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Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, September 16, 2024
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In this meeting
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- 0:02 to 0:34 1. Call to Order
- 0:34 to 2:58 2. Pledges of Allegiance
- 2:58 to 36:44 3. Public Comment
- 36:44 to 37:09 4. Closed Meeting
- 37:09 to 37:53 5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 37:53 to 41:50 6. Reports
- 41:50 to 1:08:21 Items 7.1 & 7.2
- 1:08:21 to 2:43:21 7.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the design associated with the Merchants Way Program presentation.
- 2:43:21 to 2:44:33 7.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the building addition to Pattison Elementary School.
- 2:44:33 to 2:45:26 7.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of the delivery method updates for various projects in the 2023 Bond.
- 2:45:26 to 2:45:57 7.6 Discuss and consider Board approval to award a contract for design services necessary to Hutsell Elementary School.
- 2:45:57 to 2:46:18 7.7 Discuss and consider approval of water line and sanitary sewer line easements with Municipal Utility District (MUD) #465.
- 2:46:18 to 2:46:31 7.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of a water meter and water line easements to Harris County Municipal Utility District (MUD) #534 to provide water services for Elementary School #47.
- 2:46:31 to 2:46:52 7.9 Discuss and consider Board approval of a blanket electrical easement to CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC associated with the construction of Elementary School #47.
- 2:46:52 to 2:47:00 7.10 Discuss and consider Board approval of a blanket electrical easement to CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC associated with the construction of Elementary School #48.
- 2:47:00 to 2:47:26 7.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of the plat for Elementary School #48.
- 2:47:26 to 2:50:34 7.12 Discuss and consider Board approval of the July 2024 Financial Reports.
- 2:50:34 to 3:00:22 7.13 Discuss and consider Board approval of nominating candidates for positions on the Board of Directors for the Harris Central Appraisal District.
- 3:00:22 to 3:02:48 7.14 Discuss and consider Board approval of the September 2024 budget amendments.
- 3:02:48 to 3:13:33 7.15 Discuss and consider Board adoption of the 2024-2025 Maintenance and Operations Tax Rate and the 2024-2025 Debt Service Tax Rate.
- 3:13:33 to 3:19:15 7.16 Discuss and consider Board approval of the claims administration by Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Risk Management Fund for unemployment compensation claims.
- 3:19:15 to 3:56:13 7.17 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Self-Insured Health Plan for Plan Year 2025.
- 3:56:13 to 4:22:22 7.18 Discuss and consider Board approval of the House Bill 3 (HB 3) 5-year goals and targets for the district, elementary campuses and high school campuses report.
- 4:22:22 to 4:24:29 7.19 Discuss and consider Board approval of the District Performance Objectives.
- 4:24:29 to 4:24:48 7.20 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Campus Performance Objectives.
- 4:24:48 to 4:25:28 Items 7.21 & 7.22
- 4:25:28 to 4:26:26 7.23 Discuss and consider naming part of a facility at Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Coach Gary Derks.
- 4:26:26 to 4:34:05 7.24 Discuss and consider Board approval for the superintendent to prepare, sign, and submit a waiver application to the State Commissioner of Education for elementary school campuses that exceed the allowable class size of 22:1, in addition to campuses that could potentially exceed the ratio due to increased enrollment during the 2024 - 2025 school year.
- 4:34:05 to 4:37:13 7.25 Discuss and consider observation of non-business days under the Texas Public Information Act.
- 4:37:13 to 4:37:30 8. Information Items
- 4:37:30 to 4:37:44 9. Future Meetings
Full transcript
Automated transcript, not human verified. It is a way to find a passage, not a quotation.
1. Call to Order
Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this work study meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District to order.
Today is Monday, September 16, 2024, and the time is 5 p.m.
Dr. Rogorski, will you 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 the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting tonight.
Thank you.
2. Pledges of Allegiance
KDISD Chief of Police Henry Gaw will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Thank you, sir.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one indivisible state.
SECRETARY POMPEO, Do we have any scouts in the audience?
Yes.
We've got a scout.
SECRETARY POMPEO, Do we have scouts?
We have a scout.
SECRETARY POMPEO, Oh, we have a scout.
Oh.
You can come up right here to this – to the microphone there.
Behind the podium.
Behind the podium behind the podium on the other side
Thank you for being here with such a treat
Tell us your name. My name is Nathan Radha Krishnan. I'm 11 years old
I mean that and I'm in the tenderfoot rank in Boy Scouts
And you so tender for so you just joined right? Yeah a little while ago
How's it going so far?
It's really fun.
Good. Have you gone to any campouts yet?
Yes, I've been to three campouts.
Three? Was it hot?
Yeah.
In Texas.
And what is the next rank that you're working on?
Second class.
Second class, okay. Do you get to work on any merit badges yet?
Yes, I did a bunch of merit badges.
Really? Like what's your favorite one so far?
My favorite one was sustainability. It tells me why you should protect the environment by reducing less waste.
Okay, okay. You know when I was in the Boy Scouts we didn't have that badge.
And so where do you go to school?
Huh?
Where do you go to school?
I go to Harmony Public Schools.
Okay, okay. Well good to have you. Well congratulations and thanks for coming.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you so much.
3. Public Comment
At this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance with KDISD Board Policy BEP Local.
As defined by Board Policy, speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, September 16, 2024, provided their first and last name and signed in 15 minutes prior to 5 p.m. will be allowed to address the Board.
Board. Speakers who signed up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three
minutes to speak. If a speaker is not finished speaking at the end of three minutes, the
audio will turn off. If speakers wish to share written material with the Board, please provide
ten copies of 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 officers designee shall advise the
speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate policy finally pursuant to
Texas government code sections five five one point zero seven four five five one
point zero eight two one the board will not permit the presentation of
personally identifiable information regarding a student and will not discuss
the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public
officer or employee, or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or an 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, GKE local, or GF local.
Our speakers will be called forward in the order that they signed us to speak.
The first speaker is Trish Reynolds.
And after that, Michael McCormick.
Welcome.
Good evening, Superintendent Gorgorski, President Perez, and members of the board.
My name is Trish Reynolds.
It is no secret that behavior has been, especially in the last four years, a hot issue.
Teachers in the classroom as well as other campus staff are exalting all options to mitigate
behavior.
For students with disabilities, this remains true for them as well.
The BTP Behavior Transition Program has been instrumental in providing so many students
students with skills to address their individual disabilities or deficits.
There has been a variety of students with individual needs served through BTP program.
Some students cannot or have a hard time controlling their behavior due to their disability, which
can include severe physical aggression towards others or themselves, severe anxiety, depression,
and internalizing behaviors such as suicidal ideation.
Students are in a very structured program receiving intense behavior modification based on their individual plan.
The RISE teacher from their home campus visits the students and keeps that relationship going,
which is paramount to the transition of the student back to their home campus.
Each student has individualized education plan that is used to determine their individual needs
when they're ready to transition back to their home campus.
The goal is always for students to go back to their home campus when they become successful
in learning those coping strategies.
Then strategy as well as their other behavioral aspects that can help them be successful on
a comprehensive campus.
Not every student, however, ends up back at their home campus because the BTP is their
least restrictive environment.
Miller Career Center and Raines High School also offer students what they need to be successful
post-secondary.
Speaking of post-secondary, it is also imperative to look at those that are in our 18 plus program.
Federal law requires us to serve students aged 18 to 22 should the IEP warrant continued services.
While I understand the concern is that overall enrollment number for our district is not as high as a comprehensive campus.
campus. Having separate entity for students in our 18 plus program is paramount to meeting their needs.
Surrounding districts have already implemented such a program and being behind the tide is not
the Katie way. Students that are in the 18 plus program have all met graduation requirements and
coming back as an adult student. The term adult student needs significant emphasis here as an adult
student they should be back on their home campus but rather should have into
should not be on back on their own campus should entity that wholly their
own to learn post-secondary ready so thank you thank you thanks
Thanks.
Michael McCormick, followed by Fred Schaefer.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Distinguished members of the board, ladies and gentlemen,
hello again.
I'm here this afternoon to offer an additional comment
on item 7.23 on the agenda, a proposal
to name the track and field facility at Cinco Ranch
High School after the late Coach Gary Dirks.
This is a subject I previously spoke in support of at the July 22nd meeting, and my prior comments certainly stand.
However, with it being placed on today's agenda, I felt compelled once again on behalf of myself, my former teammates, and the Dirks family, wholeheartedly voice support for this proposal.
proposal. The board's discussion on this matter in July events some uncertainty as to where to put the signage to effectuate the proposal. I would like to offer a suggestion that the board consider affixing the facility's name on the press box above the bleachers.
Coach spent an awful lot of time on that track with his athletes and certainly had quite a lot to show for it, including two consecutive state track and field championships.
To those who knew him, that track remains a special place where I am certain his voice continues to resonate and a piece of his spirit lingers.
Naming that facility in his honor would be a meaningful commemoration of the legacy of an extraordinary man.
Thank you. With that, I yield.
Thank you very much.
Fred Schaefer, followed by Elaine Robertson.
Good evening, Superintendent Gorgorski, President Perez, and members of the board.
My name is Fred Schaefer.
I have four grandchildren who attend KDISD, a freshman and sophomore at Jordan High School,
a sixth grader at Wood Creek Junior High, and a second grader at Schaefer Elementary.
I have the privilege and honor to serve as the Executive Director of Special Education for KDISD from 2000 to 2010.
I'm here tonight to speak in favor of relocating the Behavior Transition Program, known as the BTP,
and the 18 Plus Program to the Merchants Way Building.
In 2004, my team and I began the Behavior Transition Program
program after carefully studying the high cost of providing services to our students
with emotional and behavioral difficulties at a non-district day program and recognizing
the need to establish a district program.
The first BTP classes started at Martin Ranch High School, then to two portables behind
the Opportunity Awareness Center.
Thanks to the Board of Trustees who included the BTP in a bond election, classrooms and
offices were added to the OAC where the BTP is today.
Since 2004, the BTP has served the educational lives of students with emotional and behavioral
difficulties and put them on the road to academic success.
As the district approaches 17,000 students receiving special education services, the
need to expand the BTP that the Merchants Way building can provide is most evident.
I remember the high school student who received his education and support services at the
the BTP who after graduation enrolled in the military to protect his country.
Also the young man who started a lawn service while a student at the BTP and expanding his
services to a landscaping business upon graduation.
The expansion of the BTP at the Merchant's Way building will allow the district to continue
to provide the critical education and support services needed for students with emotional
and behavioral difficulties to be academically successful and become productive members of
their community. The 18 plus program provides transition services for
students with a disability ages 18 to 22. The establishment of 18 plus program at
the Merchant's Way building will provide for expanded and new training
opportunities for students to meet their specific post-secondary needs relative
to a successful transition to their adult life. Federal law requires school
districts to offer programs and services to meet a student's specific
post-secondary needs as determined by an admission review and dismissal
committee the expanded and new training opportunities needed for these students
are beyond what can be provided in a typical special education classroom where the students
have received his or her services over the past four years of high school or at the current 18
plus program that provides limited and intermittent services providing more comprehensive services by
locating the 18 plus program at the merchant's way building will allow the district to provide
an exemplary A-plus transition program that prepares students for successful
adult life. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Thank you very much and
thanks for coming and being here. Appreciate it. Elaine Robertson followed
by Jimmy Venizelos. Welcome. Good to have you here. Good evening Dr.
Gagorski, President Perez, and members of the board. My name is Elaine Robertson
and I'm a retired special education teacher and administrator.
I'm also the proud namesake of Stephen and Elaine Robertson Elementary.
Go Bulldogs.
Today I'm here in support of the 18-plus program to be housed at Merchant's Way.
For the past five years, I've been serving as a school board member
of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
I've witnessed such success observing and approving services for their exit program,
which provides 18-plus support to many of their students
who come from all over the state of Texas.
The 18-plus programs are required by law.
and exists for students who, in spite of meeting graduation requirements,
need additional time to complete their IEPs for the ultimate goal of seeking employment
and becoming productive members of our society.
This model is not only important to me professionally, but personally.
I grew up with a sister who was profoundly deaf as well as partially blind.
Maura struggled with a learning disability.
With the support of very dedicated teachers and staff, as well as her family,
Maura was able to work in a full-time position at Walmart.
She was able to live in an apartment by herself, pay her bills, and be independent.
Maura's success encouraged me to work in the field of special ed and to always believe in the abilities of our students with special needs.
When Maura was diagnosed with breast cancer, she continued to work, but her doctor advised her to move closer to her family.
Maura moved to Katy to be closer to us and worked at the Walmart marketplace off of Westheimer where they welcomed her with open arms.
I was privileged to witness the tremendous support of our community during this time.
time. Maura passed away several years ago, so many of her co-workers and friends from
all over the country attended her funeral here in Katy. Maura had a life insurance policy
that not only paid for her funeral, but paid for hotel rooms for all of her guests who
attended from out of town. She was able to give back and thank the people who loved and
supported her throughout her life. I'm excited by the idea of clustering our 18 plus program
at Merchants Way. By bringing all of these students together, we can maximize our resources
in one location instead of setting up programs separately on all our high
school campuses merchants way will be a large enough facility to create
independent living practice and job training just like teachers who teach
the same subjects collaborate on high school campuses through PLC's clustering
this program to one site allows teachers to work and support each other and
improve the quality of their instruction for students clustering also increases
financial efficiency excuse me efficiency finally it relieves our high
high schools of so much needed classroom space.
I spoke with great pride at the dedication of the JCSA,
which also supports special education.
I know that the school board members
who approved the purchasing of that building
are very proud to this day.
Thank you so much for all that you do
for our students with special needs.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming.
Appreciate both of you being here.
Jimmy Venizelos, followed by Brian Brion.
Hi everyone.
My name is Jimmy Venizelos and I'm also here for the
naming of the track and field for Coach Dirks. I'm an alumni
to the class of 2007. As many of you recall,
that's the period of the two state track championships with Coach
Dirks. Basically I'm just giving a little
background on kind of who he was as a person to solidify
what my counterpart Michael said.
So I moved to Katy in the middle of fifth grade back in 1999.
I was in any and all sports I could schedule my day around.
Moving forward to the active summer going into sixth grade,
I ran into Coach Dirk's summer track program.
This is where it all started.
He was taking on the role of track and field head coach at Cinco,
but had already institutionalized me into Katy ISD track and field system
him for his summer camp where he would basically find kids who he thought would be applicable
people to run through junior high raise them up through the through the ranks of kdisd and then
eventually have them on his team and so i ran summer track with him competed at beck junior
high we won district every year set multiple records and then ultimately ran at sink wrench
high school for good shirts and you know that being said he had a vision he could always find
a person in a room he was always right so he would take the positives and
someone's character attributes and make them a winning competitive athlete under
his coaching it didn't matter if you're big small tall short you name it he
left no one behind I watched it happen more times than I could count standing
there with his coffee he would say hey look yeah this guy's gonna be a hurdler
this guy's gonna be a jumper etc and I'd always think he's crazy and he was
I was right. We had state records in the high jump, in hurdles, and the four by one, the four by four, you name it.
Overall, the work ethic and dedication to the sport of running usually takes about six days a week,
and it was never a cool sport to be in.
Everyone always asks, why do you run? It's not fun.
So really, at the end of the day, the reason I ran was because he was the leader,
kept the pack together and instilled the discipline that we know today.
Track and field would never have been the same without Coach Dirks.
His relentless bike rides motivating us on distance runs
or following us in the truck for his famous loops
that were five to ten miles around the perimeter of Cinco
to make sure not only we didn't die, but also we weren't cutting through.
We had cutoffs.
The Reagan cutoff.
we had a place where we go throw a wall ball he knew all the cheats so he follows around that
being said coach Dirks was and is a mentor who has impacted the lives of innumerable amount of
people and I can't think of a person more deserving of the recognition thank you thanks for coming
Joseph Brillon, followed by Martha Aki.
Dr. Brudorski, board members, good afternoon.
My name is Joseph Brillon, and I'm here today to give support for the opportunity to name the Cinco Ranch track after Coach Gary Dirks.
I feel it's going to impact students in a positive manner, give inspiration and symbolism
to the community and KDISD.
I knew Coach Dirks for over 30 years.
We were teammates in college at LeMoyne University.
He was a pole vaulter.
I was a distance runner.
And we also were opposing coaches in high school.
I was at May Creek and I coached against him for a long time.
He was the real deal.
He was a dedicated, ambitious, and committed coach that not only accumulated championships
for his school and his prior athletes, but he demonstrated tenacity for hard work, resilience,
and drive. Three things I'd like to point out. Naming a track after someone is a big deal,
but naming it after someone like Coach Dirk shows that the school and the district values personal
development among its student-athletes, and it sends a strong message that success isn't just
about winning, but it's the kind of impact that you leave on others, and I know he made a better
coach out of me. I ended up being a better coach working with him and
competing against him. Second, naming a facility like a track becomes a landmark.
It's a lot of pride for the school with memories and achievements gained at the
site. I even know all the time when we talk about Gary some of the things he
did, how we miss him. It becomes a living monument of inspiration. It reminds
students athletes and visitors of the kind of commitment character and
leadership that the community values and what it takes to be successful and
finally it preserves a legacy not just for him but it can immortalize what he
taught some of his ex runners student athletes and adults that perseverance
hard work and dedication are lessons that extend far beyond the school thank
Thank you for considering this opportunity.
Thank you very much.
Martha Aki, followed by Kurt, for this one.
Welcome. Great to have you.
I'm walking. That's a good thing.
Good evening, Dr. Gagorski, President Perez, and members of the board.
board. Tonight I will be addressing item 7.3, the importance of continuing both the funding
and the development of the 18 plus program. A program that is not only vital to our students
with challenges, but also an innovative model for KDISD and the broader community. Some of you may
recall a poster from years ago that hung in schools and district offices throughout our
our district it was the portrait of a KISD graduate this portrait highlighted
the qualities we strive to instill in all of our students qualities like
resilience adaptability and purpose today I'd like to focus on one graduate
from Cinco Ranch High School who embodied this portrait in every way mark
is a newer diver neuro diverse adult who benefited from Katie is these exceptional
exceptional special education programs throughout his school years. With the support of his parents, teachers, and school staff,
Mark thrived despite the many challenges he faced. However, when Mark graduated, the
opportunities for him were bleak. But Mark didn't stop growing and neither did KDISD's support for him.
Mark found a job in the special education department
department delivering mail and later joined the ECI project TAIC staff where I had the privilege of working with him.
At TAIC, we built a structured, supportive environment that allowed Mark to flourish.
With personalized schedules and training, he grew in confidence and skill.
Over time, Mark took on critical responsibilities such as managing the Medicaid data uploads for our program.
His work was meticulous and every Medicaid audit came back flawless.
Mark currently works in the mailroom here in the district offices.
Mark has now dedicated over 20 years of service to KDISD and is so immensely proud of being an employee.
His story is just one example of the untapped potential that exists within our district.
There are so many other graduates, just like Mark, who have so much to offer, not just
to Katy ISD, but to the broader Katy community.
The 18 Plus program will provide students with critical independence training, job skills
development, and a supportive environment that allows them to transition into the workforce.
This initiative is a perfect extension of the forward-thinking special education program
this board has championed.
programs that have made our district a leader in innovation and inclusion.
By continuing to fund this program, you are investing in students like Mark,
giving them the chance to transition into adulthood with confidence and purpose.
You are also expanding our workforce, embracing the talents of individuals.
Thanks for coming. Appreciate it.
Kurt Podeswa, followed by Lisa Lister-Brown.
Welcome.
Mr. Perez, distinguished trustees, Dr. Gorski.
Thank you for allowing the opportunity for me to address this board.
My name is Kurt Podeswa and I'm the president and CEO of a nonprofit that serves people
with disabilities and special needs.
needs and I also have an older brother with special needs. I'm here to talk
about agenda item 7.3 and especially the 18 plus program taking place moving to
the merchants way area. I've seen firsthand the benefit of programs that
focus on individuals with special needs and especially the 18 plus program that
is offered by KDISD. We all know that the effectiveness of any education program
program has lots of facets. It's the choice of curriculum. It's the effectiveness of faculty.
It is the dedication and support of the campus and district administration. And it's the
physical setting of the learning environment. The 18 plus program goal is to prepare adult
students with special needs to be productive, effective members of society. With the understanding
that their post high school experience is going to be different from that of
their peers. This program sets them up for success. As beneficial as this
program is currently, it is less effective to have a program that serves
adults take place at schools with minors. The ongoing development of all of our
children takes place through transition. Children start at elementary school and
they transition to junior high and then they transition to high school and then
they transition away from home to college to trade school to the military
etc these transitions are more than milestones or traditions they mentally
physically and emotionally prepare us for the next step in the journey of our
lives currently after the age of 18 those students in the 18 plus program at
Katie ISD go back to school with underage students whose goals are much
different than theirs they do not get to experience that transition to them it is
another day of school. Utilizing the Merchants Way building for the 18 plus
program will not only allow that cognitive transition piece to take place,
it will allow Katy ISD to prepare these students to make the most of their
skills and talents. My brother has been a productive, effective member of society.
He's worked his entire adult life. He's paid taxes. He's a consumer in a local
community he does what we all do as citizens he was prepared effectively to
find jobs that fit his skill set but back in his day there weren't programs
like this offered we were lucky enough to have parents who understood the need
to prepare us for the future in each our own individual ways if not for my
mother's diligence my father's understanding I don't know what Mark's
society would have been like for him. I do know that it probably would have been better.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Lisa Lister-Brown, followed by
John Miller. Welcome.
Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Lister-Brown.
I'm a parent of KDISD students, and I'm addressing Agenda
item 7.23 which is about naming part of a facility at a high school in honour of a former coach.
I support the naming of district facilities in honour of those who've made outstanding
contributions. It certainly helps KDISD live up to its motto of being the legacy.
Dedicated facilities inspire people to aim higher than themselves and I'd love to see more namings
happening in all the schools across the district. I feel it adds to the richness
of our community and gives real depth to our local culture so I do hope the board
approves naming facilities in honour of those who've made particularly
significant contributions. But I'm not sure that the district paying for
namings is the best decision all round and there's two reasons for this. First
and quickly I don't think we can afford it. This district is already under
financial strain because of state government has an increased school
funding to align with inflation since 2019 notwithstanding a 33 billion dollar
surplus and the second reason why I don't think the district should pay for
namings is because I think it's far better for the board to approve them
when the costs are covered by another source
districts also affected by the Texas school funding crisis are doing this and
here's why I think it's better. The legacy is stronger when the community
comes together to fundraise for the cost of the naming and I see three wonderful
reasons why. First the fundraising activities raise the profile of the
person who is being honored by the naming their legacy is broadcast wider
and more people in the community will come to understand about that person and
what they did. It won't just be a random name on the building. That name will spark appreciation
of a real story and that's genuine legacy. Second, the fundraising brings together those people who
want the naming to happen and when they unite to lead the fundraising, investing time and effort
in memory of the person being honoured, they will feel they are cherishing that memory more
meaningfully. When we miss someone, these sorts of opportunities to spend time honouring them are a
blessing. Third, when others consciously contribute to fundraising efforts they
get to feel more engaged in the purpose of the fundraising. They are personally
invested in it in a way that's far more meaningful than having the district just
pay for it. It's for these reasons that I think it's wise for the board to approve
namings provided that the cost is covered by alternative means. It's
better all round. I wish to thank the friends and family of Coach Dirks for
raising his profile in our community i honestly wish them all the very best in their journey of
promoting his legacy and in inspiring others in the district to also seek approval for more named
facilities thank you john miller
Good afternoon.
My name is John Miller, and I spoke to the board in July on the subject of naming the track and field facility for Gary Dirks in the memory of Gary Dirks.
So for the sake of not wanting to be redundant, I'd like to read the words from another individual.
I think most of y'all will recognize the name or also knew him.
to whom it may concern, it is my pleasure and privilege to write this letter of recommendation for Gary Dirks
for any athletic facility naming honor he would be considered for in the Katy Independent School District.
I had the great opportunity of working alongside Coach Dirks when I served as the principal at Cinco Ranch High School.
I was given the professional opportunity of serving as the first principal when it opened in 1999.
Therefore, I had the task of staffing the school with only the best of the best to serve
every child.
Athletic Director Don Clayton brought the name of Gary Dirks Ford as his recommendation
for the head track and field cross country coach.
He gave me Coach Dirks' phone number to contact to set up the interview.
However, it was difficult to make a contact with him.
The reason was a pleasant one.
Coach Dirks was out on the track working with younger athletes almost all day long and could
not take my call. This spoke volumes to me that he would willingly give up his summer free time
to make a difference in the lives of young people. He was most certainly a man of action and did
everything with a heart for children and young men and women. His school his skills as a talented
coach in the champion's heart led to his student athletes having great respect and love for him.
Coach Dirks held high standards for himself and accepted nothing less from those around him.
His personal leadership strengths were rooted in the strongest levels of integrity and character.
He did everything with an uncompromising desire to do his ultimate best on every endeavor he went after.
He backed his high expectations with focused goals and a strong personal worth ethic.
One memory that comes to mind when I reflect on the heart of Coach Dirks
was at the first State and Texas 5A track meet when Cinco Ranch School claimed the championship.
Shortly after winning the boys crown, Coach Dirks brought to me a meet program signed by all the athletes that were participating.
Along with the program, he handed me a university or UIL state championship medal.
It was the very medal that was given to him.
I said, this is yours, I can't accept that.
To this he replied, I'll win another one.
Which he did the next year.
That medal has been on display for many years in my offices and now in my home office.
Very truly yours, Dr. Lowell Strike.
And the point I'd like to make is it was never about Gary Dirk.
He always put his friends, his family, his colleagues, especially his student athletes, first.
Now it's time to put Gary first because he left a hell of a legacy. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
This concludes the open forum portion of our meeting.
However, I don't think anyone would mind if we brought up the two scouts that walked in late.
Do you want to come up real quick?
Hurry.
We hardly ever get any scouts, so when we have some, we want to acknowledge them.
Give us your names.
My name is Pratik.
My name is Sabin.
Okay, how long have you been in the Scouts?
For around four years.
Four years?
Yeah, four years.
Really?
Okay, what ranks are you?
I'm in second class.
He's in tenderfoot.
Second class in which one?
Tenderfoot.
Tenderfoot.
Okay, so you're working on some badges, are you?
Right.
I'm working on my first class and my communication.
First class and then what badge?
Working on a couple of badges?
A couple badges, like mint badges.
Mint badges?
Yes.
Yes, I did.
Your first class?
Okay.
What about you?
I'm working on fishing merit badge and music merit badge.
Music merit badge?
Okay.
What instrument do you play?
Violin.
Violin.
Okay.
You should get that badge right away then.
I usually learn violin and orchestra.
Okay.
Where do you go to school?
Ties Junior High.
Same for me.
ties junior high ties yeah okay real good great well thanks for thanks for coming thanks for
being here and congratulations keep it up um in the boy scouts um i bet you're looking forward
to fall so you can start camping in some cooler weather well thanks so much for coming appreciate
it all the best to you the board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under section 555
4. Closed Meeting
1.001 of the texas government code for the following purposes texas government code 551.071
551.072 and 551.129 thank you
5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
the board will now reconvene an open meeting today is monday september 16 2024 and the time is 6 33
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's work study meeting.
Each board member will receive the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Friday,
September 13, 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
of the Texas Government Code.
Any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting
must be taken in an open meeting.
6. Reports
The first item is a report.
Presenter is Dr. Andrea Grooms, Chief Communications Officer.
And this is the Preliminary Attendance Foundry
Modification Survey Results for Elementary,
number 47 and number 48.
Welcome.
Thank you.
And good evening, President Perez and trustees
and Superintendent Rogieriski. As you indicated, I'm here this evening to
provide an update report on the attendance boundary modification survey
results, preliminary results for elementary number 47 and 48. As you'll
recall back in June, this past June, Mr. Behling provided a recommendation for
the attendance boundary for elementary 47 and 48 and as with customary with any
attendance boundary modification recommendation we conducted a parent
survey to gather insights and feedback on how that recommendation could
potentially impact the families up in that Northwest quadrant where those two
new schools are being built the survey is still open and will remain open until
October so again tonight's report is just the preliminary results that we
have on that data thus far
The survey was administered to about 1400 participants in the Northwest quadrant.
Most of those participants have lived within the KDIC boundaries between one and three
years as you can see on this slide.
And most of those participants were also parents of students who attend the schools that will
be impacted.
Many of the respondents represent Robertson Elementary and Youngblood Elementary.
That's where most of the individuals who responded to the survey are coming from right now, with
about 6% of the respondents coming from Fowden Elementary.
So with these surveys, we asked them to describe their previous experience with the ABM, if
they had been impacted before as you can imagine the northwest quadrant where we're seeing rapid
growth some of those folks up there have been through attendance boundary modification before
and as you can see in this response most of them had a neutral experience
or a neutral and or positive experience with their attendance boundary modification
now to get to the point of this survey we asked them would they support the recommendation that
was made for the attendance boundary modification for elementary 47 and elementary 48 and as you see
here 58 either somewhat support or fully support the recommendation that was brought to this board
in june 2024 and the reasons that they support the recommendation are reasons we often hear
the new schools will balance enrollment again provide relief in some of those schools that
are seeing that rapid growth and the new schools are located closer to their current residents
and then with that small number of individuals who indicated that they would not support the
abm for whatever reason we see similar reasons for not supporting which is that they're concerned
about their child socially adjusting to the new school or they've been through abm before and
and they simply just don't want to go through another one.
But again, overall, 58% supported the recommendation
that was brought to the board in June.
And the survey will remain open until October,
and we will continue to gather feedback until then.
Any questions?
Any questions, trustees?
Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you.
I appreciate it.
We move on to item 7.1.
Items 7.1 & 7.2
And that is Discussion Considered Board Approval of the Design Associated with the Expansion of the Shaw Center.
And we have presenters Lisa Kastman, Art Campbell, Perul Viest, and Steve Adams.
And I won't read everybody's titles.
Good evening, President Perez, Trustees, and Dr. Gagorski.
Yes, I have 11 items for you this evening, so here we go.
You have a lot of them, I know.
The star of the show.
all right so uh the first two are design developments related to the Shaw Center
and Bear Creek Elementary the board will be viewing more detailed plans to
maintain safety and security Perulavious with Stantec architecture will be
presenting on both Steve Adams facility coordinator for the Shaw Center and
Stephanie McElroy the Bear Creek principal will each say a few words
followed by the presentation Katie ISD project managers are also present this
evening art Campbell for the Shaw Center and
and Trey Barnett for the Bear Creek Elementary.
I'm going to turn it over now to Professor Steve.
Good evening, President Perez, members of the board, and Dr. Grigorski.
I'm Steve Adams, a facility coordinator at the Robert Shaw Center for STEAM.
Thank you very much for including the Shaw Center in the recent bond.
We appreciate that.
I was very pleased that we work with the architects and they took into consideration input from
Shaw Center stakeholders for this new expansion and they've developed a plan that we're very,
very happy with.
Our mission is to inspire students to pursue STEM subjects and careers and the Shaw Center
expansion ensures that the many different functions of our building are addressed and
enhanced.
Those functions include instructional day, curriculum activities, our field trips.
This year, every single third grader in the district, every seventh grader in the district will visit us on a science field trip.
Family engagement activities like our family STEAM nights we're about to have.
High school robotics, of course.
Summer programming such as our summer science camps, district professional development and usage.
So all of these will be enhanced by this expansion, and we thank you very much for your support of it.
Good evening, Dr. Grzegorski, Board President, Mr. Perez, and respected board members.
I'm happy to be here to share two exciting projects.
First one, Shaw Center, funded from the 2023 bond program.
It's an expansion project for adding four more bays to the existing campus.
We worked on this project back in 2014 that originally the facility has eight bays,
and the camp facility was designed to support eight high schools back then.
It's centrally located, so it now supports 10 high schools
and many other robotic programs and junior high school programs.
So it's way beyond its seams.
So with this new expansion with the four added bays,
the facility will now have 12 bays to support the growth that the district is facing.
In terms of schedule, we are currently finishing up the construction documents,
working with Steve and the campus leadership,
figuring out the finer details,
and hope to bring the final GMP to the board of trustees
in November of this year.
And we are looking at an estimated completion
in fall of 2025.
We will get into the existing conditions.
Again, this is centrally located on campus
where we have Miller Career Center,
we have Raines Academy and Rhodes,
So very y'all are very well aware of this existing facility and I'll quickly go over the proposed plans
Here you can see the site plan. We have a
approximately 10,500 square feet of expansion planned for bays each around
900 square feet to match existing
We are not changing much from what the existing bays were because I think what was designed works very well for the for the facility
it's flexible and
And we are also looking at the deliveries still working the way it is based on the new additions.
So we're not hindering anything.
And when we were planning this facility back in 2014, the expansion was already factored in into the site planning.
So it makes this phase very easy.
Here you can see a kind of enlarged floor plan layout.
out we have four new bays each kind of set up the same way that currently are and they have
dedicated shop areas there is a one small shared shop area that will expand the existing shop
further and it has a direct access from the outside for any deliveries and there is one more
additional flex classroom similar to the one classroom that is in the existing facility there's
another similar sized classroom for the new expansion so that gives them ample space for
the growth here are some exterior views very similar design aesthetics kind of keeping the
language very similar uh so that it ties in another view from uh the east in a typical
interior bay it's kind of the same layout and same aesthetics and that was it any other questions
So the board does have an additional presentation in your documents that has more detail.
We don't put that out in public for safety purposes, but you guys do have another presentation.
It gives you a little more detail on the interior.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
Thank you so much.
I'm very excited about this.
But I am just having a hard time viewing, like when you have, I don't know what slide this is,
the one that has four new project bays, dedicated shop, one small shared shop.
I don't know how they fit together because I don't see a diagram where they're...
I'm having trouble envisioning it in that extra wing.
Yes, ma'am.
You should be able to see that.
That's in, I believe, executive content.
It's there.
Yes, ma'am.
You should be able to see that.
If you'll open that one.
We started doing that a while back because we felt like working with Ruben Martinez and our emergency management group,
we felt like we were putting too much detail as far as the buildings were concerned.
So we started doing that separately.
I do have it. I thought I clicked on the right one and I clicked on the wrong one.
Okay, I'll look at it for a minute.
Mr. President, I have a few questions.
Thank you.
Is there any parking that's going to be created by chance?
No, not with this project.
We are not messing with any of the existing parking, so it stays the same.
We're just kind of working in that south part of the building where there is land and kind of developing in that area.
Yeah, okay, because it's if I've been there on a robotics night, and it's quite hard to find a parking spot so to add four more bays
Okay, I was just curious about that then
With construction and and the it'll still be operating corrected the the Shaw Center because it's an addition on to so there's no interruption
During the summer we're not going to have any activities to help with those tie-ins
And then we'll be able to just do the new stuff aside from everything else
The robotics teams won't be interrupted in the school year?
Correct.
And anyone else?
Okay.
And I was just curious, the architect might be able to explain, there's a cutout in the extension of the shop, number six, item six.
It's a strange cutout to me, the little notch at the very bottom.
Why do you have that?
That space, that's where kind of the classroom, the flex classroom is, to kind of shade it from the south sun.
And we are also trying to make sure that the square footage, the impervious footprint that we add to the campus does not exceed a certain square foot because it triggers detention requirements.
We're trying to squeeze square footage where we can and help with the functioning of the building.
Okay, so we're talking about the same thing, right, at the very bottom of this diagram?
Yes.
So it's mostly to work within a square footage versus design?
Because it just seems wasted.
But if there's a reason for it.
Yeah, it's a design feature, but it also works for keeping the square foot the main.
Because if we add that square footage to the building, it just increases and triggers a lot of other items that the site cannot support.
Okay, it's a tiny amount.
Yes, it's...
It must be close to a limit.
Okay, because that's very tiny, right?
Okay.
Any other questions?
Yeah, are you are you referring to number six? Sorry number six? Yeah, the Shaw Center's the the expanded
Shared shop the number six. Yeah, I think it's that space over there that right there. Yeah, I
It's that classroom there with the big front edge of kind of it has a glazing and this
Covering it with the solar shade. So we just want to make sure it it gets that inset
protects from the Sun as well as again we're trying to keep the square footage
as tight as possible and we can discuss with Steve if he sees that we need to
add more space in the classroom if that works we could look at that but it's
just something we'll have to coordinate with our civil team as well okay mr.
Adams you could share what that what you would use that space for couldn't you
you're talking about the the space is currently not being used are you asking me what i would
use it for yeah it's a shared spot the shared shop is that that's already there yeah the shared
shop is in the middle that's currently what you know it's our garage area that will be expanded
in this design and we will definitely use that for more machines uh the teams have asked
You know, Jordan High School, for example, they need more space, they need more machines.
So we're going to be able to expand our machines into that.
And then behind that's a classroom.
Is that what your question was?
Yeah, and then that helps because then the teams don't have to put everything up when they leave
and then take it back all out when they come back.
Right.
That is going to help with that.
For them, if they can put some of their extra stuff in the additional garage area,
while we still can use the bays for all of our multi-purpose activities.
Okay, one more question.
Ms. Grigola?
Excuse me, yes, thank you.
Was there any collaboration or input with Miller
or ideas of being able to use some of the shop space, flux?
We collaborate with Miller a lot.
They bring their classes like their EMT.
they come do all their first aid training at our center.
Miller comes over to our space a lot.
They didn't have direct input on the design,
but I can tell you we have multiple days on our calendar
where Miller high school students come.
They'll take the whole facility and do like a career day,
or they'll train for EMT.
We do open our shared shop for them to use our machines when they need to.
they they have actually more machines than we do over there they have such a nice uh setup okay
thank you any other questions mr president oh sorry uh miss fox i'm gonna follow up on mrs
kuzella's parking that's already not enough parking when any activities going on there and
volunteers come to support the students you know we have volunteer moms and there's no place to
park i don't know we have six eight places or something and i don't know how many volunteers
you have on a daily basis or or don't you have 20 30 volunteers sometimes i i will agree with you i
won't argue with you that we have enough parking we do not have enough parking um so what about
that space right there behind um miller you know there's a little bit over there and i think that
that might be staff parking.
Could we use some of that and ask staff to just transfer closer?
Because the volunteers are having to park on the other side of the gate
into Rhodes Stadium and come all the way down that road to Schall Center.
Yes, if we worked with Miller, that would double our parking
if they gave us that other half.
Yes.
So I will contact the principal.
Maybe we could do something like that.
Okay.
Okay, so will the, I have about four questions here, and it's probably Mr. Adams that will answer those.
So will, because many of those teams have been there and had their same bays, and they're very anchored there,
will they keep their same bays, or will they have access to, like, maybe the other side?
The three teams that currently are able to use their entire bay, which would be Cinco Tompkins and Seven Lakes,
they're going to keep their bay.
They've had it the best.
So the other teams, which would be Morton, Jordan,
Payto, and May Creek, they're gonna get a choice
to use the new bay, and the new bay's gonna have
some advantages, one, just being new,
and the new features we put in there.
Two, there's gonna be expanded storage for them
to put more stuff in front of their bay,
so this time we know about storage
and creating space for them.
So we're gonna give them the choice to move into the new bay
and the teams that currently already have a full bay we're going to ask them
to stay because that would be for moving to the new bays and the existing bays
where they are then we would wait for the other high schools a new high school
being built and a couple of other high schools that don't currently have a team
okay and how much do how often do you use those bays that we don't allow like
you can't move into the whole thing you have to keep the front of it for
classrooms. How often do you use the Shaw Center during the day? Thank you for asking. As I
mentioned earlier, we're a multi-purpose building. Every single third grader, every single seventh
grader visits us on a field trip during the day. So that is multiple, multiple days. We average
about four days a week where we use that space during the day. And that's not including things
like family science night or summer camps so just constantly we see 16,000
kids a year and having that space enables us to do that as well as run
robotics mission pain did you have a question yes I have a question um thank
you for being here I do have a question about security at that and since we're
talking about the shaw center right now um are we do we have the same standards of security at that
campus as every other campus as far as the armed police officers and also or the armed guards
and also the fences so um we if we have an event we're like a facility if we have an event where
more than 250 people are supposed to be there uh the district says we need a police and rightly so
So we need a police officer.
So, for example, when you come to Family Steam Night and there's more than 250, we have a police officer present.
And we are going to get, with the addition, they were going to put up security.
They're going to put up security fencing around the perimeter.
They've talked to the architects about that.
So we have the same fencing.
When we have a large event, we have an armed police officer.
During the day, we also work collaboratively with Miller.
They have an armed police officer.
The reason why I ask about the fence is because I vaguely remember something about,
I'm looking at Mr. Verling, in the bond committee that I was in,
and that fencing, for some reason, wasn't required or something like that at the Shaw Center.
And there were some concerns that were brought up during that bond committee meetings
because there are young children there and anyway you like right so originally
fencing was developed especially at the elementary school to keep kiddos in safe
for recess and that sort of thing and then at the secondary level we used it
so that the kids could go from the the building to the portables and they would
all remain fenced in but I do remember the comment and that's why we we were
taking a look at it for the Shaw Center so and we've definitely been in
contact conversation with Ruben Martinez and the architects to put in the fencing
when this is built thank you thank you any other questions I would like to
acknowledge that mrs. Cindy Shaw is here she's namesake being acknowledged I just
thought we we don't see her often so we see her every day for field trips she is
our biggest supporter mr president any other questions mr president i don't have another
question i just want to say how grateful we are to the shaw center and the opportunities that it
gives our kids that is unparalleled this is what katie asked is about we create in innovative places
and we never knew it would be like this so so exciting to have that my i do have one question
Will it get a like a little, when was it built?
21?
2014 is when we were designing, so 2016 I guess is when it kind of opened too.
So will it get like a little fresh, like a little paint, little spit shine, you know,
little cuteness at all on the inside?
We're going to take a look at it and see if we can fit it in the budget.
Okay, right after you get parking.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
Steve Adams, you're incredible at the innovation,
and Liz that works with you, just incredible.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right, now we're going to call on Principal Stephanie McElroy
as we talk about Bear Creek.
Bear Creek Elementary School, the design associated with the renovation.
Welcome.
Thank you. We get all the cute stuff. We're taking all that. So good evening, Dr. Grigorski,
President Perez, and the Katy ISD School Board. On behalf of Bear Creek Elementary, we would like
to thank you for prioritizing the modernization and complete renovation of our campus on the 2024
bond. Having stood in the Bear Creek community for almost 50 years, Bear Creek is truly the heart of
the neighborhood and is home to families who have come to bear creek and returned generation after
generation as you know hurricane harvey was devastating to the bear creek community and now
six years later it is finally rebounding from an uncertain future the district's investment in our
school community sends the promise of a new beginning and a commitment to the future of
our community as a whole so thank you for believing in our school and the community we
lovingly serve and with the renovation completing right about the time of our 50th anniversary
we hope to see each of you there for the ribbon cutting and then our anniversary celebration in
2028. so kind of just give you a little bit of uh update on what where we are on the project we
We have been meeting with Ms. Stephanie for several meetings
and discussing what the program is and scope is.
And having done Hutzel and that project just recently opened,
it was easier for the end users to visualize
what scope of work is forecasted for their campus.
From the 2023 bond, again, interior updates, HVAC updates,
ADA, and any code requirement updates,
this project also includes a roofing replacement because the the roof in this
campus has not been replaced in a while and has a lot of aging equipment so kind
of just incorporating incorporating all of that and looking at the campus floor
plan and making sure that it meets the current KTISD standards for an
elementary school in terms of schedule again we are in the design development
We have a few more meetings discussing interior finishes with Ms. Stephanie and the campus team.
We will be looking at taking the GMP CMR delivery, working with Stuart Builders as our CM,
looking at a GMP presentation to the board in February of next year and starting construction soon after.
It will be estimated to be completed for fall of 2026,
is the goal.
Existing conditions, not much of an exterior site work
on the project.
We are looking at relocating the main entrance,
having it more prominent.
Similar to Hutzel, we have that scope of work
and that kind of ties into how the new administration
layout works and the relocation of the admin space.
Again, looking at the existing, if you're familiar with the Bear Creek plan, main entrance
is on the side.
The administration is split between corridors, so it's not really working, functioning the
way that current elementary school prototypes are laid out.
So our goal was to evaluate what's existing and kind of reworking that, renovating that
to make sure it works with the current prototypes.
TYPES. CLASSROOM PODS AGAIN, A LOT OF SPACE THAT'S NOT UTILIZED EFFICIENTLY. TEACHERS DON'T HAVE A
PLANNING SPACE, KIND OF LOOKING AT THAT AS WELL IN OUR DESIGN. AND THEN THE LIBRARY CURRENTLY IS
OPEN TO THE HALLWAYS, SO LOOKING AT A SCOPE TO ENCLOSE THE LIBRARY AND AGAIN PROVIDING MORE
UPDATED LIGHTING, UPDATED FINISHES, AND UPDATED SHELVING FOR THE STUDENTS, THE LIBRARY BOOKS.
Quickly going over the proposed renovations, again we are looking at relocating the administration
and main entrance to create that sense of entry and having an admin layout that has
all the teacher staff support spaces that the current floor plan doesn't allow for.
We are also looking at special ed programs and pre-K classroom being completely redoing
that wing to help us support the programs that the campus now offers.
And here's a typical updated classroom pod layout, very similar if you have seen Hutzel
layout.
There's an enclosed teacher planning and central activity center, classrooms, five classrooms
per grade, and there are some classrooms to spare as well.
We were able to incorporate large group instruction in some of the spaces, in the spaces that
that were not getting utilized,
having spaces for instruction coaches
and academic support as well
in all of these pods as we go around.
We were able to get music and art room closer
to the platform stage area in the Cafetorium,
so getting all those programs closer,
have that synergy.
Updating, you can see the updated library layout
with enclosed walls and a new circulation desk
and new casework.
And some exterior and interior views.
Here's an exterior view of the main entrance relocated to be more central to the space.
And some new brick color just at the entrance to help tie that building together and identify the new entrance.
Library space, the school colors are green and gold.
So the gold is what we're proposing for the library, more centrally located.
and then classroom pods will circle through the different,
the colors, the green and the gold,
and alternate between that,
and we will discuss with Stephanie
when we get there with the finishes.
And again, having that sense of entry,
the main entrance, having that space
to have the parents come and sign in
and have that level of security that the new campuses have.
So I think that was the last slide.
Any questions?
Any questions?
Any questions, trustees?
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne?
Thank you very much.
I'm so excited because I love that school.
When I was very new on the board, I was, that was my first place that I was in a year kind
of assigned.
I had the May Creek, and so I spent a lot of time over there.
I love that school.
You weren't there yet, but it's still such a sweet school.
and I just have one kind of silly question and it's about the storage
storage lockers that are between the music room and the art room and I
noticed that there's not a door is on page 12 there's not a door that that
that they can get to between the storage rooms.
And I know at Exley, I just remember
when I volunteered there, you could walk.
So if you were the art teacher, you
could walk through the storage.
Both of the storage rooms were connected like that,
but there was a doorway.
And then you could just have more communication.
Between art and music?
OK.
Is that something I would want to ask the teacher?
Okay.
Okay.
Because they kind of shared their storage and they shared things between them.
So I don't know.
I would just have that as a suggestion.
I think they really liked it over there at Exley.
Anyway, you could ask.
Anyway, that's all I have and I can't wait to see it.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We move on to 7.3.
7.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the design associated with the Merchants Way Program presentation.
Lisa Kastman continues at the batter's box and then we have Ted Verling and Dr. Gwen Coffey.
So this item is to update you on the projects of status for the special education programs at the Merchant's Way building.
Welcome.
All right.
President Perez, board members, Dr. Grigorski, appreciate your time this evening.
You've heard a little bit about the Merchant's Way building earlier this evening, and I know
Dr. Grigorski's kind of been briefing you on it along the way.
We have a team of folks here tonight to talk about a few things.
I'll kick it off with the facility piece, kind of talk about where we are there.
Mr. Smith will jump in, talk about funding a little bit, and then Gwen will – Dr. Coffey,
I apologize – will finish us off with a little bit of programming.
So just kind of walk you through where we are. The board agreed to purchase this building in May of 2023. The 2023 bond had $5.1 million on there to build out the first floor. There's approximately 43,000 square feet per floor.
and so that's kind of where we're at on the pricing and the facility itself just again
a little bit about the facility that's the internal layout there of what the first floor
looks like right now what you're seeing there in those pictures is the only thing in that building
that's actually developed and that's that first floor lobby area that was done prior to us we
bought the building like that with the idea that the developer would build out the other side so
So the only thing that's done is that in the middle.
The other thing I want to point out here, too, is the proximity to the other campuses.
I put Taylor and Morton on there and labeled 99 and I-10.
It's a very central location, which helps tremendously in terms of busing and deadhead time on the buses and getting kids to and from the facility.
So it's a very central facility, certainly much more central than BTP over by Rhodes Stadium.
Just to walk you through the project bid timeline, we were going to go out to bid in February of 24.
Very little interest in the project at that point from contractors.
We ended up canceling the bid at that point.
There just wasn't enough interest in the project.
We went back in April, bid the project, the entire first floor.
So what that entailed in April was the entire first floor with a central plant for air conditioning.
and that was the entire 43,000 square foot first floor.
The bids ranged from 10.9 to 10.95 million,
so really tight bids on that.
We knew we only had $5.1 million in the 2023 bond,
so we went back to the drawing board a little bit.
We moved off of the 18-plus program,
and just on the second rounds of bids,
We just did the BTP side of the building, which includes the, I believe it was on the west side of the building, was the BTP program, and then just a few little office spaces over on the other side.
It was 40% less than what we were going to do with the entire first floor.
Again, the bids came in $8 million to $8.8 million.
So you cut out 40% of the project, but you really don't get 40% back on the pricing.
So it didn't get us to where we wanted to go.
This is kind of just a visual of what that would have looked like if you were to bid the first floor without the 18 plus program.
It's about, again, 41% less than what we would have done if we would have done the entire first floor.
It only saved you $2 million from the first deal.
Just kind of walking through the bond planning, and I don't want to sound like there should be a pity party for the operations group,
but the gift that keeps on giving is that in order to build facilities and renovate facilities in the state of Texas is that we have to do that through bonds.
Bonds are tricky.
We already know that pricing and funding can be affected by inflation and all sorts of things,
and so you see neighboring districts as well as us, it's been a challenge on the 21 bond.
We feel a little bit better about the 23 bond because we planned for inflation at the time, although it is not continued at the rate that it was, it's still a challenge for us.
So during that bond planning time was the same time that we were putting together a plan to hopefully purchase this building.
building. Because we hadn't purchased the building yet when we were talking about the bond and the
BTP program, we obviously we couldn't mention the Merchant's Way building, but that in our essence,
that was the plan moving forward. So as we're going through the bond planning process, we're
also going out looking at facilities and we took a look at a few things and I'll talk about some
cost drivers here in a minute, but you can't take bids before bond planning. So you can get ideas
from contractors and things like that of kind of what a building like that would cost to build out
but ultimately we had to kind of determine what we thought the best we could what a building like
that would cost to build out prior to the bond passing and we do not have a lot of history with
renovating office complexes we've renovated a few things we've purchased the u of h building
which initially really was a classroom building.
We bought the HR building across the way,
which was a bank, but it sort of fit
because it's an office.
So this was a little bit new territory for us.
So some cost drivers.
Obviously these kiddos on both sides
are a little bit more high need than our other kiddos,
than our regular kiddos in the classroom.
So we went out and we visited a facility
in a neighboring district.
To get some ideas of what we needed to do. I want to say that was March, April. I believe Ms. Hack put that together. We went out there with a whole bunch of folks, facilities people on our end as well as special education folks. And we talked to them about what they would have done differently had they had the opportunity. So some things that come up reinforce walls because kiddos get upset and they punch walls. And so that prevents you from having to go out and fix sheetrock once a week. They need some specialized
restroom facilities for kiddos with disabilities.
Programming and things like that create some specialized areas like therapy rooms and things
like that.
And then the last thing on the cost driver piece is the cost per square footage.
And I think Dr. G sent you a document that talked about the cost per square footage.
The more you shrink this project, obviously you spend less money, but the cost per square
foot is significantly more.
I believe it came out to be about $100 more per square foot if you do the smaller piece of that.
The next slide, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on that, but it is a cost driver doing a central plant rather than doing rooftop units.
Rooftop units are just what they sound like.
They're air conditioning units that sit on top of a roof of a building like this.
If you were a tenant in a building, you would only air condition your section, right?
And so that lends itself to that rooftop unit.
unit. We the district standard for our folks and for our campuses are central plants that would then ultimately power the whole building as far as AC is concerned. Our guys again are used to that. The challenge would be as you build out this building, you'd have I don't know how many Nathan would be able to tell you dozens of rooftop units up there on top of the building, sending our guys up these ship ladders and working on those. That's really not their expertise. So that's the point of that. Again, the central plant is a
driver initially. The rooftop units, you would add those as you go and the cost would be there, but
that's a cost driver. I'm going to turn this one over to Mr. Smith because he's going to talk to
you a little bit about financing the project. Well, if you don't mind, Mr. Beerling, I'm going
to do it from here. Essentially, with financing, there is $5.16 million approved in the 2023 bond,
as Mr. Beerling just mentioned. We do need approximately another $5.4 million to complete
the project as designed.
We sold bonds of the amount of $250 million in proceeds
that we received on July the 20th.
Those monies are invested and laddered out
in our investment portfolio and earning interest.
And so, for example, if over a 12-month period of time,
we had $150 million earning 6% interest, that would be about,
I'm sorry, 6%, 4% interest, that would be $6 million.
million dollars so that's more than enough interest to pay for a project
like this and or to to close the gap there the funding gap but I also want to
stress that if this project moves forward and it would be awarded to a
vendor we wouldn't pay that vendor all up front by the time we ended up using
those interest proceeds it would probably be sometime late next summer so
So we would be earning interest all year on those bond proceeds.
We would start probably by spending the bond proceeds that was set aside for the bond program.
And then each month the vendor will draw cash.
By the time we got to use the interest proceeds, it would be probably this time next year.
So I'm very confident that with our investment earnings that we would be able to close that
that gap without using any other project savings that we've had.
Okay.
And the last slide from the facility side is, again, the benefits of the original project.
So the original project, the full first floor is a recommendation of both my group as well
as the special ed department.
We think that's what's best for kiddos.
It does create a more robust program for 18 plus kids.
It does allow us to consolidate staff at Merchants Way rather than have them strewn across the district at other locations.
BTP already is centrally located, but the 18-plus programs are not.
I'm sure Dr. Coffey will speak to this more than I will, but it does allow us to keep some age-appropriate cohorts together.
rather than having 21 year olds with 14 year olds at the high school it does
allow those kiddos to be say kiddos they're they're grown to be at this
location in an age-appropriate cohort it also provides a little space at the at
the at the campuses the facility will serve as students and staff over a long
period of time this is not just a one-shot deal this is something that
will like a campus will serve kids for decades and it does allow us to grow
grow into the facility at this time. We have no plans for the second and third floor, but we do
know that the central plant and some other things will allow us to grow into the facility as the
district gets larger. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Coffey to speak to the program.
Good evening, President Perez, board members, Dr. Gorski. I have, I love to talk about special
ed, so I could do this for quite some time, but in the effort of maintaining our time this evening,
I know I've shared much of this presentation with you before so I'm going to go back through hit the overview of that and I'm
Happy to answer any specific questions you may have
All right, so as you know special education is
For educational practice. It's one of the most complex areas because if there's a variety of laws that intersect and so just to
Remind us all that we have these are not programs that are optional to provide
We are required to meet the needs of students under both federal and state law
and we have policies to ensure that that happens here in KDIC and so part of what
we have to be sure we're doing is providing students with the free and
appropriate public education that is built by their ARD committees to ensure
that they are able to make progress in light of their unique circumstances and
so that's often referred to as FAPE we love acronyms and special ed so I wanted
to get that one out there because I may reference it a few times as you know
over the last 10 years. Certainly our overall population has been growing and
so has our special education population. So this slide is updated for tonight's
presentation and I looked I just got an email today with our updated enrollment
of 95,825. So when you look at that we're at about 17.6% in special
education right now with 16,891 students that are currently served.
And as we look at the build out, and Mr. Verling spoke about the fact that this building would take us forward, right?
And so as we look at build out, we continue to believe that our special education numbers will increase, as they have routinely over the last 10 years.
Not only have those increased, but our percentage of students requiring even more complicated and complex and intense interventions has been increasing.
And so we believe that will continue as well.
And by the time we reach the build out speculations that demographers are, I think, positing at
this point, which is about 117, 118,000 students, I anticipate we will be serving between 18
and 20,000 special education students.
So I think that's an important point to make when we look at this building that, you know,
we're building it for what we have right now and also for what we anticipate will come
in the future.
So we want that to be something that will continue to be relevant across time.
So let's talk just a minute about what behavior programming we currently have in KDISD versus
sort of conceptually what is that shift we're looking for at the Merton Way building.
So we do have a continuum of supports right now to support students that have behavioral
needs through special education.
And if you think about it from a conceptual lens, there are basically three big buckets.
You have students who require behavioral support, and that support can be provided on their
home campus whether it's elementary junior high or high school they need something like
accommodations or behavior intervention plan they might require a specialized program that happens
to be located on their home campus so that's kind of the first big bucket the second bucket for kids
that do require a little bit more specialized supports is we have a variety of programs that
are available at certain campuses across our district our a b program is an example of that
it stands for adaptive behavior for students who have behavioral concerns that escalate to a point
where a comprehensive campus is not every comprehensive campus does not have a program
like that we we cluster that program and so they might have to leave their home campus to go to
another campus and the third big bucket we have one right now which is the btp or behavior transition
program which is a centralized behavior program to support our secondary students so when they
are served and we have a we have a few different programs located at the BTP
that are behavior supports but when students have not been successful on a
comprehensive campus in one of those first two buckets we look at that more
centralized support campus because it does have some opportunities there that
we don't have on all of our campus some of the therapeutic and behavioral
supports that are more specialized and require even more specialized staff to
implement so what's different and why do we need to look at making changes what
Well, over the past probably 24 months or so, we've seen a shift in behaviors on campuses.
And I know this board is aware of that.
I know it's an area of specific interest and concern because you want to ensure students are safe.
We want to ensure students are learning.
And a lot of the students with the most severe, most of the students with the most severe behavioral needs are special education students.
So what we're seeing is that our current programs are supporting students.
And so I do not want you to think that we're not supporting students, because we are.
But we see this shift, and if we don't start making changes now, the concern is will we
be able to continue to support with the escalating needs of students that we're seeing?
And I do want to say this is not just a KDIC concern, right?
This is happening nationwide, statewide, but KDIC has always been, with the support of
our board and the support of our administration and the support of our parents, innovative
in our approach.
We've always been at the front to make sure that we're leading the way in these approaches.
And so we're seeing what a lot of districts are, which is an overall increase in the number of students that require behavioral support.
Our students are coming to us, our youngest students, less ready with behaviors for learning in the classroom.
And I'm sure you all visit elementary schools.
I'm sure you hear that a lot from principals that we have behavioral concerns, and we're addressing that at the elementary level for sure.
It's something very proactive we can work on.
But that means there's an increased number of students who require programs,
programs, an increased number of students who require psychological and counseling services,
and other specialized supports including environmental adaptions or adaptations or even homebound
for anxiety-related or behavioral, medically-related disorders.
So we're seeing more behaviors and we're seeing more severity of behavior with a greater frequency.
So it's not just that the behaviors are bigger, they're occurring more often.
And as a result, there's a greater impact on overall student functioning, right?
And so we're seeing this increase. We need to do a little bit of a conceptual shift in the way we support students to ensure that we can maintain the innovation, the effectiveness of our programming in KDIC and the learning for all of our students.
And so that conceptual shift is what we're looking at in this Merchant's Way building.
One of the things we're looking at is we currently do provide centralized behavioral programming at the secondary level.
And we want to provide that for elementary as well, because we're seeing students who really require that need at the elementary level.
So we want to expand that offering.
We want to look at providing and incorporating increased therapeutic interventions into that centralized behavioral programming.
And really the primary reason for that is because we find the research supports students make faster progress when we are able to do those in a very intentional and direct manner.
And so being able to pull it all together in a centralized allows us to have a greater efficiency of use with our staff.
staff. We can do more intervention with less staff, if you will. And so that's a positive.
We cut down a lot of the transition time and things like that. And it gives us the opportunity
to have enhanced options for general ed and special ed students in grades K through 12.
And again, increases the capability and capacity of our staff to serve behavioral and emotional
needs of the district. In order to do that, we do think there needs to be a little bit of a
rebranding so um from the btp which is behavior transition programming to a larger piece which is
what we're proposing is the blc or behavioral learning center and the purpose and primary
objectives are listed there and again these are not new to you i know you've seen them before but
they i think summarize the intent of that of that program so i want to say very clearly the behavior
transition program is not going away. It has been extremely effective and Mr.
Schaefer spoke about that. It was started under his tutelage and has continued to
this day. It's been extremely effective for supporting our students. We're not
proposing we get rid of it at all. It would be one component of the BLC and in
addition to that we would like to expand it again as I said to serve elementary
as well as secondary. At BTP we also have what we refer to as super cap which is
an acronym children with autism programs for students who require a more significant intervention
type of programming we don't currently we have that for secondary levels we do not have it for
elementary and we think that we do so again to expand for elementary behavioral life skills
classrooms which we have a lot of our students who are very academically minded as special education
students with severe cognitive disabilities they're on a more academic track but they also
have behavioral concerns that are different and need a different type of
intervention so we'd like to have those classrooms at elementary and secondary
and again therapeutic support classrooms it didn't go anywhere there we go so I'm
going to shift and just talk quickly about transition and post-secondary
programming in Katy ISD this is specifically an area of the law that if
you don't work in special ed or if you didn't happen to be a high school
principal you might not have a lot of knowledge of but we have students who
who are in special ed who get all of their academic requirements met, all of their math,
all of their science, everything. They have met graduation requirements in the state of Texas,
but they have IEP or individualized education program needs that continue beyond the graduation
academic needs in order to provide that free and appropriate public education I talked about
earlier. We have to address sometimes non-academic areas like behavior and like post-secondary. And
receiving interventions through the year where they are 21 on September 1st. And so they can't,
if they turn 22 before September 1st, they can't come back another year. So we have students in our
school who could be 21 on September 1st, their birthday is the second, and they are 22 all year
long. So I think that's important to note. So we provide supports for those students. And in
specific, they're designed, again, to support those students who've met the graduation requirements,
requirements and they focus on putting in an adult schedule. We're not teaching them to be high school
students any longer we're teaching them to transition to their post-secondary
setting that could be a variety of settings it could be a job it could be a
group home it could be the community it could be a variety of settings and we
work specifically on their transition needs currently we have about give or
take a hundred and fifty students I think our number actually today when I
pulled it was 139 so it changes based on students coming in and out but about 150
50 is about average for this time of year for our 18 plus programs so right now 18 plus programs are
located at all comprehensive high schools that have that aid but like not freeman for example
because they don't they don't have all grade levels yet so it it captures or captures about 14
to 16 classrooms across the district which is significant as we have we have high schools where
we could be using those classrooms for other things and the other piece i think is really
significant and i don't remember one of the speakers spoke on it or touched on it earlier is
that when our non-disabled students and like i have three children when they graduated they had
a graduation ceremony we did the party we did the whole thing and they went on to college or to the
military or whatever our 18 plus students go back to high school and it's problematic for a couple
of reasons we're able to support them in doing that and it is not wrong to do
that but when we think about that from the opportunities that we have in KDISD
there's a couple of big points that I think are worth considering one is that
that's not an authentic experience and the goal that we want to be able to put
in forward in front of these students is to offer an authentic experience what
happens when you transition when you graduate from high school what happens
You don't go back. So that's one piece. The second piece is that in order to qualify for 18 plus services, one of the things I think is worth considering is that you have these ongoing needs.
one of the areas of ongoing need that will qualify you for 18 plus services
are serious behaviors so many of our 18 plus students continue to have serious
behaviors that we are working to intervene with that would post a problem
for them in a job or in a group home or possibly in the community so I want you
to know that it looks like the BLC is a behavior side in an 18 plus side it's
not that clean there are behaviors that go over into 18 plus um and so that i think that matters
from when you look at the the reason for the building and the other piece is that sometimes
it's difficult for a 22 year old who's going back to high school to understand that the 14 year old
is not somebody he should be or she should be hanging out with and so i think that we have to
to provide some opportunities for all of our students
to be able to understand why that transition happens.
Why is it necessary when you graduate from high school
to transition?
So I just think from that authentic perspective,
that matters for our students, students
that are in high school and students that
are needing to move on.
So we are going to propose what we call KDISD+,
which is Promoting Learning for Universal Success.
This would be a centralized 18-plus program,
and the objectives are listed there.
On the right, it talks about the domains
through which instruction occurs in an 18 plus setting,
adult living, lifelong learning, social recreation,
and leisure and employment.
And these are the areas around which we base goals
for these students.
The different learning spaces that could be made available
in an area such as Merchant's Way
that would be impossible to replicate
across 10 high school campuses.
Apartments, teaching them how to live independently
independently and function independently in a living space.
Classrooms, which is where we teach more direct skills in our classrooms,
are not like high school classrooms.
They're more like a CTE kind of vocational type classroom setting.
And then recreational leisure rooms, because it's also important that we know
how to work, we know how to live, and we know how to take a break appropriately.
Production labs, where we can talk about generalization of skills,
like teaching them how to work, how to do dishes in a restaurant, how to serve in a restaurant,
how to make items, assemble items, work on a line to be able to complete tasks,
and then how to sell those items, like a simulation lab.
And the comparison I've made in the past is kind of like Brookwood, but not exactly,
because Brookwood's not a school.
But they make items, and then they sell the items, right, which generates that purpose and revenue.
revenue. And so, so that's kind of generally a high level, very fast rendition of where I feel like the impact of this building would make a huge difference for our community. And I know I'm happy to take any questions and I'm sure the team is happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I want to start with a couple of questions on the number side because that's primarily what brought us here because we we did approve the building purchase.
as the board did and with the idea of the use of the building as you described it.
So it's mostly driven for me today as far as questions related to the numbers, if you will,
and the cap and so on.
So I wanted to make sure I got the numbers right.
Did you say that, first of all, the $5.4 million, it was the difference,
I think Mr. Smith mentioned $5.4 million that would be required additionally.
plus the 5.16 from the bond.
Yes, sir.
That's an accurate statement.
If you're going off the bids from April.
I'm sorry, the original bids.
Okay.
So that's about, it's like $10.5 million.
Total, yes, sir.
Okay.
So the pricing, when you bid just a portion of the first floor,
which was like about $8.8 million,
did I hear you say that for another $2 million,
that the rest of the floor could be finished out so what those numbers look
like I just want to correct your only right so we did the first bid was in
April and so we did the entire first floor and that was the 10 point change
right and then and we knew there was some concerns about well what if we
eliminated the 18 plus program so we the second set of bids we eliminated the 18
plus program right that's 41% of the the first floor was eliminated completely
and we went to the rooftop units because we knew that the the the central plant
was going to be a driver for the beginning for initially anyway would be
a driver and that's what came out to be the eight point in change that's what
the the chillers out not on not the rooftop right the second the second bid
the eight million dollar deal with the 41 percent less was also inclusive of rooftop units not the
central plant the only bids we did with the central plant was the original all the fur the
full first floor okay so what do we think i know you had to re-bid it but what do we think the
the price is going to be with the central plant and also the entire first floor
I'm probably not the one to say that.
Art might have a better guess than me.
I would probably say if you factor in also what we call the soft cost, which is the cost
for the architect and all the testing that we need to do out there, probably looking
at a total project cost of $12 million.
I'm sorry?
$12 million total.
$12 million.
Yeah.
Okay.
Versus the 5.16.
Right.
So those numbers that you saw up there like the 10 million that's we go back to that slide
Isn't it 10.8 and 10.9 million? It's not change
That's just a construction cost. That's that doesn't factor in the the softening mr.
Sorry, so the April for the whole thing was
10.9 to 11 million that was the original
Those were the construction cost bids.
Yeah.
And then this latest is 8.5 to 8.8, but it does not include the central plan.
It's the rooftop.
Correct.
Okay.
It wasn't clear to me.
I thought that that included the central plan.
No, the third bid, which was only 41% less of the total first floor, that included rooftop units, not a central plan.
But that's not what we want, right?
That's not the ideal setup.
We don't think that makes sense to put the...
It makes sense to do a central plan, not the rooftop units, yes.
Okay, so I'm at a loss because we don't have the numbers to actually approve,
for example, doing the full floor.
What is it that we need exactly?
So ideally we would want to build the entire first floor in a central plant
Which was the second bid that we took out which is that ten point nine million dollars
But with the the 11 million is not a good number anymore the April number right? Okay. You're saying that's 12. Excuse me
Mr. President you're saying that's now probably 12. Yes current day. This is five months later. So we need about six plus million
We have five now. So we would need
Six and a half or something.
Seven.
Seven million.
Okay. So I'm a little bit at a loss as far as like what we're going to be approving or not approving
because right now the only numbers we have are for part of the first floor and not the AC that we want.
We want, because what's included there is the rooftop units only.
And if we're gonna if we want to do this like we think we want to do it
We really need a new bid for everything right so that let me let me go ahead and jump in here
And the reason I've asked to put it back on the agenda because these are projects that we wanted to do
We have the building and I haven't been satisfied. It's been tough, and it's been challenging with the bids being much more
Than what we had allocated
So what I was hoping by bringing this back is get some direction from the board because I can't keep bidding a project and asking people to bid on it, but then never do the project.
Right.
Because sooner or later nobody's going to want to bid it and nobody's going to want to do it.
So the purpose of coming here tonight is to be transparent with the board.
We've tried to bid this several different ways.
We want to get the projects done.
Here's how we would finance it.
Now, six or eight months ago, we didn't have the extra monies.
We could have said maybe some bond savings in there or whatever,
but now we have an actual plan to come up with the additional monies that we know it's going to cost.
So I just want direction from the board.
If you like the projects and we want to do the projects, we're going to re-bid it,
and if it comes in knowing that it might come in at 11 or 12, I have no idea when it's going to come in,
but I trust our folks to say if they think it'll come in around 12 or but I
Want to move the project forward at that time again?
I don't want to bid it bring it in here the board knows it's going to be
12 or maybe even 12 and a half or 13
I have no idea and then the board say no we don't want to do that and now I've bid it again
And then it just sits there, and we're not doing any of the projects, so just looking for direction from the board at this time
Okay. Mr. President, can you tell me on the 18 plus program, how long are students typically
going to be at that campus? So it depends on what the age is when they graduate, when their
birthday is, that kind of thing. But generally, I mean, the longest would be 17 to 22 if they were
to graduate at the age of 17. It doesn't always work that way. So for example, if you have a
student who has minimal 18 plus skills but is unable to has demonstrated that
they like to say inappropriate things to others and so let's say academically
they're relatively on level but they just continue to have needs in the area
of socially appropriate comments well we may be able to work with them for six
months on a job site and then they don't need us anymore and so then they're done
yeah I'm sorry I I didn't mean I meant like during the day like oh I'm sorry
Okay, well, the answer to every question in my entire world is it depends.
So it depends as well on what they need.
Some students, our most significant students, let's say,
who are needing a lot of intervention might be at that site all day long.
If these are students who possibly are going to move into a group home at some point
or are going to work in the community, they may need to be at the 18-plus site,
the Merchant's Way building, all day.
More often what happens is a portion of the day is at the building,
and a portion of the day is at a job site or at like a group home type of site or a community site
so that we're working on generalizing skills.
And we generally do it right now because we are on a home campus.
We do it generally looking at like periods of the day.
So like there's two morning sections, two afternoon sections.
And so you might rotate in the morning through different classes
and then go to a job site for one of your afternoon sections, maybe both.
Or maybe you come back.
It depends on the student.
Okay.
Okay, and then Mr. Smith, can I ask you a question?
On the interest, what are the limitations of how,
or restrictions on what we can spend that interest money on?
The restriction would be to spend it on capital projects.
We couldn't use that interest and put it in the general fund
to fund teacher salaries or whatever, which would be nice to do,
but we cannot do that.
But we can put it towards capital projects.
And if you'll recall, when we bought the building,
I guess about 15 months ago, we bought that building with the cash from the sale of some
piece of property and interest.
And so this would be basically the same maneuver.
You'd be buying it with designated bond funds of $5.16 million.
The difference would be in interest.
And again, and then the other option would be to use project savings.
Not my recommendation.
We've still got a lot of projects, big projects to bid.
even though we have a great start with project savings,
my recommendation would be to bank on earning some interest
and being able to apply those interest earnings before we tap that project savings.
So in case we ran into some inflation or a tough bid project on a big project,
we could use that savings then, and we won't have used it on something like this.
We would have those savings available still.
So I hear what you're saying, and I think I'm totally behind the BTP program.
I think that so many classrooms across our district could benefit from that.
It's the 18 and plus that makes me nervous because we have other projects we have to get done,
and in an inflationary period, I don't want us to overextend, and that makes me nervous.
Mr. President.
And from my perspective, again, I would not touch those savings.
And we're 16 point something ahead with, as I understand it, a couple more to go or to come to add to that savings.
But I wouldn't touch that.
I think I'm confident that we could do it on interest.
And if the interest did not come in like we expected, then we could touch a very small, small portion of that savings.
And we would be a year down the road to to know how those other projects that still need to be bid turn out
Other questions. Yeah, mr. President about the bond. Mr. Smith. Did you say you you're estimating six million of interest?
On the example I use I think we could easily generate six million dollars in interest. Yes, ma'am
I'll just the interest. Yes, okay, and that and that you generally I don't know how this works
But do you earmark that ever or is it earmarked for anything else again about 15 months ago?
We earmarked interest proceeds to buy this building right and this would be the same thing
We would be earmarking it to for this project if it weren't for this project those savings could go
Towards another project that came up they could go towards that service. They could go towards
Another project that was short they could go to one of the referendums that
That's it.
Sure, sure.
Okay.
So it's not replacing an earmark for a different project?
No.
Just the normal?
That's correct.
It's not replacing anything.
Okay.
Okay.
And about the bids, did we ever think about, correct me if this is futile,
or perhaps an idea of getting a bid for a BTP more homogenous build-out of the first floor?
and does that provide a savings because because part of the 18 plus is providing some pretty
robust um not a classroom but an apartment a simulated work space a simulated leisure space
to me that sounds expensive i may be wrong but if we take the btp design and roll that out for the
whole first floor does that provide a savings and then perhaps programming wise we could still bring
in the 18 plus students it's not going to be the the nice simulated spots we want so let me speak
first to the the btp side so more of our specialized pieces honestly are on that side of
the program because those are the areas where we have to have some very specialized supports for
the students certainly there are some on the 18 plus side but many of those are in areas like the
bathrooms and with the nurse which will be utilized by btp students also um and and while we are um
while we are looking at replicating realistic spaces for students because when they move into
the real world again high school classrooms are not where they spend their time so
while we look at replicating some of those pieces uh it's actually as i understand it and please
tell me if i'm understanding it incorrectly those are not the spaces that are which is why when we
we cut that part out it didn't save us a whole lot of money because it's not the
more specialized they seem specialized because we don't have them throughout
the district in that same manner but they're not nearly as as I understand it
as costly as some of the BTP side because the BLC okay I really like that
confirmed if that's true versus a hama I'm assuming a homogeneous build-out is
is cheaper. I mean, that just makes sense to me. Is that not true? Well, I guess the first thing I
would say is that we try to get guidance from the curriculum and instruction side as far as what we
need to build. So we wouldn't say, don't you guys need a full floor of BTP? I thought you did.
We would ask them, right? And then they would give us guidance as far as kind of the direction they
wanted to go. But I would echo what Gwen was saying, and Art has been involved in this for
for months.
The walls and the facilities and the things on the BTP side
are pretty significant cost drivers on this thing.
You do lose some benefit of the cost per square foot
when you shrink the size of the entire project.
But I would say that the BTP side is a pretty big cost
driver.
Do you want to talk about some of those things, Art?
That's correct.
You could do that, but is it going
to serve the the purpose of the space probably probably not but uh i'm asking because we can't
we potentially cannot afford that so i want to know is there another option right i obviously
would love to service everyone but talk about money and i'll just echo some of the the comments
that were made and then uh like ted said some of the costs are more on the on the what would
blc site than on the 18 plus side just because of the finishes that are required for that space
space and in the specific use of those spaces.
So you're all three telling me that you're pretty confident there's no savings in building
it out.
And I think it's reflected on the prices when you see the savings when we cut that area
down it was just it was minimal when we're maybe 50% of the space we're cutting and we
only saw $2 million savings on it.
Let me pop in also because I should have said this earlier.
I do not believe nor do I wish that we would ever need to serve the number of
students in the BLC that we would need 40,000 square feet of space solely for
them so I do think that that's you know relevant as well you know we're trying
to we are trying to be cost-effective by combining these programs we have
students who have some dual needs and we have some supports to be able to provide
on both sides of that to give space back to classrooms because I do agree that
certainly behavior is what you often see float to the top right because that's
happening immediately in the moment but I do also want to say and I know mr.
beerling we several other people in here who have been principals at the
secondary level there's a lot of behavioral support in 18 plus as well
mr. president miss Fox I could follow up later okay so I'm just to tag in here
with what mrs. Cuzela is talking about so to build out homogenous classrooms on
the 18 plus side won't serve those students so why bring them because
they've already finished classroom instruction because they've graduated
virtually so what we're doing is preparing them to live successfully on
their own or in a group home in the you know in the world outside so that will
We'll take a few more.
And according to what Mrs. Teamey asked, that could take a few months or it could take four years.
And that happens depending on the student and the success you have.
And it could be two days a week.
It could be five days a week.
It could be.
It's very tailored.
It's more like a post-secondary experience.
Okay.
So I have a few questions around this.
Yes. When you take Let's Talk 18 Plus students and bring them to this new program, if we approve of that, does that require parent consent?
Parents wouldn't be able to keep them at a home campus. This is your new option or not?
not is that right so we're working through some of the finer points of that because we do know that
transition is not only hard on students yes as a parent I can say sometimes transition was hard
on me as well especially if you have a child that's been at Katy High School for five years
now right and sometimes where I know when my kids went away to college I was like I'm not ready for
this right so um I understand that transition can be hard for parents as well and so we do have some
conversation but the answer would be that the 18 plus program would be provided at the merchant's
way building got it yes because we have a special edu may i just keep going with my questions
is that okay because we have a special education teacher shortage in the to the nth degree would
this help with that when we consolidate all nine high schools and we bring them together
this would help with that special and it was your shortage yes we have staff
existing that can come to it just in the same way that you know if you're I think
back to when my kids were little and with several of us we're gonna go to
dinner we got one babysitter we put her all with the white right like and not
that that's the same as a teacher so I do want to be very clear but sometimes
when you put students together you're able to more efficiently watch and
maintain and take care of the needs of the student and that is an example and
And my understanding at this point is that there is a small, I don't even know what to call it.
I would have to call my friend Jeannie Coleman to describe it to me exactly.
But at the Coleman Center, there's a lab of some kind.
I don't know if it's a bedroom.
That's work-based learning.
Okay, work-based learning.
We do have students who rotate through that from an 18 plus and work-based learning is different.
And the easiest way I know to say that to people who don't work in my crazy world is that work-based learning is sort of like, sort of like career in tech ed for special ed while you're in your 9 through 12.
And 18 plus is after you're outside of your 9 through 12.
But both sets of students can and do use that lab.
The problem is I've got both sets of students from nine well. Yes nine high schools that are having to rotate through
two three rooms it
We don't get a lot of office out of it correct understanding is there but the time they get there, and then they come back again
It's
There is a real learning. It's it's repetition and they kind of remember
But it's maybe less than we would like to provide less success whereas if this
this building, they would come daily or multiple times in a week.
They would be with other students like them.
And while I don't have heartburn with a 22-year-old being on a campus with a 14-year-old,
because they stay in their part of the building.
They're not really day-to-day in classrooms.
But if all of them are at the same building and at different success rates,
Doesn't that do what it does to all of us and be like you can do that
I can do that if you can do it. I can do it right wouldn't that instill more like
Success and you know the rising tide rises raises all ships kind of experience is that what you're expecting?
I do believe that I
Wholeheartedly believe that this building will bring nothing but positive results for our students absolutely
Absolutely, 100%.
And I want to be clear that our 18-plus teachers do a great job right now,
so I am not in any way denigrating the work that is happening on these campuses.
But this would be an amazing opportunity
and would be a robust program to ensure that we are providing at a high level
that free and appropriate public education mandated by federal law.
My last question, have you visited other programs?
Which ones did you visit?
it and how do you, I mean, I like that KDICD is, you know, offers innovative programs. What did
you find? So I didn't find exactly this. So let me say that. We looked around, we called around,
we even looked in other states. I'm looking around at my team. We did go visit several
similar situations. And that's what led us to this design, right? We looked at not only what's
out there but also research into the needs and success rates of students with disabilities based
on the post-secondary opportunities made available to them there's some fascinating and i get really
excited about research but longevity pieces about students and how long they're able to adults how
long they're able to stay employed that kind of thing so we looked at all of those pieces we
looked at what we found where people were successful there are more programs like a blc out
out there than there are this combination program.
And that's where we came up with this idea.
And so it is very innovative, as I believe we have always
been in KDISD.
I have always felt, and I look around,
that we support all students at all levels
and recognize all students at all levels.
And so this is a very exciting piece for us.
I understand the financial situation
that we're in right now and where the concerns are.
but I also believe that, you know, this is one of the most significantly, this population needs our support in order for them to go on and be what we want all of our students to be, right?
And so I'm very excited by the opportunities that this would provide.
Mr. President, may I finish with this one thing that I wrote down?
So the creator of Howdy Homemade ice cream came to be the speaker at our
VIPs breakfast, year before last I think, and Austin, our sweet friend Austin,
I can't think of his last name right this minute, and he was there and he
works at Howdy Homemade and he's a Katy High School graduate and everybody loves
Austin. And the founder of Howdy Homemade talked about so many employers and so
So many people, so many employers fish out of one side of the boat,
and they're missing an incredible blessing and opportunity
by not fishing out of a different side of the boat
where children, adults, have great potential.
And when you pair them together, it's magical.
And every time I go to Howdy Homemade Ice Cream
and the name of the ice cream shop with Mr. Schaefer's church,
I can't think of it.
But when you see all these incredible people being successful, it just gets me excited.
Mr. Schaefer, what's the name of it?
Friends Ice Cream and Coffee near Kingsland Baptist Church.
And I'm glad you brought that up real quick.
I'm just going to say we have multiple partners in this community.
Our community in KDIC employs our students, and we have multiple partners.
And so our community is invested in that piece, which I think is hugely important to ensure the longevity of these interventions.
It's a great one.
Thank you.
Mr. President, I have a question.
Ms. Calhoun?
I was curious.
I wanted to piggyback on to what Trustee Fox had asked.
I didn't get, I didn't catch.
You said in the presentation part that it was a neighboring district and facilities
for our own ability to put eyes on that.
What neighboring district and facility exactly was that?
So we went, I think the one you were referencing is Klein.
Yeah, we went to Klein.
We've also been, SciFair has a facility that we have looked at.
You guys went up to San Antonio Northeast?
Northside.
I get that wrong every time.
Humble.
Yes.
Yeah.
Their programs were not this.
Not exactly.
It's a similar, there's some similarities, yes.
Okay.
And then, so that answers the question on what facility it was.
And then when we had talked about making space available by creating or moving everyone over to this building,
do you know what kind of, do you guys have an idea of what kind of space that is?
Did anybody have the numbers on that of like what, we have a lot of portables at these high schools,
that if we freed up that space, do we have an idea of how many portables we would actually be able to stop using
if we didn't necessarily, if we had freedom of that space?
14 to 16 classrooms.
Right.
So I think Dr. Coffey said 14 to 16 classrooms.
So I don't know if that would necessarily eliminate a portable per se,
but I do know that if you talk to our high school principals,
we have several high schools that are floating teachers.
So teachers don't have permanent rooms.
They don't even have a portable room.
They don't have permanent rooms.
They float from classroom to classroom to fill in when a teacher has a conference period.
So it would 14 to 16 rooms?
Classrooms throughout the district.
Yes, ma'am.
Throughout the district. So that's not just one high school. That's throughout the district.
Correct.
It would be 14 to 16 classrooms throughout the district.
Yes, ma'am. And depending on how that all worked out, the principals could use those classrooms differently.
So it could be more than 14 to 16.
Okay. And then just to clarify, we are meeting the mandates.
So when we're talking about this, just to make that clarification,
We are meeting our federal and state mandates to provide the free and appropriate education for our SPED community students currently right now.
We do meet the mandates of state and federal law.
Do we go over that?
Do we go above and beyond as a district of innovation for this specific deal and the way for the specific need?
Do we currently go beyond that or are we just like meeting it?
We're just meeting the bare minimum.
So what I would say is that that calculus is determined on an individualized basis, but I can say generally that Katie ISD provides a
Robust education to students enough to where people are like seeking us out. They move here. They sure do
Specifically for our sped programming. Mm-hmm. Okay, so okay. I wanted to check. Okay. That's what I needed to know. Thanks
so I
Want to get back to someone? I'm sorry. I haven't got to asking questions yet. Okay. Well, I didn't hear you ask
Well, I was waiting my turn.
So, I mean, you can go and then I can go.
No, go ahead.
Okay.
I have a few questions.
And I have a few questions and then I have a statement to make about this.
So, first of all, the 22-year-olds in the schools, because I've been in schools, they do intermingle with each other.
I just want to say they do because they walk through hallways.
They eat lunch.
And yeah, and some people aren't comfortable with the 22-year-olds being with 14-year-olds.
I agree with that.
I wanted to bring that up.
The other thing is I know we have about 150 students in the 18-plus, but I see this as potentially growing.
Yes.
because it's 150 now, but that's because maybe what the parents want for their adult children
aren't going to be met with what we provide,
so they pick them at other places other than in KDISD.
But with this new program, maybe that number will grow
because I think that there's a potential.
there's a lot more kids than that that graduate at 18 or however as a senior
that don't don't re-enroll into the 18 plus program that could end up
re-enrolling so we are required under federal law to analyze the need for 18
plus services it's not an optional enrollment we're required to offer it
now if parents choose to enroll or not that's yeah but but generally and I'm
going to look to my my group back here generally when students are eligible
parents more often than not by far do enroll okay so what I think but I agree
with you it's going to grow because our overall enrollment is growing and so as
we we continue to grow all of our programs are growing including this okay
and then I just have a few more the Jeannie Coleman building so with when we
have this 18 plus program it'll just be 9th through 12th there then and so then those kids
will have more access to that because they won't be competing then with the other 18 plus so i just
want to get that the oac which now has the btp program because i just visited that that would
free up classrooms there because there's i think about eight classrooms over there that are being
used for the BTP program? Fifteen classrooms. Fifteen, okay. Well I guess I
didn't see them all. There will be 15 more classrooms there and we need room at the
OAC so that would be good. Also the extra rooms that you're talking about with the
14 to 16 classrooms, so if I divide it up right there's probably 15, about 15,
18 plus kids at each high school. So but whether there's one or there's 15
they're going to need a classroom.
So I know at Taylor High School, for example,
they have overflowing kids, and they've had to utilize every...
I mentor someone over there.
We've lost our room, so they're using every room,
so I know every room could be very valuable.
And then I just want to say, I just want to thank, first of all,
Fred Schaefer, Elaine Robertson, Martha Aki for coming to speak on this,
and I really think we should all value their input.
They are namesakes.
They have experience in special ed, the special ed program.
And I just implore the rest of the board to consider,
to please strongly consider voting yes to the entire thing
for whichever the bid's going to come out.
If it's $12 million, then so be it.
I have confidence in Mr. Smith, who, as long as I've known him,
has never given out anything wrong so I believe him and I just think we always
have to remember our mission statement which is the KDN independent school
district the leader and educational excellence together with family and
community provides unparalleled learning experiences designed to prepare and
inspire each student to live an honorable fulfilling life so in other
words we have to we're premier school districts so we have to offer better
better than everybody else. I appreciate what Mrs. Calhoun said. Yes, we do give. We are
supposed to, but I want to do more. And then the last thing I want to say, trying to implore
my fellow board members to vote yes, is I read this in the Autism Spectrum News, and
I'm just going to read what they wrote. It said, the years between students' 18th and
and 21st birthday are particularly important time for taking concrete steps toward career
development and post-secondary education. Those four years during which students continue to
receive funding and services should be a time of careful planning and time allocation with the goal
of marshalling available resources to obtain valuable skills. Unfortunately, this vital period
is often one in which students are the least well served. Many students graduate from high school
only to return to what is essentially a recycled high school program.
During important years for growth and skill development,
these students are in effect treading water.
And this doesn't just affect those 150 kids.
This affects their families, our entire community,
and I feel that giving them the best chance at being able to learn a skill
and going out there and having the full confidence to have a job
and to contribute to society benefits our entire community and that's what I
would just like to say thank you so I just want to mention just sort of remind
everybody that this board did approve the purchase of this building in May of
last year and so with the knowledge that the use of the building would be the
the Behavioral Learning Center and the 18 Plus.
And so we approved that, the purchase in May,
this board did.
So it's not like we're starting from scratch
trying to decide what we wanna do in terms of
these very worthwhile needs, if you will.
I think the issue comes to me, comes down with the cost
and the fact that we need another seven million.
million. And so for me to get.
You know I'd like to see for example that the children's you
know the central plan like if we're not that just we spent we
have spent of the first of the building.
Give her the number exactly that we thought it was 1414
million dollars is listed in 1420 million dollars and we got
it for 14.
Right so we we spent 14 million dollars so it's not
like we have an investment here.
And we don't want to go too cheap in terms of like rooftop ACs and we should do the central plant chillers.
We have three floors we need to think about, not just this one floor.
So we need to do it right.
So I don't believe that we should do anything with just the rooftop units.
I'm not an AC guy, but still, we don't want to like cheapen out and just, we've already spent 14.
Let's do it correctly.
Okay, because this is going to service their future floor one four two four three and this is like upfront costs on the children's
Right, it's going to service the entire building, correct? Yes, sir. Yes, sir
You add air handler units and things like that throughout I'll let the experts jump in here
So the service yard would be sized to expand to cover all three floors
But we wouldn't start with all chillers to serve as all three floors
We would just start with one chiller to serve as the area that we're building out
Okay, but but the over the overall central plan will be big enough to expand. Okay, cuz I'm seeing I'm seeing the comment here
Allows the district to grow into the building, right?
But that's what the chillers right again
Like I said that we won't build all chillers to service all three floors, right?
Just have one children, but then we can add to it
Okay, so I
Think that I don't know for me
I'd like to see the cost of what it was.
I have confidence that we have the financial flexibility on the cost side with the interest
income that we'll generate from the bond proceeds.
It wasn't an ideal situation.
We thought it was going to be $5 million.
Now it may be $12.
No sense in revisiting that.
It's water under the bridge.
So I'd like to see what the cost is to finish out the entire floor.
So, Mr. President, I think...
At least something we can be fairly confident in.
But, Mr. President, I have a question for you.
Sure.
I think at this point it would be beneficial for us to discuss at this table or at least let you know where we're leaning.
Because I agree with Dr. Gorgorski.
To bid it again and then for us to be like, well, I don't really want that program.
And if it isn't going to pass in full, whatever, we don't need to bid it and then come back
and say it's not going to pass.
So this is the time where we talk to each other about how we're feeling.
I think you can see that I'm supportive and you can see Ms. Champagne, but if you don't
have four, then a bid is not going to get us anywhere.
This is not an action item for next week anyway, right?
No, it's not an action item.
We're not taking a vote.
Right.
So if we're going to ask them to go for the bid, I would expect, from a trustee perspective, that we have agreement that we have a good faith effort that we're going to do both sides, bid it out when it comes back.
We have the right to be like, oh, we didn't know it was going to be that much, you know, way over 12.
Then maybe we could change our mind.
But I wouldn't want to have them bid and bid and bid and people change their mind in between.
That's my thought.
Is that an issue for you?
Is that an issue for you all in terms of getting us some more reliable numbers that we can look at in terms of like the chillers, the expanded, the full floor versus just 41% being vacant?
Right. So that would go back to the original entire first floor, right, with the BLC side and the 18 plus side. That is what you're asking, correct?
Correct. We could certainly bid that again. I think as Dr. Grigorski said earlier, what we're looking for, our teams are looking for is some guidance from you guys to say, look, we know that it's going to, we're aware of the pricing.
We're aware that it's going to be more not that you're just approving a some kind of blank check because we don't operate that way, but that we're that that you all are comfortable with us moving forward with with a plan to bid the original first floor as designed with the central plant for those two programs and then would ultimately bring that back to the board for approval.
Yeah, here's the thing. Probably the other thing that would be interesting is incrementally between the full floor and only part of the floor, maybe what, $2 to $3 million?
Right.
So incrementally, $2 to $3 million of finishing out everything versus just doing part of it. To me, the $2 to $3 million incremental is not a big number.
That's correct.
To go ahead and finish out the whole thing.
We were very surprised when he came back from the second bids where we cut all that out.
We went to the rooftop units.
We really, and I hate to say cheapened it out, but we didn't do what we really wanted to do because we were trying to get to a price.
We didn't like the way it turns out.
I can hear some of you talking about that.
Like, I don't really want to do it the wrong way.
You don't benefit that much from it economically, and you really don't benefit from it programmatically.
So, yes, so our hope that would be that we would go ahead and go back and bid the whole first floor with the central plant, do it the right way, and then hopefully we could come to some agreement on that.
But, again, the difference between case A and case B, whatever you want to call it, is two to three million dollars.
Yes, sir.
Mr. President, may I?
It's not a huge number in terms of like.
No, sir, it did not move the needle.
If we were really hoping it would come back and it much closer to the to the price that we initially had on it
For the bond the five point one six, but it did not even come close to that
Right. Mr. President. Yeah, we may save two million dollars now, but when we come back to build that later
It's gonna cost us four to six, right? Right. Oh the the cost later is gonna skyrocket, right?
Right.
Mr. President.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I just want to add one more thing.
So the difference between what the bond approved
and what we need is probably about $7 million.
And I would just like to say that 1% the extra 1% raise
we gave to the staff is also $7 million.
And we approved that happily.
And we had full faith in our CFO and the things
that he said that we would be able to to make up that deficit i am also in full faith that that
extra seven million dollars will be found through the interest that he is projecting so that extra
one percent raise is very important but this is equally as important in my mind mr president yeah
miss grizella i'd like to ask just a few more questions please um so some of my heartache is
is our promises to our taxpayers, right, who voted for the bond and they voted for a specific number, right?
And so that's where my heartache is.
And we are responsible to them.
And we're talking about a $7 million delta and then some, perhaps.
We don't know, actually, until we re-bid.
Okay.
And second, we're talking about it.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
half of that first floor is for the behavioral BTP we keep saying and we're
also saying then the other half of the floor which is pretty extensive square
footage is for the 18 plus program correct so in the 18 plus program we're
talking about 150 students and over the years that number is pretty static if
I'm not correct me if I'm wrong I want to understand the growth rate and it
doesn't i feel like i've read something where it's pretty static maybe 200 kids it has been between
about a hundred and over the last eight to nine years somewhere between 120 to 210 give or take
okay thank you for confirming that so am i correct in my understanding that we're building that first
half of the floor just for 200 kids or less the first half of the the 18 plus
we keep saying oh the half of the region for 18 plus right so so there's a couple
things first off more than half of the building is utilized by the BLC there
are some common spaces that that are utilized by both if you will but but
it's about 40 it was 41 was the park we cut okay 41 and i think there was a little bit maybe that
was but yeah so about 40 was 18 plus but not all those children are always there all day
and you can have more of them if you will in one space than you can on the other side of the
building yeah i'm just trying to figure out if there's a way because we already serve them
quite well we are serving them and they go on field trips to learn some of these
life skills and we have business partners and we do it right and that's
the cost today so I'm trying to justify this cost for something we're already
doing we're meeting the need so this is a this is a want it's a nice would be
great to have this but we are currently meeting the needs yes so I'm but I'm
projecting right as we grow and move and there are some concerns moving forward
as we continue to build out for example with the WBL that's that we're currently
utilizing the JCSA for WBL and 18 plus and so part of that is looking not only
at the needs of 18 plus but also at the needs of the WBL students also the high
school students on the campuses who do need some additional room so yes today
we are meeting the needs of our students but as we move to the future I'm
concerned that could be in jeopardy. Okay, thank you. The growth, the growth though of the behavioral
learning needs is the high growth area. It is right now, but when those children turn 18,
it will be 18 plus. Okay. And that's the piece I, because what we're seeing right now is a group of
children with significantly escalated behaviors and needs that are fundamentally different than
they have been in the past in the area of behavior. And I would like to tell you that, because we are
are real good in kdisd and our behavior team i would put up against anybody in the world so what
i'd like to tell you right now is that those children will no longer have behavioral needs
when they hit 18 plus but i guarantee some of them will and so i think that 18 plus cohort of
students is going to continue to grow which is why i have concerns in the future okay and i the other
comment and i'll i'll stop i think is when we remove the behavior problem from the elementary
elementary school which is our high need right now into a central location we're not only affecting
that kid who needs special attention we're affecting the other 21 kids that couldn't learn
quite well or there were there were disruptions and that teacher who can now teach really well
so my interest is servicing that it's high growth it affects thousands of kids those who are left in
in the classroom that is now not disrupted by that child who
needed help to be removed from the campus.
So is there any other pricing option or any other kind
of bid?
Once again, you're telling me there's no other option
of building it out to only service the high growth
area of behavioral learning program.
Part of the reason that the options are
limited on an offsite campus is because we
we don't have a general ed component on this building campus.
And most of our students who remain on a comprehensive campus
that are not able to transition over to a specialized program setting like this,
it's because there's a general ed component within their IEP.
They need to be into a general education classroom or something like that.
And I don't have general education classrooms to put them in.
The same is true at BTP.
It doesn't mean we don't provide any content-based instructions.
I do want to clarify that.
But what you're talking about the elementary level
is that if you have, let's just say, a second grade classroom
that has an emotionally dysregulated student
who needs a program, there's 22 students in that classroom
that might be impacted, as you said, by that student,
and he or she is impacted also.
So if that student comes out of that classroom
and needs to go to the BLC, let's say,
for therapeutic interventions,
he will no longer have access to a general education setting.
And so I don't have options with many of my programs
in special education because they need access
to general education settings.
Okay.
I'm trying to make the point, if we do end up spending $7 million plus, that we are servicing
the greatest number of families and students with what we spend.
Sure.
I completely understand.
Yeah.
Mr. President, I'd like to just say one more thing about the want and the need.
need. So a lot of the things that we provide in KDIC are not needs. So we gave an extra
1% raise. That was not a need. That was a want. And I'm happy that we did that.
That's a need. That's a need.
That's not a need. That's not a need. We could have done that, but my point is that
not everything that we do, a lot of the things that we provide at Miller, a lot of the things
that we provide at other places are not a need but we as as the board we approve these things because
we want to be setting a high higher standard therefore we do find ways to give a better
raise and we do the um the teacher retention thing and all that and these are all extra things that
aren't needs but they were once and they are like icing on on the cake mr president and this i'm just
sorry excuse me but this is also something like that this is not necessarily a need but it is
something that sets our district apart from others and it does provide a service for more than 150
people because you have to think about the families you know that's probably a thousand
people right there just counting their families so i just want i just wanted to reiterate that
that not everything that we do is just a need.
Therefore, we would just be a normal, everyday school district
in any part of the state that requires the basic requirements of TEKS.
But we're not that school district.
We are the premier school district of Texas.
Thank you.
I think that hurts the argument, to be honest with you,
to say it's not a need.
What we're saying is that the reason to do this
is to really increase the service capability across the district, the services group, as
well as the behavioral learning center.
I think we're saying it's a need that we have and we're going to benefit from having centralized
services, from having the teachers, et cetera, come over and not be spread out all over the
all over the schools by not having a mingling of adults with with minor
children by just improving our services overall so I think to me it's a it's not
a luxury it's not something we just need to do because we want to be the best but
because it's a need that the district has I think that's a better argument to
say you know that we don't really need it it's just because we want to you know
We want to have a certain cachet, if you will, as KDISD.
Mr. President, I agree with you.
This is a need.
We're providing it, consolidating it, bringing our special ed services together for both of these things are a need.
And I think maybe we'll help us with our teacher shortage and with having everybody together so that we provide excellent services like we already do.
Dr. Coffey, you said something that asked that, gave me a question. May I ask it, Mr. President?
So when you…
Go ahead, Ms. Fox.
So that's a very good point, that we're not providing gen ed,
we're not providing instruction here. This is a behavior learning center. So are you saying
that the BTP students will be here for a short amount of time, possibly, you talked about the
the things that would happen when they get there.
And it's not discipline.
It is behavior learning and helping them get there.
And then do they go back to their campus?
Is that?
So I think that there's sort of a conceptual framework
that sometimes those of us that are in it all the time
forget to maybe articulate clearly.
So I appreciate the opportunity.
So when you think about a comprehensive campus, right?
Like Rylander Elementary, I'll pick on them.
Their job every day is to get the kids in
and teach instruction.
and they also teach pro-social skills just through, you know, a lot of it is
children learn it through inference, right? They see somebody get in trouble
or see if something happens, oh I don't say that, they're not my friend, but the
focus is on academics with behavioral supports, right? With a behavior learning
center, the focus is behavioral supports and we work in the academics. I do not
want to give the impression that there are no academics, that is not accurate.
There is content instruction, but it is specially designed instruction.
And one of the things as you go through an ARD meeting, you talk about the potential harmful effects of the program.
Because what you're doing through special education is you are changing the student's regular education, what the state of Texas says they have to have.
The federal government has said you have to change it because their disability impacts them in certain areas.
So you talk about potential harmful effects.
And one of those is that students who receive special ed services may have a diminished access to general education.
And the ARD committee discusses that and what that could look like because it is important to have that discussion.
Parents need to be aware of it, and we need to be mindful of it.
And what we have to determine is whether what we're doing, what we're changing, what we're implementing outweighs any possible negative.
It's more important the student is being aggressive in a general education classroom, hurting themselves and others.
It's more important right now that they receive this targeted behavioral intervention and content than it is to be in that second or third grade classroom for that period of time.
Sometimes we get students, they can go in, they go through those interventions, they learn those skills very rapidly, and they're able to transition back.
and every student who comes to the blc will have a transition plan as part of the conversation just
so everyone is aware we will talk about based on their rate of learning what we anticipate
some students do not learn those behavioral changes as rapidly as others and there's a lot
of factors that go into that mr president uh miss teaming i'm i am 100 behind the btp program i saw
it at the OAC, it does need its own space. I do have a lot of reservation for the 18 and plus,
only because of the dollar figure that we're looking at. I do feel that I have a responsibility
to voters, and they voted on 5.1, 5.4 million, and now we're talking 12, could be 13. I just,
at this point, I don't feel comfortable with that.
I know that Mr Smith says he's OK with the interest, but in my mind I'm thinking voters might be more willing to want that to go towards debt service or something else and.
I so that's my hesitation. That's where I'm at right now, and if we were not meeting and exceeding this, our services that we are required by the state and the federal government to make and provide for these students 18 and up, then I would.
I would have it I would not have as big of a problem but because we are I I just
don't feel a piece about it I'm sorry no I totally understand I do want to say we
are meeting and we provide a robust program for all of our students in
KDIC and we meet the needs of their IEPs I am concerned about what that looks
like in the future and certainly we need time to plan for that in order to
continue to implement so let me just add that this is why we're kind of caught
here because for me it makes a big difference. So yes it's seven million
more than what the that was approved but it's gonna we're gonna need to spend
regardless of what we do another five million. No no no I'm talking about when
you when you add the chillers when you when you do the the new bidding when you
you bid it just part of it we're still short two to three million dollars to finish the whole thing
so it's not a seven million dollar question it's more of a two to three million dollar question
well i don't i'm okay with the two to three million i'm not okay with the seven to eight
i'm saying i'm saying the two to three million is what's what's what we need to finish out the
whole building oh so seven million of that we know we have to spend a big chunk of seven million as
it is we've already spent 14 on the on the on the on the building itself so we
need to spend at least another five mr. president wait let me just finish so we
need so it's a question is more spending going to hope the full mile spending
another two to three versus you know just spending let's say five right
anymore but is that mr president i thank you for your point and clarifying that i think that's a
valid point but it's not two to three million because we're talking about the eight point
whatever figure is with rooftop ac units not the the fancy hvac system on the recent right whatever
you call that that's why what is that figure could you approximate because that eight million is not
a solid bid then we wouldn't go with that i know right so it's not two to three million delta it's
more for the forties for the smaller build up uh mr paris is kind of uh right on point with that
the eight million included rooftop units if we wanted to bid that just a blc side with a central
plan we'd be closer to 10 million dollars right right but that's that's only that's only for
part of the building without without the 18 plus right so incrementally children
plus part of the building and incrementally you finish out the whole
floor how much would that be that's what we don't know right well it was 12 yeah
yeah if we built the whole first floor with the central plan we'd be looking
around 12 million if we do just a just a BLC with the central plan be looking at
about 10 million dollars okay so that goes back to the whole thing is what
out of two million three so the whole thing is 12. yes so that's what i'm coming up with it's just an
incremental two right right so it's not seven i apologize it's an incremental two that's what
i'm saying at mr president at the end of the day though so we don't have any options is there's no
options presented then there's no other creative way of trying to be responsible that's why i keep
keep digging here you know just you know as far as what you're saying about the
the way it was approved you know I mean I mean that happens with that's always
the possibility right there's overruns we spend less we've been more sometimes
there's overruns and there's it's compensated for via savings and other
on other projects so at the time that the bond was approved that was the information that they had
at the time that it was approved now we have new information and we have to adjust to it
mr president miss fox coming from the position of the longest but not oldest maybe i'm the oldest
It's August.
Many bonds, many bond committees I served on before I came here.
And so as a community member, we knew that this was best faith effort of the amount of money they asked for us to approve and to send to voters and voters to approve.
We all know what has happened with cost of things.
And over time, we have gone over budget and we have been under budget.
One time we had money to build when no one else did and layoffs everywhere in the oil industry,
and we were able to save so much money by getting such a good deal.
We built two elementary schools without asking with bond savings, two full elementary schools.
So we've been in good times, and we've gone over every single time.
Our community has said, we trust you to do what's best for students,
and they don't come and say, how dare you go over?
Everyone knows in this day and time we're going over.
Everyone's going over in lots of areas.
And the $2 million to provide something needed for students that our experts tell us is best for students
and for the future growth is something I'd be confident to do
and know that our community, because we'll communicate it well, will say we understand.
Yeah, and I empathize and appreciate my fellow board members and the attention to the cost, for sure.
But I also credit us for approving the purchase of this building with these uses,
and we're just having to kind of like swallow hard, if you will, in terms of the additional cost.
Can I make a comment, Mr. President?
Go ahead, Ms. Covington.
I appreciate that the community and that this board has sought to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our education system.
I mean, when you talk about a special needs student, you don't get more vulnerable than that with the care and the needs that that family or that that student has.
And I appreciate that, and I see that need.
So I understand meeting that need.
However, what I do want to ensure is because we are coming in at a little double what was on the bond going forward as this bid process progresses, what I don't want this to turn into in the community's eyes is another legacy to where legacy stadium to where we say one thing and then it turns into something that blows back in our face negatively.
INCREDIBLY BECAUSE OF THE NEEDS THAT WE'RE MEETING.
THIS ISN'T JUST FOOTBALL, WHICH I KNOW I'M TOUCHING A GOLDEN CATH, BUT THIS ISN'T JUST FOOTBALL.
THIS IS THE SPED COMMUNITY.
THIS IS A BIG DEAL.
SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS IS HANDLED PROPERLY WHEN WE'RE GOING INTO THIS NEW BID PROCESS IN A VERY CONSCIENTIOUS AND TRANSPARENT WAY.
AND I'M NOT SAYING YOU WEREN'T BEING TRANSPARENT, BUT I'M JUST SAYING GOING FORWARD,
If we're going all in to do this in the innovative way that you're proposing, then give it to us complete, not with like things left out of like, oh, well, we forgot about this or we missed that.
Just go sky's the limit on it.
If this is what we're going to do and this is what we're agreeing to, then let's be as transparent and as forward facing and up front with the taxpayers because we're coming in, like I said, double what they voted for.
Right.
Right. I think that's and I think that's it. And we have you on tape saying sky's the limit.
Just kidding. I'm totally kidding. I just catch things like that sometimes.
No, I think that's the point of the discussion, though. Right.
The whole point of this discussion is have an open meeting discussion about the good and the bad of the situation.
Most of us that are on this team are taxpayers in our district as well.
So I can assure you don't take this stuff lightly.
And we wouldn't have cut all that stuff out if we didn't think that it could get us closer to where we needed to be, and that was the 5.1.
It didn't turn out that way, but Mr. Perez, I agree with you.
I don't think you should do anything by just kind of short-arming it.
I think you'll be sorry down the line.
I've seen things like that before in this field and as a high school principal and a junior high principal, and I think we've got to be careful about that too.
So we do have to be cognizant about the money and what we promised the taxpayers, but we also need to do what's right for kids.
Mr. President, one last question.
Okay.
Is there a timing component?
We're just at 7.3, right?
That would help us be a little more fiscally responsible?
responsible, I don't know if this is a Chris Smith question, but I
Mean when do we have to you know?
Pay the first you know say we get a bid yeah, I'm gonna defer to way to to be a little more
responsible with
Knowing we have the interest income and then committing to to a project. There's something on the timeline we could work with
instead of we could put one together but without a time machine we you know or you know or shelving
this project we you know have to just do it off an analysis and and and an estimate of what we
think that we can earn an interest uh based on the cash flows of the other expenses of the the
bond proceeds again um i think it's going to be there y'all bought that building
15 months ago that same way.
Five million and something and then $7 million difference was with interest income.
We didn't have that in the bank at the time.
We earned that.
In fact, we finished earning it as the month of July closed out.
So it took us a year to earn that interest to finish paying for that land purchase.
us until then we were borrowing basically from our own cash our general fund cash through inter funds
but i mean is there a way to pause the project and accrue the interest then then build
i think i think mr redmond said it best i'd if we could pause any of this i don't know that it would
You saw the swing in what Art thinks the cost is going to be now versus what we did or what we thought it would be in April.
I think if we waited a year, I can't guarantee anything, but I could almost guarantee it's going to be more than any kind of $11, $12 million figure that we're kind of looking at right now.
Nothing's going down.
Nothing.
We haven't seen that.
I mean, I'm supportive of going forward.
I'm supportive of getting firm bids.
If we don't like the bids, if they're outrageous,
then obviously we're not committed to whatever price comes in.
Dr. Gregorski, may I ask, Dr. Gregorski,
do you have what you need to go forward?
Do you feel like you have, or do you need more from us?
I think we've had some pretty good input on that.
to go ahead and move forward.
I appreciate the robust discussion of the board tonight.
I do too.
Mr. President, I'd also like to thank our administration.
I've watched other districts around our area
just move forward with the project
and not share that with the board.
And yeah, so the fact that we even had the conversation
and were able to talk through all this stuff
it was brought out is super thankful for that those hard conversations okay let's
see we have we're at seven point three and we need to go to put it at seven
point twenty five this next step isn't as bad trust me thank you so much all
From this point forward, it's going to be questions only, questions and answers only, and that's it.
Sharp questions and answers.
Okay?
All right?
7.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the building addition to Pattison Elementary School.
Got it.
Okay, we're at 7.4.
All right.
And we are talking about now the building addition to Patterson Elementary School.
Lisa Kastman was falling asleep for a little while, but she's back.
Had to take a breath.
All right, so the good news is we came in $3.1 million under budget for this project.
So that is the good news.
All right, all right.
Whiting-Turner is a new partner to the district.
They were here earlier, but they need to leave.
They have been very successful in the commercial construction market,
and two of the team members are KDISD residents,
so they've got some skin in the game, which is always nice.
Ms. Barker is here to support the project.
Megan Irvin is the project manager.
And Lynn Hrabatsky with the VLK.
Any questions?
Any questions on 7.4, which is the contract for Passing Elementary?
I think we're kind of like worn out from the previous one.
We're just catching our breath.
All right.
If you don't mind.
$3 million going back to the kitty, which is good.
Okay.
Okay.
If not, we'll move forward to 7.5.
7.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of the delivery method updates for various projects in the 2023 Bond.
And this is an update on some of the construction delivery methods for various projects.
I considered a housekeeping item.
Hutzel Elementary, during the renovation, was determined that we needed some infrastructure down there.
There was drainage, some deterioration, and traffic flow.
and then the security fencing, we're going to take that as CSP handled under our department.
Cleaning up safety and security, going from JOC to CSP.
Life safety systems going as JOC.
And then at Nottingham, the projects that the roofing windows and building envelope and life safety,
we're going to incorporate that with our construction management risks,
so we only have one contractor on that school site coordinating everything versus three.
Any questions on 7.5?
7.6 Discuss and consider Board approval to award a contract for design services necessary to Hutsell Elementary School.
We move on 7.6 and that is the design for Hutzel Elementary School.
Yeah, this once again is for the drainage, the paving and traffic flow for Hutzel that
are taking place next summer.
S&G is a local Katie design firm and they've done work for us before.
So they're being recommended as a designer.
Okay.
Any questions?
Move on to 7.6.
7.7 Discuss and consider approval of water line and sanitary sewer line easements with Municipal Utility District (MUD) #465.
7.7.
This is the easement, mud number 465?
Correct.
Friends with Development, we're going into an easement with them for sewer and water,
and it's with mud 465.
So that's just an approval of that easement.
Okay.
Okay. Another easement for 7.8, MUD 534 for Elementary School 47.
7.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of a water meter and water line easements to Harris County Municipal Utility District (MUD) #534 to provide water services for Elementary School #47.
Yes, it's for a water meter and water line easement. Once again, we need to bring those items to the board.
7.9 Discuss and consider Board approval of a blanket electrical easement to CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC associated with the construction of Elementary School #47.
7.9 is also an electrical easement for Centerpoint Energy at Elementary School 47.
that is correct that is a document that gives them we can start now putting the
electrical in the ground and once it's complete there'll be a final survey item
nine is the same thing for elementary 48 and 710 is a center point for 48 correct
7.10 Discuss and consider Board approval of a blanket electrical easement to CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC associated with the construction of Elementary School #48.
okay I love these easements 7-eleven is the approval for the plot for elementary
7.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of the plat for Elementary School #48.
48 it's actually it's a revised plat after you signed it last month Waller
County said they needed another water line easement so that's why it's coming
back to the board because they added another easement onto the plat okay and
that's it is that it is it okay thank you all right thank you and now we have
7.12 Discuss and consider Board approval of the July 2024 Financial Reports.
712 which is to July 2024 financial reports and Jamie Jamie Hines
Welcome.
I apologize.
No worries.
Good evening.
Good evening.
President Brez, members of the board, Superintendent Gorgorski.
You have before you our financial reports for the month of July,
our construction reports through the month of July,
our tax report through the month of July as well as our check register summary
for the month of July I don't want to get too deep into it this goes through
11 months of our fiscal year and as we've discussed each month our
underspending and all of our trends are right on with the month through the end
of the month of July next month I will not come back with financial reports
will close the fiscal year and then we'll create the annual comprehensive
financial report over the next couple of months that will be audited and then in
January we'll come back and present that to you so there won't be financial
reports this this next month that's all I have for this month there aren't any
significant changes to what we've seen the last several months we're just
working through closing out the year and based on the percentages it looks like we are expecting
underspending once again yes there are underspending um as of right now everything
that we've seen um is is right where we've mr smith has kind of said it's going to be throughout
the year we are still assuming that we are going to be right around a an add to fund balance not
Not very much.
So we expect that to happen.
Okay, great.
Mr. President?
Go ahead, Ms. Cosell.
Could I, this is a question for, not specific here, but the way information is presented in the construction report.
So all the bond spend and overspend or allocations, et cetera.
Is there a way from month to month we could then just see the delta?
Could something be highlighted of the number that changed throughout this construction report so we can easily see that?
In the summary piece?
The report here, right?
Which numbers changed?
Yes, ma'am.
We can take a look at that.
I would appreciate that.
No, we do have these construction reports, obviously, are online.
So we do have them month to month.
But having a delta there is something that we could look into.
I would appreciate that.
You don't want to just lay a fact back?
No, I don't.
Highlighter?
Yeah.
Thank you.
7.13 Discuss and consider Board approval of nominating candidates for positions on the Board of Directors for the Harris Central Appraisal District.
Okay, we are now 713. Is that right? Discuss and consider board approval of nominating candidates for positions on the board of directors for the Harris County Appraisal District.
Yes, sir. 713 before you, for you, and this is to discuss and consider nominating candidates for the Harris Central Appraisal District Board of Directors.
This is an optional nomination that allows you to put forth a resolution to nominate up to five candidates for five separate director positions.
positions. Last year this board nominated Martina Lamond-Dixon, you may recall, and then we also,
or you also, selected to cast all of our votes for Ms. Dixon in, I believe it was November.
She was appointed to position two on this board, and she also currently serves as the humble ISD
on their board of trustees.
They're another large suburban school district
in Harris County.
It's very similar to KDISD,
and that was the reason for nominating her.
In November, regardless of what you do here,
we will bring a resolution to cast votes
for all of the nominees submitted
by all of the voting taxing units of HCAT.
So they changed up the rules this year with SB2.
so usually we do this every other year but now we'll do it every year and
they've staggered the actual board of director positions so that we have you
have to all vote each year and we have to bring it to you but again this is an
optional nomination if you would like to nominate someone and if you choose to
then we'll bring that back to you next week and fill out filled out with any
names that you would like to know just to clarify on that yes we could nominate up to five yes sir
that's correct and it is for five positions there there are now nine positions and three are at
large and that was a part of the the sb2 bill we used to have a single position that we would be
able to vote for as a school district other than houston isd now there are five positions and all
All of the taxing units that contribute to HCAD are able to vote with the number of votes that are allocated to us.
And we'll find that out next month.
The three that are at large, we don't have anything to do with nominating those.
No, sir.
Those are individuals that are running at large.
That's correct.
To be elected.
That's correct.
There's five that are nominated and voted on by the taxing units, three that are at large,
and then one who is the chief appraiser.
The chief appraiser.
Ms. Cazales, did you hear something?
Yeah, Mr. President.
So the three at large we already elected in May.
So that's done.
And so the five is of interest to us.
And what's different is we actually get to vote on a ballot.
So there will be a ballot created from these nominations.
That's correct.
They'll send back the ballots.
So this is due by October 15th.
The nominations.
The nominations for October 15th, and then they'll send us back the number of actual votes that we've been allocated as a taxing unit, along with all of the nominations that that come from all of the taxing units.
And then we'll be able to in November, you'll be able to place the no longer appointed.
So we are able to vote as a taxing unit on the ballot.
We've never done that.
That's new.
new.
We, we, we, yes ma'am.
In the past you did vote.
It was just set up differently.
We voted to nominate someone and then they were appointed?
I thought they were appointed.
We voted for.
We nominate and then we vote.
This last year you voted for, I can't remember the person's name.
Martina Dixon.
But we did cast a vote for that individual.
So technically we could nominate somebody either tonight or we could even nominate him next week.
Yes, sir, that's correct.
If we didn't do it via consent, we could nominate somebody next week.
Okay.
Is that what we will do, Mr. President?
To clarify, next week we can pull this out.
This won't be in consent agenda?
Well, yeah.
Yeah, in other words, we haven't until October 15 to nominate someone, correct?
That's correct, but it does need to be...
It needs to be board action approved to get them nominated officially.
Right, so theoretically we could approve or nominate as late as next week if we need to.
Okay.
Mr. President.
I don't have any nominations myself.
myself so remind me do we get one vote or we get a block of votes we'll get a block of votes
based on the allocation of our taxing unit as compared to others and the reason we have cast
all of our votes for martina dixon is because she represents the school districts other than
houston isd and so she's she's the one that looks out for our districts and she's a school board
board member. So Mr. President, Miss Timmy, Mr. Hines, have you heard from Fort Bend County on
what they're doing or if Waller qualifies to do this as well? Yes, ma'am. And SB2 only,
and going to the Waller question, SB2 only applies to school districts with at least 70,000, 75,000
people within the taxing unit. And so as of now, and I spoke with Waller, they said
once they do the next census then they will qualify but they're using the last
census numbers and so Waller doesn't have to abide by this new law but Fort
Bend County does and I reached out and they they plan to have their packet to I
believe they'll present it to the board president mr. Perez as well as they'll
also send us a copy in the month of October is all that they've told us so
So I think they're still trying to come up with all of the information and put it all together to get out to school districts.
So we have until October to nominate for them as well?
So the October 15th is the date that HCAD has put forth.
I don't know if that's actually a part of the Senate bill or if that is just part of HCAD's schedule.
I know that I couldn't get into the specific dates that are in SB 2 on when
that has to be when the election has to happen but I'm sure it's by the end of
the year so so if we wanted to nominate for Fort Bend could we wait until
October to do that or do we need to do that next week oh no ma'am
with it we could do that in well I'm assuming in October once they get the
information to us they're going to have to give school districts at least time
to be able to bring that before their boards and have it approved.
Okay.
So we'll have some time.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, thanks.
Mr. President.
Ms. Champagne.
I just want to ask a clarifying question.
Do we have to come up with a person to nominate,
or can we just accept that's what I thought?
So we don't have to come up with somebody.
It's purely optional.
We could pull it from the consent agenda next week.
And then we will receive, when we receive the ballots from the entities,
they'll have narratives on that in which we will be provided so you can read up on them,
those that are on the ballot for when you cast your vote.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
Mr. President, I just wanted to clarify that I would like to provide the board with information on some ideas of people.
I'm working on that right now with contacts in Harris County who are involved with the HCAD board,
board, people who are well qualified to sit on the board and represent us very well. So I guess next week I'll bring that to the board as long as we, and I'll pull this out of consent. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to Mr. President. I want to talk about this. So Mrs. Cuzela, if you're working on talking to people, I'd like to talk to them too. And so that you're not the only one. And if we have to choose next week, would you send that to us so that we
In an email maybe through the president?
To clarify, good question.
I'm going to ask these individuals to write a letter to the board to explain who they are and why them.
And I would share that with everyone.
Are these the ones already on that list, that letter that we got?
Are those the names that we already have?
Those are the people whose terms are expiring.
And it is not clear who is actually willing to serve again.
So you're talking to new people who might want to run in that place?
who have not ever done it.
Only one.
One is, his name is Bill Frazier,
and he ran for HPAC.
at large it's a great candidate so that's one example okay just in the
names to us of course that's a whole point yes we have to make a decision
that is the whole point only one of them represents us on the on that board
they're the ones who look after us right okay okay thank you we move on to budget
7.14 Discuss and consider Board approval of the September 2024 budget amendments.
amendments and you don't look like Esperanza Rios, Director of Budget and
Treasury. No, you just got in from Iceland.
Good evening Board President Perez, Board of Trustees and Dr. Gregorsty.
Tonight we present a budget amendment for $3,680 for the naming of the field house at
Single Ranch, which is directly related to the policy CW.
We also bring forth a budget amendment in the amount of $207,415 related to the shortage
in the instructional materials allotment, which was presented at the April 15 board
meeting.
The district will also be expensing $3 million for health insurance expenses as opposed to
processing and transfer out to the health insurance fund this will result in a decrease of 300 3
million dollars for the transfer out originally budgeted for the self-insurance fund um this is
the process the district has used for the past a few years to support the health insurance since
the pandemic and then the remaining amendment is a direct functional offset and approval of
the amendments will result in a 211 thousand ninety five dollar decrease to the general
operating fund balance questions questions mr. president I don't know thank
you I don't know if you can answer that I don't know if Nikia is here but the
two hundred eleven thousand change to the general operating fund is mostly
because of the instructional materials yes it's ten or seven thousand dollars
related to instructional materials okay and and I look back in April when Nikia
presented and I saw a $2 million shortage at that point in time yes there
was and we had done we had done an amendment prior to the we had done an
amendment prior to the end of the fiscal year and so this is what's we're
actually remaining that for like software and items that we couldn't
order at that time due to the fiscal year is that of the two million yes or
an additional 200 it's to that from the two million okay that's what I wanted to
I don't know.
Good.
Thank you.
Any other questions on the budget amendments?
Thank you very much.
7.15 Discuss and consider Board adoption of the 2024-2025 Maintenance and Operations Tax Rate and the 2024-2025 Debt Service Tax Rate.
Now, Mr. Smith, it's your turn.
And that is to discuss and consider board action on the 2024-2025 maintenance and operations tax rate and also the debt service tax rate.
Well, I've got good news.
I'm going to start out with that and then it'll go different from that point forward.
The good news is that I'm going to be recommending a tax rate reduction, and again, it'll be
the fifth year in a row of a tax rate reduction and a total of 39.95 cents since the state
started funding more towards public education to drop our tax rate.
Last year you dropped it 18 cents.
I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to, I don't have that good of news.
The state budgets conservatively, and they knew they had the money to do one big drop in a year,
and then the next year they backed off and got conservative.
So we are dropping from the floor to the floor with our maintenance and operations tax rate,
and that is a .0023 cent reduction.
So yet another reduction, but not near as large as we did last year.
However, I am going to read the order for you because for the spirit, not the spirit
of transparency, but because of the law requires us to be transparent and unfortunately when
you're talking about the way school districts are funded, when you look at, remember the
teeter totter, more taxes, less state funding, that's not considered in the formulas of the
the tax code and you'll find out here in a second why so on the order that i would ask you to to uh
adopt or i recommend being adopted next month or next week i would recommend it to be pulled off
the consent agenda because of the way we have to make the motion and i'll get to that in a second
but the order reads uh be it ordained and resolved it by the board of trustees of katie independent
school district that on the this 23rd day of september 2024 we the board of trust uh trustees
of the Katy Independent School District do hereby levy and set a tax rate on $100 valuation
for this school district for the tax year 2024 of $1.111 to be assessed and collected
by the duly specified assessor and collector as follows.
Now, to break that down, that's .7271 for the purpose of maintenance and operations
and .39 for the purpose of payment of principal and interest on debts.
That totals 1.1171.
Such taxes are to be assessed and collected by the tax officials designated by the district.
Section 26.05 of the Texas Tax Code requires that the district include the following statements in this order,
and it requires the certain font and all bolded that you can see there.
That's a requirement and we will also are required to put this on our website.
It's on there similar now but we're in a little different spot but the
same language has been on our website. This tax rate will raise more taxes for
maintenance and operation than last year's rate. Well yes values went up
significantly so we're gonna raise more taxes even though the rates lower a
little bit we're gonna raise more taxes but remember we're gonna receive less
less state funds. So that's not considered in the tax code. But it will raise more taxes
than last year's rate. The tax rate will effectively be raised by 1.28% and will raise taxes for
maintenance and operations on a $100,000 home by approximately minus $2.30. So a home valued
at $100,000 is going to see a $2.30 tax rate reduction.
So that effective by 1.28% increase is not going to be really seen by the taxpayer.
Their taxes will go down on $100,000 home.
I'm not making this stuff up.
I promise you.
And then it finishes out, the Board of Trustees will be levying an actual tax rate for maintenance
and operations and an actual tax rate for that is 0.0023 less than the actual
tax rate levied in the prior year and will lower taxes for maintenance and
operations on a $100,000 home by approximately $2.30. So and I'm reading
right out of the code 26.05 B of the property tax code it says language
required in the motion setting this year's tax rate in the motion so that's
That's why it needs to be pulled off consent agenda for us to adopt that order because
when a motion is read, it needs to be ... This year's proposed tax rate exceeds the no new
revenue rate.
The vote on the order setting the tax rate must be a record vote.
A motion to adopt the ordinance resolution or order must be made in the following form.
And that's where it's ... This is it.
I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of $1.1171, which is effectively a 2.38% increase in the tax rate.
Again, 2.38 is a different number than I read in the order, but this is by the law of the law.
And then that needs to be read into the motion for the order, and basically that's it.
clear as mud I know it's an effort to be transparent and again when you're
dealing with basically a set income and taxes and values are going up it's
offset and so we're really not getting any more money but we have to do that
language according to 26.05 B so my recommendation would be to adopt the
order separate and apart next month next week and that that be read into the
the minutes as we ask for the order.
Any questions?
I'd be glad to answer any questions.
Any questions?
Mr. President?
So, Ms. Fox, I want to designate you as a person that makes the motion to increase taxes.
Okay.
Right.
Yes, by minus $2.30.
Go ahead.
That's it.
Do you have a question?
Yes.
Yes.
So, this is, our poor taxpayers have to be so confused because this makes absolutely
no sense.
And could we just add, I have a recommendation.
This tax rate will raise more taxes that we don't get to keep.
Well said.
Right?
It raises more taxes for the state, not for the district.
We don't get any more money to fund public schools because we're paid on $2019.
And nobody talks about that.
But they write all of this.
It's confusing.
I feel bad for the voter to understand it.
It's crazy.
Thank you for explaining it very well.
I'll remind you of the canister of sand, and the colors of the sand are changing,
but the total amount of money that we really received does not change.
Yes, taxpayers are going to pay more because their values of their homes went up.
We're lowering the tax rate.
Values of their homes went up more.
We are not receiving any more state money because that's all set in statute
and education code.
So just to be clear on this, transparent, if you will,
on the debt side, we are getting more,
and we could lower that tax rate,
but we're not because we want to pay down bonds faster.
Pay down bonds faster,
and we're going to always be issuing bonds in the high growth district.
Probably to build more schools in the future.
future. So that's the reason that the tax rate is staying the same there at 39 cents.
So that is generating more for debt service for the district.
Yes, sir. Well said. But remember the debt, the amount that we pay to pay our debts go
up too because we're selling bonds to build new schools.
Right. Got it.
That's the woes of a fast-growing school district.
Any other questions?
Mr. President.
Ms. Champagne.
I know that this isn't your fault, but I just want to make it more crystal clear that you have to say that the taxes are going to be raised, but actually they're going to be lowered by $2.30.
On a $100,000 home, there are not many of those around on a $100,000 home, but yes, ma'am.
$100,000 home, you're going to pay $2.30 less.
But unfortunately, that $100,000 home may have been $90,000 the year before.
Mr. President.
Oh, just, I was just going to say the valuation of the homes have gone up.
So that's why people are surprised.
The rate, tax rate isn't.
It's going down just a hair.
But you're going to expect to see a little bit higher.
I understand what you're saying, but it's confusing to the...
It is confusing.
And one of the things, we didn't do this last year because the rate, the tax rate went down so much,
as well as the $100,000 increase in the homestead exemption, or not increase,
from $40,000 to $100,000 increase in homestead exemption didn't trigger that language.
So we haven't seen that language in a couple of years now, and we're back there.
because we're not lowering the tax rate as significantly as we were able to last year.
Okay. Anybody else? Mr. President, I just want to ask Mr. Smith a question.
Do you remember what year it was that we hit the maximum $2 tax rate? It was when Dr. Merrill was
here? Yes, ma'am. It was 2003. 2003. We were at $2 the most in all of the cap in Texas, and now we're
We're at $1.11 or $1.12 if you round up.
So that's a pretty good thing.
When we were at the $2 tax rate, our maintenance and operations tax rate was $1.63,
and it's now down to $0.72.
That's all offset through the state funding formulas are causing that big drop.
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you.
7.16 Discuss and consider Board approval of the claims administration by Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Risk Management Fund for unemployment compensation claims.
We now move on to 716.
16, Lance Nauman, Director of Risk Management, discuss and consider board approval of the
claims administration by TASB Risk Management Fund for Unemployment Compensation claims.
If I may present from here since I'm next up, would that be okay?
Go right ahead.
Okay.
The district shall comply with the provisions of the Texas Unemployment Act, Labor Code
201.26.
The district is permitted by law to enter into a joint group account with other political subdivisions to share the costs of benefits that are attributable to the services provided in the employ of a group of account members, Labor Code 205.21.
KDISD provided these services through an interlocal agreement with the TASB Risk Management Fund.
The fixed contribution for plan year 23-24 was $371,019 with a renewal set at $352,468 for plan year 24-25.
It is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the 24-25 Claims Administration by TASB Risk Management Fund for unemployment compensation.
Questions?
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne?
I would just like to make a comment, I guess, sort of ask a question.
I think it's so interesting when you look at the net claims paid and how they went up
so much in the COVID year, and then they came down, and even in 2022, 2023, they went way
down.
They went from 307,000 to 84,000 and then a little bit up again.
So I just want to point out that that was an interesting and sad state of affairs.
Looks like we're leveling out now.
I will just tell you that in 2021 and 2021-22, yes, that was COVID.
and it's really attributable to TWC was issuing to the district notice of benefits
which had already been issued before we even received notice that a claim had been filed.
People were getting awarded benefits that did not even apply for benefits.
So there was a battle.
We actually, if you look at that number in 21 and in 22, we're talking almost 2200 claims.
We went back and filed disputes twice on all those claims and in some cases three times to justify the nonpayment.
And that was federal money that was sent to the states to pay for the pandemic.
And that was a battle.
And fortunately, because of our arrangement with TASB, this is a fixed amount, so we did not hit that big pain threshold.
So it was a benefit to us because of our current arrangement.
However, the reason we fought for, if you look at the CARES Credit Act, we fought to get those benefits paid back to us to lower our expense ratios.
ratios so that as we look forward down the line, our premiums would drop and you will see that
in 22, 23, and 24, and now in 24, 25, we've seen stabilization. It was flat and we actually saw
a reduction becoming more in line with our experience modifier. So can I just say something?
Because I remember talking to you about this back in those days. Did we recover all of that or
some of that or what are we done trying to recover it now we're we were done
with the best that we're going to get in fact TWC in recent conversations with my
TASB cohorts nobody knows exactly what that number was TWC says we don't even
know it was I think mr. Smith and dr. Gorgorzzi and I were on a telephone call
several years ago with them and their system was so out of date that they it
was cobalt and I've studied cobalt in 1987 with cardboard with cards to write
programs it was that bad so it was just a perfect storm so I we're back going
down to where our experience and our severity is much in line with what it
should be so let me ask you this is are the premiums based on the claims or the
of payroll or what's it what's it what's the premiums based on it's it's a function of payroll
and claims it's a combination of both because it looks like we i mean when you first when you look
at the last two years our claims are like really small and you would expect our premiums to be
going down even more however there's 20 20 20 20 20 21 that looms out there as far as our our claims
a million a million six I see and so we're still kind of the premiums are
kind of sticky because of those previous years right they're kind of staying up
there well they're they're staying relatively flat because if you'll see
our payroll continues to grow yeah it's it's climbing at a faster rate than what
our claims experience so it's I mean that's a pretty low number relative to
the amount of payroll that we have any other questions
7.17 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Self-Insured Health Plan for Plan Year 2025.
Thank you. Move on now to the 7.17. Mr. Nauman again on the Self-Insured Health Plan for 2025.
Well, good evening again. Joining me this evening is Mr. Tommy Harris with Inns Group. We'll be co-presenting this evening. Inns Group, if you'll recall, is our benefit consultant, and we're going to go through these slides, and let's get started, if we might.
This evening, we're going to look at four different sections and some information within those sections.
We're going to look at plan year operating results for 2023, plan year operating results for 2024.
As of January through June, a six-month look at those numbers.
We're going to look at some key measurement summaries of migration, medical and pharmacy, PEPM,
and I'll tell you that's per employee per month.
Our large losses, we'll look at district contributions,
what our true contributions to the health plan is.
We will study what our 2025 projection will be,
and then we'll talk to you about what our premiums will be for 2025 as well.
You will see in this slide, in 2023,
we had projected a negative underwriting loss of negative 5.163 million.
We came in at a negative 13.7.
And we've talked about this before.
I talked to you in April and again last year in 22.
It's the trailing effect of COVID, people not taking care of themselves and medical inflation.
And if you could comment what you've seen in the marketplace.
Yeah, so right now, just industry-wide, and this is on average because it depends on the high-performing networks
and different locations around Texas, but we're seeing medical inflation at around 6% and the pharmacy piece around 10%.
So then you would have an affected blended rate depending on how big the spend is on each one.
So you could say you're going to see medical or health care inflation at around 7.5% currently.
Let's look at 24.
Now, we came, when we, the same period last year, we were looking at a negative $7.4 million
underwriting projection loss for the plan year.
Now if you look at a six-month projection on that, for the six-month period ending,
we would be at negative 3.7.
Through the six-month year-to-date actual, we're at a negative $2.082 million.
million dollars. So we're actually beginning to see we're getting further and a little further away
from that C word, I guess we will. We're starting to see some stabilization and you'll,
I'm going to allude to that and show you some statistics that we're,
I guess, proud of is a good way to say what we're seeing about our plan and how it's performing.
warming.
Key measurements. Let's dive into that.
I'll ask Mr. Harris to make some comments here, which I think are important.
One thing I want you to know is, last year we increased. We have
three plans. With that,
we made some increases to our POS-2.
With that, we saw some significant migration.
And migration is simply what it is.
We saw employees moving away from the very high cost plan down to the high deductible
plan, as you can see.
It's basically those people primarily went to the high deductible plan, which gives the
employee the same broad network, but they're taking on a greater risk.
People started making decisions based on their paychecks and what treatment they wanted to
maintain. This was very, very interesting statistic and over the last two years we
have seen continued migration away from the POS2 throughout the system to the
Memorial Hermann ACO and the high deductible health plan. If you could
stress, so what does that mean? You know one of the big trends we're seeing in the
market is of course you know medical inflation is getting out of control so
we're looking to pull some levers and one of those is high-performing networks
and one of the best provider discounts and yet access to care is the Memorial
Memorial Hermann ACO. So, you know, the POS2, it's great. It's got everybody in the network. It's very much readily available, but it's a very expensive place to access care. And that has to do with the discounts built into provider contracts. So when you move people into an ACO program, you're buying your health care at the lowest common denominator. And then the other side, moving them into a high deductible plan, puts more consumerism into the plan. So people are monitoring more how they're accessing care and making sure that they're getting the best care.
making sure it's absolutely necessary.
Now the flip side of that is we've gone to a direct primary care model to be able to
give people access to the most important types of care.
This is going to be your regular care as well as pharmacy without it ever hitting the claims
wire for the medical plan.
Another measure of how the plan is doing, I wanted us to look at our large losses.
Typically, and I will say most plans, is the large losses guide you on the effectiveness
of your plan in terms of total, whether you hit your number or not.
These are losses that are in excess of $75,000.
And to be rather frank and direct with you, these are losses which we have little or no
control.
roles. These are your premature babies, your cancer patients, your heart attacks and things of that nature. At the end of 2023, we had 107 large losses with a spend of $22 million. Through the six months of this year's plan, 24, we were at 47 with a high cost number at 9.1 million. So it kind of gives you an indication of things are moving a little bit, a little bit more towards some stability.
This is a very interesting slide. In our world, we measure things per employee per month.
And this gives you a little historical perspective. You can follow this in regards to how the plan is operated,
but we're beginning to see, again, stabilization. Last year in 23, you'll see medical PEPM was at $556.
Through this year, we're at $539.
Pharmacy last year ended at $158, and we're trending right now at $111.
One of the things I would focus on this slide is, in terms of the medical PEPM, is virtual visits.
At the end of 23, we had 16,303 people use our virtual medicine product, which is free to them.
That has helped us lower the cost of primary care.
It's actually becoming our primary care model.
We're using the Guardian program where we're providing automatic refills for employees
so they don't have to go back to the doctor.
That helps on operational costs, lower cost of subs, so it's working.
working through the six months of this year. We've had 12,455
visits. That number is growing and people are beginning to
understand the dynamics that happens. Can you make some
comments for yes. So yeah, so this is this is definitely a key
performance indicator and back to what I mentioned if you're
saying that that medical inflation is running around 6%
and then pharmacy is running maybe 10, sometimes 11%,
what you want to do is compare these per-employee, per-month costs
over time in relation to medical inflation.
So you can see, actually, we're beating what's happening in the rest of the market
because our costs are trending down.
And so by putting in a tightly managed pharmacy, high-performing networks,
direct primary care, those are the levers that we can pull
to do what we call bending the trend curve
to perform better than where the industry is performing.
Thank you.
This is just another indicator of plan deficit, plan participation.
But I would point you to talk about in this slide, or to focus on rather,
is our PEPM contributions that the district makes toward health care.
We have a fixed number of $385 per employee per month that the district contributes to employees' healthcare.
Throughout the last several years, as you can see, beginning in 2020, the district made a conscious decision not to pass those deficits in terms of premium increases directly to the employee.
So if you take the 385 and you divide that by your participation of your deficit, you can see that the actual real contribution employees are receiving in 2022 is $560, and we're looking now at $530 for 24.
So that deficit was not passed on to the employees.
So the district absorbed those costs for the employee.
Okay.
And I'm sorry if I can interject.
To put that in round numbers, over $50 million, and since 2015-16,
the district has put in to meet these numbers that they're speaking to,
$50 million in addition to the $385 per employee per month that we are contributing.
We've put in $50 million since 2015-16.
Excuse me, Mr. President.
May I ask a question right here?
$385 is more than is required for us to contribute, right?
The state requires $225 per month.
Thank you.
That is correct.
Go ahead.
Let's look at 2025, which is an effective date of January 1.
Um, we are based on our actuarially, um, analysis that ends group provides us.
We are projecting a loss of $9.8 million.
Um, as you can see, um, a lot of the levers that we have pulled in terms of, uh, stop loss, our program oversight, uh, has remained fixed and we have reduced a lot of our continue to peel the onion back.
and where we can keep the medical inflation on the whole plan in place is our administrative piece.
And if you could talk to us about some of the savings that we've achieved
in terms of the benefit admin platform and those things.
Yes, yes.
By moving our benefits administration from ADP to WEX,
which we thought was a newer model with better technology, priced more appropriately.
I can't remember the exact number of savings, but it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars there.
just on the admin piece by digging into where did we have the best payroll technology in place.
And I feel like from the staff, what we've heard,
and from the member population that people are pleased with the change that happened,
and it was an overall savings.
We also negotiated some technology credits from our new carrier partners
to help offset those costs as well.
And I think those technology credits were around a quarter of a million dollars
that we were able to put back into the plan.
And I would further add those admin savings on the platform side total up to a little over $1.1 million.
So all those little levers that we pull helps keep things in check.
For plan year 2025, you will see that we are moving to increase our premiums and increasing our deductibles across all three plans.
And I will tell you that this plan increase, these increases are relative to our inflationary trend, our trend that we're trying to stay up with.
And if memory serves us all correctly, three years, four years ago, we went at a conscious decision we weren't going to pass increased premiums.
So we're trying to play catch up to our current medical trend to get the plan back as best we can to try to stay up with current inflation.
And I try to use the analogy, it's like your credit card.
You have to pay off those balances each month and keep that inflation or those interest expenses in check, and that's what we're trying to do here.
I think something to add to this conversation that is so vitally important is the fact that people say, well, what's TRS Active Care doing or what's the state doing?
doing. You will see significant premium increases, double digit premium increases, TRS. I mean,
they're shutting networks down. In some parts of the state, there are upwards to 27% increase in
premiums. And just this past week, I was speaking with my peer there, and they will be going to the
legislature this next biennium and asking for an additional 450 million dollars uh in funding to
bolster the plan and i would remind you that as we've been having these discussions about funding
and all the nuances surrounding that that 450 million dollars kdisd will not see a penny of
that that is dedicated to them and that's frankly that's a shame because we're all servicing teachers
educators, the staff members.
So I think we're doing a good job of managing the trend,
and I think I will conclude with just a couple of interesting little side bits of statistics
that I thought that we could tuck away at the end of this evening,
and that is I'd speak to medical trend.
We're running at a 6.8% medical trend.
are without high-cost claimants.
If you take the high-cost claimants out, we're running at 1.6%.
So what that tells you is we're doing everything in the big scope
of keeping primary care and those things, our diagnostics,
and everything that we can control in check
based on our high-performing networks, as Mr. Harris was alluding to.
Secondly, in terms of total cost of the plan,
In 2022, the average age of a plan member or plan employee was 42.3.
23, it's now 43.6.
So we're seeing the age of our participants go up, and as we all know, as we get older, things tend to break more, and the severity when those things break costs us more, right?
And then lastly, our PEPM dropped 4.3%, and our average cost for emergency rooms dropped 2.5% because of our virtual medicine.
We're trying to keep people out of the ER.
And very important is the standalone ERs that have been around on every corner.
We targeted a marketing effort to keep people out because they're so, so expensive.
we dropped that frequency by 41.4% last year.
So those are some levers that we continue to market and push toward our employees.
So with that, I would answer any questions that you may have.
Let me start it out with a couple questions.
So in the premium increases, it looks like we're still having more increase for the premium plan.
Is that still a strategy of having people go towards the Emerald Herman and the high deductible?
Because I think it's like 15% for the family.
That is a strategy. Yes, it is.
and because we want to move people to a more cost-effective network.
But something to think about is the access to the same providers
is also found in the high-deductible plan.
And the POS-2, I will tell you this, is dying a slow death across the market.
Would that be safe to say?
Absolutely.
Could you allude to that?
Yeah, and it just has to do with the discounts that are negotiated at the provider level.
Are just not as steep. It's no different when you go when you talk about a memorial Hermann ACO
You're buying your claims at a wholesale level
It's just to put it in the most simple terms and the other thing is that
When you have the low co-pays on a plan like a POS to that doesn't have as deep as facility discounts
There's really no incentive for your members to use the direct primary care
Which is also a more cost-effective way of accessing your you know
you're basically primary care, low-level specialty care, and getting access to your prescriptions.
And so this is really what we call a migration analysis or steerage within the plan
to slowly steer people over time into more cost-appropriate type of ways to access care.
And let me interject just one little quick thing.
I don't mean to interrupt you, but we are not proposing any changes to the pharmacy plan.
That is staying stagnant as it is right now.
To which one?
The pharmacy.
The pharmacy plan.
i'm sorry let me ask another so for this year for 24
versus annual projection 7.4 million is that but yet we see a year-to-date projection actual
two two million so where do we expect uh 24 to be uh currently
is that the 7.4 million deficit or is that something less the at we had projected 7.4
Okay. Year to date where we should be here today would be at 3.7. But right now we're at 2.0 through the six month period. Um, and we, I'll be honest with you. We still have, you know, the end of the year to get through, um, trying to, to manage those points.
Um, but also too, I think one of the things that's really encouraging is, is that's really helped us as our pharmacy rebates to keep that inflation in check.
check. Um we changed, we h
two years ago and the fam
our r. F. P. And it came
So those those discounts
rebates that we get have
that total plan inflation
thinking that 7.4 negativ
will be 9.8 loss of 9.8 for 25 yes that that is our projection right now based
on actuary studies that the ins yeah that our actuarial team comes up with
those numbers and that's based on it looks like an increase in medical
expenses for this coming year correct increased claims increased claims and
inflation in place medical trip that's what's driving that so if people get off
of the premium plan wouldn't you expect those medical expenses to go down yes
but one thing that you run into is adverse selection with the plan because
the when we look at this our highest utilizing population which they do have
severe conditions which are getting treated which is great they're not
going to come off the plan so what you're doing is you're migrating the
people that maybe don't have a serious needs but you're still going to have
those large claimants. So those ones that we saw with the millions of dollars
severity claims, those folks are still going to stay on the POS-2. And so part
of that, that also plays into creating some underfunding within the plan. You
know, if you don't increase contributions, you're getting less
premiums on the plan when you move, when you migrate a large population of folks
to a lower premium plan. So it's got to be something that happens slowly over
over time because if you moved everybody into the Memorial Hermann ACO, you're then you could be even more underfunded on the severity of the large claims as far as how your loss ratio looks. I know that sounds counterintuitive and that's why you want to slowly migrate people off of the POS2 over time into the higher performing network so you're not in even a bigger deficit from a contribution standpoint. Not a total cost, but where the employee contributions are coming from.
them. And I would add that's been a conscious decision. If you look over time, you will see
historically that migration is taking place. And I would also remind you that this next year,
we will be going out to the marketplace to review plans and bring back to you for 26
plan options, which is in our normal cycle. And we will start that in January, February-ish,
December possibly. Mr. President. So I was gonna, I'm just gonna finish one quick thing, Ms. Champagne.
So that, okay, so we're funding, so we're gonna be funding basically 9.8
million just to get back to that number of the loss plus a 385 monthly.
monthly. So we need to keep that in mind that we're funding 9.8 million, which is not as much
what we funded before because we had a bigger loss, but still it's 9.8 million on about 7,900
employees. Correct. That number is based on 7,000, I think the 7,983 or 7,938. And that's also too
to a function of we have seen about a,
we used to be about a 68% participation rate on the plan,
and over recent years we're down now to around 62%.
And we're seeing that that same percentage
happen across a lot of school districts.
Okay.
Ms. Champagne?
Yes, I would just like to,
first of all, thank you for the presentation.
And I think it's important because actually as a school board member, I don't know about y'all, but I get questioned a lot about the cost of the insurance and why is it so much.
I think it's really important to understand the basic thing is that the cost has gone up in the industry, 6% and 10% of the pharmacy, which drives their cost of their insurance up.
which isn't completely our fault that's happening.
It's the industry that that's happening in,
and also that we are contributing more than we need to.
So I don't think people will like that also.
The only other thing I want to say about this is your virtual visits.
I would love next time, I know you don't have to,
but it is interesting to see what it was in 2019.
you know, you start with 2021, but they were so much lower,
and then COVID happened, and, of course, that's when it all changed.
And I think that's one thing for the better, actually,
that that is an improvement.
It is, and I'm very proud of that effort,
and we've expanded the scope of those services.
You know, we're now looking at automatic refills
for people with chronic disease medications
where they don't have to spend money just to go to the doctor and say,
okay, let's refill your prescription.
So now that's being done virtually, so that saves not only employee money,
but it also saves the plan.
So it's a good ROI that we look at continuing to expand those services
and make it available to as many people as we can within the plan.
Not to mention productivity from the time off work to have to go see a doctor
to get a prescription filled.
Ms. Tamey?
Ms. So on slide number eight, I know you have plan years 2020, 21, 22, and 23.
So I'm looking at the monthly district contribution for 2024.
Was it still the 385?
Mr. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. And then what about the monthly deficit contribution?
Do you have that number?
Mr. Oh, wait a minute.
Here we go.
I'm sorry.
this one uh no um slide there okay yes that one the 385 is for 23 22 21 and 20 and then the next
line shows where we had a deficit that that amount rolls up into your a total of 413 521 560 and 530.
so we don't have we don't have the deficit for 2024 not till year end not till you're right okay
Okay.
To be able to give you one.
Once it trues up.
And there's typically also some run out for the incurred but not reported claims.
So we most likely won't have the true up until sometime in February.
Okay.
Okay.
And then are we still anticipating for 2025 to do the 385?
Yes.
Okay.
That's contemplated in that deficit that I'm bringing to you now.
Okay.
Perfect.
Perfect.
For 2024, it looks like $77.
plus the $385,000.
Based on 8,000 participants.
Mr. Perez, can I ask a question?
I was just curious.
So I'm looking at these numbers,
and we see that the health care costs are going up.
This is nationwide.
This isn't just KDISD.
Everybody is aware of that.
Is there anything within our plan
that discusses or gives options to health and wellness
as far as lifestyle and diet interventions.
We know that type 2 diabetes is one of the leading causes of chronic diseases
and also one of the most preventable and reversible diseases
when dealt with diet and lifestyle interventions.
Is there anything within our plan or within this that addresses that in any way
to education on nutrition or on anything for our employees? What does that look
like or is that even an option? That's an option within the Aetna program that we
have that people can access. You know one of the things that is in terms of
that is the, here's an example, you know we talked about I think I've mentioned
earlier you know the GLP ones that are the hot drugs if you will you'll you're
seeing a lot of people find that I'm going to take this is the American
American way I just don't take I'm just going to take a pill and it's all going
to be better and we're seeing that across the country that people and
physicians are just diagnosing these people inadvertently if you will that
that are diabetics in terms of trying to reduce weight,
which in turn lowers their exposure to chronic diseases.
And that's sort of yet to be determined,
but within the Aetna plan,
there are those services that are available.
Is there an incentive structure in there
for working within that wellness plan?
And I say wellness,
I'm not talking about regular allopathic care
like your mainstream doctor.
I understand that functional medicine
incentives often never covered by insurance. Like I get that. But is there something that
incentivizes our employees to consider diet and lifestyle interventions within that plan? I know
some insurances offer that, but I just wasn't sure if we had anything similar to that.
We have offered those programs in the past in terms of incentives, you know, biometric screenings
and those things. It does not move the needle. Yeah. From a practical standpoint, just to be
level with you it just doesn't move the needle so um is is the juice worth the squeeze so we
try to focus on making sure people get the best medications that provide the best outcomes and
provide them with the services in terms of our virtual medicine keep them on their meds and i'll
just allude a little bit further we're doing positive before somebody gets their prescription
prescription refill, we're already making outreach to them to say, stay on your meds,
let's make sure that your prescription's coming up, and let's make sure that, you know, we
do have 90-day scripts for you that can come to your home to keep you from going to the
doctor, as well as the same price at the retail center.
And there's some other things that we're exploring right now that will really be, I think, trendsetting
in terms of that whole wellness perspective.
So that's a constant evolution, if you will.
Right.
Okay.
That's all I need to know.
Thanks.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
Thank you.
Thank you for your presentation.
It's bad news across the country.
It's bad news for everybody.
Insurance costs are crazy.
I get it.
And yet it's so hard to look at our employees and say,
You give everything you have to make students better and more prepared.
And by the way, you get a 3% raise and then 7% increase in cost.
So I know we can't do anything about it.
I just don't think people understand.
They're not listening to, you know, two and a half hours of board meetings.
But are you going to do a video or something that helps people when they see
not only are their deductibles going up, but their monthly costs are going up.
When I look at the increases in here, I don't know how our educators do it.
I don't know how our hourly employees do it.
This is hard, really hard.
So would you consider doing a short video of some kind that says,
here's why, it's going up everywhere, and we're doing everything we can to keep it down.
We've paid $50 million of KDSD money to help, like help them understand those things.
I know we've done it in the past.
I think we're going to hear a lot about this.
To answer your question, pending board approval next week, we're already planning as part of our open enrollment process to include that conversation to help explain what's going on.
and you know as as as we look at we've become as consumer driven health world
okay most of us in here have been trained by the industry to say I pay a
premium I go to the doctor I do what I want that ship set sail a very long time
ago and I use this analogy until we have a generational die-off if you will until
And so we have a younger group of people that understand the dynamics of consumer-driven health care.
This is a battle and a struggle we're going to face.
And we hopefully, with higher deductibles, have provided some products,
some workplace products to help hedge those large deductibles
and look to protect people's assets from a catastrophic event.
Good.
So those are things that we've been pulling.
And those premiums that I brought to you last month remain flat.
But to specifically answer your question,
pending what goes on next week,
that's part of our plan for open enrollment.
And I'll also conclude with, to answer your question,
we have a benefit fair where we bring in our vendors
and we explain all this to people.
We might get accessible to them
to make sure that we do our best job in communicating.
And I'm just thinking that, I don't know,
some graphs some slides some cartoon type things that would be like here's
what's happening nationwide I see like like probably all of us do on social
media teachers are like yeah a bonus of race but do you know what's happening to
my insurance cost and and people the community will chime in and say
happening to us too like we all are drowning there's like I'm drowning in
these costs and community members will be we're drowning with you you know one other thing if i
could i'm just going to ask you one more thing and i know we're not talking dental here but i think i
have heard more about the dental and that they loved etna i think they say and that now the
dental is awful like someone had a tooth pulled instead of get a crown because they couldn't
afford the crown and that the dental cost skyrocketed i i know it's not here but i just
said I promise I'll pass it on when I see you. Our dental went into two plans and dental is the
dental world and correct me if I'm wrong here Mr. Harris has really become trading dollars
with like vision and things of that nature but we we went out to the marketplace and we will
next year is that correct to explore all options and look at these buildings. So did we change from
from Aetna? No, we went from Guardian Dental to the Aflac products, a high and a low plan.
So it's a function of... They must have confused Aetna with the medical. Yes, probably so.
I mean, I don't know if y'all have heard that, but it's dental. What I'm hearing all the
time is about the dental. Okay. Thank you so much. So just one thing that, because you
you mentioned something and yeah these these compared to three percent raise
you hate just to these increases in premiums it's really in the premium
plan it's really where it hits the the employee because if you look at the
increase the $85 and I'm not trying to minimize it but the $85 increase is
is 1.5% on, say, $68,000.
In other words, if you compare that premium increase
to somebody's salary, it's 1.5%.
But where it really hits is,
and it's over about 3.5%,
is on the premium plan.
So it makes a huge difference
whether you're in the premium plan
or the or the or the or the memorable Herman and I deductible you mentioned
seven percent I just want to throw that out what the number is I was using their
numbers and like an overall increase on everything medical and the and the
pharmacy and the dental not just premium but everything right any other questions
Thank you.
We're getting close.
7.18 Discuss and consider Board approval of the House Bill 3 (HB 3) 5-year goals and targets for the district, elementary campuses and high school campuses report.
We are now at 7.18 and the academicians are up.
Natalie Martinez, Executive Director of School Improvement, to discuss and consider board
approval of the House Bill 3, HB 3, five-year goals and targets for the district, elementary
campuses and high school campuses report.
Thank you for being here. Good evening President Perez, school board members, Dr.
Graborski. Tonight I will share with you the new House Bill 3 goals and targets for the district
and you have also received the goals and targets for campuses in your board docs.
These goals will will reflect the next five years and will be up for board approval at our next
meeting. So let's start with a big picture. Texas set a goal that 60 percent of our Texans ages 25
25 to 34 would have a certificate or a degree by the year of 2030.
This is known as the 60 by 30 Texas.
It was then recommended that two checkpoints be established within the PK through 12 system.
Those two checkpoints landed in third grade and with our annual graduates.
In third grade, the state mandated that districts establish a goal centered around literacy
and mathematics.
the measure used would be third grade star at the meets and masters level for
annual graduates at a state mandated that districts establish a goal centered
around college career readiness we will discuss each of those check points in a
bit but first I want to show you the state outlined requirements for House
Bill 3 which include not only the goals and targets that we will talk about
today but also a requirement to share the progress to the board annually and
and posting of the campus improvement plan
and district improvement plans on the web.
Once these plans are approved,
we will work with our schools
to get plans posted on the webs.
Let's jump into our goals and targets.
For STAR, there are four performance levels
shown here on the left to calculate.
Part of accountability to EA uses approaches,
meets and masters as meeting the standards
to calculate House Bill 3, however, they're using meets and masters only.
Notice that an entire group of children who are typically counted as a positive
are not counted in the same way for House Bill 3.
The higher standard, of course, will affect the numbers that you're going to see today.
The House Bill 3 goal is to have 60% of students at the meets or above in third grade reading and math.
Sharing with you some statewide data just to give you perspective,
46 and 40 for reading and math at the state level or at the meets and above
what you're used to seeing is that approaches level
which includes the lowest the lower level there and you'll see the 75 and 68 percent
for ccmr
there are nine indicators under CCMR for KDISD. Students are encouraged to meet the indicator
that makes sense for their personal goals. There is no competition between these indicators and
it doesn't matter which year they earn it. Data is in their senior year. Now behind each indicator
there are additional rules but this gives you a perspective on a variety of ways that students
students can meet this goal. Remember the House Bill 3 goal is to have 60% of students meeting one of these indicators. Statewide data currently shows that 76% of students are hitting that.
2024. So now that you've heard about the content behind the numbers, I'll share the goals and the
targets for 2025 through 2029. Goals represent the aggregate student performance all kids put
together. Targets represent student groups to support closing the gaps. And again, these goals
being reviewed are from 2025 through 2029. When we review district and campus baseline data,
the goals are set with the 60 by 30 Texas goal in mind. If a score is greater than 60, goals will
increase one point every two years. If a score is less than 60, goals will increase one point every
year. Targets are a little more complex. The targets are actually different for every student
group, but I've simplified that by putting federal targets on the same line. So you'll notice there's
going to be three different groups of criteria that we look at first if tart if if there are
our scores are below the federal target we're going to choose the two groups that are performing
the lowest meaning they are furthest behind compared to the federal target if however all
of our groups are meeting the target we'll move to that second group and you'll notice in this area
if a student group is between one and nine points,
we're gonna look at the ones that are closest
to the federal target,
meaning we don't wanna get too close to that line.
We wanna build some comfort there,
so we're gonna choose the ones that are closest
so that we don't fall below that line.
And then if we don't have any of those
and we look at all of our student groups
are above the federal target by 10 or more points,
then we're gonna choose the lowest performing student group.
Now this one's gonna be important
important because when you start to see the numbers, you'll ask questions on why did I
choose a certain student group and I'll take you back to this chart mentally to say it's
in number one, number two, or number three.
Our five-year goal for reading is showing an increase from 64 to 66 by 2029.
I'll remind you that the HB3 goal is 60% and the star current performance for statewide
statewide is at 46%. So we're sitting at 64%, so you'll see that increase at one point over every two years.
This bottom chart shows the federal targets in red and the student groups up there in green.
You'll notice that our actual performance is higher than the federal target in every group,
and so we ended up choosing special ed and economically disadvantaged because of those three groups that I just showed you.
Special ed is between the one and nine, so that was the middle group.
And then economically disadvantaged is 10 or more above the federal target, but it is the lowest performing student group.
And so those two were chosen to be a focus for third grade reading.
In math, very similar conversation, but the five-year goal is from a 55 to a 60 by 2029 perspective.
perspective remember the goal for House Bill 3 is 60 percent and at the state right now they're
looking at a 40 percent so we're sitting at a 55 percent which is below that 60 HB3 goals so
you'll see the goal increase one point every year up to 2029. the green chart again represents
multiple student groups targets in red and then our performance in black right underneath that
you'll notice that we did not meet the federal target for Hispanic or
economically disadvantaged so those are the two student groups that we've chosen
to focus on our high school CCM are you'll notice that we're running from a
79 to an 81 hospital again is that the 60 state is sitting at a 76 you'll see
our 79 there and because we're above the 60 we're increasing a point for every
every two years.
When you look at our green chart again,
multiple student groups in the federal targets.
KDISD is above the federal target in all student groups,
but we chose the groups that were between one and nine,
which leads us to Asian and economically disadvantaged
students for additional monitoring.
District teams will write plans to address the areas
of focus in the district improvement plan,
as well as campuses writing into their campus
improvement plan and once those approved they will be on the web as well this
time I'll be happy to answer any questions for you
quick question what do you mean by choosing a group you narrow the focus
when you have that many student groups we narrow it down to two student groups
that are monitored in a different way campuses do the same thing as well so
So essentially the program, either reading, math, or CCMR, is for all students, of course.
The efforts are for all students.
When we monitor students, we're monitoring those two student groups even more intensely.
Like within a particular school?
The district has theirs, and then each campus has their own as well.
And what is, is there any consequences for, for example, a student group, like for a district,
consequences for a student group being below the federal for House bill 3 it is
an internal measure but those student groups are also part of the federal
accountability system in the federal system it is grades 3 4 & 5 for
elementary and so if you're under that target for too many years you will get
sanctioned and have consequences 20 years for three years in a row in three
indicators. Okay. Are we in danger of that with any, I mean, is district-wide, is it measured
district-wide or is it measured by school? That one is measured by campus. By campus. So are we in danger of that with any?
So we look ahead up to 2026 and so we're pretty proactive on that. So we do have schools that
we're working with to identify those student groups and put things into place for those
student groups as well we monitor for 2025 and we monitor for 2026 in a very proactive way okay
mr any questions yes mr president campaign so miss martinez thank you very much for your
presentation i know it's very complicated but i want to follow up with the question that mr perez
asked so i understand i understand how you you chose or we choose the groups to focus on
But what I want to know is what do you mean by monitor?
Like what extra things are they getting?
What are we doing?
What do you mean by monitoring?
So I'll tell you our campuses are juggling three different accountability systems.
This is just one of them.
And so sometimes we prioritize one system over another.
However, in the big picture, they are monitoring certain student groups.
And that means in elementary, for example, we can create a monitor group within AWARE so that when any assessment is taken, I can pull the data just for my identified student groups.
We also, for an example, many schools have tutorials.
Those are open to all students.
And then we monitor the attendance a little more closely for students who are supposed to be there because of these student groups.
They do these things for all students, but it's a little more intense, right?
They may receive a follow-up phone call.
So it's things like that where the interventions are for all,
but we monitor a little bit closer to make sure that if we need to make adjustments along the way, we're doing that.
To kind of restate that to follow up on yours,
so everybody's getting the same instruction,
but you're just pulling more data from by group, if you will.
Correct.
And working with them.
That they're attending, et cetera.
Another example might be all students receive small group instruction, but when I go to a teacher and look at their small group data binder
I may be looking at specific kids
Right so the teacher is monitoring a hundred percent
But I may go in for an additional set of eyes to look at a specific student group
Everyone receives, but we monitor differently
So monitoring is more like a verb where you were and I'm monitoring is a verb
but I mean it's an actionable thing that you're trying to focus on a certain group of kids that do
To try to help them achieve more
Okay, is it is it still a thing where the if the third grader doesn't pass the STAAR Test?
They do not pass third grade because I know that was a thing when my kids were there and everybody was all paranoid
About that. That was our SSI and that's been going for quite some time. Thank goodness
this okay and then the last question I asked this every year and I know it's
not anything that we do but I just I just always think it's it's wrong to
have different set of standards for different kids I know you asked me that
every year every year I know I every year I just struggle with that so here's
here's a different way I mean I think I try to explain a different way every
year so so imagine this imagine that there is a six foot male standing next to me who weighs 300
pounds and we are both asked to lose 20 pounds we are both asked to lose the same amount of weight
but it is clearly easier for him than it is for me and that is very different than looking at where
we started from and lose a different amount based on where i am right so it is when you say the
number is equal yes it is but the effort is not equal and so that's a good way to so in other
words next year you won't ask me so they just have a different hill to climb a bigger hill that is
correct and it's all about baseline data and where that student group started right so where i started
versus where he started is very different there's not that this looks
like we think that those kids can't perform that but we don't think that we
think they can all perform the same but they're starting at a different point
that is correct I'm still far gonna ask it I know you are I'll be ready for you
Mr. President?
Questions?
Mr. President?
Any questions?
Mr. President?
Ms. Fox?
Thank you, Mrs. Martinez.
I also saw like a visual, like a visual that had all these animals in a row, a monkey, a bird, a cheetah, and an elephant.
And it's like they're all asked to climb a tree.
These are the different students we have now climb a tree, right?
So it's just different asking different things.
I have a question about the, when you pull a group that's at 93% and you have one that's at 61 and the goal is 60, why that?
Okay.
So look at the difference between, I know this is going to come up, look at Asian and what is the difference between the federal target and the actual performance?
No, it's between one and nine, like you said.
and look at african-american what is the difference between the federal target and
the actual performance is 14. right so we are closer to the target on asian and we don't want
students we don't want that group to fall below so that's where we had the three different groups and
they are between the one and nine right if they were at ten or more then i would not have chosen
in them but it and that's the rule that but if this if this first group were at 59 they'd still
be 12 more but they'd be under the goal the hb3 goal like that that feels i i know you're going
to take me back to the chart but to me that's so close to the 60 percent that i'm like oh please
please look over there well but it's 14 compared to nine so if you're worried about being 14 points
versus being nine points but the average is abysmal what's for the federal target
right 47 right but again that's me compared to my six-foot partner over
here right it's different and so the federal targets are there for a reason
and our goal is to meet or exceed those federal targets and if we are close to
them then we have to watch it closely got it thank you you're welcome mr biden go ahead um
so just to be clear these buckets are are mainly driven by the federal government
to find a bucket uh african-american hispanic white asian so we're not setting those buckets
they're driving those buckets correct that's also makes you feel better yeah that's also in domain
three that's a federal system that's just the way it is correct okay and and we have two things
going on here we have federal targets and then we have HB 3 okay because
House Bill 3 was driven by the 60 by 30 right and addresses our student groups
to close the gap closing the gap is the federal system within our accountability
system closing the gap means all the student groups closing those gaps okay
so it is a mixture and I hear that but this one is clearly House Bill 3 using a
little bit of federal but there is a pure federal system that we also monitor along with our state
system and principals have to juggle all three and so we try to help them through the student groups
that are identified because it is a lot and it is confusing yes okay so to that question or statement
uh just just a maybe a dumb simple question right we have on the last slide or after before your
question slide for ccmr credit the district as a whole is at 79 in 2024 which is well above
the 60 of hb3 goal so would we be comfortable with that but but is it the federal targets
that's driving this slide more than the hv3 like why why would we expend so much energy on this one
if we're already at 79% on CCMR yes because it's mandated by the state state
but we're they mandate a 60% right they mandate that we have a plan okay so
regardless of our number we have to have a plan the state okay I mean and when
you say state yes the state is driving the hb3 right so House bill 3 is an
accountability system we also have a state a through f accountability system we also have a
federal and the federal is kind of mixing in with house bill three and the state is driving house
bill three but they are three distinct systems okay but what you said was we have to have a plan
yes ma'am thank you mr president can i ask a question so i'm just i'm trying to wrap my head
around this this is i'm trying to wrap my head around this so to the point that's been made
these differentiation between students based off of race this is done by the
federal government and the state government or just the federal
government so those student groups are defined in our federal accountability
system that federal accountability system is also represented in the state
system and it's also represented in the House bill 3 system so the state has
mandated that we have a House bill 3 plan that closes the achievement gaps
defined by the student groups in the federal system and they said I know this
is repetitive but I'm just I'm trying to wrap my head around it they set these
numbers of what is what numbers they want the state defines those numbers and
gets them approved by the feds okay so when we look at like 70 the federal
target for like white students is 71% by the federal target we met that at 85%
Yes, so 71 for they want white students to meet or master
71% of white students to do that. Yes, that's what their expectation is
Yes, and then they have the expectation that african-american students have to do it at 47 percent. Yes
Because remember my remember my man over here. Yeah, okay
So at the baseline for both of these groups, they started at a different point
So imagine and I'll do it with numbers now instead of people
But let's imagine that African Americans started at a 30 and let's say white started at a 50.
So if I ask everyone to go to a 70, then that means that African Americans are going from a 30 to a 70 versus whites going from a 50 to a 70.
And that's the same exact analogy as my fake person losing 20 pounds and me losing 20 pounds.
You want human nature wants us to make it the same.
but if I have a 250 pound man here is not the same and so imagine that the
difference or the growth is the same but the outcome is not the same because the
baseline was different what are they basing that off of 2019 2019 what
what? 2019 scores? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I'm right. I'm just, I mean, these are Texas numbers.
Can I jump in? Yes, you can. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Let me ask you this. This is kind of a,
maybe an essay question. Um, how do you, um, on, on this, on the,
the what I would call lower performing schools versus the higher performing schools.
How do you assess those schools in terms of whether it's based on the economic makeup,
the groups that are in those schools, the groups that are in those schools, those student
student groups, the makeup versus the instruction versus how they're doing in terms of the leadership,
the instruction, that kind of thing.
How do you measure, especially I would say the lower performing schools in terms of instruction
and the leadership?
So it's a team effort.
We have teams that collaborate here at Central.
We have teams that go out to the campuses as well.
And that's inclusive of our assistant supers behind me, C&I, just over here, special education.
Today, Will was with us as well.
And then, of course, my team as well.
And so there's a lot of support going into that, all of the different pieces that you talked about.
When we talk about the data for all schools, I not only want them looking at their performance prior year to current year to see increases,
but I also want them looking at comparative schools.
schools. So schools that are similar to them, I want them trying to compare to them to see
if they can learn from each other, right? And so when they receive data from us, they not only
receive their school's data, they receive prior year, current year data, they receive all schools
in the district, and then we tell them these are the four schools that are just like you,
so start comparing with that as well. So those comparative pieces, though, are really a reflection
of leadership of instruction all the pieces go into that so it's hard to
pinpoint one piece but I tell you the full team is there to assess and support
along the way and that work has already been started so it's based on
comparative schools as well as growth from year to year those two main things
Other questions?
I just want to make a comment real quick.
So we're doing pretty good, basically.
The bottom line is we are doing well,
and we have all the people there to help us do better,
and we have a plan to do better.
Correct.
But we're really doing well.
Correct.
Awesome.
Thank you.
you so you know what's just a comment like even in the state of Texas like
somebody's numbers are low really low and so and of course we have some
schools in like say math that are lower than that so it's it's even though like
when you look at this state of state of Texas 40% meet like in math right and 60%
don't that's a lot of people and so when you break it down by bodies whether it
be in the district or in this particular school or the state of Texas it's a lot
of kids that are not meeting not a grade level that's it we get down to the kid
level as well in our conversations they have dashboards to identify exactly who
who those kids are in each student group.
So yes, it's a lot.
It seems like just based on looking at the data
that we're making headway,
had made a lot of headway on particularly reading,
but math has gotta be an area of focus.
As it is right now, yes.
Any other questions?
Thank you so much.
really really helpful very a lot of information and we're going you're still
with us for the district performance objectives item 7.19 good evening again
7.19 Discuss and consider Board approval of the District Performance Objectives.
each year the board is asked to review and approve the district performance
objectives that guide the district improvement planning process the
performance objectives are all aligned to the new strategic goals and are
are created through three different processes.
Five of the 21 proposed district performance objectives
are from legally required statutes.
Six are from our strategic design process
and 10 are created from the needs assessment.
You received a copy of the proposed
district performance objectives
and at this time I'll answer any questions
you may have about them.
Mr. President.
Ms. Grusella.
I just have a very brief question.
I reviewed some of the campus level.
I think those are the most interesting to me.
Okay. It's hard to look at all of them, but I did see a term I wasn't familiar with coordinated health program
Can someone speak to what that is?
anyone
I'd have to look at explicit
Specifically, but a coordinated health program that would be a combination of services offered by our Health Services Department
Which is our clinic nurses?
Our social workers our LS SPs and academic counselors all of those services wrapped up together
We kind of tend to refer to it as our wraparound services to support students.
Thank you.
Perfect.
One thing I saw in some of the schools that I thought was, well, I guess we're jumping ahead to campus, but as opposed to district, particularly, you did, particularly the, again, the lower performing schools, some of them.
they had in there which I thought was key was increased parent and community
awareness is key because along with what you're trying to do increase parent
awareness and their role and community awareness is seems would be like it's
would be really important yes anything else on 719 we'll move on to 720 we were
7.20 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Campus Performance Objectives.
were already there probably the campus performance objectives which is a lot of
data on campus by campus any questions on that doesn't look like it okay thank
you very much appreciate it and now we are dr. Gorski is actually the presenter
Items 7.21 & 7.22
about naming discuss and consider future board approval for the superintendent to
form a committee for the purpose of proposing a name for elementary 47.
so this item and the next item 47 and 48 elementaries both are scheduled to open
up next year in 2025 of august and so now is the time to start naming those facilities
if the board wants to go ahead next week on the agenda and approve authorizing me to form
the committees we would do those namings as we've done before okay uh 7.23 is um
7.23 Discuss and consider naming part of a facility at Cinco Ranch High School in honor of Coach Gary Derks.
discuss and consider naming part of a facility at single wrench high school in honor of coach
gary dirks i think everybody has received packets
information letters etc and memos that we've received today even
uh very impressive in terms of coach dirks
and and i think everybody's pretty excited about that what i can tell and
we'll be voting on that next week to consider naming a part of a facility at sinker ranch high
school in honor of coach gary dirks for his great work and his dedication to the district
And then moving on to 7.24, if no one has anything on that one, we will, this is Brian Schuss,
7.24 Discuss and consider Board approval for the superintendent to prepare, sign, and submit a waiver application to the State Commissioner of Education for elementary school campuses that exceed the allowable class size of 22:1, in addition to campuses that could potentially exceed the ratio due to increased enrollment during the 2024 - 2025 school year.
our Chief Human Resources Officer, and he is presenting a board approval to submit a waiver application
to the State Commission of Education for elementary school campuses that exceed the allowable class size of 22 to 1,
In addition to campuses that could potentially exceed the ratio due to increased enrollment during the 2024-2025 school year.
Welcome.
Yes, sir.
President Perez, members of the board, Dr. Kikorski.
This is something that we bring to the board each year in September.
It's our maximum class size exception waiver.
These are for the pre-K through four class sections that are over the 22 to 1 teacher to student ratio.
You do have the waivers as we sit today in your agenda packet.
there's 49 of those. A couple of important pieces of information related
to that though, of those 49, 47 are over by one student only. So 47 of the 49 are
sitting at 23 to 1 instead of 22 to 1. Also it's 49 class sections
out of 1724 class sections. So when you look at it that way, big picture, I think
it does represent that we have 49 how many 1724 in the in the in pre-k through four okay yeah
pre-k through four so when you look at it that way big picture i think it shows we are requesting
you know very few a number of waivers and of course as always this is this is after our
enrollment balancing process we completed that process last week it's a good process it helps
us maintain efficiency in campus staffing and also helps us maintain
campus success by being able to balance out the enrollment across the district
at the elementary schools so this is how it's going to stay in terms of unless
you see of course additional growth but this is this is it this is this is
reflects discussions with the principals everybody's happy with this yes as as we
we sit now, this is 49 is where we are. Now, you know, two or three weeks from now, you know, we
see some growth and we have a class section that goes over 22 to 1. We're required to report that,
I believe, within 30 days. So we will continue to report waivers as necessary. But if we see a lot
of growth in areas, we still have growth units that we're able to use that we can give campuses
to our teachers as well so it's really an ongoing process this is just the the
first of the process and and it's because state requires us to have these
waivers the the initial waivers approved by October 1st so do you I'm sorry let
me just ask another question so when when these dump when when you arrive the
numbers of the number of teachers that you need number of units is that in this
Is that coming from the principal?
Yes.
So from the start of school, we work with the campuses to get enrollment data by campus, by grade.
We compile this information, and we look at it several times up through typically around Labor Day,
and then we'll get one more survey from the principals,
and that final data is the data that we use to come up with this information.
And then we work with our assistant superintendent team for elementary,
entry and again we sit down with them and we go campus by campus grade level
by grade level looking at sections that have low enrollment and then sections
that have high enrollment and then we work through that
enrollment balancing process.
Questions?
Ms. Teamey?
I'm just interested in how it's mainly third and fourth grade.
Yeah, we did notice that this year, and it's a lot of third grade.
And, you know, that can change, but this year it was a lot of third and fourth grade.
So are we thinking ahead for junior high then?
Because we might see that same growth in a couple years at the junior high.
Well, sure, yeah.
I mean, we'll look at that year over year as we anticipate, you know, student growth.
We don't do a similar enrollment balancing process for secondary schools because they're handled completely different when you look at master schedules and all that.
But yes.
Because I was just curious because this is extraordinarily different this year because I don't remember it being this stark of a difference between the other grades as we see in third and fourth this year.
I don't believe so.
I can go back and look at that.
No, don't.
There were I mean there were we had a belief 52 waivers to start last year's opposed to 49 this year
But dr. Hill and I were talking about this that with the third and fourth grade
So typically when
Quick question we have one waiver last school year
Am I remembering incorrectly we had 52 to start no no meaning you brought this to the yes, ma'am
Yes, I bring it once, and then it gives the superintendent the authority to sign and submit the waiver.
And once that's done, then that gives us the authority to submit waivers working through the school year.
So we only bring it to the board one time. Yes, ma'am.
So if there's adjustments, this is a blanket waiver for the rest of the school year?
Yes.
You don't give us an update on an increase to this number?
We certainly could. I don't know that we have in the past.
You know, of course, if we saw something that, I guess I'd say was extreme, that's certainly something that I would be talking to Dr. Paworski about.
But I think looking at it from the standpoint of, you know, 47 of the 49 are over by, you know, over by one student.
And we do have several, and I don't have this number for you, but we do have several sections that are maxed at that 22.
And so we are required to watch those and and submit waivers on any of those that go over
Go over 22 to 1 within 30 days
Okay, so the board just sees a snapshot at a point in time when we approve this waiver. Yes, ma'am. I didn't realize that
I mean, I mean, but we'd be having this it's not a problem. I mean we can certainly I can certainly
Update periodically. Dr. Gorski with the number of waivers that we've submitted and he can share that with the board after a certain threshold
Yeah, easy to do.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
Let me ask you one thing.
Is it piggybacking on the discussion we just had about academics and performance and all that?
Is there a definite idea or intention, for example, to certain schools that maybe require more monitoring
to make sure that they're not over that they if anything they're at or below
that they have a maybe a lower ratio is it is that an intentional thought I
wouldn't say specifically a lower ratio but I can say that when we work with our
assistant superintendent team and and we look at some of the campuses you may be
describing that definitely is a part of the conversation like you know let's say
maybe they were in a position where because of their ratio maybe they could
they could lose a teacher as part of the enrollment balancing process but we say
no we're not gonna you know we're not gonna take a teacher from that campus
under the under the current circumstances. Based on student groups maybe to make sure that
they're at or below. Right that's all part of the conversation like I say when
you we literally sit down and go by you know campus by campus grade by grade
level and have all of these discussions before any adjustments are made. Any
Any other questions, any other questions, trustees?
Thank you very much.
7.25 Discuss and consider observation of non-business days under the Texas Public Information Act.
And we are at the end.
7.25, Mr. Justin Graham, general counsel.
Last agenda item.
Although I do feel a little bit triggered by Natalie's
assessment of a 6-foot plus 300-pound man.
Well, it's easy for you to lose 20 pounds then, right?
I wish.
Okay.
So, trustees, very simple agenda item.
This is you.
We did this same agenda item last year for the first time, effective September of last year.
For purposes of the Public Information Act, by law, the law now says that the Board of Trustees has to designate what are non-business days for the district.
district. So it used to be, if you filed a Public Information Act request, if the district was closed, let's say like we're closed during spring break, that the 10-day period that we have to provide documents would not, the days that we were closed for spring break would not count. Now we actually are limited to 10 non-business days that we can designate throughout the year. Of course, federal holidays and state holidays are also going to count in that. So you have a list of the 10
days for 2025 that are within there and again it seems a little bit this is one of those tertiary
things it seems a little bit uh picky for the board to vote on but again section 552.031 of
the government code says that the board of trustees must designate that this is the dates
that we picked it really only matters for the public information act team so happy to take any
questions any questions yes i have a question mr graham
as you and i both know and all of us know that we get the pir requests and all this and so we do try
to calculate the days and all this to try to meet whatever i can't remember the day requirement is
is to submit it.
But, for example, during Christmas, the holiday,
so the offices are closed.
I'm just using this as an example.
Because in the summer, I can understand,
because a lot of people are still open.
You know, we're still open.
But during the holidays, nobody's here.
So how is that going to be handled?
Well, I mean, my team will still be monitoring the inboxes,
and we'll just have to compress the timelines a little bit if nobody's here.
Let's say we get one on December 26th.
I don't even know that that's a regular business day.
But, again, that's not one of the days that we designated.
It really only matters for purposes of the PIR team,
and they're going to have to make sure that they keep their calendar straight.
That's an important change.
Thank you for letting us know.
Anything else?
Questions?
Any other questions?
Okay.
Thank you very much.
8. Information Items
We have the list of information items,
rather the list of donated items that was presented to the board.
And Madam Secretary, do we have any requests that you noted down?
No, I did not write any down.
Okay.
9. Future Meetings
Thank you very much.
Our meeting, our regular board meeting is September 23rd.
That's next Monday.
And there being no further business, the board's meeting is adjourned.
The time is 10.33.
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
The motions and votes for this meeting have not been recorded here yet. Whether any were taken is not stated either way. The agenda and the recording above are the primary sources.