming before the
board to ask for anything. And what I'm asking for, I want to tone it down, it's
not as broad as it seems, but I would like the board to consider a little bit
more in the request of what is done from an academic calendar perspective. I
understand very much that the academic calendar is done at a really high level
looking at what days off, when and how that goes, but I would ask that you look
at secondary calendars a little bit differently. What events go on after
school on what days? I was recently brought to my attention that my child
will effectively need to make a decision of whether he's in an advanced
theater course or his religious beliefs. The school inadvertently is
allowing his fall show to go on during a major religious holiday. It accounts for
60% of his grade. So he has a choice of either he's going to perform or what is
he going to do. Talk to the teacher. She is more than willing to try to figure
out if they as a school can adjust the calendar for when that show is going to be. We were able
to catch it luckily before school started and she's going to try her best but she can't necessarily
guarantee. I understand that and I'm really grateful that they're going to try. However, what I would
ask is that the board tries to make sure that administrators are aware of some of these other
religious holidays. I should not be have to go to my child's behalf to go it is Yom Kippur. It is a
a day where my child is supposed to be fasting. He is religious. It is on a Friday night and
Saturday. This is not like we're asking for school to be shut down. We are asking that for
after school activities, for extracurricular activities, for a larger calendar to be
considered. A couple of years ago, I was on the bond hearing and the first bond meeting was during
Seder. Brought it up to administration's attention. They said they would try to consider in the future.
It's happened before, but I'm not even talking about only from a Jewish perspective. I would
I would request that you do this for other religions as well.
And as I said, I'm not necessarily
advocating that you shut down the school calendar.
I know that's not practical.
There's too many people.
But what I'm saying is in terms of after school activities,
in terms of extracurriculars, when
things are going to be required, especially
for part of their grade, you do look at some of those things
as when they're mandatory.
If you have any questions, I'll be here.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
My soon ho.
I hope I did okay with that with your name.
Hi, I go by Gabby.
The next person is Haley Sommerfeld.
Hi, good afternoon.
I go by Gabby.
So I am Gabby Ho and I graduated from Seven Lakes High School in 2023 and now I'm attending University of Houston for music education.
I'm also an approved private lesson teacher in the KDISD Fine Arts program.
So during the school year I also teach in Seven Lakes as well.
So for all four years in high school I had always seen empty period baskets in the girls'
restrooms and so in my senior year I pitched my principal, Ms. Fennison, the idea to join
a program by a menstrual product company, August.
So August is a company that built a program to collaborate with public school in North
America providing free menstrual products for students in the restrooms. However, she declined
the idea. Instead, she gave me the permission to put period basket in the restrooms. So I started
that time of the month after brainstorming ideas with my friends. The mission was to provide free
menstrual products in the restroom in case of emergency and we wanted to normalize period by
discussing it with students and sharing those discussion online. With that permission and ideas,
I started running the peer basket with donation funds from GoFundMe and product donation drives.
Many of our donors are student teachers and parents who recognize the importance of access to menstrual products in the restrooms.
When I was running the organization, I got so much support from the student and heartfelt messages about how it helped them when there was an emergency.
And I felt a sense of community along the menstruator forming as we went.
people were more comfortable about being on your period at school.
Unfortunately our club application was denied for the 23 and 24 school year and
made it impossible for us to continue. That time of the month was one of the
most difficult thing I've ever put together but I enjoy every second of it.
Looking back I wish I could have done more but luckily I happened to inspire a
couple of talented students who came up with a plan and they plan to carry on my
vision as well with your help and their brilliant plans you guys will be able to
provide for my community their community and your community as well thank you so
much thank you
Haley Summerfelt after that Aishwarya Emmanualaj hello board members my name
My name is Haley Summerfelt and I'm a student within KDISD.
I'm here to discuss a crucial issue that affects a significant portion of our student body.
The need for menstrual products in our school bathrooms.
Menstruation is a natural and unavoidable part of life for roughly half our students.
Despite this, many young people face significant barriers to accessing the menstrual products they need.
According to US News and World Report, 38% of students at Katy High School are economically disadvantaged, and within Katy ISD, 28% of students are.
Not having access to period products can lead to missed classes, decreased participation in school activities, and unnecessary stress and embarrassment.
By providing menstrual products in our school bathrooms, we can ensure that all students
have the basic necessities they need to focus on their education and participate fully in
school life.
This initiative supports the health and well-being of our students.
Students without access to proper menstrual products often use makeshift solutions, which
can lead to health issues such as infections.
Providing products helps prevent these risks and promotes better hygiene practices.
It's a simple but effective way to show our students that we care about their health and
well-being.
Research has shown that students who do not have access to menstrual products are more
likely to miss school.
This can lead to gaps in learning and negatively affect their academic performance.
By providing products, we can help ensure that all students have the opportunity to
attend school consistently and engage fully within the classroom.
classroom. Implementing this policy aligns with our district's commitment to helping our students.
It demonstrates that we are attentive to the needs of all our students and are willing to
take concrete steps to support students' basic needs. This is a chance for our school board to
lead by example and show our community that we prioritize the well-being and education of every
student. In conclusion, providing menstrual products in our school bathrooms is a necessary
towards creating a more equitable, healthy, and inclusive learning environment.
It's a small investment that can have a profound impact on our students' lives.
I urge you to support this initiative and incorporate it into your budget
to help ensure that all students have the resources they need to succeed.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Aishwarya, and then after that, Vishnabi Kohli.
Hello, my name is Aishwarya. Hello, my name is Aishwarya Emmanuel Raj, and this year I'll be a senior at Seven Lakes High School. I'm here today to voice the experiences and needs of many others like me surrounding menstruation.
While we're at a point where menstruation is a more accessible and accepted topic, especially
within an educational context like at school, students may still feel unable to or find
difficulty to broach the subject.
As someone who got her period in junior high, it was something my friends and I felt uncomfortable
and uninformed about.
Fellow students seemed to silently judge mortified girls as they explained their situation to
a teacher.
I would reach into my bag in class, praying that the crinkling wouldn't draw any attention
and slip a pad up my sleeve like it was contraband.
And now five years later in high school, I still catch myself doing the same.
These emotions and situations can often interfere with learning
and disrupt the educational environment.
For instance, a student with irregular periods
or someone who just forgot a product would need to fret about accidents
and try to go down to the nurse's office every single time,
something we also struggle to do with the new color-coded bathrooms
and bathroom pass policies.
policies. Or a student with cramps embarrassed to ask for help from his teacher or nurse may
often stay home affecting their attendance or struggle through class affecting their focus and
performance. Now we can take steps towards dispelling the stigma and addressing the
pressing hygiene needs of a large portion of the student body at KDIC. I implore you to consider
setting aside a portion of the budget to providing sanitary products at high school and middle school
bathrooms this can not only prevent incidents that interfere with learning
and provide convenient access most importantly it it assures others that
you're going to the same situation as them and make it normal thank you thank
you very much we should not be calling followed by some Vita Cassie but yeah
hello board members my name is Vaishnavi Kohli and I'm a rising senior at Seven
Lakes High School. I stand before you today to address a critical issue that
impacts a significant portion of our student body, menstrual hygiene.
Menstruation is a natural biological process and a fundamental aspect of
reproductive health that should be supported with dignity and respect.
Research has shown that students who lack access to menstrual hygiene
products may experience embarrassment and discomfort and even miss out on
valuable learning time. This is unacceptable in a modern equitable
equitable education system like ours.
According to the Always Ending Period Poverty Study,
one in five girls in the US miss school
due to a lack of menstrual hygiene products.
And nearly 20% of American girls have left school early
or miss school entirely due to a lack of period products.
Two years ago, that time of the month
at Seven Lakes High School implemented
a period basket program in the school bathrooms.
Considering that periods can start at unexpected times,
during my time in junior high and high school,
there have been many times that I simply did not have immediate access to hygiene products while on my period
and had no choice but to hope that the bleeding wasn't visible.
I was embarrassed and uncomfortable, distracting me throughout instructional time.
While I understand now that I could have asked for a pad at the nurse's office,
I did not know that information at the time.
This is not advertised, and even if it was, I would likely be too nervous and embarrassed to ask,
not to mention having to request a nurse's pass from my teacher.
Therefore, the period basket program at the high school was so helpful and saved me several
times in those moments when I needed products.
It gave the students access to period products, not just the nurses, which made a difference
in their overall well-being and health.
No student should have to worry about their period during the day or have it interfere
with their learning.
Our school should provide a supportive environment for all students, which includes access to
menstrual hygiene products.
They're not a luxury, but a basic necessity.
In light of this, I am pleased to share that 451 individuals have signed a petition supporting
this cause.
These signatures come from a diverse group of students, parents, and everyday community
members with 60% from KDISD school zones, all united in their belief that action is
necessary.
Therefore, I urge you to consider allocating a portion of the school budget to ensure that
menstrual hygiene products are freely available in all school bathrooms throughout the year.
This initiative supports our students' health and well-being, and it reinforces our commitment
meant to creating a supportive and inclusive educational environment.
It sends a powerful message to all students that their needs are recognized and prioritized.
Practically speaking, the cost of these products is a small investment
compared to the potential benefits that they bring in terms of student well-being and academic achievement.
Many school districts across the country, such as Austin ISD and worldwide,
have already taken steps to provide menstrual hygiene products.
It's time for us to follow suit. Thank you.
Thank you.
Samanvita followed by Margaret Daniel.
Hello, everyone.
I hope your day is going well.
My name is Samanvita Kasi-Butla,
and I'm also a rising senior at Seven Lakes High School.
I'm also here to talk about increasing access
to menstrual products to our students
in public high schools,
but specifically, I want to focus on period poverty
and specifically the Title I schools
that exist in our area.
As the speakers before me have mentioned,
A lot of students that go to our public schools have to deal with a lot of period stigma.
But specifically, many students are in low-income families that are unable to afford a lot of period products.
And like Haley Summerfield mentioned, they use alternatives that are not as hygienic.
Thus, there's an intriguing aspect into allowing for more of the budget to be put into these public programs.
One intriguing aspect of investing period products specifically is that it increases their attendance.
Because Katy ISD is ranked by niche as the number one district in throughout of all of Houston and 12 in the state of Texas,
it's important to increase the educational opportunities and the access that students have to these
opportunities by increasing our access to period products. The facts are simply overwhelming.
So according to the state of the period analysis conducted by period.org, around four and five teens have either reported to a missed class
or have known a classmate who missed class because they did not have access to period products.
Specifically, the Alliance for Period Supply indicates that in the U.S.,
over 70% of female public school students from grades 7 to 12 have missed school due to a lack of menstrual products.
Period poverty is a burden on its own.
However, many students in our districts and lower-income families may have to go to school.
have no other method to access these products, doubling the burden of these young students
who already menstruate, specifically those in Title I schools or economically disadvantaged
schools. These include the junior high students attending Cardiff, McDonald, Maid Creek, and
Morton Ranch Junior High Schools, along with the high school students that attend Maid Creek and
Morton Ranch High School. These students could be put in a position where they're unable to
sanitarily discard blood though it is a natural process that that is over half of the students in
over 4 500 junior high students and 5 500 high school students in title one schools that allotting
a small amount of the budget could specifically help it could help them inside and outside of
school by increasing their attendance and allowing them to maintain hygiene while menstruating other
districts are doing their part and alleviating the burden of countless of low-income families
These districts include the cities of Austin, Fort Worth, and Dallas.
As one of the largest districts in Texas, we must also share the burden to do the same by allocating our part of our budget to expand the access of period products to our students.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Margaret Daniel, followed by Lynette Aladon.
Welcome.
Good evening, board members, Mr. Perez and Mr. Krakorski.
Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening.
I'm a former teacher, parent of two KDISD graduates, Seven Lakes, and a taxpayer.
I don't want to judge anybody tonight.
I just wanted to come and thank you for approving the 3% across-the-board pay raise last May,
despite the budget shortfall.
Our teachers usually get the most attention, since they're the district touch points that most parents have.
but I'm glad to see that all the staff including front office staff cafeteria
workers and custodians that help make a clean and welcoming environment for
learning to take place risk took part of the bond are receiving part of the bonus
I'm glad to see Katie try to help them keep up with inflation and Katie remain
competitive in the Houston education market I also wanted to commend the
board for attempting to create a new program to increase teacher retention
attention among our teachers.
Sorry, that's very repetitive.
For years, I've watched teachers exiting the profession
because despite a solid starting place, school salary schedules
don't reward teachers beyond a small bump
each year of experience.
You don't go into education to get rich.
But seeing an acknowledgment of service and loyalty
to the district is a step in the right direction.
And then finally, I want to commend the new cell phone
policy.
I understand the cell phone's usefulness,
and I understand why the parents would want it.
There was quite a furor,
but I've always felt like there was such a distraction in the classroom.
They've been misused for years.
My students were telling me all about the cheating and the texting
and posting on social media bullying that took place during the classroom time.
So I'm hoping the new computers that each student will be issued
will improve students' research abilities and stop these abuses.
And I just want to thank you for your time and service.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Linnette Alidon followed by Neil Bradley who will be our last speaker.
Hey, good evening, Dr. Gagorski and the Board of Trustees.
I'm Linnette Alidon, a retired KISD librarian and concerned stakeholder.
I want to call your attention to the recent proposal given to librarians regarding the
purchase of new books for the school library collections.
This proposal requires librarians to read every new fiction book and selected nonfiction Dewey sections in its entirety and then submit book titles to the district for placement on the new book title public review and comment dashboard for the 30-day period.
If there are no objections during this time, the books then can be purchased.
I believe that this proposal will be problematic for my former colleagues and should be reconsidered by the policy review committee.
committee. It is insane to consider asking these trained professionals with advanced
degrees to read every new fiction book in its entirety in order to purchase it for the
school library collection. I learned from my former colleagues that the district's
subscription to SOAR will allow librarians to request online published books for a 24-hour
period so that they can read a book that they are considering purchasing. This time constraint
makes it impossible for them to read a book at work.
Contrary to popular belief,
librarians do so much more than check out books.
They are also teaching lessons to students,
collaborating with staff members,
and troubleshooting technology concerns.
One former colleague followed this proposal
by powering through 40 books to be able to submit
these titles to the public review dashboard.
This person did not have the opportunity
to enjoy reading them,
and it is not good for this person's mental health.
As you see, this proposal is an unnecessary burden
on our librarians. If this proposal is approved then students will face barriers
to accessing these books through their school libraries. It is important to
recognize that not all families have easy access to public libraries and some
may not have the financial means to purchase books for their children.
Students rely on their school libraries not only for academic resources but also
for access to books for pleasure reading and to explore diverse perspectives. My
former colleagues want their students to enjoy visiting their school libraries
libraries and embrace the love of reading. By limiting access to new books, we risk depriving
students of valuable opportunities to engage with literature, see themselves represented
in stories, and learn about different cultures. I propose that the Book Review Committee amends
this proposal by allowing the librarians to read literary reviews given by professional
resources such as Kirkus and School Library Journal to determine which books would be
appropriate for their school library collections. This book selection policy was in place when
when I was a school librarian for this district.
This former policy stated that the selected books
need at least two positive professional reviews
that deemed the books age appropriate for their students.
Reading professional book reviews can be completed
while librarians are at work and save them valuable time
in submitting their book titles to the public dashboard.
In these trying times, my former colleagues
rightfully worry about whether their positions
will be eliminated due to a deficit budget.
This change will help them gain their trust
in the school board.
please give them the respect that they deserve thank you thank you very much
Neil Bradley our last speaker greetings my name is Neil Bradley and I'm a
substitute bus driver here with Katie ISD I'm addressing the board this evening
to voice a concern about the potential serious issue with traffic with the
upcoming first days of school and actually and beyond I believe there will
will be an issue with access to two of our new schools opening this year
specifically Freeman high school and Nelson middle school I'm sure you are
very aware of the traffic issues we've had in the past with Haskett junior high
and Fowlton elementary since they opened I'm very concerned that there may not
have been any discussion with both Harris County and the Texas Department
of Transportation about the interchange of Katie Hockley Road and FM 529 this
This past year, with just Youngblood Elementary opened, in the morning, it normally takes over 20 minutes to move north on Katie Hockley Road to cross over FM 529.
And in the afternoon, it can take up to 30 minutes or even much longer going southbound.
The major issue is that Katie Hockley Road is a two-lane road.
And this results in that there are no turn lanes in any direction on the road, both north or south.
This has resulted in the Texas Department of Transportation making the
traffic light only allow traffic in one direction at any one time. With the
opening of the two new schools and the dramatic increase of parent traffic
through this interchange, this will most likely result in an extreme delays of
students arriving and departing from all three schools. I would like to suggest
that the board issue some kind of a notice to the parents of the three
three schools, advising them of these potential delays and encourage them to plan for them.
I am also bringing this to your attention in the hope that KDISD has or will open immediate
discussions with the appropriate county and state officials to address the issue.
And I thank you for allowing me to bring this to your attention.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
4. Closed Meeting
This concludes the open forum portion of our 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 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551.076, and 551.129.
Mr. President, Mr. President, before we close, when we named the McPherson Stadium, we did
7.10 Consider naming a portion of a facility at Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Don Clayton, as Don Clayton Field House.
it at this time we moved it up so that uh he he and his family could have that honor at this point
with everyone here and then leave are we going to do that for the single ranch one as well uh
we can do that yeah we can do that we will need to um seven points that's fine yeah
uh why don't we uh
children that's 710 yes yes sir okay okay do we have a discussion mr. president or a motion mr.
president miss box I move that the Board of Trustees approved naming a portion of a facility
at Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Don Clayton as Don Clayton Fieldhouse we have a second second
Second.
We have a motion and a second.
I will now, we will move that the,
it is moved and seconded that the Board of Trustees
approves a naming of naming of a portion of a facility
of Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Don Clayton
as Don Clayton Field House.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote
on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes seven zero.
Congratulations.
Now can we take a photo?
I don't know if maybe it would be good to, if you're, since you're here, if you could
come up front, we'll take a picture.
If you want to say some words, that would be great as well.
And introduce your family as well.
I'm sorry?
That's true.
It would always take a lot longer.
You know, when we opened up Cinco Ranch, it was an awesome experience.
And I've had friends open up schools after that, and I've told every one of them the advice.
I said, hey, you'll treasure every moment of it, and it'll go fast.
And for 20 years, you know, it was my home away from home.
And, you know, my wife Rhonda, you know, I appreciate her support throughout.
out. She's a perfect educator's wife. She's one of the perfect educators. She was a heck
of a kindergarten teacher for 34 years. So you ought to be naming something after her,
not me, because I promise you, she makes a lot of impact on a lot of kids at a very early
age. So I appreciate her for that. But like I say, when we opened it, our vision was to
to be one of the best in KDISD and to really uplift KDISD.
And that's what we strove to do every time we did anything,
whether it be an academic, athletic, fine arts.
And when Lowell Strike opened up the school,
that's one of the things he said,
from one end of the building to the other,
we want to be as good as we can be and be an example to all.
And KDISD is a special place.
I spent 31 out of my 38 years here.
And to show you how smart I am, I went away for four years and had to come back
because that's where I wanted to – that's where we wanted to raise our daughters,
was in this school district.
And we felt like that's obviously the best place.
But I appreciate Dr. Kragorski, and I can still remember the day I met him
over in the ninth grade center at Katy High School when he came to Katy.
and you know I'm very happy for him and the job he's done and the direction
Katie SD is in and and with the board you know I think you know I've always
done things to to help the teachers you know and as mentioned our bus drivers
kept you work everybody to make them feel they're part of something bigger
than themselves and that's what we always tried to do in athletics we
We always try to tell the kids, there's something bigger than you.
And give of yourself, and good things will happen.
But again, thank you for this honor, and I appreciate it immensely.
And it does mean quite a bit to me.
And there's a part of me right now down here I've got to be careful,
otherwise I may break down.
But I do appreciate it, and again, thank you for that honor,
and thank you for all the hard work you do for everyone appreciate you very much
mr. president do you want should we go ahead and may I say something real quick
mr. president to coach I just want to tell you I I have heard so much over
overwhelming support of this and I just want to tell you as a mom I my kids went
to taylor and i had a lot of friends who played football their kids play football for you and
i've always heard such great things about you and it's such an honor that we can do this for you
why don't we uh excuse me why don't we go ahead and get a picture taken maybe
ray if you would mind coming up and if you want to bring your family up uh coach or
and maybe the board take a picture with the board as well
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
The Board will now reconvene in open meeting.
5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
Today is Monday, July 29, 2024, and the time is 721 p.m.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to today's regular Board meeting.
Each Board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Thursday, July 25, 2024.
The Board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and the superintendent
on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to
take action.
The Board has just reconvened from closed meeting.
In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, any action arises from discussions
of a closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
We will now move on to 5.1, which is to consider Board approval of the purchase of property for a district facility.
Board members, are there any questions or discussion?
I will now entertain a motion for this item.
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees approve of the purchase of property for a junior high site as discussed in closed meeting.
Do I have a second?
Second.
Second.
It is moved and seconded that the Board of Trustees approve of the purchase of property for a junior high site as discussed in closed meeting.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The vote is 7-0.
The motion passes.
The next item of business is a report, and this is the 2024-2025 budget update.
6. Reports
Our presenter, Chris Smith, Chief Financial Officer.
Welcome.
CHRIS SMITH, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, Thank you.
Good evening, Mr. Perez, Dr. Gorgorski, and trustees.
Going to be a quick update on where we are with the budget process.
again we adopt our budget next month next month some of our neighboring
districts have opted to move to a June July one fiscal year start date we have
not done that and so y'all have not adopted your budget yet some of the
districts around us have we'll do it in August and we're on route to do so good
of course our main objective when we look at a budget is maintain a balanced
budget and that's not going to happen this year since we have static revenue and we gave a
three percent salary increase and mainly in order to meet objective number two which is to
maintain a competitive compensation plan and and we feel that we've we've done as much as we can
and done a good thing for it to help with that and to maintain our health care program we're
going to talk about that health care program next month and avoid keep trs active care trs active
of care, depending on where you live in the state, is looking at anywhere between 10 and 20 percent
increases in their employees health insurance premiums and we are not going to be facing those
types of increases and we want to stay away from that because we can control our own a little bit
better and we feel like we have better insurance to offer our staff. A high priority in this budget
is on student and staff safety.
Of course, we're opening Nelson Junior High
and Freeman High School,
and we're going to open two elementary schools next year,
of which in this budget you're adopting,
there's some expenses associated with that,
such as hiring principals to start filling those positions
and some of the startup expenses that it has in those schools
and the fact that one month of operation in that school
will happen in the budget that you're approving next month
for August of 2025.
Tax rate, got good news on that.
We are looking at a .0023 decrease.
We got the information as required by law
from our appraisal districts last week.
The 25th was the deadline.
We have put that information that we need to
with the Texas Education Agency,
and we are going to get lowered from the floor
to the new floor.
Remember last year, the floor dropped our tax, when we met to the floor, it dropped our tax rate 18 cents.
This year, only dropping it by a quarter of a percent, but it is dropping it.
That is the new floor.
The state, you know, again, probably was conservative when we're going to drop it the first year,
but if we drop it another that much again, it would be very expensive.
So we are looking at a tax rate reduction.
yet for about the fifth year in a row.
And speaking of that tax rate,
I've mentioned to you that there's three ways,
there's really no way that a school district
can, outside of a TRA,
to significantly affect their income.
One thing that could be done is
we've had several disasters over this last year
that have cost this district a lot of unbudgeted funds
and cost us a lot of instructional time.
There is the provision where we could
do something with that tax rate by a penny or two to offset some of those expenses.
Unfortunately, we're not in a position where we're dropping at 18 cents anyway,
but that is something that as I move through this presentation, you can keep in mind that we may
have some flexibility in adopting a disaster penny to cover those expenses associated with
those disasters. We've done that before. We did that in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and it was
able to generate significant state funds. We're in a different position now with the way the state
funding formula works. We won't get quite as much bang for our buck but we could in fact affect our
our bottom line in the budget that we're considering. We are going to be putting in an
an ad in the paper next week that we can show a two a a penny or a two penny increase
after that reduction and increase that the duck board can could consider you could always adopt
this rate that i'm that you see on your slide uh we're not tied to it you couldn't
publish what the rate you see on this slide and then say oh well we'd like to increase it a
a penny. Once you publish it, you can go lower, but you can't raise it. I just want to be clear
on that while we're talking about the tax rate. But we are lowering the tax rate according to
the formulas at TEA. We have to submit that this week, and then on August the 2nd,
TEA will effectively set your tax rate on your maintenance and operations
because of the way they're instructed by law.
Budget considerations for the 24-25 school year.
Favorable changes, interest income.
Interest income has been significant on our investments,
has been significant this year.
Interest rates have continued to stay high,
and we're counting on those interest rates to help close that gap next year's budget.
property value audits this is an exciting one late last week we heard
word from the comptroller back in March we filed a comp property value audit
property value audit was actually ends up being a little bit better than we
thought once we sign off on that probably toward the end of this week the
comptroller will send that over the Texas Education Agency agency and that's
going to generate significant income when will we receive that income I don't
know um if we receive it before october the 30th that month that those funds have to be recorded in
the 23 24 budget so it'll be revenue and and and uh and that'll that'll be a good thing because
it's all going to go to fund balance if we don't receive it by october the 30th then that money
will be in next year's budget which would help with your the the deficit significantly i mean
significantly over $10 million.
So that's some option.
I don't know at this point what year it's going to be in,
and I may not know.
My inclination would be to count on it next year.
It wouldn't be adopted in the budget.
I don't think it's fair to present that
because it's structurally not sound.
It's not something we can count on from year to year.
But in October, when we find out when we're going to get those funds,
then I would amend the budget,
and you'll see a significant reduction in the deficit that we're likely going to have.
Average daily attendance, that attendance incentive,
and I think you hear about that on the agenda next from Mr. Hines,
was successful and generated about $4.7 million to the district by improving our attendance rate.
And he's got a very good presentation that's very thorough that you're going to hear next.
Unfavorable changes, health insurance.
Our health insurance is taking another tough year, and we're going to do as much as we can with underspending to absorb some of that loss in the health insurance fund to keep our premiums down.
We've done that the last three years, actually the last several years.
So we've probably averaged pumping in about $6 or $8 million a year to cover that loss.
We're not giving that in quote monthly premiums, but the district is giving that in that amounts,
large amounts to cover those deficits.
That's still happening.
It's getting better.
It's leveling out like Mr. Nauman thought it would as we get further and further behind
in COVID.
Again, what happened was people were putting stuff off and it became a little bigger and
and problems became bigger and more expensive because of the COVID times.
Housing starts, enrollment growth.
Enrollment growth is still growing.
We're the fastest-growing school district in Texas.
That is slowing a little bit, and you'll see that here in the assumptions,
but still a growing district.
Inflationary impacts, all I need to say is inflation.
with stagnant state revenue, and then rising disaster expenses.
I mean, we were getting hit every month, it seems like, with something unexpected.
This is some, I found a very interesting slide.
I think it's remarkably level.
You can see an upward trend in 2021, and that's when the ESSER money started,
because that's all staff that includes ESSER staff, et cetera.
But that blue line has, again, the fastest growing district over this amount of time in the state, and that blue line is pretty flat.
If anything, that's the one increasing, and the instructional support is increasing.
But the central administration and the district operations, district operations is going down, actually,
and central administration is staying relatively flat over that 13 years,
and I think that just shows a good synopsis of staff not getting too aggressive with adding staff
or not aggressive enough when it comes to adding staff with our growth.
State funding on these assumptions, again, the basic allotment is...
stagnant at $6,160. There is, back from the 2021 legislative session, when they adopted their
budget, they tied it, the golden penny, so we are seeing a modest $3 increase in the golden penny
that was budgeted back in the 2021 by the state of Texas. Enrollment increase, you can see,
is only at 1.4%. That's from budget enrollment last year to budget enrollment this year. Now,
we ended the year with significantly more than 95,347 students, but we're still being
conservative, I think, when we look at a 1,290 student increase from that budget to budget.
Property values, again, we got those Friday. This number that you see highlighted on your right
was from an estimate that they're provided or required to provide us in
April the appraisal districts they provided us the real numbers this year
just last Friday instead of a 3% I think you're gonna see about a 7% increase in
our property values again that's new resident new growth new construction
homesteads businesses it's probably again appraisal districts having to do
what they have to do and appreciating or recognizing the values of our homes.
Probably going to see that again go up.
What you see here tonight will include the new staff that's just above that green,
and, of course, it does improve the much-appreciated 3% salary increase.
I'm required to talk about this when we talk about the budget,
it and it's basically as property values increase, the state's portion of that 6,160 decreases.
If property values decrease, the state share increases, but it all pivots around $6,160.
So when it comes to the general operating fund, that value growth doesn't help us at all.
It helps us on debt service, does not help us at all when it comes to our general funds bottom line.
Right now, it's about 58% comes from the state when it comes to the general fund, and about 42% comes from local taxes.
So, again, if you've seen my sand explanation, we can't raise enough taxes to meet $6,160 times the number and types of students we have.
We have to have the state kick in more than 50%.
Some districts can raise all of that locally, and they have to send it back to the state,
and that's what has been known as Robin Hood.
This has crept up.
We're at 89% salary and benefits.
That's a natural increase.
When you increase salary, it increases 3%, and you're cutting back on all this other as much as we could.
Yeah, you're going to see a change in that ratio, but it's at 89% now.
It's usually around 87% or 88%.
That's now crept to 90%.
That's where this salary and benefits comes from, is from the payroll cost at $963 million that you see in expenditures for a total of $1,081,000,000 in expenditures.
It does have a net change to fund balance of a $25.4 million reduction, which is actually better than we thought it would be.
I thought it would be around $30 million.
And so the administration and Dr. Gorgorski have done a good job in trying to identify things that we can either not do or delay in doing.
And so we got about a $25 million use.
And again, I'll reiterate, with that property value audit, if I were to know for sure and we could put that in the budget,
Well, then you're looking at significantly less than that, or a little over $10 million less than that.
So I'm very pleased that we were able to do that audit.
It actually was even better than we thought.
There's the details.
There's that 89% in salary and benefits, and then where the other breaks down.
Again, our second largest expenditure is in utilities.
And then our third largest is probably software.
Food service fund, we've got a healthy fund balance, more than healthy, in that at $30 million.
And so you'll see we're trying to spin that down.
That capital outlay at $9.7 million is the proof in that or what's causing that use of fund balance.
Again, that's a goal.
We're behind on that goal.
We're trying to get as much of it done in this fiscal year and next fiscal year to kind of, and it reduces our capital plan as well. So that's intentional.
intentional. That service fund, um, have a healthy fund balance, uh, budgeted, uh, estimated right
now anyway at $64.7 million. Uh, we've got $237 million in revenue. Uh, the Asahi, that additional
state aid for homestead exemption. When we increase the homestead exemption, the state pays us to make
up for that loss. Uh, and there's a complicated stuff. And so that number could change between
now and next month. I think our tax revenues will go up between now and next
month based on the information that we received just Friday. This principal
payment of 142 million dollars does not include any defeasances. Based on the
information that we got from the appraisal districts last month, I think
that next next time you see this we'll be able to include some defeasances.
Probably not a lot, but we may be able to conclude some. And again, we are currently
eyeing a refunding that can happen in October, early as October, and that
refunding, at least the rates I saw before I went on vacation, would have
been significant savings, not all at once, but over time significant savings to our
and our interest if we're able to refinance those bonds the way that I
expect that we will, unless rates have just changed significantly. I think we'll
we'll see some good savings on that, but unfortunately that won't happen. We're
not able to do that until October or November. So here's the summary of all those funds. You're
looking at $1,385,000,000 or basically a $1.4 billion expenditure budget in your three budgeted
funds. We have healthy fund balances and I'm pleased with the financial shape that we're in.
Even though we have a deficit, you've heard me say this before and I'm not losing sleep over it
because I know things, and I think y'all are starting to see that those things are coming to fruition,
but it's not fair to budget some of the things that I don't budget for from a revenue standpoint
because they may not come in, and they're too unpredictable.
So we do it as a budget amendment, and that way when you're adopting a budget,
you're adopting something that's real and sustainable from year to year versus,
Oh, it all looks good, but it was propped up by some weird anomaly, and that's not fair to the public or to the board to include that, because I do my best to disclose it and to talk about it, but I don't want to budget for it, because that's misleading in my opinion.
State funding is something we're going to consider.
We know the legislature is going to meet in January.
What are they going to do with those?
What are going to get prorated?
There's more than the fast growth allotment that's being prorated now, such as the dyslexic allotment.
I think it's the gifted and talented allotments being prorated.
NIFA is always subject to proration, or that's the new instructional facilities allotment grant.
There's several things that are subject to proration.
Will those state continue to do that, or are they going to put those maximums?
Ongoing rulemaking and tax rates, they're going to vary from district to district.
We're hitting the floor.
Some of the districts around us are not going to hit that tax rate floor.
They're not going to raise their tax rate, but they may not be able to drop it again.
Some districts were not able to drop it the full 18 cents last year based on their property value growth.
We've been at the floor every year.
In other words, our values have grown so much that we just get kicked to the floor.
and we would have been a lot lower in the tax rate had there not been a floor each of these
last two years 24 25 budget calendar there's where we are on monday the 29th um y'all are
going to approve the um the ability for me to uh and my staff to to put that uh ad in the newspaper
paper and it'll run on august the 8th by then we will have everything done from a function standpoint
and we'll publish all that required by law and on our website we put it on there
monday august the 19th we'll have that meeting to formal meeting to discuss the budget and the tax
rate it'll be shorter than this one because you will have heard it it's just going to be me
basically going over those three fund summaries at that point that's it and then y'all will adopt
hopefully a budget on Monday, August the 26th.
And then, of course, tax rates are done in September.
This is the language that I would ask you all to approve tonight,
that we're going to have that meeting on August the 19th at 5 p.m. in this room.
And we're going to discuss that.
And then I am going to publish the deal and would love some guidance on what we want to do with,
if anything, with the disaster penny, because we can, again, put a penny on that or two and just adopt lower if that's what we choose,
or we can put it to what TEA is currently publishing and leave it at that.
But once we do, we would have to republish, and you'd probably have to wait until October to adopt a tax rate.
And that's through July, and I'd be glad to answer any questions should you have any.
I'll go ahead and jump in with a couple of questions.
Thank you for the presentation and welcome back.
Thank you.
It's 1.45 in the morning where I just flew in from.
If I'm orange, I'm a pumpkin right now.
So Mr. Hines is going to tell me everything I flabbed on because I'm half asleep up here.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
You know, I too expected when we looked at the May one and then we added $22 million of salary increase,
I did expect that your deficit would be more like $29.30 thereabouts.
So I was really happy to see the $25.
It looked like a big part of that, though, was increasing revenues, wasn't it?
Probably an interest.
You're going to see a shift between this tonight and this time next week.
You're going to see tax revenues go up because of that value increase,
but you're going to see state funding go down.
The bottom line won't change much, if anything, based on that,
but you are going to see a shift in that because, again,
we just got that information Friday.
And all those districts that have adopted are going to have to amend their budgets
unless their estimates that they received in April were spot on.
and boy I'd like to have that luxury but the state one way to death sir was
reduced was the state program revenues is neck gone up from from a man in May
yes sir to help with the deficit what happened is on the homestead exemption
T.E.A. adopted a rule that made our, the fact that our homestead, we're losing revenue as
a district because of that increase in the homestead and the new rules that came out
in the latter part of June are taking effect and that helps our state revenue by about
$3 million.
Is that right, Mr. Adams?
It's about $3 million.
Okay.
That was a, hey, something to celebrate when we found out about that in late June.
Okay.
Okay, and we've heard before that you expect that at the end of this year,
that instead of having like a $7 or $8 million deficit,
that it was very likely that we would break even or maybe a little positive.
So therefore, the fund balance beginning for next year will be better
and should end better than what we're projecting here.
Is the $10 million in property value audit, it's not counted anywhere, correct?
No, sir.
Okay, so that could be another positive for next year or this year.
Or this year.
So, again, we've talked about it this afternoon,
and I stand firm on the fact that when it's all said and done,
I think we're going to break even or add just a little bit to fund balance,
being conservative.
Okay, that's conservative.
If that property value audit comes in this year,
you're going to add to fund balance over $10 million.
So it could be that we're maybe possibly $20 million better than what we have here in fund
balance, in cumulative.
Yes, sir.
One year plus the other $10 million, so we may be $20 million better.
Okay.
Questions?
Yes.
May I ask a question?
Ms. Champagne?
So, being on the Finance Committee, I appreciate the information that we got, but you've mentioned the 1% for the disaster.
But could you please, I mean, I've heard what you've said about that to me and to us, but could you explain for the public to hear what that would mean?
I believe it's tax code 2608A or something.
or B, says that in the wake of a disaster
where the governor has declared a disaster
and you have expenses associated with that disaster,
that you are able to set your rate for one year
to absorb those expenses in order to pay for that.
So one penny generates about $5.1 million in taxes.
You'll get a little bit of state funds out of that, but not much.
So about $5.1 million in taxes for one penny to cover the expenses.
Two pennies would be $10 million.
So we could do one or two?
You could do with whatever appetite you had and whatever expenses that we had.
But we had been shut down and lost several days of instruction.
Staff was paid, lost several days of instruction, and have significant expenses.
Maybe not $5 million off of either one, but when you add up those expenses over time,
it's significant to justify to the taxpayers, like me, to be able to say,
hey, this is one way to absorb that expense.
Because in a time where we're on static income, that's just a hit to the bottom line.
And the only way to get off through that is to somehow reduce expenses
or not give a salary increase like y'all did or to go to the other mechanism,
which is control your revenue, but you can't.
It's only one time.
It would only be able to be done once.
The tax rate would go back to normal once the disaster pennies were used.
You mean once forever?
Yes.
You would do it like if you want one penny,
you would have to lower that penny the next year.
So what would be the process for us to have that considered for us to vote on?
The process would be when, if we were going to do, let's just hypothetically say it was two pennies,
then we would publish whatever TEA is going to calculate us on Friday plus two pennies.
And then we would run that in the paper.
And then if y'all were going to, the board wanted to do that, in September we would adopt that rate.
If the board chose not to do that, and over time said, you know, I really don't want to do it, as long as we're lowering what we published, we're okay.
So we could adopt the regular rate, and we published that we were going to increase it by two pennies, but we decided not to.
We would be okay.
If we were going to publish it, what TA is going to come up with on Friday, and then you chose to do that, we would have to republish that, which is something we could do.
and we'd have to have here me and not in August but again probably in September
go through the whole everything I'm going to do in August and then you would
probably have to adopt the rate in October which we okay so we need a vote
on that today or I mean to have it so we can have it and the next in August or I
just I just need I guess started Gorski I just need some some guidance on what
what I need to publish.
But the board would have to give consent
for you to publish that.
So, in effect, we do have to decide.
But again, that decision is something
that you could back off on.
We know it's not final,
but we still have to give you authority
to publish whatever.
Yes, sir.
Let me ask you this.
What exactly is the damage or the loss, if you will?
Do you have that quantified?
I don't have that quantified. I can get that quantified easily because we've had three of them.
We've had the freeze this year. We've had the freeze in January where we missed instructional days and had expenses associated with leaks.
We had the storm in May, and then we had barrel, all of which, well, barrel didn't cost us instructional days, but it cost a lot of staff time.
It put us behind, for example, in my department because we lost those days of work that we really, frankly, needed because we get a lot of hay grown over the summer.
Is there any damage that is not covered by insurance?
In other words, what was under our deductible, for example?
It's all under our deductible.
Nothing's going to be covered by insurance.
There's nothing that's substantial enough to be covered by FEMA.
because our premiums, our deductibles on our insurances are so high,
especially on windstorms.
And then FEMA, the claims that we have, I don't want to sound,
but they're not significant enough to make a FEMA claim.
Because if you do, for example, let's say you had $200,000 expense
at one of our campuses for a tree falling under the roof.
I don't know.
I'm just thinking of that as an example.
Once you've filed a FEMA claim on it, if the next year a tornado blew that building down, guess what?
There's no fee. It's no longer eligible for FEMA assistance.
Right, but we don't book that deductible. We don't assume it gets used in our budget.
We do not budget for deductibles.
If we have to make a deductible or have an expense enough, we'll amend the budget like we did, I think, in July or in June.
We amended the budget for those expenses associated with the freeze.
I think a little bit of the rub with me a bit is that the state has the money for public education,
and they haven't given it to us.
And we need that for public education.
We need that money.
They have it there, and they haven't given it to us.
But now with this, what they're asking us to do, really, it's not like a gift.
It's like they're not giving us any money.
They want us to raise taxes and get it out of our taxpayers again in order to cover these expenses
when they have the money sitting there that they could give to the district.
And all these districts are running deficits.
That's kind of what runs me the wrong way about this whole deal.
even though it's like it's like a temptation it's like you know just
because we can do it should we do it that's kind of what I think that was
well summarized with the quandary that we're in yeah that all of us are in mr.
president's man I hadn't finished what I was saying I'm sorry okay I'm sorry just
because I wanted to finish with what my line of thinking so we have to publish
this on August 8th so that means if we want to do this we need to decide to
tonight because we're not going to meet again you don't need to decide you just
I just need direction because again it's nothing that is going to be held again
you have the flexibility if you add in a penny or two you have the flexibility to
add that now and then go lower how do we get how do we tell you that we want to
do that who tells you dr proborsky tells you i mean who tells you we don't vote on it you don't
vote on it i just it well it's in it's in we're voting on the form but it has a blank and we have
to put a number in that blank what you need huh it's just it's just a discussion and then we give
direction to the superintendent that's what we do as a board right it's not a it's not not an actual
vote. It's a discussion because it's not a finite decision. The finite decision doesn't come until
we adopt the budget, which we can change that down. We just cannot change it higher. It's just
the notification that we're agreeing to. It's in the consent agenda, 7.4. No, wait, sorry.
7.3. Mr. President, can I ask a question? Mr. Smith, can I ask you a question? Sure.
Sure.
So how does the disaster penny affect the state's portion of the 6160, the student allotment?
It doesn't affect the student allotment.
It will not affect that at all.
There is on those, getting into the weeds here,
we will get a little bit of state aid from our copper pennies.
Again, we have 11 enrichment pennies.
Eight of those are golden.
Three of those are copper.
copper.
Anything, if we added a penny, we're going to have four copper pennies.
So we'll get a little bit of state funds for those, but nothing like we were able to get
after Harvey, because then we were adopting a golden penny and we got more state revenue
than we could generate in taxes.
And Mr. Hines just corrected me and it's $6.1 million per penny, not 5.1, I'm sorry.
Mr. President, so I just want to, I want this for my own clarification, I guess, because everybody else seems to understand it better than I do.
But on 7.3, we're voting for that document to be posted on August 8th.
Yes.
So we don't need to, we're just, what are we agreeing to with that?
When you're voting for that, you're voting that we're going to have that meeting on that day, and you're giving the superintendent and myself the authority to fill that document out.
I'm going to lean on Mr. Hines and Kayla Smith on that.
and we have we have our tax firm that will help us with that to make sure we've
dotted all our T's and our eyes and crossed all our T's correctly on that
because that is a legal document y'all are giving me the authority to do all
that truth in taxation stuff the final piece of that is this notice again if
If it's a penny because of disaster, we can back off of it,
or if that's the basic direction I get.
It's not a decision by the board tonight.
Right.
Dr. Gorgorski and I have to move forward.
I think we're still going to have to vote,
because how else do you get direction?
I'm just going to take a, like, again, give you a little hint.
like what to put in there the board needs to give you direction so i guess we need to finish our
discussion and have everybody share uh what their thoughts are okay i think that would be good
everybody uh mr president i have a few questions for about the presentation if i may miss fox go
ahead i'm sorry mr kuzella was ahead of me okay okay so i just wrote down some notes as you were
talking an ad in the paper is still the best way in this day and time mr smith and add in the paper
how many papers we have so many papers like it's a requirement by law by tax code that we add and
if there's specific requirements on the font size and the size of the ad etc etc it's expensive
right for the 20 people who still take a printed paper yes and it will also publish that that same
document on our website in fact if you went to the website now you would see
the one that we published a year ago we keep that up on the website for
transparency reasons but it'll be on our website as well right and email and all
the things okay so I also wanted to talk about page six if we could that
favorable changes and unfavorable changes have a couple of questions here
I'm almost there okay so when this says stagnant state revenue that's to us the
state revenue is not stagnant it's continuing to grow is that correct like
Texas is doing great in its revenue right continuing to I think we're we we
were tenth largest in the world and now we're no seventh or something like that
like the state of texas is doing good but this stagnant one is we haven't gotten a penny of
increase from that 60 6 160 has been stagnant i just wanted to make sure we were and that is the
the main fuel for how schools are funded we're all funded at that level student allotment okay
that's still stagnant so in saying that the state has i hear four billion i hear six billion however
however many it starts with a B, money that it did not release to us from the last legislative session.
$4.5 billion, yes.
$4.5 billion.
They are going to meet again in January to May is their next legislative session.
So now that the voucher thing seems to be a go-ahead with what they want to do,
what do you anticipate?
I'm just asking your crystal ball over there.
Will they give us the $4.5 billion, distribute that to the school districts because it's already there and they're holding it for us and maybe give us that and the interest they've gotten?
And then will they give us more money?
Or are they just going to give us the $4.5 and say, oh, here you go?
Like that's a gift when really that's that session and now the extra income that has come to the state.
Do you expect them to be generous with us in that regard too?
I won't say the legislator's name, but I will say that I personally heard him say that that's off the table, that that's currently in their budget, but it's not going to be in the budget at the start of next year. It goes away.
So public education will have to fight for that $4.5 billion plus anything else that is needed, but it is off the table because it goes away. I was told that.
So the $4.5 billion that they had for us and didn't give us could have earned all of that interest, and then the new allotment, but it's all start over.
We got to start from square one for the kids of the state, yes.
And I heard a legislator say that because we resisted the voucher ESA, whatever, it's like they might not be as kind next time is what one said to me.
We'll see how that goes.
Okay, so the health insurance unfavorable change, I just want to clarify this because as we talked about the...
and sent teacher whatever payment we did, longevity or step increase or whatever that was we just did.
The feedback I got over and over and over was,
I'd do okay without the one-time lump sum if you could just help us with insurance costs.
And so we hear that all the time.
We know that's a thing.
We talk about it incessantly with Mr. Nauman.
But when you say that the district already covers $6 million to $8 million to cover the losses,
in order that the insurance doesn't go up
and that $6 to $8 million gets shared with everyone participating.
I just wanted to make that.
Yes, I think that's a good point, and I'll reiterate that.
Thank you.
I don't know the exact number,
but it's been well over $20 million that this district has put in.
In addition to the $385 a month this district contributes to everybody who participates,
and then they have to, based on how they participate.
pay but that's not enough because uh so those premiums haven't increased but instead of
increasing our 385 we hope mr nom and i you know we we go to and and say our prayers that we'll
we'll improve and and when it doesn't we use underspending and we expense it just like
and basically over 20 million dollars over the last several years this district has put towards
towards that in lieu of increasing or keeping the premiums that those of us who participate
in the plan have to pay.
Had it not been for that, we would be paying significantly more increases in premiums and
that's what's happening in TRS active care.
They're not covering that at the state level like this district is and so those, again,
depending on where those people live, they're looking at 10 to 20% increases in premiums
and we're not going to see that because we've been adding more.
It's just not up front.
It's at the back end when we see how much the general fund kicks in that to keep it solvent.
Because we're self-insured, we cover those big losses that people during COVID didn't get the attention they needed,
and those losses have been more significant.
So, okay, I just really wanted to highlight that again because it's been such a conversation point in the last couple of weeks that our insurance is high, as is for every person who pays for insurance, whatever industry, and we're doing a lot to help that people can't see.
You can't see it, but it is out there in excess of 20 million dollars. I don't know the number
But I think since we're gonna be talking about this subject. I will have a number that mr. Nauman will deliver to y'all
Next month. Thank you
Questions
Mr. President, it's good. I just have a couple of I think simple questions on
the 22 million dollar underspending on slide 19
19. Wasn't that is that the same number as last year that happened?
It's 2%.
It's 2%. So.
And we budget that every year and have been for the last 15 years because we have under
spending and so from the budgeted off the staffing plan and everything.
thing. Ms. Rios will take 2% and take that off of every function. Not every function. Some are not
subject to underspending. And then we end up underspending more than the 2%. And that goes
back to when somebody leaves the district or leaves their position, we don't replace them
the next day. We replace them with a long-term sub or it takes time to post the position by law.
We have to post by ten days and as big as we are that adds up to significant dollars over the course of a year
just by just by
just normal staff turnover and that that's not a
That happens in every district we we have been budgeting
2% underspending and to avoid big deficits that that never really are real deficits
We just said hey, we're having underspending
will take two percent off and it's been another percent or percent and a half sometimes two percent
on on top of that okay okay so that so that's a normal i just trying to make sure i'm seeing this
correctly yeah because i remember that same rough amount last year yes correct okay um and then just
just i have to ask this again and uh bear with me but i think if any public were looking they
they might have the same question on slide eight the teacher numbers this
might be more mr. shush but we're opening two elementaries and a high
school in a junior high correct yeah right I'm sorry high school a junior
right next year okay sorry I was just curious I'm looking at what happened
this year we had 426 teachers compared to non-teacher growth of 298 for two
elementaries and then next year we're opening a high school in a junior high
and the numbers are so wonky compared to the two elementaries that goes back to
the static revenue we tried to bring you a budget that was palatable and
unfortunately it's you know again that's a net number so you're seeing what it
cost to open that high school it's in there it's just netted out by other positions that
that that are not not being filled but it's also just correct me if i'm wrong it's because of the
nature of a high school in a junior high correct and we're only opening two grades or would that
also explain the numbers here of teacher to non-teacher um yeah the teacher and non-teacher
yes that is it because the the uh the non-teacher you know that's all the custodians the food
food service people, everybody associated with that campus that's fixed.
And so you have to have those.
And then, again, the teacher growth is net of every other change throughout this big district that it would be, again,
but we're going to open Freeman High School the same way we opened Jordan High School and Pato and Tompkins, et cetera.
same staffing formulas that we use right it's not a full staff for the first full staff so
I'm gonna make that it'll grow that staff will grow to add the 11th grade you'll be hearing
about that this time next year and then again for that that fourth year or they had the 12th
grade we'll add to that okay thank you look other questions comments mr. president so I'm gonna go
back to the one cent thing are we supposed to discuss that or no i think everybody should give
their view on what they think we should do i've kind of given my view in the sense that i have an
issue with raising taxes on on people especially in this environment this inflationary environment
and the money is sitting there that the that we need that you know we're being we're being told
raise taxes but they're not giving us the money that people have already paid
into the state and we need to advocate to get that money back to get that money
and fund public ed you know in January and you know we that's that's what we
have to focus on and I don't really have an appetite for increasing taxes mr.
president I'm sorry miss Timmy yeah I would agree with you I don't have an
an appetite to raise taxes on our constituents when we're, especially in the inflationary
period and considering they've already paid it.
Mr. President, I agree with you.
Mr. President, so what will we, where will we get the money?
If so, the my understanding is that we could say one penny more post post it with the one penny.
Then as we come around and we see our exact numbers, which aren't even quite ready yet, you'll have all of that.
And as we see in time for when would this final decision need to be made?
The adopted budget is when it's next month.
at the meeting but again might be able to go down at that point would we have
any more information that would make you think that we might not need it like
because what you're saying I agree with I hundred percent agree with you the
state has the money and now they're saying you guys can raise taxes to get
that money and pay for it but they have money they haven't given us they have
interest for two years on that money that they haven't given us yeah and
they're letting us oh you guys can raise taxes I don't like it either but not
not doing it doesn't mean they're going to give it to us. We're just going to take from
our fund balance to pay for that when we'd rather have, and it's a one year, it's a one
year, one penny, and then it would go away to pay for the damages. So.
I don't even know what the damage is or what the number is that we need.
I understand. So that's, just because we're mad at the state doesn't mean we're going
going to get that money it means we're going to pay for it out of our cash so I
don't I don't know what that does and I and I and I think that I'm sorry yeah
and and I think that given our financial management very adept financial
management and the fact that our fund balance is strong still and it looks
like it's going to be stronger than we're seeing in these numbers but I
But I think it's fortunately in KDISD we have that luxury because of the way we built up
fund balance and the financial management that we have, that we're fortunate to have,
that we don't need at this time in a difficult environment to raise taxes.
Even though it's tempting, it's tempting to do so, but just because we can do it doesn't
me we should mr president i would also like to recognize all the people that helped reduce the
bucket but the budget that put us help keep us in the position that we are financially very strong
because that took a lot of work the financial team the campus principals district-wide so
i wanted to recognize them as well and their contributions to our financial standing being
so strong as well and just say thank you mr president i i so on that i wanted to recognize
the financial team because they run the transparency star designation in traditional
finance from tech the texas comptroller and that rewards entities striving for greater government
transparency so you know i really appreciate that because you do you know i've watched the clock you
spend an hour going over this with us and and everything's on the website and obviously that
comes not that's not just a school district this has all entities in texas so you were in
competition with all kinds of companies so i really wanted to make sure that the public knew
how great y'all were thank you thank you for that and and and we're we're proud of that recognition
and I think we go above and beyond the minimum requirements to earn that.
We're doing the best we can through Dr. Gagorski and my staff
to put as much as we can out there that people can maybe make sense of.
But I also would like to say I'm not really in favor of raising taxes either.
I don't think people would like that very much right now.
Mr. President, in general, I usually like flexibility when it comes to being able to make a decision, but I do think.
Publishing it at the floor rate.
Especially taken into consideration failure the a couple of years ago. I do think it's.
Probably best to just publish it at 4, 8 and move forward.
I think it sounds like you've gotten your guidance. I concur. I concur. Okay.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Okay, I guess I need to read the script.
Okay, now we have a progress report
on the Student Attendance Incentive Initiative.
The presenter is Jamie Hines,
Assistant Superintendent of Finance.
Ronnie Edwards, Assistant Superintendent
for School Leadership and Support.
Welcome, good to have you.
Good evening, good evening President Perez, Board Members and Dr. Gorgorski.
Mr. Heinz and myself are excited to come before you today and share the exciting
news regarding the student attendance incentive plan that was implemented in
the 23-24 school year. I will start, I'll kick us off with just a brief overview
because it's been over a year since you, we came before you and kind of talked
about the plan. The the student attendance incentive plan benefits
benefits students by encouraging students to attend school and provides incentives to
campuses who raise their average daily attendance during the 23-24 school year.
Campuses who increase their ADA for the first and second semester received additional funds
distributed into their campus budget to support student attendance, engagement, and academic
success.
Campuses were able to provide incentives at the campus grade level and classroom level.
level, these incentives allowed campuses to encourage and support improved student attendance
and academic success throughout the school year.
The district-wide initiative was branded Attend Today, Achieve Tomorrow.
Campuses utilized this messaging in their campus newsletters, marquees, and campus announcements
to highlight the impact of regular attendance on student achievement.
achievement.
Campus utilized a variety of strategies to encourage improved student attendance as well
as improve, as well as to provide incentives for students, classrooms, and their entire
campus.
Just a few of the strategies that campuses use were increased student and parent communication,
rewards for students with improved attendance such as, you see some pictures up there, but
recess and popsicles, drawings for prizes provided by business partners, pep rallies,
home home room celebrations, and many more. During the during the school year
campuses received their historical ADA data each six weeks in order that they
would be able to see their ADA percentage for the same period during
the previous year. Incentives were awarded per semester based on improved
approved ADA over the previous year. Incentives required an overall increase in the district's
ADA percentage. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Hines for
more details as well as issues results of the incentive plan.
Thank you very much. So it was really a team effort from the perspective of
of the campuses, the parents, the students,
and our departments who all pitched in,
including our technology department,
specifically Mr. Kreider's data team
who built some tools where the campuses
were able to actually go in and see their day over,
day in and day out ADA and how it was changing.
So they were able to keep up with that.
And we also have our chronic absenteeism and truancy
system which is called rawi and mr. Edwards worked with that company they
actually customized it specifically for our district's attendance incentive plan
so there were a lot of different things that went into trying to provide the
campuses the tools they needed to do the things that they needed to do and the
results really speak for themselves you can see our goal was a half percent
increase you may remember from about a year ago when we talked about that which
which I really was, that's kind of the dream goal
to get to that point.
And the district blew that away by 20%,
hitting 0.6% as the actual increase
in the district's ADA percentage this past year.
That is equivalent to more than 570 students
being on, additional students being on campus
every single day.
The incentive distribution for that
to the campuses for the entire year
was $2.2 million.
million dollars and obviously we all spoke about this this was not to to
improve the district's financial position but it was really put in place
to get kids in class and and to help them learn but there there was a side
benefit to the district and that's that our revenue increased by 4.7 over 4.7
million dollars. The Attend Today Achieve Tomorrow initiative has been just I feel
like a great success so thank you very much for allowing us to kind of move
forward and allowing the campuses to thrive and we plan to put it in place
for next year and hopefully we'll have the same results for you. Thank you I just
just want to add, I just want to say congratulations. And this has been great
teamwork because I know you had to involve a lot of people, principals,
district people, like a great initiative. So really compliment you on that and by
the way you have the best PowerPoint graphics and all that that I've seen in
in a while.
Mr. President.
Any questions or comments?
May I, Mr. President?
Ms. Teamee?
I just wanted to say thank you,
and I think the board and our public should know
that your program with the ADA has been so successful
that you've presented it to other interested districts.
So thank you for being innovative,
and thank you for organizing it in a way that it worked,
and for sharing that and leading.
That's awesome.
You make Katie so proud, really.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
I will just echo what Mrs. Timmy said,
that an article about this program specifically
is featured in the Texas Lone Star magazine,
published by TASB,
and they send it to 100,000.
Hold on.
They send it to 10,500 board members,
and there are three featured articles in there,
and you're one of them,
and to inspire other districts to do it,
and I was at a meeting this past weekend
because I'm on their board of directors,
and everyone was talking about it,
and how did you do that,
and how much benefit did you see from it,
and the innovation and the results,
and the fact that the money goes right back to the campuses,
back to students, and there is no substitute
for students and teachers face-to-face,
and 570 more were consistent.
So I appreciate that.
And shout out to whoever took that picture
that's on that screen right there.
It probably was Ray.
Is that Ray?
Yes, that's one of my favorite photos.
I have one question, which is,
did you find which campuses were more successful?
Was it elementary that kind of love a theme like that when you had the 570?
Was it more elementary?
Were there some campuses that had big increases or how'd that go?
The largest increases were actually at the secondary level.
So yeah, it was surprisingly, on average, now that doesn't mean that every individual
one, but on average, the larger increases were there.
where overwhelmingly almost every single campus, at least at some point during the year,
received some sort of an incentive.
And at the secondary level, every single campus, every junior high and every high school,
did receive some sort of an incentive.
Any other questions or comments?
Mr. President, I'd like to say something.
Ms. Champagne?
So I also would like to commend you on this,
because there's such little ways that we can do anything to help our budget,
it and this is you thought of that so i too when i was at summer leadership training and and with
taz being san antonio was asked about how that how do we do it and i've told them about you know and
i think so to to to just piggyback off of that i would like to know is this something that you're
you already share you're willing to share with other districts and also these ideas are they
shared between the schools, you know, the principals and things.
I know there's principal meetings and things like that.
I don't know if they're all sharing ideas with each other.
Sure.
And, you know, I'll just add that I appreciate the kind words that you're saying.
But from someone who's actually watched the incentive plan, the work that takes place
is on that ground level on the campus.
And it takes a tremendous amount of work to make this work on a campus from our attendance
to our attendance clerks, to our APs, to our teachers,
students and parents involved.
So it's the thing that I have seen is sharing among campuses.
They are trying to help other campuses improve
because the more our attendance improves,
the more our student outcomes are gonna improve.
And certainly a byproduct of that is a success.
Yes, we have shared it with,
I know we have shared it with TASB and TASBO
as well as our raw user group with a group nationwide
that we work with. So I think everyone is focused on that, you know, around the
around the country and around Texas and and we're just trying to do our part to
move our district forward. Our principals and leaders are trying to do
that. I'm gonna answer the first part of that because they're gonna be humble
about it, but the Texas Association of School Business Officials conference
that was in Houston, these two presented on that and actually Mr. Crider from
from technology, presented this.
And it was the most popular session I went to.
And I was just sitting in the back,
pretty proud that I was part of this district
to listen to these three.
And after the session was over for at least 30 minutes,
maybe longer, people were coming up
and asking and excited about it.
Then from that, spawned off over the summer back in June,
Mr. Hines presented to the Texas Association of School Business Officials Center for School Finance,
which had probably 150 people there, 100, and they loved it.
And we're asking questions.
We've sent several emails to districts sharing our presentations and our formulas.
So, again, they're not going to brag on that.
I wanted to brag on that part for them.
It's been very popular from Texas Association of School Business Officials,
and I'm glad to hear you folks hearing it from your level too.
Thank you so much.
Any other questions or comments?
Just one question, and certainly kudos to you.
I love this.
I think it's great.
I just want to clarify on the slide six,
the 2019-2020 6-6 weeks is recording 100% attendance.
I'm sure that's an anomaly based because of COVID or what was that?
Because all the other years are not there.
So just I want to make sure you can explain that.
Yes.
In the 2019-20 school year, we were held harmless for loss of average daily attendance because we stopped the school year basically in April.
And we wrote off of that what we had had through those first several six weeks.
And then the remaining 2021 year is probably where it's at 100%.
And that is because we were held harmless on that because it was so dismal across the state.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
If anyone was looking at that, they should ask.
Thank you.
Well, thank you very much.
Thanks for the presentation.
And, again, congratulations.
And thank you for all the hard work.
We move on to 6.3 now, which is presentation on the Board Academic Quarterly Report, and
our presenter is Dr. Christine Kasky, Chief Academic Officer.
All right.
Making sure he's getting his vote.
You good?
I'll go ahead and get started.
Good evening, President Perez, Board members, and Dr. Gorski.
I'm here this evening to provide the board with an update on our academic topics as we
transition into the 2024-2025 school year.
On this slide, you will see a schedule of academic reports and data that will be provided
to the board on a quarterly basis throughout this upcoming school year.
In your board document, you received a link to the July update.
We've referred to this as our one pager, which we created last year.
And in that one pager, or the July update, that also included our district assessment
summative reports, dual credit enrollments, special education program enrollments, House
Bill 3 progress measures, an academic focus update, as well as a spotlight on our summer
programs.
This evening, I'm going to share information and updates on our summer preparations, implementation
implementation plans for year two of our elementary literacy program, new science instructional
resources, the restructured instructional coaching model, and our academic focus on
math for the 2024-2025 school year.
The summer is a busy time for our teaching and learning team as we train and we prepare
our new and returning teachers for the upcoming school year.
To date, we have hired close to 850 teachers, including first-year and new-to-KDISD teachers.
Staff have delivered close to 2,000 training sessions with over 20,000 attendees.
Of course, those are duplicated accounts of our teachers.
And we've seen a great – we've seen greater numbers of teachers in attendance during our
summer trainings with the implementation of the Flex Days as an incentive for teachers
to attend during the summer.
Well, we offer a myriad of topics.
Two key initiatives this past summer have been a focus on our class one-to-one initiative
and implementing and making sure that our teachers are trained up and ready to go on
day one, as well as our new science instructional materials that you adopted last spring.
Just as our teachers are busy learning during the summer, our students are busy as well.
We had over 14,000 students in grades pre-K through 12 enrolled in KSAT.
We had close to 800 students in our Special Education Extended School Year, or ESY, summer program.
Students also attended summer enrichment programs and camps in the areas of fine arts, gifted and talented.
Students attended programs at the Outdoor Learning Center and our STEAM Center, as well as our strength and conditioning camps.
This is where she had me. I'm going to flip and then flip back.
You may recall from the spring literacy update that we were conducting a survey as a part of our literacy plan to help guide the year two implementation strategies.
Based on the survey analysis, three themes have emerged as recommended focal points for the upcoming school year.
year. These included increasing student interest and engagement with the materials, focusing on how to better support distinct student populations, including special education, emergent bilingual and our GT students, as well as prioritizing the many tools and the many resources that are included with our HMH literacy program to determine which of those best meet our student needs and to enhance our student learning outcomes.
While we're pleased so far with the student learning results, we believe that year two
will provide more time for our teachers to better identify and then hone in on those
resources to best meet the needs of their students now that they have the familiarity
with implementing the program throughout year one.
And they'll be better able to make some of those strategic moves and decisions within
their classroom.
The curriculum and instruction science teams have been busy over the past couple of years working with instructional coaches and teachers.
to adjust and rewrite our unit plans to be in alignment with the new science teks that are
being taught this current school year the board adopted new science materials last spring and
teachers have been in summer trainings to ensure that they have that they are ready to start the
new year with these new resources that are in alignment with those new state standards
both elementary and secondary curriculum and instruction will be facilitating science will
will be facilitating summer, a lot of S's here,
will be facilitating science summits and institutes throughout the school year
to facilitate that ongoing training and support with these new resources.
This summer, we also launched the IC, our Instructional Coaching Institute,
to reset our instructional coaching model.
The new model shifts from a content-centered approach to a pedagogy approach
where coaches will work very closely with their building principals
principals to review campus data to set those instructional goals or could be behavioral
goals, classroom management goals, and to develop action plans to achieve those agreed
upon goals.
We've established here, as you can see, quarterly roles and responsibilities for not only our
coaches and our principals, but also our curriculum and instruction support teams to closely monitor
and align for systematic support and implementation of this new coaching model that is aimed at
improving our student success based again on those individual campus goals. Last week we had our
principals here with our instructional coaches to begin establishing their partnership agreements
about how they're going to accomplish those goals on each of their campuses. So right now they're in
the middle of working on those particular goals and establishing those together.
A review of our preliminary STAR data indicates a need to focus on mathematics
mathematics, not only in Katy, but statewide across the state of Texas. As you may recall
from my update on House Bill 1605, this bill authorized the State Board of Education
to call for instructional material submissions annually based on the State Board of Education's
prioritization of instructional materials. The 2024 Instructional Materials Review and Adoption,
which is known as the IMRA you might recall that term I used before the IMRA cycle is currently
taking place this summer with the with review panels appointed by the state board of education
who are studying the k through 12 math resources in alignment to teaks and also in alignment to
that state board of education the quality rubrics that they've developed it is anticipated that the
state board of education will approve these materials in November and the IMRA reports
will be available to local districts to start looking at those materials in December.
I also want to point out that the fall activities that are posted on the IMRA timeline, which is
outlined in the TEA website, have been marked as tentative on their website, and so this timeline
may shift and change. In addition, the State Board of Education has initiated a work group to review
advanced math junior high TEKS, which is a factor that we're going to closely monitor and watch
because if any shifts are made to that junior high advanced math sequence,
that's also obviously going to have implications at the elementary level
and then at the high school level as well.
So something to be mindful of, and I wanted you to be aware of that as well.
Math instruction is also included under Goal 2 of our district strategic plan,
and our team is going to be working on fleshing out those action plans
and executing those action plans.
This is a two-year goal as we look at mathematics in light of our strategic plan.
So lastly, as we're looking ahead, in August, our team is going to be back here presenting state accountability.
Those results are slated to come in mid-August.
In September, you are going to receive our recommended House Bill 3 goals that you must approve.
And also, the district and the campus performance objectives will be coming to you in September.
then in October we'll be bringing forward our annual bilingual waiver.
So that's just a glance at what's to come.
I know that was a very quick overview of a lot of dense and in-depth material,
but I'm here to respond to any questions that you may have
or get you any additional information that you may need.
Trustees, questions, comments?
Mr. President.
Ms. Tehme.
Thank you for putting this together.
On slide number eight, on the literacy survey results,
Did you hear anything or did y'all decide to make any changes with the research paper component in the kindergarten?
Grade level. Yes, and I'm looking for right now. Okay, I'm gonna try bells gonna come up here and save me
But I found it. I found it. I found it
Yes
So when we looked at the that research teak and right now the Hanover's the company that conducted the survey
There are tons of open-ended comments and so they're working to call all those together
However, we did receive input that the exemplar that was utilized in the HMH
Materials was too challenging
So we have gone forward and we've added some additional guidance for teachers on that particular teak and we've added additional exemplars
So yes, we've addressed that. Thank you so much for addressing that. I appreciate that and then can I just tell you
I'm really excited about math coming up. Yeah, good. We are too
And I'm really encouraged that y'all are realizing, I mean, you've already forethought that if junior high changes, that really does change high school and elementary.
It does.
It does.
And the state has not revised the math TEKS either.
So that's another piece.
We just need to be cognizant of moving forward, looking at new materials when we don't have new TEKS.
So there's a brick that Emra process is brand new as we're moving into really studying that and analyzing it and seeing what's best for our
District what's best for our students? How are you feeling about it so far?
Well, not I will tell you not many of the big publishers have submitted for k12 mathematics. It's a very small list really
But they can submit annually. Yeah
Yeah.
Okay.
Sure.
I had a question on that point.
So are you talking about the publishers of the high quality instructional materials?
They all have to be.
So now we have the State Board of Education rubric, so they must meet that rubric, which
means that if they submit, they must be deemed high quality.
So that's what these groups are doing right now.
They're going through, they're comparing those resources to that rubric to vet them, if you
will to determine if they actually go on the state list if they are published on the state list they
must be high quality instructional materials and they had to marry those up with the teaks right
that's correct yes sir 100 percent alignment because you know i would think that that these
vendors would just kind of trip over themselves the timeline was very short for vendors to submit
this go around i mean this is like this is like gold for them right texas doing this and we're
We're all moving into a new process, and it did happen very, very quickly, to be honest.
Are you optimistic that the SPOE will get it together by November with the TEKS and everything?
Well, there are no new TEKS, so now they're looking for alignment with the TEKS and those materials.
They evaluate vis-a-vis the TEKS.
The TEKS have not been revised, so it's the same TEKS.
But you have to compare what they're offering, the high-quality instructional materials, to the TEKS, right?
That's correct.
they comply.
100%.
But do you anticipate that they're going to be able to get it together?
It's tentative on their website.
We're going to keep monitoring it.
Okay.
But we will be, whatever they release, we are definitely going to review that to see
if there's alignment, to see what's best for KDISD.
Okay.
Could you just refresh me real quick on the open education resources, that part of it,
and how that fits into the high quality instructional materials.
So the open education resources also have to meet the high quality.
Many of those are Texas-owned materials, so the OER list is open.
There are also materials that are on that OER list.
There is a per-people amount that's also associated with the open education resources.
Remember, these are free.
That per-people cost is for us to pay for print materials.
So these are Texas-owned resources.
It's digital.
You use it to print everything.
Correct.
And can't they change it all the time without parental review if it's digital?
You know, like, because you're just putting it out there and then everybody has to print
it.
It still has to be open for, I mean, they have to have that parent transparency piece,
so parents will be able to go in and look and see.
So we'll look if they open education resources as well.
Got it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
As we're talking about that, the thing that's happening with math, we dealt with with literacy, right?
That Texas had an approved curriculum that a lot of people adopted and really liked.
But when our team, our KDSD team looked, they found something much more, much better for our children.
That was not the Texas one.
And yet those resources were still like, is it approved?
Is it approved?
they haven't put the list out yet if they're gonna be this if HMH was going
to make the list and and the Amira maybe I'm not saying that right right so we
were waiting like then to the dump that you know to the last minute so I'm like
you mrs. Timmy I don't know when they'll come up with the math one or if it'll be
right at the last minute but I'm looking forward to the math one too when we did
literacy the next year we're doing science the next year we're doing math
like our teachers can't get a break, but our students are having the best
instruction and the highest level of instruction to get them ready to be
successful. So you know we don't we don't hate that. When we did the HMAH, teachers
felt so supported. I'm glad they gave feedback about about some of the things
they want changed, but we have never made a huge change like this and had so few
few calls about the implementation. So good job, Dr. Bell. Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Bell and her team,
the curriculum team, you know, it was a very well thought out plan, how we have our lab sites,
and we're continuing that same support. We've restructured some of our C&I teams
to be able to absolutely be there hand in hand to help us, especially with our change in coaching
model as well right and so I'm gonna if I may I wrote a few notes so and and
because mr. Redmond and I and doctor and mr. Perez are on the academic team I'm
asking these things because we asked them there and so I'm going to dig a
little bit here this piece is personal you know how much I love our
instructional coaches and like I know the impact that they make having
having witnessed it, having been in meetings with them,
having heard from teachers how much they love that impact.
And so when we have cut that by almost half, I wrote it down.
I trust the design and the model that you have here on a one-pager.
It's impossible for us to know what you're doing,
but you have told us what the model looks like
and how instructional coaches will be able to help teachers without that, like, help you plan in a planning period type of thing.
And so I trust the design and the remodel of that because I trust you all and your vision for that.
I'm hopeful for success.
And I also know that we'll know in a couple of years if we need to bring it back because when it was implemented, we could see the success in numbers.
We could see the scores rising.
And so I trust, I can't wait to see how it's implemented.
And then if we need to bring that back, I'm going to be the one pounding the table to bring it back to make sure that we have this and something else if needed.
So I just want instructional you to know that.
The last thing I wanted to say is we were invited for the very first time to KSAT this summer, like a personal visit.
it and mrs. champagne and I went together and mrs. Cuzela joined us at
one of them we did three and it was so interesting to see everything that was
happening and how boys and girls got everything through the day that they
needed specials all of it and on three different campuses but I'm telling you
that special ed um what's it called ysat yes why yes why oh i i still my heart still thumps hard
when i think about the miracles happening in every classroom sorry and those teachers
loving smart dedicated strong relentless and getting our students
To to learn to be successful to stretch them and to see all of them all of the why sat
Why cap e cap J cap all of the things in one campus was so impactful
Room to room to room there were miracles and those teachers
That's
Miss mr. President
Mr. Champagne?
Ms. I would also like to talk about the ESY program.
I was curious, because I saw it too.
I was curious, is that a state requirement or is that just something our district does?
Ms. Well, it's an IEP.
It's driven by the student's IEP.
If they're going to have significant regression, we feel like they're going to, like during the summertime,
if the students are going to regress on their IEP goals, then they qualify for the . . .
Ms. But is it a state requirement or is it just something . . .
Federal requirement.
A federal requirement.
Yes, ma'am.
So just from what I understand, because that was the first time I realized it, it's a six-week program.
Dr. Coffey can also interject whatever.
It's a six-week program, right?
You do four weeks, and then you're off a week.
This is the way we did it, over 4th of July.
And then they come back for a couple of weeks.
And it's like you said, it's so that they won't lose all the momentum that they've gotten.
and you know it's for our special needs children and so i don't know how long that's been going on
but for whatever reason it's the first year i've realized that we've been going it's a federal
requirement all right so it's it's so awesome and it's free to the children so um i i'm really kind
of surprised only 800 kids did it really because it seems like a great program for kids
Mr. President, can I ask one question?
I know that's a federal requirement.
Is it a fully funded federal requirement?
No.
Are there any?
That's what I was going to say.
But, I mean, do you have an idea of, like, the percentage of what we're funding it and what the…
We'd have to pull the budget on that.
Okay.
Unless you don't know.
ESY?
You're talking specifically ESY?
Or SPED as a whole.
Or SPED as a whole?
Are you talking just the summer special education program?
Yes, yes, yes, just the summer.
We can pull the numbers.
Okay, okay.
Mr. President.
And then I just want to say we enjoyed, we visited Campbell, and it was remarkable,
especially the students that were learning English as a second language.
That was really exciting to see.
And everybody seemed so relaxed.
All the teachers were having fun.
Yes, the teachers seemed to really enjoy it.
that was carry that into August September will be okay thank you very much anybody have a question
uh go ahead just go ahead to get a clarification or just an example of something if we offer it
um or if this is something that we cover in high school I was going through the teaks and
And I noticed it was in subchapter C, high school, and all the way at the bottom under the science.
It's specialized topics in science.
It was adopted in 2021.
It's one credit.
And I thought it was interesting because specialized science is a specialized topic of study which may originate from local or global phenomena, student interest, or teacher specialties.
or theoretical science, citizen science, science investigations, science careers,
specialized disciplines of science, designing innovations, ethics of science, or history of science.
Do we offer anything in this arena?
Good evening.
So we do use that topic or that particular T for some of our dual credit courses
courses that we may need to crosswalk with HCC in terms of some of their science credit
courses that we may need to use like dual credit chemistry.
We use it in a variety of ways.
We do have some topics or courses that don't necessarily are part of the regular science
topics, the core topics, and we may need to use those particular TEKS or that PEMS number.
So we do use that.
Okay, but we don't have like an example of like anything like student or teacher specialties or global or local phenomena or anything that would kind of fit under that?
So I know that and I believe that we did use that course for our dual credit chemistry course that we're offering.
But I can get you specific courses that we've crosswalked that particular course number with, that PEMS number.
I can get you that information.
But if I remember correctly off the top of my head, I do think that we did use that to crosswalk our dual credit chemistry for our teacher education program.
And then if I'm correct, when we're doing dual credit, anything that's with HCC or anything that has to do with College Board, that is not subjected to our policies, correct?
So the content that is taught is the college content.
So College Board, those are college courses, same with HCC.
That's their content.
We do have on our website, our Advanced Academics website,
information that just lets parents know if their children opt in to take our HCC courses
or dual credit courses or AP courses that they are taking college-level courses,
and just kind of a disclaimer so that they are aware that that material is owned
and delivered by people who are either trained or through AP or they are hired
through HCC whether they're the HCC professors or our dual credit embedded
professors here in KDISD. And typically we're talking about kids that are in the
age ranges we'll say like 11th and 12th grade that are going to be taking. Mainly but we do
have some of our AP courses and students really can take dual credit courses
younger than 11th and 12th grade as long as they have met the requirements for HCC.
And so we do have some sophomores that may take AP courses as well. We also have
a ninth grade. Some of our students take human geography in ninth grade as well.
Okay, okay. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Mr. President. Thank you very much. Mr. President, may I circle back with
Dr. Caskey as from the academics committee to make sure that we give a
a full representation of the things we talked about.
If you would look at slide three, if you can get there,
that's that one pager.
And just to make everyone aware
that those little blue words on that,
after each one of these,
these are multi-page reports.
And when you click there,
you get multitude, a mountain of information
under each thing that we can look at at our leisure,
maybe insomnia cure things here but right it's just an incredible amount of
information that we cover in our academic meetings and you bring to us
and then we we convince therefore even pages of analysis into a paragraph and
then let us delve into it and these are available to us at any time on our on
on our board docs thing, and I appreciate that.
And then every time, I always want academics
in board meetings.
I mean, there's nothing more important than what we do,
and so I'm always wanting presentations.
And I know that you don't love it every month.
Look, I told you we were coming back.
I know, I know, and I'm happy for you to come back,
but I'm gonna give you an out if I can ask the president.
Like, there are a lot, so there is no substitute
for a learning walk or for a engaged go to a campus and see something that's happening.
That observation for a trustee is one of the most powerful tools we have. Going to ESY,
going anywhere and seeing. So when you invite me, if it's open on my calendar, I'm coming. So be
sure you really mean that you want me there. And I know that everyone else here is willing to do
that as well. So we love to come to things, but when we can't get to them, like Mr. President,
I think that maybe someone from Miller Career could come and do a presentation because if they come here and do that, it's available to everyone who's watching.
And like our Miller Career program is fabulous for everyone.
And as you're planning for your children to go through, where's where's their bent?
We have something for you wherever your child is, is is geared toward at the Miller Career.
And many times they don't know it until they haven't had the right courses to get to it.
So I'd like to see like a Miller career. Our Raines High School is saving children and creating graduates and making successful adults out of these incredible kids that we don't give up on kids.
And, you know, all of that. I just would love to see our specialized programs that people who don't go to a regular to a traditional campus might see.
So if we could have one of those, maybe if you'd like to do that for the academic piece of each meeting, I'm kind of requesting that.
Thank you.
Those are my recommendations.
Miller and Raines.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for your presentation.
Appreciate it.
We're now going to move on to the full consent agenda.
7. Consent items
And these are items that were discussed and considered at the previous work-study board meeting, as well as items of 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.
And that's according to BE Legal and BE Local.
And I want to remind everybody that we did pull out 7.10 and we already approved that
in connection with the naming of a portion of the facility so it in any
more board members have any questions or discuss one a separate discussion on
consent agenda mr. president I would like to pull 7.1 to please point one to
it's the consider board approval the updates of the board operating
procedures okay mr. president I'd like to pull 7.1 one which is the task be
delegates
mr. president okay I move that the Board of Trustees approves the consent agenda
for item 7.1 through 7.1 3 except for item 7.10 7.11 and 7.12 which has been
been removed from the consent agenda do I have a second second all those in
favor press the button aye
okay the consent agenda passes seven to zero and so the first one that we're
7.11 Consider Board endorsement of Dawn Champagne as delegate and Lance Redmon as alternate delegate to the 2024 Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Delegate Assembly.
going to is i recall 7.11 is that right okay does anyone have any uh questions or discussion on it
7-1-1 i do mr president so as we talked about this last week and it became a broader topic but i do
as the director representing this section of the houston area uh certainly for kdisd i i was at the
Board meeting this weekend where we're planning direction and things like that, and it just kept coming back to me the comments that were said about.
Texas association of school boards that are just just inaccurate and so this is talking about our delegates and I.
I'm coming to the delegate piece, but.
The negativity and the attacks on them are just unfounded.
TASB is not political.
They don't talk politics.
They don't do that.
They're a support system to help over 1,000 school districts work together to help each other.
Networking with other school districts with struggles and successes, we learn from each other.
Just the way that our gentleman presented to different organizations about our attendance initiative, that's what the TASB training does.
They take successes and present them so other school districts can learn.
We network together and learn from each other.
The help they give is endless to us.
Risk management for insurance costs, HR, legal, policies, and the buy board where we buy things in bulk.
So they're the Costco for education.
When we buy over 1,000 school districts together, join in, and pool our resources, we get things at a much more reasonable rate.
So we're saving millions and millions of dollars, and that's what they bring.
The training they give helps us follow the law.
They also help us with new ideas and to be better and to implement new ideas here that we have done and to share our ideas with others.
When there was a statement made that said TASB says their purpose is to create taxpayers is a bit of a stretch.
But a gentleman was called out.
he got a lot of negativity to his boss to himself online attacks about him for
creating taxpayers I was in the room when that happened and what he said was
our goal as education is to create contributing members of society what
What would you, who become taxpayers?
Who become taxpayers?
Because what would you have instead, Mrs. Calhoun?
If you don't want taxpayers, what do you want?
Graduates who are dependent on the government for the rest of their lives?
Because if you have success and children can get a job, they become taxpayers.
The state of Texas is founded on taxpayers.
They are funded by taxpayers.
Education is funded by taxpayers.
taxpayers, what would you have our graduates be if not taxpayers?
Why don't we, Ms. Fox, go ahead.
I just really wanted to ask Mrs. Calhoun because she's disappointed.
You had questions or you had comments.
Why don't you go ahead and make those and they will proceed to vote on the delegate.
I have that question and then I have a motion for the delegate.
Contributing member to society.
The idea is not to engage in a debate here.
The idea is you had some comments you wanted to make about 7-11.
11, go ahead and make the comments.
Feel free to make the comments, and then we'll take a vote, entertain a motion.
I would love to respond to the question about what the –
Yes or no?
Can I have the floor to respond?
Yes, Calhoun.
To describe a child as making good taxpaying citizens, that was a quote.
It was not what you said.
There were three other board members that were in the room.
That is exactly what he said.
There are other ways that I think parents would describe their children.
A contributing member to society, the contributions that you give could be varied.
A taxpaying citizen, that's great.
But what about the other things that you contribute to society?
Like, let's just be honest.
I don't work.
I'm a stay-at-home mom.
So do I not equate into that?
because technically I don't pay taxes, my husband does.
So am I not what TASB wanted?
Did I not meet that bar?
But I contribute.
because I service my time on this board in other ways.
Do you file joint taxes?
Do I not rank because I don't have a job that my taxes are taken out of?
But that's beside the point, because what you asked is a way to describe our children.
Tax-paying citizens is not a way that I would necessarily describe what the goal is.
But a contributing member, an active and contributing member to society, that makes sense to me.
But that's not the language that he used not once not twice, but three times
Multiple times what we want for our graduates is to be contributing members of society
Hopefully when they leave us they can take care of themselves and possibly their family. Thank you
And I agree the item at hand is to consider board endorsement of Don Champagne as delegate
Lance Redmond is alternate delegate the 2024 Texas Association of School Board Delegate Assembly. Mr. President. I have a motion. Mr
Mr. President, I have a motion.
And because this board has a view that TASB is not representing our values,
I move for Mary Ellen Cuzela to be the delegate to the TASB assembly.
Because, Mrs. Cuzela, I believe that you can make a difference.
Do we have a second?
I think you already had a motion.
I mean, we...
You already made a motion.
motion on the floor
do you want to make a comment
a discussion after the motion do we have a second to that motion
if you if we did second it and voted would you go serve and do it
i am unhappy with tasby's mission statement value whatever it is it's a statement of beliefs
there's nine they have you all the directors whatever uh school districts who serve as
delegates in the board on tasby have failed to bring that up as an issue for four years
It's not made it to a vote or as an issue to address for four years.
I don't respect that.
DEI and systemic racism are now actually may have some bipartisan belief
that it's ridiculous and counterproductive
to even think about that,
and to have it still listed as a statement of beliefs
on a bureaucracy that's already huge,
and no one here who's...
You've been associated with TASB for 20 years,
or 20 years, time span,
six years roughly, and nothing's ever addressed.
I don't want to waste time on that.
I have an issue with that.
And I don't need TASB to validate that for me.
I'll leave it at that.
Mrs. Cuzela, when you disagree with diversity,
what would you say to our diverse population of students?
Diversity is fabulous.
okay equity diversity equity inclusion one of the principles of that as an operation
as an operative word is that you are going to make decisions based on skin color
demographics and not on achievement talents that are innate to that individual no matter what race
or skin color they are I never want to operate that way and I don't believe in
systemic racism to have those terms in an organizational statement of belief is
unacceptable to me TASB has a and for 1,000 school districts to sit around and
never address that or to even entertain that is that was at the time extremely
extremely political and divisive talk about divisive uh I think is a shame and I just I
I'm not proud of that I know I realize there's some practical things collective purchasing that
give us a cheap price but I'd love for someone uh to to work on that and give give TASB run for
their money they have they have a monopoly on school boards and school districts um if it
it serves us well, um, perhaps we can discuss that. But to have that as a statement of belief,
I'm not going to, to work with that. I don't understand why that needs to be explained.
So, so she, she's, she's not interested. So I'm going to make a motion. I'm going to make a
motion. Mr. President, does everybody? We can have, we can have discussion. I'm going to make
I move that the Board of Trustees approves Don Champaign as delegate and Lance Redmond as alternate delegate to the 2024 Texas Association of School Boards TASB Delegate Assembly.
Do I have a second?
Second.
Can you make a motion?
Yes, I can make a motion.
So we have a second.
We have a motion and a second.
Do we have any discussion?
Mr. President, I just want to say.
Amy?
I respect your opinion, Ms. Fox.
It's different than mine, but you weren't in the room when the three of us heard the comments.
Excuse me, the four of us heard the comments.
You weren't there.
This was a first year.
Hold on.
This was a first.
Let's stick to discussing the motion.
I want to stick to discussing the motion.
I was in the room when that panel happened.
I was.
Okay.
Do we have any discussion on the motion, which is to approve Don Champagne as delegate
and Lance Redmond as alternate delegate to the TASB delegate assembly,
And we have a second mr. President of the second mr. Perez I
Think Don Champagne will make an excellent delegate and Lance as the alternate delegate my my
nomination for mrs. Cuzela was to try to include her and give her an opportunity to make the changes she wants
There and so it had nothing to do with mrs. Champagne. I fully respect her and trust her to represent us
Well, thank you. I understand that
Ms. Champagne.
MS.
So I just want to understand this, because last week when this was the same exact
wording was on the agenda, but you allowed for much discussion about why we were against
or why certain people were against TASB.
And there was a lot, and I even tried to stop that.
You could watch the video and see me trying to stop the discussion, but you wanted it
to continue on.
So I don't understand why now the same exact thing is on here.
and what I think the only difference is is that your friends wanted to talk
about it and so now when someone else wants to talk about it you do I'm sorry
I'm sorry I want to approve this I want to approve you and mr. Redmond as
delegate and as alternate delegate that's what I would do last week we had
a discussion this week you're not allowing me to discuss it you have any
Do you have any comments on the motion?
So what I'd like to understand really is what the difference is between you allowing, you know,
10 minutes of discussion last week from other people and then when somebody else wants to discuss.
I'm allowing discussion now.
Okay, so then I would like to say something.
So the omission statement.
I've had such a hard time the last two weeks getting you approved for delegate.
Well, then don't let me be delegate.
I would like to at least read this, please.
Please.
The mission statement of TASB is, I understand what Ms. Cuzela says, because that is true.
That is on the, whatever she called it, number nine.
But the mission statement is to promote educational excellence for Texas public schools children
through advocacy, visionary leadership, and high-quality school services to school districts.
So I just want to put that out there, that that's actually the mission statement,
which is more is higher than the nine steps if you were looking at things but
I I wanted to know because y'all y'all addressed last week that that you did not
use TASB to do your training so where did you do your training who did you do
your training with for your you know your school board so you you talked
about that you did not want to go to TASB to get your required school board
training I've done training me I've done training at TASB some last year some
there some online and then some from other sources so what is the other
registered providers what it is there's all kinds of registered providers yeah I
know but as a board member I you know this is public record or should be I
mean you could go look at my record and see all the training I've had and what
where it's from and all that and now somebody's done a PIR to see how much we
spent on it so this is all public information so i'm asking you to please tell me what the
other source was oh so there's one organization called uh t.e.e that has registered providers
but there's other you can go on the ta website i'm asking you i know i could find you okay
where did you specifically get your this year just this year i think so far this year i've used some
to have to be training online and then what about everybody else did y'all i don't know mrs
i i've taken uh out of interest for taxpayer money because there's a cost right every time
we all go off to san antonio or dallas or wherever it is hotel parking time every time we send a
delegate there's a huge cost so i look at cost benefit so i took a a course online that was 40
bucks for TEE TASB online tree did TASB you can do you can do training via the
ta region for the state provides free training on depends on the topic right
but I just want to say you're missing something when you're when you do
something online it's just like anything else when we got it when I do our team
building hopefully we're doing team building with each other and we're
learning from each other and you have an idea I have an idea someone else has an
idea and then we go oh yeah that's a great idea
TASB to me is so much more than just the training that you receive when you
go to one of those conferences I don't know if you've ever been to a conference
in your life last year so but I mean not just with TASB but with anything you
know you you eat lunch with people you meet people from all across the state
you get all kinds of ideas that you cannot get when you're doing an online
course we tried that actually with our when we had kovat and the kids did all
the classes online are the state children failed because there's
something missing with that human element when you're when you go to
something in person yes I would love to respond okay okay point well made right
we go to network right and there's relationship building correct that
happens when we go to a conference so we go to a dinner we have drinks right so
So we talk to people and we share experiences and lessons learned, usually, right?
Correct?
As professionals, though we're not paid.
Fellow state board trustees, right?
But we have 1,000 school districts in the state of Texas, right?
Roughly.
Okay.
And I would say maybe out of those 1,000, perhaps 10 you might call big,
five you might actually call big, right?
Right. So when I go to TASB, when I went, I don't really necessarily no offense to the rural school districts or tiny ones, but I don't need to network with them.
We have different playing fields. Right. We have different problems and challenges.
I would love to see a networking opportunity with five big school districts.
And that would be a lot more bang for my buck and time to learn from.
When I go there, I don't need to sit there and talk to a thousand rural school districts.
If we need a team build, we don't need to pay TASB to do that for us.
We can do that here.
So let me just, can I please say something about that?
So I realize that there's a lot of rural school districts.
That's very kind of interesting, actually, that most of the school districts are very tiny.
But I feel like, personally, that even though they're tiny, they're just like us in so many ways.
their issues are the same as our issues they have the same laws that we have
they've had the same teaks that they have they've had the same 61 60 that we
have they have the same concerns with drug and alcohol and all the things it's
really strange because you're thinking okay this is a small district but their
concerns are actually the same but I'm not going to argue at that point with
you because you said you went and you didn't learn anything from them but I've
learned a lot from them and so I just think I guess I get a different take
from it than you do okay I think let's proceed to vote because what we're doing
is exchanging opinions which is great but let's go ahead and now proceed to
vote if board members please record your vote on the screen via your keypad and
And the motion carries 7-0.
7.12 Consider updates to the Board Operating Procedures.
Was the other item 7-12 of that?
Yes.
Okay.
So this is to consider approval of the updates to the board operating procedures.
Board members, are there any questions or discussion?
Obviously there is, or we wouldn't have pulled it out.
Yes, Mr. President, may I please start?
Go ahead.
Okay, so on page 10, I'm sorry, page 8, number 10,
is the one that you wanted to change from having the three people,
I mean having the two people to go to three people yes and as I said last week
to you when you were new on the board we spent a lot of time going over the board
operating procedures I know that you and I did and we went through line by line
with everything and you and I you know there were you had some opinions on
things and I had opinions on things but there was a lot of things that we
actually agreed with and one of them was about the adding of the work-study
meeting because we used to have a work study meeting and I always wanted it
back and I was so happy to know that you were agreeing with that that you would
love to have that back too but the other thing was changing the from having three
people to having two people and so last week I asked you the question about why
why did you have the change and I never heard the change well let me let me just
I heard your reasoning but let me just follow up with this by saying to me it
just seemed like when um when we wanted to change the committee to add the committee
is when you decided to change that and i also feel like maybe it's because committee oh the committee
information onto the board operating procedure when rebecca and i wanted or mrs fox and i wanted
to add that but also i kind of feel like which which we we do that okay but when when we
When we won our reelection, I realized that your friends that you supported did not win.
And at that time, it would have been easy for you to keep it at the two people.
So now that we've gotten reelected, I think that you want, this is an effort to silence us, to prohibit us, to try to prohibit us from getting something on the agenda.
And last week, let me just say this, you said I could come to you.
I did come to you before and you you said I missed some kind of time
requirement, but the board operating to you just say you have to
Do you guys have an agenda item within a certain time?
But you could the president always has the authority to add something if it's before 72 hours
So you could have approved it so that's not an avenue that that I could take and now
You want to limit so now I?
So to get three, it's just like Mrs. Fox said, that's why it's so hard and that's why so few school districts do it.
It's because if I went to Mrs. Fox and said, would you help me?
And she said, no, I don't want to.
And then I went to, let's say she said yes, but then I went to Mr. Redman and he said no.
Well, now pretty much I can't talk to anybody else.
So it's really paralyzing to somebody who wants to just maybe get something on the agenda just for a discussion.
Yeah, you know, can I respond to that?
So I've gone back to at least 2015 for our brain procedures
and found that it was always three to one, three, not two, rather.
And so I kind of tried it out last year
and announced my opinion that we should change it back.
Again, I think it's as opposed to just two people working together,
it means that you have to go to a third person to basically check on,
on, if you will, the legitimacy of that agenda item
and get somebody else to agree with you.
And you all have been on the board a while,
and I know Ms. Fox for quite a while.
In fact, you were president sometimes,
and even during that time, it was always three.
So I'm not sure why, even just because I made it
to you one year, I'm going back to the way
it's always been, and it seems to work in the past,
and everybody got their say and so on.
So that's that's really all is behind it. Mr. President
so I
Used to sit at that end of the table whenever I would say something like that
I would get the worst thing to do is do it that way because you've always done it. So there's always that
Especially when there isn't really a better reason. That's the way it always was
Because my question for you is when has two people adding a discussion item to the agenda been a problem
Which item added to the agenda is a problem that two people added?
What caused you to change it?
I don't know.
I don't recall.
Has it been a problem with two people adding something to an agenda?
Is there an agenda item that you didn't want and because two people added it you had to
–
Because you won't have the votes if you don't like it, right?
Because you all have four.
So us bringing something up doesn't mean you have to approve it.
Has any item that has been added by two people been a problem?
I don't know.
I don't recall.
Right.
It hasn't.
It hasn't.
So it just feels like one more way of preventing people who disagree with you,
because I think this is the item that we said was the board operating procedure.
So let me ask you this.
When you were president, did you ever change it to two?
No, but we didn't have requests to change it to two.
but so you because people would go to the board president and say hey i want to put something on
the agenda and the board president would say sure i said sure we had two people when i was president
and they were not ever have you ever disgruntled and when they asked me i always put it on the
agenda because their voice mattered the people who put them there their voice mattered so i always
said yes for discussion well you've never but you've never as president initiated changing it
from three to two no because you didn't need three and you only needed one when i was president you
only needed one if you asked me to put it on the agenda and it was a valued conversation i put it
on an agenda every time okay well i guess i'm i'm i'm not as good as you were no it's just you're
trying to no i'm not fine am i silencing you am i silencing you both no look you are with this yes
you do silence this when we ask for something you say you didn't meet the timeline or you need
need another person. It's just one more way of preventing people who disagree with you from
being heard. The same way it happens in public forum. The lack of transparency by not talking
about items the majority of the board don't want discussed. That's how it feels. It's what it looks
like. Two people putting something on agenda has never been a problem. This is just an arbitrary
let's make it three and make it hard on them. But that's not being inclusive of your community.
Our community has things they want us to talk about, and if they call one of us, that should
be enough to say if it's valuable to discuss in public because a lot of people want to
talk about it, why couldn't we do that?
People have tons of opportunity in open forum twice a month now to talk about whatever they
want to bring up.
We don't talk about that.
They want to hear what we think, and when they speak in the public forum, we can't talk
back to them.
We cannot address it unless it's an agenda item.
So that doesn't work.
They can talk about it, but they don't know how we feel about it.
And they have a right to know what their elected officials value.
I get back to that.
When you were president, you never made it three.
You never made it two, rather.
And it was not an issue before, ever.
It was not an issue because we allowed one person to put something on an agenda that was valuable.
It was easy.
but the policy never said one person it always said three so i'm just changing it back the way
it's always been is my proposal so when i bring you something will you put it on an agenda just me
i don't know i don't know what it is mr president i just want to add one more thing to this and that
is she's she stated and i stated it last week but i just want to reiterate because i heard
I heard, I heard, I really put a lot of value into when the three women won in 2023.
And I heard, and that was a valid point.
I think Mrs.
Timmy said it, that the community voted for y'all.
You know, the community wants you all to be here just as much as the community, maybe a different part of the community, wants us to be here too.
too. And so they want to hear, you know, if they come to us and they want something to
be discussed, that just as valuable as what you all would like to discuss is another group
of people, maybe some are overlapping, who knows, that want us to be able to discuss
it also. And so with this, what you're saying to the community is that you don't want us
to be able to put things on the agenda that they would like to have on the agenda.
No, I'm not saying that at all.
That Mr. Perez doesn't want that.
That's what you're saying by changing it.
I'm not saying that at all.
Don't translate it to the community.
That's what it is.
I'm going back to the board operating procedures the way it's always been.
When you were president, when you've been on the board 20 years, it's always been three.
It's always been three.
And now.
It's always been one.
Doesn't mean it's right.
Doesn't mean it's right.
And so I'm just going to make sure that the public understands that this, I don't know if it was just you who wanted this to be changed or who it was, but that you are now saying to the public that you.
I'm not saying that to the public.
This is our board operating procedures.
Board operating procedures.
Did you get the change?
But let me, since we're talking about board operating, I'll get off of that subject because I know that will not change under your reign and with the way that the board is right now.
But I would like to go over, since we're talking about it, is code of ethics.
And, you know, everyone signed this code of ethics in September of 2023.
Yeah.
and on on B undercut it says accord others respect I wish for myself and see
encourage expressions of different opinions and listen with an open mind to
others ideas and then I'll refuse to surrender judgment to any individual or
group at the expense of the district as a whole and especially B and C I do not
see happening with with everybody on the board and there's nothing really I guess
there's no school board jail or anything or any fine that we can impose but I
just wanted to read that aloud since we're talking about the board operating
procedures I would like to add in that case J okay which is for you to respect
the majority decision as the decision of the board and I do tell me when I have
it because you on a regular basis um throw the pot if you will on social media on decisions that
have been made by the board because i post a decision that was made no because you because
you uh basically um question the decision of the board i do not question it tell me where i
question it i state what it is i state what the what the position is i tell how it was voted and
that's a that's a period and then if you go on to you know there's another whole
thing about social media but then if I go to team building which is on page six
the session shall include a review of the roles rights and responsibilities
the board is outlined in the framework for governance leadership the assessment
of needs shall be a based on the framework work for governance leadership
and shall be used to plan continuing education activities for the year the
governance leadership team and then the board f is the board annually evaluates its performance
as a team with attention given to the district vision and goals fulfilling board's duties
responsibilities and commitments and the board's working relationship with the superintendent so
when we did our team building we didn't do any of these things we didn't include a review of the
roles rights responsibilities we didn't do we didn't assess the needs we didn't evaluate
evaluate ourselves. We will be doing that this year. Okay.
Mr. President. Mr. Reverend.
I move that the Board of Trustees approves of the updates to the Board operating procedures
except for changes requiring three Board members instead of two under Section 10.
I second.
I don't know. I'm ready to be done. Whatever we need to do.
I thought we were having...
So this is not a discussion that we approve it, except for?
Not.
Reading different pages.
And requiring it going from two to three.
And there's also a committee thing.
Keep the section as three?
Keep it as three.
That's our thing.
Oh.
Okay.
Except for changes requiring three board members instead of two.
Yeah.
Keep it as two.
Are you saying keep it at two?
Keep it at two, yes.
I second it.
already has a second okay we have a motion to approve the poor operating
procedures with as written except for the change requiring three so go ahead
and vote on the keypad
Okay, the motion does not pass. The motion fails. So I move that the board approve as
written the board operating procedures as written. Do I have a second?
Second.
second without proceed to vote the motion is carried five to two and now we have
another item which is discussion action discuss and consider board endorsement
8.1 Discuss and consider Board endorsement of a nominated individual for the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Director for Region 4, Positions A and C.
of a nominated individual for the TASB Director for Region 4 Positions A and C.
Does anyone have anyone they want to endorse, they want to bring up?
I think there's two people that I see, Tony Hopkins, Kelly Hodges,
are two of the people.
Is that right?
I saw that Tony Hopkins and Kelly Hodges was for Position C, right?
And then there's also for Position A?
I know Tony and I believe he would represent the values of this board in our district very well.
I agree, Tony Hopkins.
I'm not familiar with anybody at the other position.
Do we have a motion?
Mr. President, could I make a comment?
Okay.
I had a good conversation with Tony Hopkins and exchanged an email with Kelly Hodges,
and I just was curious since I'm honing in and focused on this statement of beliefs on DEI and systemic racism,
what their thoughts were on it.
I just wanted to provide very quickly from Tony Hopkins.
He did say, you know, if there were, first of all, that every district, even rural districts,
have an equal vote compared to KDIC, a huge district.
I take exception to that.
and two that it could have been brought to the board for discussion and or vote to remove that statement
But it was too late and no
one brought that to the attention. So it should have been brought in June for the September's
assembly, but no one said anything. So just encourage us, please. I'm disappointed in that
fact. And I wanted to, I applaud his honesty. And then I did hear from Kelly Hodges that she,
quote, strongly supports her commitment, or our commitment, meaning TASB to diversity, equity,
equity and inclusion. I believe in promoting dignity and mutual respect and I'm dedicated
to eradicating systemic racism, this is Kelly Hodges, and providing opportunities for all.
These values are essential for creating an equitable and inclusive educational environment
where every student can thrive. I just wanted to share that with the board.
So do you, thank you. So Mr. Redmond, are you making a motion to endorse Tony Hopkins?
So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor press the keyboard. Aye.
The motion carries 6-0. We have one abstention. Okay now we'll move on to
9.1 Board Committee Updates
Board Committee updates.
I think we may have one or two.
I'm not sure.
There's one.
Well, first of all,
I'll mention on the Finance Committee
we always meet
the week of prior to the work study.
And so we met this last
two weeks ago.
And basically
with
Jamie Hines
and Esperanza Rios
and we had a good discussion about the slides that basically Mr. Smith showed
with regard to the budget.
So we had a good discussion about that.
They basically ran through the slides with us
and also gave us some information and handed us basically the budget amendment package
and the financials.
Ms. Teamey was there and Ms. Champagne was there as well.
So that the report on that is basically that we walked through the and then the opportunity to ask some questions of the the PowerPoint deck, if you will, which was the the budget update that Mr. Smith presented that I think it may update a little bit.
So that's on the finance committee where we met the week before the work study.
Chair Stephanie Sharp.
Mr. President, I appreciate the transparency of the Finance Committee because everything
you all talk about I feel like we see here and get opportunities to ask questions.
And I feel like, I hope that that happens with Academic Committee.
I'm looking forward to updates from the other committees because those are not things that
make presentations to our board.
So I look forward to those and I appreciate the agendas that came and I look forward to
just a little bit more content from them.
Mr. President.
we're going to be of course of course uh we're going to be sending out the committee reports
that are in now and the more operating procedures and ms gasella i think you had some uh some things
on the uh policy committee yes yes um the policy committee met july 10th um with dr gregorski and
leslie hack who were there we discussed um the ability or ways to improve the destiny catalog
catalog query that's the online catalog that all taxpayers have access to to look at what we have
in our library shelves in our collection there are some things that needed to be tweaked those
are being worked on and hopefully will be finished before the beginning of the school year we
discussed ways different ways that maybe the internal review process could be streamlined or
or organized, helpful ways.
So we discussed that.
And then we briefly discussed campus book fairs
and the need for those to be compliant with board policy.
Mrs. Kuzilla, I have a question about book fairs.
I don't know that you'll know this answer, but just to ask.
So I understand that book fairs have changed
and that children need a permission slip and opt-in
instead of an opt-out,
and boys and girls forget to take it home or mom and dad forget to fill it out and they get left
out and they cry because it's like i want to go to the book fair and buy a little stuffed animal or a
bookmark probably a bookmark and a pencil and a and a kindergarten book is did you discuss an opt
out i mean an opt out instead of an opt-in no okay i don't know who to talk to about that but that's
would you be okay with that?
Can I answer that?
Mm-hmm.
So that, what you're talking about,
was really implemented by the district.
That wasn't anything that the policy committee did,
and it was in response to some issues
that arose with scholastic book fairs.
Right.
So it was, who brought that up?
The scholastic book things came from the book concerns that we had.
We were aware of that and the district became aware of some issues with scholastic book fairs in terms of
The books that may be in in our book fairs. Okay, so dr. Greg or ski
Is that something you could look at maybe enough out instead of an opt-in so boys and girls can go to the book fair
Without a ton of paperwork
We can certainly update any practice that I can get some direction from the board on how they would like us to proceed
If the board would like us to create a practice for which.
It's a opt out of book fairs. I can certainly do that. It's in now. So.
They have to opt in or they can't go correct. So could we does the board objective doing an opt out instead?
Dr, could you confirm? I do not understand that. It's a ton of paperwork per what miss Fox just said. It's pretty simple. It is simple form. Correct?
Dr. Zbigorski, I can add to that.
I have to admit, I don't really know the paperwork or the actual process of that is, but I know Mrs. Hack does.
Because it was a mid-year implementation for the spring semester, we used the paper permission forms that they had used in years past.
We have since, when we do opt-in type things, we automate it online.
line so on august 1st when the all the parents received their return to school snap codes their
updates to fill out all the beginning of the year paperwork it's a question that all parents will
get at that time to opt in their child at any time prior to the uh start of the book fair you know
how the campuses communicate this is our book fair coming up if for whatever reason their child was
not opted in during the return the return to school enrollment update they can at that time
And we try to make it just as seamless as possible as they do when they opt in for other things and
Make that consistent and easy
That sounds that sounds very reasonable
I know parents were really mad that it's like gosh now my kid can't even go to the book fair
You know because I forgot to send the form and that's where the forms have become challenging because we've moved away from that we want
To make it very accessible to parents and they can opt in
Initially at the beginning of the year or later on as a and if the kid comes home and says I didn't get to go
they could do it right then absolutely thank you so much that sounds fine to me mr president can
i make a comment in response to that i i've heard uh from parents who are very happy about the opt-in
very very uh very um content about that and happy that the district is uh is taking our policy into
consideration and making sure what we have on campuses is policy compliant so i did not hear
a lot of complaints at all from parents thank you very much mr president now i i wanted to say
something please about the commission so you have all these committees and so the you've assigned
the committees you know the other ones the the naming and the all the partners education all that
so are you going to reassign the the other committees that you've created the finance
and the policy and the because you're redefining you know you've reassigned the other ones or you've
assigned those are as a matter of custom if you will those are those are
committees district level committees like station security the naming I
understand I'm just asking you because I would like to know and those always move
and those always move but I would like to be on the policy committee because
right now I'm only on two committees mrs. Cazell is on for you're on all of
them what what you're on um i don't want to name them because some some of them for privacy but
you're on one two you're on two that he's just assigned and you're also on the policy one and
the teacher retent the teacher recruitment line so that's four i'm on two um mr redmond's on two
mrs fox is on three uh mrs calhoun is on three mrs teamy is on three but i'm only on two and
Mr. Redmond is also only on two.
But Mrs. Cahoon, I mean, yeah, Mrs. Cosella, I'm sorry, is on four.
So I'm just, I'm not trying to, I just would like to be.
I think we also added the advocacy legislative advocacy committee, and Mr. Redmond is on that.
Right.
So he's on two.
He's on the advocacy one and the academic one.
I'm on.
And he's on, you're on a naming one as well.
Okay.
Okay, so he's on three.
So I'm the only one on two.
And you're also the delegate.
Well, now then, okay, we're going to count that.
Then Mr. Redmond's on four.
So let me ask you, okay.
So I'm the only one on two.
So you're on the safety and security.
And you're the delegate, okay.
And I'm on the finance.
So that's three.
And you're on the finance.
So that's three.
That's not a committee.
So then Lance is three.
Right.
You're talking about district committees, right?
Right.
Not board committees.
You're combining them.
I'm just stating the fact that I'm on two committees and everyone else is on three or four.
Okay.
Or more because you're on seven or something, whatever.
I understand that you're the president, but you could also spread the wealth a little bit and let someone else be on something else.
Because, I mean, I have been elected onto this position and I would like to have more involvement, I guess is what I'd say.
so if the Finance Committee really doesn't do anyway the way I looked about
it looked at this committee's when you say is you want to ask what committees
that you're interested in or what what would you like to do you gave me three
or three things I told you number one and number two and I said and if I could
have something else number three but I put number one and number two but I
didn't get my gave you I thought I was giving you two out of three that you
you asked for but I said those two if there's nobody else that wants to plus the fact that
you're the delegate and also you're on the finance committee so anyway all right do we have any um
that's for the updates do we have any recap of board member requests for information we have any
requests for information mr president okay so I was asking if we could get the amount of the
federal funding for the case that program versus our local funding and ESY
or just case that the the so the summer programming yeah yes why in case yeah
okay and then just say mr. president the Finance Committee was teaming we did
help give a 3% raise so the Finance Committee does do stuff yeah the Finance
Committee basically a lot of work collaboratively with the finance team
and because of the fact that they give us great information and they're
transparent we were able to feel comfortable with a 3% raise mr.
president I have a request miss Fox here I would like a request for the report of
training hours for all members just an update on where the training is and what
trainings we've been to and where we are on the progress there and I'm probably
creating work for mrs. Davies sorry and I also would like to request that the
TASB director and the TASB delegate give a report at the end of their
meetings so if one of my assignments one of my committee assignments is TASB
director I'd like to give a report and I've asked for that and you said no so I
would like that to I think that makes sense okay yeah I'll bring that next
month okay probably be like quarterly or region after every region meeting three
or four times a year okay we will have a work-study meeting on Monday August 19
10.1 Board Work Study Meeting – August 19, 2024
2024 and there will be a regular board meeting on Monday August 26 2024 there
10.2 Regular Board Meeting – August 26, 2024
being a further visit for the board this meeting is adjourned and time is 946
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 5.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve of the purchase of property for a Junior High site, as discussed in Closed meeting.
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 7.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's July 2024 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 003 · AGENDA 7.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the District's May 2024 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 004 · AGENDA 7.3
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the publishing of the Notice of Public Meeting to discuss Budget and Proposed Tax Rate, with a Maintenance and Operations Tax Rate and an Interest and Sinking Tax Rate. Rates will be determined based on Truth in Taxation calculations which utilize property value information to be provided by Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller Counties.
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 7.4
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the renewal of the Excess Workers Compensation Policy offered by Midwest-Casualty Company with a $550,000 specific retention with an estimated deposit premium of $153,551 for the Plan Year 2024-2025.
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 7.5
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the Interlocal Participation Agreement for the administration of workers compensation claims with TASB Risk Management Fund for the period September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2025.
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 7.6
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees awards a contract to Gamma Construction Company for the new construction to the Northwest Transportation and the Ag Barn #10 in the amount of $20,151,870 and approves the total project cost not to exceed $23,334,301.
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 7.7
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the design associated with the renovation to Katy Junior High School as depicted in the design presentation prepared by Texas Arcadis, Inc. dated July 22, 2024.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 009 · AGENDA 7.8
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the Interlocal Agreement with Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 57 and Katy Independent School District to replace shade coverings over the basketball court and main playground equipment at Keiko Davidson Elementary in the amount of $60,588.94.
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 7.9
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the adoption of Policy Update 123.
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 7.10
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves of naming a portion of a facility at Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Don Clayton, as Don Clayton Field House.
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 7.11
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees endorse Dawn Champagne as delegate and Lance Redmon as alternate delegate to the 2024 Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Delegate Assembly.
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 7.12
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the 2024-2025 Board Operating Procedures.
5 Yes · 2 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | No |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Yes |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | No |
| victor-perez | Yes |
MOTION 014 · AGENDA 7.13
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve the minutes for the June 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 |
MOTION 015 · AGENDA 8.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees endorse Tony Hopkins for the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Director for Region 4, Position C.
6 Yes · 0 No · 1 Abstain
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| amy-thieme | Yes |
| dawn-champagne | Yes |
| lance-redmon | Yes |
| mary-ellen-cuzela | Abstain |
| morgan-calhoun | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
| victor-perez | Yes |