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Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, October 20, 2025
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In this meeting
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- 0:03 to 0:43 1. Call to Order
- 0:43 to 1:33 2. Pledges of Allegiance
- 1:33 to 6:34 3. Public Comment
- 6:34 to 7:01 4. Closed Meeting
- 7:01 to 8:59 5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
- 8:59 to 13:31 6.1 Discuss and consider Board approval of the October 2025 budget amendments.
- 13:31 to 24:01 6.2 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Emergent Bilingual (EB) Enrollment and the 2025-2026 Application for Bilingual Exception/ESL Waiver.
- 24:01 to 41:50 6.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the design associated with the renovations to Polly Ann McRoberts Elementary School.
- 41:50 to 42:28 6.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment One to Stewart Builders, LLC. contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Polly Ann McRoberts Elementary School.
- 42:28 to 1:03:02 6.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of the design associated with the renovations to Jeanette Hayes Elementary School.
- 1:03:02 to 1:03:19 6.6 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment One to the Stewart Builders, LLC. contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Jeanette Hayes Elementary School.
- 1:03:19 to 1:04:43 6.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the construction of Junior High School #19.
- 1:04:43 to 1:06:49 6.8 Discuss and consider Board approval for re-roof and building envelopes at Jo Ella Exley Elementary School and West Memorial Elementary School.
- 1:06:49 to 2:15:50 6.9 Discuss and consider changes to Board Policy FM Local.
- 2:15:50 to 2:16:35 7. Information Items
- 2:16:35 to 2:18:00 8. Future Meetings
Full transcript
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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, October 20, 2025, and the time is 5 p.m.
Dr. Grogorski, 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?
Ms. Fox, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting today.
I might not look like Lance Redmond, probably don't sound like him, taking over for a few minutes.
Mr. Redmond is with his family, with his son, at an activity, and so he'll be here shortly.
2. Pledges of Allegiance
At this time, Officer Pickett will lead us in the Pledges of Allegiance.
Do you have any scalp?
in the audience? I don't see any. So at this time we will go to public comment.
3. Public Comment
In accordance with BED.
This is really long. So just bear with me. At this time, the Board of Trustees will give
members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance with KDISD Board policy, BED local.
local. As defined by policy, speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, provided their
first and last name, mailing address, and list of number-specific agenda items to address,
designate whether you reside in KDSD, and if you have children in schools, will be allowed
to address the Board. Speakers that fail to sign up in advance with acquired information
will not be called to speak. Speakers who signed up to speak on posted agenda items
will be allowed three minutes to speak. If a speaker is not finished at the end of their
three minutes the audio will turn off if speakers wish to share written material with the board
please provide 10 copies to the secretary for board services before the meeting begins for
board members the superintendent chief communications officer and permanent record
if a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels as stated
in board policy the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker to seek resolution
through the appropriate policy. Finally, pursuant to Texas government sections
551.074 and 551.0821, the board will not permit the presentation of
personally identifiable information regarding a student and will not discuss
the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or
dismissal of a public officer or an employee to hear a complaint or charge
against an officer or an employee. Should a speaker wish to address one of these
issues you must do so through the appropriate local grievance policies our
speakers will be called forward in the order they signed up to speak this
evening we have one speaker and Grayson err welcome we're glad you're here
dr. Gorky my name is Ann Gresser I'm a parent of three current students and two
graduates of KDI I taught for five years in the in Katy I'm grateful for this
district for its high quality education which has prepared both of my older children to
be successful in college.
They have had the benefit of a wide range of experiences carrying teachers and administrators.
Thank you for all you do to support the best practices of Katy Schools.
I'm here this evening to draw attention to a gap in protections for our students that
exist in our district.
Historically, Sundays have been understood to be a day that is off limits to school activity.
Section 1206 of UIL policy recognizes that school practices and competitions should not
be scheduled except for unavoidable circumstances on a sunday why are sundays set aside by our state
our children and families need clear boundaries for time that is held sacred for rest time with
friends and family and an opportunity for worship as dictated by one's faith tradition
much is expected of our children during the week as well as saturdays there should be a day set
aside so that students can tend to their own well-being balance is paramount to success in
school and in life while uil prohibits sunday activities it does allow for exceptions in
certain circumstances while this should be rare it does pose a problem some faith traditions require
sunday worship it is not optional if one of my kids was required to participate in a school
related activity on sunday and not allowed the opportunity for a time to worship it would
infringe on his or her religious liberty he or she would have to choose between the following
following the dictates of our faith, and participating in school activities.
It wouldn't be right for students to be barred from worship
or be faced with consequences by their coaches.
I am asking for this board to please pass a policy
that would protect our students in this case.
This situation has come up, but fortunately I spoke up
and we were able to come to a compromise.
Often parents and students will not speak up for fear
there might be repercussions for the student's position on the team.
It wouldn't be right for some schools in the district to be allowed to hold Sunday practices with no protections for worship
While others don't have extra days because someone spoke up
KDISD is extremely competitive across the state and nation and many in many areas of extracurricular activities
meaning that the schools within the district are often our greatest competition a
District wide policy would level the playing field across the district
What would this mean if such a policy were established if there was a rare circumstance in which a coach had to hold a Sunday
practice or rehearsal and it was approved by our superintendent per UIL
rules a student could make it known that their faith requires their participation
in worship that day and they'd be excused without penalty for the amount
of time needed usually less than two hours like I said thanks to the current
rules this would be rare but an extremely important standard for our
district to set in order to protect the basic rights and well-being of our
students thank you so much for your time and attention to this matter thank you
mrs grasser this concludes the open forum portion of our meeting the board will now convene in
4. Closed Meeting
closed meeting as authorized under sections 551.001 of the texas government code for the following
purpose texas government code 551.071 551.074 and 551.129
5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
Now that we have a quorum, the board will reconvene in open meeting.
Today is Monday, October 25th, and the time is 536 p.m.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's work-study meeting.
Each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Wednesday, October 15th, 2025.
The board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and the superintendent
on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to take action.
The Board has just reconvened from closed meeting. In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, any actions arriving from a closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
So, Action Item 5.1, I'll entertain a motion.
Mrs. President?
Mrs. Champagne?
Mrs. Vice President, I should say.
Yes.
I move that the Board of Trustees approve of termination of a term contract
employed Martin Ranch Junior High School teacher Cheryl Harper for good cause
effective October 20th, 2025.
25 it has been moved and seconded that the board of trustees approved
termination of a term contract employee Morton range high school teacher Cheryl
Harper for good cause effective October 20 2025 we will now proceed to vote
board members please record your vote on the keypad
Okay, the motion passes 5-0.
6.1 Discuss and consider Board approval of the October 2025 budget amendments.
Discussion item 6.1, discuss and consider board approval of the October 2025 budget amendments.
Esperanza Rios, Director of Budget and Treasury, will present to us.
Good evening, Ms. Rios.
Good evening.
Good evening, Vice President Fox, Board of Trustees, and Dr. Gagorski.
We present the general fund October budget amendments,
which include the timing amendments for the 25-26 fiscal year
in the amount of $241,049.
Timing amendments provide the budget in the current fiscal year for items or services
which were not completed or received by August 31st of 2025 for the previous fiscal year.
Timing amendments include maintenance and operations, repairs and supplies, police equipment,
repairs, technology equipment, and athletic supplies and equipment.
All other timing amendments, all other amendments, excuse me, are direct functional offsets.
These functional offsets include extra duty pay, overtime staff development, building modifications, staffing alignment per TEA coding guidelines, nursing supplies, extracurricular supplies, and student travel, and the SPIDA software.
The approval of these amendments will result in a $241,049 decrease to the general operating fund balance.
We're also presenting a budget amendment for the food service fund.
This amendment includes revenue to reimburse for breakfast and lunches for reduced price meals for students. This also includes a
million one million five hundred thousand dollar expenditure for the full kitchen replacement at Katie junior high
To coincide with the current renovations at the campus and it impacts as a decrease of one million three hundred and ninety eight thousand four hundred
Eighty dollars to the food service fund balance
Any questions?
Yeah, Madam Vice President, I have a question.
Mrs. Cuzela.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ms. Rios.
The $1.5 million for the kitchen replacement for Katie Junior High,
was that, I was just curious, like, what were the other options of using that?
If anyone can speak to that.
like I know that was a planned you're saying it was a planned replacement and
I understand it sounds like it makes more sense to do it all together right
now with the other renovations so was that always an amount that was out that
was put out to bid and we knew it was 1.5 million or so the one point all that
money that goes to the kitchen renovations is all out of the food
service fund and that does go to bid and they generally have to take the lowest
bid and that's where that amount comes from the 1.5 that's Ron's am I correct
on that yes that is correct but we we haven't seen that right or no we don't
historically we don't take those to the board I believe it's because it's a
special budget is that how that works right they do they they're they have
certain guidelines that they have to follow because it's federal funding that
they have to they're using and so this is kind of fun at the part of their fund
balance that they have to kind of use and so there's only certain things you
can use those for so that's what they use these are okay i'm also just wanting to affirm my
understanding and also for the public because 1.5 million for a kitchen replacement is pretty big
and how did we choose katie junior high was that it's just always an identified need or yes ma'am
we went through uh this castman's group along with ms carrier's group the food service department
we've been working for several years now to try to spin down that fund balance right you guys have
heard that before so we've been doing several kitchen renovations over the past couple of
summers katie junior high um we're at a point now where we want to be careful about how much
we're spending on the food service uh whatever's left in that fund but katie junior high we knew
we needed to do uh because the age of the equipment and we felt like that would be the
best thing to do to roll it into the renovation that way if something else has to happen while
we're doing it uh we do it all at once right so they kind of get a almost a if you will a brand
brand new kind of setup.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
That's what I figured.
I just wanted to double check.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
6.2 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Emergent Bilingual (EB) Enrollment and the 2025-2026 Application for Bilingual Exception/ESL Waiver.
Next, we'll move to item 6.2, discuss and consider board approval of the
emergent bilingual enrollment in the 2025-26 application for bilingual
exception ESL waiver.
Our presenter is Rosie Pratt, Director of ESL and Bilingual Programs.
Good evening, Mrs. Pratt.
Good evening, Board Member Fox, Trustees, and Dr. Grigorski.
As required by Texas Education Code Chapter 29, school districts must report to the Board of Trustees
the number of emergent bilingual students, also referred to English learners,
who are being served through bilingual or ESL programs.
As of October 1, 2025, KDISD is serving a total of 22,591 EB students.
These students are being supported through targeted instructional services designed to ensure English language proficiency and academic success in accordance with state guidelines.
lines.
TEA requires any school system that does not have appropriately certified teachers assigned
to its bilingual and or ESL programs to apply for a bilingual exception and or an ESL waiver
by November 1 of 2025.
While some KDISD teachers hold certification in their assigned content areas, they do not
possess the required bilingual or ESL certification on their teaching
credentials. Therefore, for the 25-26 school year, KDISD will submit
applications for both a bilingual exception and an ESL waiver by the
required deadline. In Texas, state law mandates that districts with 20 or more
EB students in the same grade level and language classification must provide a
a bilingual or special language program, which in our case is our ESL program.
While KDISD currently offers a bilingual Spanish program, there are 18 additional languages
that meet that same Rule of 20 criteria.
These languages include Arabic, Cantonese, Farsi, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Igbo, Japanese,
Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Tamil, Telugu, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, and Yoruba.
Due to the absence of certified bilingual teachers in these languages, KDISD will request a bilingual exception and
will outline how the district plans to support campuses serving EB students who speak these languages.
KDISD has maintained this exception for the past 24 years and continues to implement strategies
to meet the instructional needs of all of our EB students across the district.
The ESL waiver, in addition, the district is submitting an application for ESL waiver
for 109 teachers who are currently serving EB students but have not yet obtained ESL
certification.
certification. The state allows us one year to have these teachers be certified. These
teachers have been notified already of the training opportunities available to help them
meet certification requirements. A critical component of the application is KDISD Professional
Development Plan to support our teachers included in the ESL Waiver. The district has implemented
a comprehensive PD plan to equip teachers with the necessary strategies, resources and
and expert guidance to effectively serve our students.
This plan includes an ESL preparation course,
10 hours of targeted professional development
focusing on integrating language and content instruction.
The district also provides training
that prepares these teachers for the state ESL exam
by covering essential language concepts,
second language acquisition,
and effective ESL teaching practices. We also offer five sessions in the fall and
then upon earning their certification the teachers are reimbursed for the exam
fee. To further strengthen the certification pipeline the district also
provides seven additional professional development sessions for teachers who
who are not on that waiver, but who are pursuing ESL certification.
These teachers are also eligible for exam fee reimbursement upon certification.
This evening, it is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve the superintendent's authorization
to sign and submit the bilingual exception and ESL waiver application to TEA.
At this time, I welcome any questions.
Any questions?
madam vice president mrs gusella thank you thank you ms pratt yes is that correct thank you for the
um presentation i just um wanted to know is this the same set of a hundred there's 109 teachers not
certified right in esl um that we're asking um an exception to be made um do we know first of all is
this um this is a new set the set from last time is certified or how is it how is it going so the
the uh any district in the state of texas is not allowed to carry over an additional year of those
teachers that okay were not certified the previous year so within that year they should complete the
certification um last year we did have a good number of our teachers certified but not all of
them did some of them didn't come back but we make sure that they're not on that list again
reported to the state an additional year okay thank you for clarifying that i didn't know that
and i was just curious is the reason i don't know if you have input to give uh perhaps the stipend
isn't enough they're not attracted because i mean they get a stipend correct for being esl certified
no they do not get a stipend for being yes so what would their motivation be to be certified in esl
To provide the effective strategies for students.
And it's amazing strategies that are good for any student, that can be applied for any student.
Okay.
But they have to put forward how many hours of training?
If they certify before they're reported on the waiver, they don't have to complete any PD hours.
They just have to present the exam and certify and then add it to their certification, add the endorsement to their certification.
Okay.
And a lot of teachers do that knowing, you know, that if they fall on the waiver
reported to the state that they would have to complete that so they get it ahead of time.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Mrs. Vice President?
Mrs. Champagne?
Thank you for your presentation. I always enjoy it, but it's just a matter of interest to me.
I'm just curious, is every school that we have, you know, on this list?
Okay, ESL, if they all need, no. There's some campuses that make a very consorted effort to
ensure that all their teachers are either ESL certified or that they don't schedule
EB students with non-ESL certified teachers. So we do have some campuses
that that are not reported on this waiver report. But every campus has ESL
children? Yes, every single campus does. And then I just think it's so interesting when
you look at the numbers, well we have the chart, how many there are in elementary
versus secondary and by the time you get to senior high school I always just
wonder about those poor kiddos who are just showing up, you know, 745 of them in
12th grade and then they have to graduate right and some of them just may have enrolled that year
we don't every case is different but i will say that we do have a higher number of esl students
at the elementary level than at secondary do those kids in 12th grade have to pass the english the
writing test and all that yeah they they do have a separate set of exit criteria um they have to
pass since they're no longer taking the EOC star. They take a standardized assessment which is the
Iowa ITBS test and they have to pass the language and the reading portions of the test with 40th
percentile or higher. And so last year we did see a big number of students who met exit criteria,
close to 3,000 in our district. So all the things that we're doing, all the strategies and all the
All the supports that we provide at the campuses are helping our students develop English and
exit successfully so that then they can go into the general mainstream.
And then we are required to monitor our students for two years.
And I can say, you know, in the 25 years that I've been here in Katy ISD, we've never brought
students back into the program.
They have that safety net of monitoring for two years.
Once they exit in case they need to be pulled back into our programs for language services,
but we never have to do that. Once they exit, they're very successful in the general ed mainstream.
How do you monitor them?
We have to monitor, we are required to form ELPAC meetings for those monitored students,
and we follow each and every one of them.
They have to hold grading period meetings and discuss every child.
They're tracked for two years, and they look at their grades,
they look at their absence rates, any other problems that they could be having
that may cause them to regress and if they do regress language wise then
they're pulled back into the program but again as I mentioned and Katie we've
been very successful with our students who once exit the program. Thank you.
Anyone else?
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
6.3, discuss and consider board approval of the design associated with the renovations to Pollyann McRoberts Elementary School.
6.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the design associated with the renovations to Polly Ann McRoberts Elementary School.
Presenters are Lisa Kassman and friends from Stantec.
Oh, Mr. Finley, the principal at McRoberts.
oh pardon me sorry there you go good evening president of redmond fox um trustees and dr
gilorski i have five items this evening for your consideration the first four pertain to mcroberts
and hayes renovation projects please note that some of the slides in your presentation show more
detail than the public view besides campus principals and the architect art campbell is
in attendance being the project manager the first two items are in regards to the renovation at
at McRoberts.
Eric Finley will say a few words, followed by Pruhl.
Hi there.
This is an exciting time for McRoberts Elementary.
As you know, a lot has changed since 1997,
and we would greatly benefit from the increased
square footage and modernization that this plan has for us.
We've really enjoyed our time with Mr. Campbell
and his team and the Stantec folks,
and they developed a plan I think will really meet the needs of our you know
all of our we have a lot of special education units and we're bilingual
campus we have a lot of staff and I think it'll just be a great great great
time for us as a campus and we're really excited to welcome our community back
when this is complete thank you good evening everybody I'm gonna quickly go
over our scope first of all I wanted to thank you for the opportunity for
working on this project uh we kicked up this design earlier this year with art and the campus
leadership uh we went over some of the initial designs and we are happy to be here today to
present the design development progress with you all today and the goal is to get kind of an early
gmp and get the construction started as soon as november of this year and be finished by late
late 2026. So that's kind of our overarching goal, making sure that we're kind of done by
late 2026. Today, in terms of table of contents in my agenda, first of all, we'll go over existing
conditions, site conditions, and floor plan, and then kind of a proposed design and a few
renderings, exterior and interior. So going over on the site plan, the key items that we needed to
address in terms of scope was addressing the code so if you see on the site plan the fire lane
access the back of the building doesn't have adequate fire lane access so the fire trucks
can access the back of the building so that was part of the improvements planned for this building
as well as at floor plan level looking at where the main entrance and administration is located
should be more centralized because on the existing plan it's kind of up to the side and also looking
at other program elements like classrooms and offices and making sure
they meet the code. We update all the HVAC and plumbing
equipment as well as making sure it complies and meets the district new
elementary prototype standards. I'll briefly go into the floor plans.
Looking at this slide we have administration on one side. This is
existing conditions uh we can see that in the admin area there's a lack of uh collaboration
spaces lack of conference rooms offices and just kind of how the spaces flow together doesn't
really meet the district standards right now and then the library again the shape of the
the building exterior walls kind of makes it very hard to have proper shelving layouts not enough
daylight and just monitoring from the workroom on where the students are in the library so this
this is all what we took into consideration while redesigning uh planning the spaces
next again uh music and arts access to the existing stage and proximity to the music
rooms the art rooms where they were in the existing building and classrooms again the
way the restrooms are they're outdated they do not meet code and the access to the restrooms is
not like the other district elementary schools and again the classrooms were
sized some of the classrooms on the end were not sized to accommodate a full
classroom so kind of taking all of that into consideration and special education
at McRoberts there is a larger special programs needs so some look taking that
into consideration on what programs need to be there like motor lab and life
skills and ecap and ycap so taking all of that into consideration i'll share kind of the revised
layout this sight line shows the extension of the fire lane on the plan west side going over a
little bit on the north so that allows that fire lane coverage we reconfigured the administration
and the main entrance to be more central so it has a presence and a prominence so it's easy to find
and kind of just re-looked at and reorganized some of the special programs in the classrooms.
Quickly going into this, this is a layout of the admin building, admin area, sorry,
that kind of shows the workroom, the bookroom, conference rooms,
kind of more in compliance with what the current needs of the campus are,
and it kind of complies with more on par with the other newer elementary schools in the district.
Library kind of moves to the end of the building, has more exterior daylight,
light and more stacking space reading so the spaces are more configured so that the librarian
when there she's in a work room can monitor the class the library area properly music room is now
right adjacent to the stage and the stage has a we added a ramp accessible ramp for so the
stage is more accessible directly from the cafeteria so some of the improvements
in this area.
And again, in the classroom
pod wings, all the ends,
the restrooms have been updated
so there's a girls' and a boys' restroom
on each side of the hallway so the teachers
can monitor per
grade level. And again, added
some of the special programs over there because
again, they have a,
the campus had a lot of need for smaller
spaces for their programs
that the host offered
that campus. And
And at the special ed wing, there was a small addition to the building in this end to accommodate for the life skills, motor lab, ECAP and YCAP spaces to be all next to each other.
So the special ed program is all together on one end of the building.
Quickly going over exterior views, you can see an existing view of the current main entrance
to the campus and this is kind of the proposed new entrance.
It's more prominent with the canopy and kind of more central to the building.
Another view of the main entrance.
view of the library again using the campus branding campus colors into the view you can
see the new library casework this is a view of the hallway that looks into the library and again this
is a view interior view looking towards the main entry security vestibule that was it any questions
Board members?
Mrs. Shimpe?
Mrs. Fox?
I have a question.
Thank you.
It's so nice to see you all.
And I did get to visit.
I visited a couple different times with Mr. Finley.
And I just want, just for clarity's sake and just for everyone to know, Mr. Finley, you
you were part of, you gave input, correct,
into how you wanted, how you could see,
and then Stantec took your advice on that, right?
Yes.
So that's very important for everyone to know
because sometimes I hear, not from principals necessarily,
but from others that say that they didn't ask the principal
for input on new designs, but since I've been here,
it seems like always the principal is in on that.
So I think the principal.
We always include the principal.
I love that, because I think the principal
has the best insight into what is needed at a school,
especially an experienced principal as you are,
and I really appreciate that partnership.
That's all I'd like to say.
It looks beautiful, I can't wait to see it.
Anyone else?
I have a few questions.
Harul, is this similar to other recent renovations you've done,
like other schools, the same floor plan, making it new and improved?
Yeah, very similar to recent renovations.
Most of the scope of the work in those renovations
is making sure ADA code issues are addressed,
HVAC and finishes have been updated.
And in terms of floor plan,
this project and Hays have a very similar floor plan,
so kind of similar scope of work.
Okay, good.
So I have some questions about all the glass
I'm seeing everywhere.
Let's talk about the media center.
I don't know if everyone can see it,
so it doesn't matter.
But I remember when we talked about Katy Elementary,
right when you walk in Katy Elementary you're just right there and I don't know
if this this is deeper into the school is that right mr. Finley the library
libraries on the corner on the okay so I love a lot of glass I love all that but
if the exposure of children is available to be viewed by visitors I'm not okay
with that right so I think they frosted halfway up or they put like walls
halfway up or maybe they put bookcases there because when I did my campus visit
at Katy Elementary it looked great right but a wall of windows is you know where
children are just sitting in the floor reading books is is a just something
that catches my eye we work with the OEM department about the finishes and
windows and all so they're tuned in okay so can we go to the not go to but talk
about the entrance and it looks like there's tall glass beautiful wonderful I
see hot steamy humid expensive is as it gets you know to the entrance is that
going to be glass like that or is that just for our rendition for today or it
is currently glass similar to other elementary schools but what are most of
this glass is did you get closer yeah this is glass most of this glass is uh insulated and low
e so it doesn't really get hot in there with the sun orientation there's a canopy uh that kind of
protects the front so it shouldn't be a problem in terms of heat over there so we kind of design the
hvac in the spaces accordingly but this is the only area in the security vestibule at the main
entrance that there is that glass to give it that height and the prominence okay it's certainly
beautiful looks like a maintenance problem to me and maybe heat but as you know i wouldn't want to
clean it but also i go to the safety you've checked with chief and everybody about the safety of
having that much glass i know they have to get through another level of doors with heavily
tempered glass and those kinds of things but I don't know just that that's
immediately what I this with the district and it kind of aligns with the
district security protocol and entrance was to build security was to build all
of that was I appreciate that I still have concerns when you talk about the
access to stage for music does anybody else have a question i'll take a turn out no okay when you
access to stage for music etc you fixed all of that again i like how you take that into
consideration and you've done that on many renovations right get the music kids close
to the stage and have all that in there and do you currently have an lgi mr finley in this build i
I will.
However, we do not.
Right.
It's difficult to have meetings.
And an LGI is used for one gazillion things.
That's a real number.
It's used over and over and over.
That multipurpose space is wonderful,
and I'm glad that you're going to have that
because converting space of,
you have a lot of things going on now,
but being able to find space
where you can have that versatility
and it being right next to the library,
which is also great space.
So what do you, the library reconfiguration,
do you have one of those?
I haven't been to McRoberts in a few years, I'm sorry.
Kind of an odd shape now.
Is it half open with the bookcases like Galbo was?
It's very open.
It's kind of like a triangular shape.
Right.
Like Galbo.
Not like Galbo.
Creech.
Creech.
There we go.
Creech.
Creech or Williams.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Creech.
Okay.
So that's walled in pretty good.
Yeah, very well, yes.
Okay.
But you're reconfiguring the space?
That space will be-
It looks more linear now?
Where the current library is will be the office space.
It's that whole middle area.
So that way we centralize the entrance and the office.
Okay.
And we'll be able to use it.
Okay, good.
And now you're going to have more library space.
linear space easy better configuration are you happy with that yes very much
okay are they giving you all the input you would like to have yes I would say
they've gone above and beyond and listening to what we do I was a fielder
when we did that bill doesn't assure you there so a lot of insight on that and
they've taken in that and they've done a great job of also considering the kids
in this plan we're not moving any classrooms
during this time period, so it will affect the kids less.
I love to hear that.
I love that you were at Fielder, and during the process,
you kind of already know what it's like,
and you know to give input.
I know they're listening.
I just want to make sure that you feel confident
in all of that.
Let me look, I think that's everything.
So for Ms. Peroul, would you, what kinds of things,
as we've done this many times, you learn something from every reconfiguration, right?
Not everything is exactly the same, even though a lot of the footprints are the same.
So all the things that you've learned as you've redone these,
does that make this process more streamlined and faster?
And do you feel like you have learned the best placement for things?
And what kinds of things are you still learning that you incorporate when you get another opportunity?
Do you have any off the top of your head?
Definitely many of these we learned from past prototypes.
This was from Fielder, when we did Fielder and this layout, the existing floor plan is very similar.
So we start there and then based on every campus and needs are different.
So when we meet with the principal, when we have our kickoff meeting, we kind of figure out what are these campus needs and what we did in the past.
how does that align and what what needs to change so even between mcroberts and hayes even though
the floor plans are similar there are little subtle differences based on campus needs and
student needs and programs so we kind of learn from there we learn um about what finishes work
what what didn't work kind of we learn as we go and align with our goal is to make sure the campus
needs our med. Thank you very much. I know when I go to schools and see the
renovations and the new all the things whether it's a campus visit or whatever
and I ask how what do you notice now that you've had a renovation and they
say the children stand taller they're proud the parents are excited it's like
like they're invigorated because someone believed that they were worthy of new and improved, right?
Of the nice new water fountains and bathrooms and just those kinds of things
and the new art that comes with them on the walls and all of that,
that it just breathes a new energy and excitement and happiness into the whole campus and the community.
And so I appreciate the attention you spend to it and that we, that our community,
that's a shout out to the community for believing in KDISD enough to be like,
we don't just need a new school because there's growth.
We need to take care of our existing buildings that we've already invested in
and make sure that all children feel valued and that we keep up to date with the needs of our students' population.
So thank you very much. Anyone else? No? Okay, thank you.
6.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment One to Stewart Builders, LLC. contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Polly Ann McRoberts Elementary School.
So the second item in regards to Mick Roberts is the approval of Amendment
Number 1 to the Contractor-Steward Builders. This will allow for the
purchase of the necessary HVAC equipment, structural steel, electrical, and roofing,
just to get incorporated. So those are long lead items. This is what we've done
on similar renovation projects. Then we come back with a final GMP that will
incorporate these numbers one more time
board members any questions about 6.4
thank you I think you're still with us now we're gonna talk about Hayes very
6.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of the design associated with the renovations to Jeanette Hayes Elementary School.
similar principal miss Mulcahy is here she's gonna say a few words and Poole
will run through the design for a haze
Good evening.
I'm so excited to be here on the behalf of Hayes Elementary.
This renovation is something we've been talking about for a while and planning,
and so we are so super excited.
Hayes will be 30 years old next school year, so the timing of this is perfect.
Already planning big open houses to invite the community in.
It's already kind of a buzz in our area with the parents talking about we're hearing this
and hearing that.
So they're super excited to actually hear the plans when we can really talk about it.
So our teachers are super excited.
They're to have planning rooms because they talk to their colleagues at other campuses
that actually have planning rooms where they can meet and keep their materials.
And to have restrooms have been a big conversation.
Our teachers are super excited to have restrooms throughout the building now instead of just
two up front.
So that will be a fabulous thing for our staff.
It's the small things that seem to make a really big difference.
Mr. Campbell and Stantec and everyone has been wonderful to work with.
They have asked for input and feedback since we began this process.
We actually called them in last week and just said, I was just thinking my nurse had a question.
We want to change some things.
Is it too late?
And they came and scheduled a meeting the very next morning and came out to Hayes.
So everyone has been very responsive.
And I just think this is going to be a great enhancement to the Hays community.
Thank you.
Very similar to Mick Roberts in terms of schedule and scope.
Again, we kicked off both the projects at the same time.
So we kicked this project off earlier this summer with Hays campus leadership and art from the planning side.
Again, trying to get early GMP today approved and then early start this November with the
potential completion by late 2026.
We'll go over existing site plan and proposed plans.
Like similar to McRoberts-Hayes site-wise, we have the same fire access issue on existing
site.
The back of the building did not have adequate fire lane access.
So that was part of the scope of improvements at site level.
And again, the existing main entry is off to the side, admin is off to the site.
How can we make it more centralized?
Going over a similar floor plan, administration did not really comply, align with the district prototype.
There were code issues, lack of meeting rooms and offices.
Again, similar, same location of the library.
the shape of the existing building did not offer sufficient or efficient use of space.
Music room was, again, in a very awkward shape.
It's by the stage, but, again, the stage did not have direct access from the auditorium,
cafetorium, and kind of the connectivity with the music room and art room was a little awkward.
In the classroom side, again, the restrooms needed updating and the classrooms at the end were not really a full classroom size to accommodate the students per classroom.
So kind of how could we look at that to reconfigure that to align with more district standards that the new elementary school has.
New site plan, you can see the far lane access to the back.
and we get as we look into the floor plan again the administration is more
centralized now hence the main entrance is more centralized here is an enlarged
plan of that admin area again the reception and security vestibule aligns
with the district prototype we have met with the user groups and confirmed all
the layouts with them and rooms like workroom volunteer room offices and
and conference rooms all align with the newer elementary school standards.
Library is towards the end, so when the admin kind of moved to a more central location,
library kind of moved to the end, allows more daylight and more efficient use of space
for the stacking reading areas, classroom areas, and the workroom.
LGI, again, is located right next to the library in this case as well.
Music rooms are more rectangular in shape right next to the auditorium and
the stage and again the ADA access to the stage is directly from the cafeteria.
This case the classroom pod has a different layout because the campus had
more needs for a teacher planning than the classroom needs and kind of the
space is more renovated to reconfigure the restrooms for sure there boys and
girls each side for easy monitoring and there's teacher planning room on each end for the teachers
for that each pod so this happens on each of their pods exterior views very similar treatment again
matching the existing brick colors where needed but again the taller volume for the security
vestibule main entrance for the prominence another view of the main entrance with the
library further back in that view. Library here again very similar layout
with the district the campus colors.
Another view of the outside and again this is a view that's looking at the
music room of the main hallway and on to the side we can see the the main
entrance and the security vestibule that was it for this project any questions
mrs vice president may i ask a question
mrs t anything okay um i i forget i remember at mcrobert's they had some music classes in a
temporary building does hayes have that did you don't have any music classes in a temporary
okay because I was just looking at this the diagram on our in our slideshow and
I was like I just remember that and I thought that was hard that's a hard
place for music to be as in a temporary building so I was just curious if that
was gonna be a relief for y'all but you don't seem to have that issue so good
for McRoberts and great for y'all y'all don't have that problem okay great
Mrs. Fox? Yes Mrs. Champagne? So I'm really excited because this is near my
neighborhood so I drive by Hayes almost on a daily basis maybe two or three
times but I toured it was it last year I think I toured it with you and you and
Ms. Heather you gave me a really good tour and you showed me the life
skills classrooms and I was blown away by the program that you have there and
And is anything about that going to change because, you know, I know your population is small, but you have, seems like you have a large life skills population.
We have a large special needs population, so they've taken that into consideration in my feedback regarding the plan.
Would you get a little closer to the microphone, please? Thank you.
Yes, we still have life skills. We have early childhood. We have ECSC. We have LEAP program.
We have two adaptive behavior units for the district. So all those programs will be moved up front similar to McRoberts
We're kind of like a special ed type wing up front
So that that will be great because right now our adaptive behavior classrooms with no restroom
We're in the very back of the building
And so this plan will allow for the classrooms to be up front and for them to have their a restroom there as well
So we'll still have the life skills to you and this has nothing to do with the renovations
but i will just have to say i am i was really impressed with your team and you know when i got
to observe the the classrooms a little bit i was super impressed and so i'm glad that you know
you might have better adaptability you know physically for those classrooms and and the
teachers and all that they they deserve whatever they can get if it means another bathroom for them
then i would love that for them thank you so much for all that you do for our district and
our children to all of y'all to all of you teachers and principals
anyone else mr cross i'm you're probably really glad you were a high school principal right now
with all these elementary things going but your wife will tell you all the questions
you didn't ask tonight when you get home i have a few questions and
And broken record.
All the glass bothers me.
What evidence do you have on any kind of maintenance issues?
Do they leak?
Do they get broken often?
What do they, all the maintenance issues I think Mr. Beering is about to answer.
Thank you.
I'll jump in for the maintenance side.
I think any custodian is going to tell you less glass is better.
but in terms of the high glass and things like that they do a lot of that
stuff in the summer it doesn't become a huge problem we've got glass in the
front of almost every building maybe not that much at the height that it is but
we do have glass doors and that kind of thing I can tell you for sure that all
of that stuff we take into consideration the glass and the security film and all
the kind of things we could give you guys some more detail I'm sure chief or
Ruben or would be able to do that too and in a closed session where we could
tell you a little bit more about what we do um but uh i think pruill's right um we do uh try to let
the natural light in but we also balance that with uh with protection and what's safest for kids
but that tall glass is at the outside the opening of the front doors and so by the time it reaches
as anybody. Kids don't learn at the front door and that kind of thing. So I want, my kids went
to Beck Junior High. It's just complete walls. You know, don't look outside and wish you were there.
You want to wish you're right here in math class, right, back in the day when those things happened.
So I know that natural light is important for student learning. I just don't know if
that's an ad, that I don't know what the cost is. I'm struggling to remember some of the other
renovations like is that we normally have post and things like that maybe or if there are brick walls
which would not be i don't know that it would be less expensive or easier to maintain if it were
something else i just look at that and think security and now maintenance those kinds of things
um leaking would you go to slide four on my slide four please and tell me what what is that with all
that glass two walls of windows is that just a drawing or is that an actual minus slide four
it's some children sitting on the grass and somebody's walking in the door
rendering that no no it's three on yours sorry there we have two attachments here and i'm just
oh that was it that yeah that is the view of the library kind of it's off on the end of the
building and it's further set back open to the outside that's that's grass yeah that's grass
Is it accessible to public? The public can walk past it?
No, the doors over there exit only so if you can only go in, you can't enter in from there.
And there's fencing around there too.
Yes, you can walk past it because it's in the front of the school.
Front of the school. Does that bother anybody else? Is it just me?
I hear what you're saying but isn't it a this design has been used how many times
already this was that Fielder Elementary filter is it a foregone conclusion back
back with filter when this design was well the filters just been renovated
very well yeah but back with their renovation right so we do some things
with glazing and stuff like that but again that's why we bring these to the
board if you guys see a different vision for how we do the exterior of the school
we're happy to we're happy to look into all those possibilities I don't expect
anyone to substitute my judgment for those of experts I I'm having my
My community and my heart and I think that,
I just know they would ask those questions,
so that's why I'm asking.
And it's just very sad that we turn on the news
and we hear something, you know.
And, you know, bad news or something,
or we've all dealt with angry parents or things like that,
and we've, you know, had some of that.
But I'm probably inventing something that is not a problem,
but I couldn't let it go by without asking.
So I've asked.
and maybe maybe reuben could give us an update next week during closed session on what he thinks
okay let's yeah let's talk about what that looks like and if that's a problem um i
i don't know maybe i would guess glass like this on the exterior is much more expensive
and much more durable and resistant to outside force than standard glass.
Is that right, Mr. Beerling?
You understand what I'm asking?
I do understand what you're asking.
Again, this is a public meeting, so we don't want to show all of our cards to the public,
but I can assure you that all the stuff that we do on the outside of these buildings,
that piece is taken into consideration, plus some.
Got it.
I expect that.
I also, okay, I'm done with glass.
Aren't you glad?
I am. But I've done my due diligence in asking, and I'm confident in the experts.
So, because I know you're going to chat about it.
I love the planning rooms and the restrooms. You're right. It's a long way.
So, again, with the stories, but we all have them, right?
When we moved to Katy from overseas, we lived in Venezuela before we came here,
and when we came here and saw what Katy ISD was, it was as foreign to us as anything,
anything because our children had been in many, five international schools.
And it was like, wow, all of this, you get all of this, and Hayes Elementary was our
first home.
And we bought the fourth house in the neighborhood and then it grew and grew and grew until Creech
was our new home.
And I, so I'm invested, I have a plaque, a little tile on the wall, worked with people,
all the things, and I love Hayes Elementary with my whole heart.
And so I'm very excited that you have these things and I subbed there many times so I know about the bathroom things and
Mrs. Champagne is correct about your special ed
population
unbelievable the amount the things that you I
Call the miracles because Jamie Vollmer who wrote a book about schools from a business
CEO perspective talked about
he went through his businesses, very successful businesses, and never saw a miracle.
And every time he went into a school, he saw a miracle every day.
Things that happen because of the people who are dedicated to our students.
And the environment is a huge piece of that.
So did you have an opportunity to speak to our special ed department and everything that you need?
I'm sure there are probably guidance from the state that says square footage and things like that,
but you with Dr. Coffey's group were able to say,
if you're going to add more programs to us, we'll need this.
And I know that Mr. Finley probably did too with space needed for your programs
to make sure that you have everything you need as it changes.
Yes, we did.
I talked to all the people that we needed to talk to that were over the specific programs,
making sure we were and they were excited to see it too because it was bringing it to the same level
of the newer campuses so they were excited to see that that was happening as well making sure
measuring making sure everything meets square footage requirements design the amenities
everything will be brought up to the same standard as the current new schools
excellent and this will happen while school is going on and you'll transition this way and that
way like you do with with roads and it's like this this lane's now closed off and
you're com we've done that a bunch of times so we have
All of that will you have different entrances and all of that probably traffic pattern think at certain times
You know I've asked a lot of questions because that is a concern because I know what operating school looks like and I don't know
What operating school and a construction zone looks like so I have asked a lot of questions
I'm sure there's still some variables and unknown that we'll have to deal with when it comes, but we'll be ready for that
But yes, we're prepared for that
that. Okay, I appreciate it. I'm gonna take a tiny moment of personal privilege to tell you the
cutest two and a half year old that God ever made is my grandson and he loves a construction zone,
the best entertainment ever. So if you need his help, he has a hard hat and a little vest and he
wants to be an excavator operator when he grows up. You just let me know if you need his help.
Anytime. Thank you so much. Mrs. Fox. Yes. I've thought of some,
another question but first of all i was going to suggest to you that you should just join a support
group of other principals who's gone through the partial renovations and you know maybe y'all could
share and you already talked to several of them and eric and i have been talking quite a bit as
well y'all should just all have a group and you can share your stories and you know you can start
out with um you know i used to be a principal that didn't have you know whatever um but i am
just curious I'm just curious what from from the architecture standpoint and I
hate to put somebody on the spot but I'm going to real quick are we are you when
you do these renovations are you making sure are finding a place for mothers
nursing rooms because I I used to kind of be on a tangent about that because I
know that that's a state law and i've seen um there's a high school i think it's jordan has
has a room like that and i'm just curious if if you are you know i'm not saying it has to say the
word of that but is there like a designated place or you know especially because i know the older
buildings that wasn't requirement then but as we do renovations maybe that could be made available
I don't know.
We can revisit that, Ms. Champagne.
I'm sorry for putting you on the spot, but that's just important.
I know because moms, we need to make sure moms want to come back to work after they
have a baby.
We'll go ahead and revisit all that.
Anyone else?
Thank you so much.
You can tell I love these kinds of questions.
of things and the same your community will be so excited to have new they will not love the
construction part but i like the support group mrs champaign talked about so good okay mrs
6.6 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment One to the Stewart Builders, LLC. contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Jeanette Hayes Elementary School.
cassman you have the next one too yes similar to the first one mick roberts were asking for the
first amendment to order those long lead material items which will be incorporated into the final gmp
And Board Members, these will be on our consent agenda for next week.
6.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the construction of Junior High School #19.
Okay, 6.7, discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the construction of Junior
High School number 19.
All right, so I first want to note that you were provided an updated ranking sheet.
There was an incorrect construction budget number used in one of the cells for the calculation.
There are no changes to the fee percentage or overall ranking.
We're sorry for this inconvenience.
With me tonight I have Trey Barnett who is the project manager and representatives from
PBK and Dremala.
Six proposals were received and Dremala ranked first overall using the one-step collective
construction manager selection process and you have the attached tabulation.
Dremala has worked in the district for over 25 years and are very familiar with our junior
your high prototype so this gets them on board to start working with a pbk on the design looking at
phasing this is out at grange so the developer is still doing some work out there so we need to
maximize our time because we're scheduled to open in august of 2028. board members any questions
Thank you for providing all the attachments for us to look at.
Okay.
6.8 Discuss and consider Board approval for re-roof and building envelopes at Jo Ella Exley Elementary School and West Memorial Elementary School.
Thank you.
We'll move on to 6.8.
Thank you, Mrs. Kassman.
You're getting a break.
Thank you.
Discuss and consider board approval for re-roof and building envelopes
at joella exley elementary school and west memorial elementary school mr fuchs good to see you
upgrades at excellent elementary and west memorial elementary schools are included as part of the
2023 bond component replacement program at both campuses roofs will be replaced and window systems
upgraded to meet current district standards both projects are scheduled to begin early next year
and will be completed by the end of summer 2026.
This time, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mrs. Cosella.
Thank you, Madam Vice President.
Thank you, Nathan.
What jumped out to me was the difference in cost for the re-roofs for two elementaries.
you know I'm not familiar with the footprint but could you explain why that
one was seven hundred twenty thousand dollars more than the other well it
comes down to square footage at West Memorial Elementary it's only eighty
nine thousand square feet and at Exley it's a hundred fifteen thousand square
feet they got more square footage on the roof okay and then the actual windows
themselves at West Memorial Elementary there's eight windows and seven exterior
doors and actually there's 114 windows and 18 exterior doors so just the scope
okay so not so window count and the footprint for the roof okay Wow it's a
big change big difference a lot more stuff between the two thank you any
Any other questions?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
6.9 Discuss and consider changes to Board Policy FM Local.
Okay, now we'll go to 6.9,
discuss and consider changes to board policy FM local.
It says the presenter is the board president.
He isn't here, and my understanding is Mrs. Cuzela,
you asked for this on the agenda, so I'll let you begin.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Yeah, I realize this proposed policy draft was not public, so it's not been made public, so I'll read it just so everybody knows what we're discussing here.
This is the FM local student activities policy, and I'm proposing, or we are proposing, or it is proposed to add something about attendance and participation on Sundays. That's the gist here.
So I'll just read it first and then maybe explain how this came up.
Limitations on practice, rehearsal, and student participation during the weekend shall be as follows.
Historically, school activities were not scheduled on Sundays for the well-being of students and for the protection of their mental health.
Sundays are a time to reserve for rest, leisure, friends, family, and the opportunity to worship.
it does say Sunday prohibition that term comes from UIL rules that's their
terminology and it explains under Sunday prohibition school related activities
including extracurricular activities shall not be scheduled on Sundays barring
unavoidable unavoidable circumstances that have been approved given a school
related activity receives approval due to an unavoidable circumstance on a
sunday a student shall not be penalized as a result of missing part or all of that activity
on a sunday these requirements are consistent with uil rules on quote sunday prohibitions
and ga legal which has to do with religious freedom and then the uil
i'm referring to a uil side-by-side document there might be a better reference here but it
does say in the uil rules uil rules prohibit inter-school athletic academic and fine arts
competition including marching contests on sunday academic activities may schedule practice sessions
on sunday provided such sessions receive advanced approval from the superintendent or his or her
designee that's the tea and uil side by side section for limits on practice and performance
Sunday prohibitions. And then GA Legal for reference says a district may not
substantially burden a person's free exercise of religion unless it is acting
in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and has used the
least restrictive means of furthering that. You can refer to GA Legal. So
So this instance came up with a parent.
There were required sessions on a Saturday and a Sunday from 8 to 6 p.m.
And if the student missed, there were either demerits or basically the athlete could not compete for the rest of the year.
If they missed any part of that Saturday and Sunday required time.
This parent did work it out with the school and the coach and the administrator.
They came to a compromise, but it did highlight a gap that maybe we need to address in policy.
So this is certainly not an attack on any certain coach or director.
This is only to make our place better.
So when I asked about this to Dr. Gagorski, you did say that he didn't know of any football teams
that were requiring practices on Sundays and you know asking around I think as a
rule of thumb it's only a rule of thumb bands don't practice on Sundays
generally even the theater you know they have very long rehearsals they try to
avoid the Sundays so then I and he shared the UIL side-by-side documents a
funny name but it because it's called a side-by-side TEA UIL document and in
there it does address Sundays as being exceptional and they use that word
Sunday prohibitions which is a pretty strong term so that's where this came
from and you know without a policy we're letting our principal or our principles
are deciding what's approved and what's not approved but when we set it in
policy then right we're able to take that burden off the principal or the
coach and there's a policy set in in the playing fields leveled right it was
discussed a good good point brought up was within our district we're pretty
competitive within our district so to level the playing field where all of us
are going to abide by the same rules because one principal could approve
Sunday as one could not then we've leveled the playing field within the
district awesome I'm just sharing some thoughts that have come up in the
development of this so this is primarily to allow first students staff also and
their families to have a deserved break from you know work if you will and for
for mental health, to rest, and the opportunity to worship on a Sunday.
And it's also to ensure a student is not punished for missing time on a Sunday.
They're not penalized.
I think I'll leave it at that.
I hope that that gives you a good summary for where this came from and why.
Board members?
Mrs. Fox?
Dr. Kroporsky, can you tell me what the current, not maybe policy, but processes for Sunday-type
things that involve UIL?
Certainly can talk broadly about the practice of Sundays when it comes to activities.
activities. We follow the UIL Activity Manual on that. There's a little bit more in there
beyond just the side-by-side because there are different events that impact Sundays differently.
For example, Fine Arts is different than cheer, which is different than academic competitions.
Then there's athletic competitions and then there's practices all in there. So there's
just a wide range of things that do happen or could happen or a few
flexibilities. So generally those are guided either by the fine arts office or
through athletics department. So when I had heard about this about the sunday
issue, wasn't aware of it being a problem until somebody told me that
we've got issues on sundays. Um, but I'm unaware where this is happening on like
wide scale. I did inquire with athletics and fine arts and learned that on one
On occasion, there was an exception made for a Sunday practice for cheer for an extenuating circumstance.
Aside from that, I'm unaware of any other competitions or practices or anything else that's going on on Sundays.
We follow that UIL guideline pretty darn well, I think.
But it does give a limited, very small amount of flexibility on some rare occasions.
And like I said, that's just our longstanding practice.
of just following what UIL tells us to do.
Ms. Vice President?
Mr. Cross.
I was just going to chime in to say that, you know,
seven years back in 13 at Cinco,
I mean, I don't recall having,
I don't recall that being an issue.
Like, I don't ever remember a parent or a child being, you know,
upset or frustrated over a Sunday thing.
The one that comes to mind is those years
when we made the state golf tournament and you would travel on a Sunday and
they would allow you I'll would allow you to to do a practice round which
would obviously benefit the team or that individual to do that but like I'm
trying to think and then like we have building reservations like if a if a
coach or sponsor wanted to use the building I think it's my understanding
we would we have to put in a building building reservation especially if you
need air um and most of our year here we need air so i think you know like um not that the
principals i mean i didn't sit and stare at all the building reservations but i'm just i'm curious
as to if that is and i don't want to put a kid in that spot either you know it's not like i
I don't want a kid to feel like they have to choose.
I'm just curious more, like, is that really going to be –
do we feel like it's an ongoing issue?
Is it going to become something?
Is this growing, this Sunday thing?
Because, like you said, with UIL, I know, you know,
like we're not going to have the football teams out practicing Sunday afternoon.
So I'm just curious, is that – I mean,
I mean, I know there are always one-offs.
And, you know, sometimes you can develop policy for those,
and sometimes it's, you know, hard to do that.
But, yeah, I'm just curious because I didn't, and my fellow principal,
you know, just thinking about that, thinking about,
I don't recall all those conversations.
I don't recall anybody ever saying, oh, man, we really had an angry kid
or an angry parent over, you know, for this Sunday thing.
It doesn't mean that there's not a situation, but just curious.
Okay.
Tammy, thank you.
So I did talk to my husband about this because he was a coach, a basketball coach,
and I asked him about this situation.
And he said he did have, he did call practices during Christmas break.
I don't remember it, but he says he did.
And he did say it's optional, and he sent a letter out to the parents with the principal's approval saying it's optional.
You can come or not come, but just understand, you know, your starting position may differ if you don't come.
So I don't know if that is, I was like, ooh.
And then he said his starting player ended up not being able to come over Christmas break, and so he didn't start.
And so the first few games, and then he did it later.
but I didn't I don't I'm just thinking is that maybe a middle of the ground
that we could look to discuss because I think it is happening more than you
would say mr. cross with all due respect I think it is happening and so I'm just
saying can we find some common sense middle of the ground the only I can
comment on that is and I don't know what year that might have happened when
when coaches were practicing with the UIL on Sundays.
But the UIL constitution is very clear, and I can have Coach Carter come up,
and he can speak to it better than I can on those things.
But I'm not aware of anything in the athletic constitution from the UIL
that allows basketball to practice on Sundays or any athletic.
Or junior high.
Or junior high.
Just not aware of – come on up, Coach Carter.
You might be able to help a little bit better with athletics
and what our common practice is
and what our coaches are required to follow in this district.
Yeah, with going straight out of Section 1200 out of the CNCR,
which is our Constitution Contest rules,
we are prohibited from doing anything on a Sunday in athletics.
So that was a violation of UIL rules if they practiced on a Sunday.
Yeah, whether it's holiday or not, we're not allowed to practice on a Sunday.
This Vice President.
Mr. one second, please. Coach Carter, you're the athletic director for KDISD. Am I saying your title correctly? So Mrs. Timmy, my question is over Christmas break is probably basketball, right? So teams all over the state are prepared. That's I hear from families who say, oh, Christmas, we don't get to travel at Christmas because we have a couple of basketball practices.
So I don't know if they don't practice at all, but I know if there are teams all across the state preparing to be state champs.
But on a Sunday, that would be.
Do you know if any of them practice during Christmas break, maybe in an evening?
Yeah, we're required by state law and by UIL rules to shut down, a total shutdown for five days to include Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and kind of mirror days.
But it's a five-day shutdown.
down the uio makes three exceptions to practicing on a sunday with golf tennis and cross country
that have made the state tournament if your contest is held on monday you're allowed to
travel on sundays and practice on a kid-led non-coach practice on a sunday okay so the
basketball season would be a five-day shutdown yes closest to the holiday but if we're off for
two weeks they do oh they all practice we go to tournaments over the christmas break they'll
practice other than our five-day shutdown and we're universal across the board with all of
our schools are all shut down for the same five days yeah and i mean this was the 90s so it could
have been that uil rules were different then do you think no no not really okay
i just find it hard to believe rosemary gambino would break the rules well he might have honestly
been talking about just christmas break in general okay and because a lot of people he said
i remember we said we practiced on a sunday he's like i'm like i don't know how you remember that
he remembers it because basketball is his thing so but okay i have a clarify something like to
to ask about so on that um mrs calhoun thank you so on that i just wanted to make sure that i was
understanding that clear you cannot have practices just for those five days but if you have if you're
off school then that's still free game like it doesn't necessarily mean you're allowed to
practice during that time because i had the parents asking me when they saw this coming up
well does that mean that we wouldn't be allowed to practice on days that we don't have school like
that's a district holiday or for whatever reason but that's just for christmas in that time frame
or is that just the time that we those five days were shut down during christmas break okay okay
that's i just wanted to double check on that and then um i have one more kind of thought towards
this this is not really anything different if we did adjust the policy we're not really doing
anything other than just stating that we're in alignment with uil right that's what i'm
understanding yes um that's that's the intent to be consistent with the uil rules that have been
discussed right here so to be clear we're not talking about christmas break even though that's
very interesting to discuss this is specific to sundays so we're not changing anything it's not
really we're not really making any any big waves here we're just getting into alignment in our
local policy with what uil already states i just want to understand make sure that i'm understanding
that that's clear yes that's the intent and I speak to this Damon could probably
speak to it a lot more cure has a different set of rules than the athletic
plan here is allowed to practice on Sundays why explain that Damon yeah if I
may add a couple of things just as we're getting our director of fine arts Damon
archery who can tell us a little bit back chair that's why I said when I was
speaking broadly about the UIL, there are different things in that UIL
constitution that separate out different things from fine arts, from academics,
from actually what we consider fine arts, which could be dance or theater or
something like that, and cheer is specifically different with a whole
section on spirit cheer versus competitive cheer, and then you throw in
athletics on there too, so there's all sorts of different rules in there. If our
our goal and intent is to just follow the UIL rule, I can tell you right now, and these
guys can confirm that, that's what our current practice is.
Follow the UIL rule, keep our folks out of trouble, make sure we do everything within
regulation so we don't get in any kind of trouble, and that's what we do.
But if the board would like to hear anything above and beyond what these gentlemen would
share, I'd recommend that they maybe ask a few questions to our general counsel who
who might be able to weigh in on the legal side of policy
and following the UIL.
He may have some thoughts on that that he could share.
That's a clarifying question, President Redmond.
Thank you, welcome back, or welcome.
So do we consider, I was assuming,
do you consider CHEAR a fine art or an athletic event?
I thought it was athletic.
This is a longstanding conversation
that you're bringing up here.
Currently...
Per the law and the rules.
Law, it's athletic.
That's what I thought.
In KISD, it falls under the Fine Arts Department,
and we give guidance for that.
But as far as rules, UIL rules,
it is an athletic team.
So as Coach Carter mentioned,
Spirit has a whole different section,
like Dr. Grzegorski mentioned.
It's a completely different rule in what they do.
One thing that is very unique about CHEER
is in the fall all their competitions are on Sunday so that's the difficult
part of it because that's the only way they can hold their cheer competitions
because the the cheer teams are busy Thursday Friday and Saturday with their
district and school activities so that's the conflict in most of our events that
are on Sunday or competition related and they'll just meet up there and they'll
do a run-through and they'll go to their competition event because that's when
they're held in the fall okay and that's competition correct um which is one thing correct
uh but it's also there's an there's an instance where there's practice on sundays correct not just
one-offs but it's happening there are one-offs and those those are um go through an approval process
with all of the parties involved and we tried two week two years ago we implemented this even more
because we were seeing some things happening.
And the challenge with this is a lot of the specifics of those rehearsals and stuff
are determined schedule in March and April before even football schedules come out.
So that's the challenge.
Most of our coaches have been working through these challenges
because we've been advising them to give the guidance that y'all are giving right now.
And most of them have made a lot of really great adjustments.
And we have some one-offs that we deal with like dr. Gorski says but it's not a systemic problem with our coaches
I can guarantee you our
Our coaches and directors do not want to be instructing anything or doing anything on Sundays as well. Okay. Well my thank you
I appreciate your perspective and my perspective is I have heard
that it's happened and and there were there was a
Punishment in place for that student who missed the Sunday required practice 8 to 6 p.m
after a Saturday required 8 to 6 p.m. practice so I want that to be avoided
and I want they can blame the board and the policy for it and we could just set
it straight and that's what the power of policy is is to be able to level the
playing field set set the expectation make sure it's really clear for
everybody and hopefully your work is is eased a little when it's set in policy
That's my hope but mr. I can tell you we mr. President this box so if
This policy is adopted that means to your competitions are no more because they happen on Sundays and to be in a competition
Against other to your teams and we had state champions here last year from Meade Creek
Cheer for us and get the first second and third place. Yeah. Yeah for state championships and they would
cheer competitions no more they've fought that's incorrect if they happen on sundays
to be clear on ms fox um so the way the policy is written is that and again it says um
uh extra so school related activities including extracurricular activities shall not be scheduled
on Sundays barring unavoidable circumstances that have been approved so
there is room for something to be approved when the only day apparently is
a Sunday for a competition if it's approved okay we're but we're setting
the expectation that this is a one-off this is not the norm and then given that
it is approved reads the policy a student shall not be penalized as a
result of missing part or all of the activity on a Sunday. So that's the other
issue that I'm hearing is a student is penalized for missing what has been
approved for a Sunday. So we want to avoid that and that's what's written
here. It's not that something couldn't happen for those unavoidable
circumstances but it has to be approved and the student cannot be penalized for
missing that Sunday. We had a process in place currently so that's what we do
that all the time trying to you know adhere to that so i just didn't work mr president dr gorski
did you have clarifying i just want to make sure everyone understands and mr archer if you can
explain when you talk about a competition being in the fall on a sunday those are not uil regulated
to my understanding that is not a district competition those are not our competitions
those are third-party operated competitions from a from an independent group you're correct okay
Okay, so, you know what I mean?
Trying to regulate or dance around how they do things on a Sunday,
that's going to be a tough thing to do.
It's tough, but we have, you know, we want to respect our community
and we have things in place for the one-offs like you're making.
mentioning. Let Ms. Fox finish and then I'll come to you, Ms. Champagne.
Thank you both for your explanations. I have some questions about the policy.
And while I agree with the...
I'm sorry, am I interrupting you? While I agree with
the Sunday protections, having had a cheerleader and...
I'm sorry, don't mean to interrupt.
My question is, when did the policy committee see this?
Never.
Oh, may I respond?
I did not get to see it.
Mrs. Cuzela, when did the policy, you're on the policy committee, correct?
Yes, ma'am.
When did the policy?
I kind of had a feeling that would be asked, so I wanted to be very clear.
Okay. So this question, this particular item has been asked by me since July, not to the board,
but President Redmond has been copied on my questions to Dr. Gregorski since July on this
topic, July. Okay. And the parent had contacted the policy committee, the whole committee,
Mr. Redmond, excuse me, President Redmond, Trustee Champagne, beginning from what I'm aware of in September, September 23rd.
I went back to be sure.
September 28th and September 29th.
Those are communications to the policy committee.
Okay.
And then they were requesting to give further input to all three of us.
I did meet with the parent, captured with their knowledge.
um captured the information had a draft of this policy that i did send to president redmond and
trustee champaign on i think it was october 7th or 9th so i've had a blue line draft you've had it
since then and i've asked requested input um nobody responded multiple times so i just assume
you have no input and it's time to discuss it as a board i find it interesting that
i'm sorry mr champagne go ahead
so you requested a meeting of the policy committee and were turned down
or just nobody responded with input nothing so this is a three-quarter page policy to believe
believe that President Redmond, who is very inclusive of all of us, I've found him to
be that, and I know he is, that he would say no to a request for a meeting of the policy
committee with the superintendent and possibly legal counsel if you want to make a change
to board policy.
and so when this came up and help me but it just feels the action is a bit
hypocritical when you miss you mrs. Cosella specifically asked to pull an
item about a policy modification earlier this year that was sent to all of us
because you hadn't been specifically invited to a meeting to help write it so
So, and now you've written one that, I'll let you answer that before I go to my next.
Sure, yes, and I figured you'd ask that as well.
Fully, fully ready for that question.
And I believe you're talking about the naming policy, perhaps.
I think that's the one you're talking about.
We had a policy, we had a board policy revision that came to us earlier this year.
and so you fast to pull it or you were unhappy that you weren't considered on
some of it yes okay so miss my understanding is president Redmond pulled
it and met with you before he brought it back to this board because of your
concerns of not having a policy committee you're on the policy committee
why weren't you given input and he he pulled it off the agenda delayed it a
month or so so that you could have input and then when it was your turn to do it
you got two other board members to sign up to put it on a board agenda without going through the
same process that you asked for sure and i'll respond fair question and i'd love to clarify
first of all with the naming policy that is a much more complicated policy longer and those revisions
were not i was not privy to the no one none of us were this board was not copied the policy
committee was not copied that that was being done I had no knowledge of that
happening that's what I take this one no this these guys were copied ever since
we've been working on it I'm sure that you said the entire board was not made
privy to that I was saying the same with this I don't understand so so the policy
committee was not copied when the naming policy edits were done by dr. Gorg or
They I wasn't we were not informed that that was happening until it was proposed to be on the board agenda
That's what I took issue with I should have known that before
and president Redmond did listen and and did
Gracefully take that off and I appreciated that and we had a good policy meeting and it requires that for for lots of reasons
I'm on the policy committee, right? This is different
because the policy committee was
copied on all this communication from the get-go that's what i just explained so if if none of
if they don't have input they don't have input that's all right and it's time to talk about it
as a board it's three quarters of a page of a policy addition it's not changing policy it's
it's not even a page long and also i would have thought particularly you two would have been
been really happy about this because you never liked the committee work and were
always suspect of what was happening and you wanted to work on policy at the
Dyess so here's your opportunity mr. Redmond may I please okay so I was
really shocked to see this on the agenda because yes you did send it but I never
heard that you wanted to meet as a committee so when you sent the
recommendation eight days ago and ten days ago whatever i didn't know that that meant this is
the policy i thought this was your suggestion and i think even in your email you said this is your
suggestion it still is this is a proposed policy to the board to be odd and um you know is that
is that you um you and the other people some of the other people on the board ms champaign can we
keep our conversation focused on the policy? I am. I am. The policy, this
policy though was written, first of all it's redundant because like as I said
it's in the UIL rule so it is redundant but I am concerned about how
the policy was written and it was written alone. You have questioned me
before when I wrote a proclamation which wasn't even a policy, who wrote this?
is, you know, I was asked over and over again who wrote that and so I would like
to ask you what kind of help did you get in writing your policy and then I was
criticized then for not working together to draft the proclamation together and
you know a lot of policies were written together by the policy committee before
which was the book policy and the parental rights policy and in one of
those uh in december of 2023 when i was reading the proclamation mrs calhoun said we could craft
this statement together and then i could get on board with it which this is the same thing that
is happening now we're not doing it together you just wrote a policy and are asking for the seven
of us to vote on that one last thing in august of 2023 there was a meeting and it was about the
parental rights policy point of order are we talking about the yes i am or are we talking
about cw or are we talking about this current policy i'm trying to talk about the building of
the policy and i don't really appreciate your interrupting me especially when you criticize
me for interrupting you which now i see that you're interrupting me point of order okay point
of order there president redmond you're not staying on task i'm almost finished and if you
would let me finish then i'll be finished uh mr redmond said in august of 2023 there's a way to
get to 7-0 vote and that we should work together to do that and if we if the policy committee is
the way to go and this is what y'all proposed for two years then i suggest that this is voted
against and that we visit together as the policy committee and maybe come up with something that
we can agree with on this committee and then present it to be voted on mr edmund can i see me
I think the ideal situation is that the Policy Committee would write this together, but you can't I don't I feel for
Trustee Kozella because you can't force she can't force the Policy Committee to meet
Well, it sounds like she did. I don't it sounds to me like she did
I haven't seen all the emails, but I'm just saying is she she should I think can you let me finish, please?
Can you please let me finish?
Well, I don't like to be accused.
Ms. Champagne, Ms. Timmings.
Thank you.
So I'm just saying I do agree it would be better.
I think Ms. Cuzzella would agree it would be better to write it with the committee.
But if she's not getting a response from people, you can't force people to meet.
And I find that to be true with our board.
You can't force people to meet.
And you can't force people to want to do things to represent.
Well, okay, mr. President
I did ask there's an email to both both you and miss president Redmond on
October 8th
and
you know it I
I said
I asked you both to support adding this policy item to the agenda. Please let me know your thoughts
Nobody responded. So
So you have the draft there.
You have the input.
You didn't respond.
And then what happens for the public so they understand, to move forward, to get it onto this agenda, you have to request this item unless the president acts independently.
But you have to ask for this item to be on the agenda 10 days before the meeting, which today is the 20th.
So the 10th is the day.
And because this is a work-study meeting.
This is an opportunity instead of squabbling. We could have been working on this policy together
This is called a work-study meeting. There are no votes taken at this meeting
The votes are taken next week. So I
Feel this is very straightforward policy. It's less than a page long. It's something we could have managed to do together here and
But here we are
mr. President
Ms. Walts?
My experience has been that we work together on policy.
We use internal counsel and the superintendent to help us draft the policy
so that it sounds like other policy that we have.
This one, did you work with internal or external counsel on the wording of the policy?
No, they are here present and can provide input.
This was also posted, this draft, so the public understands.
this was on executive content since last wednesday correct so anyone here and ex on the executive
definition here which i'm assuming is your cabinet and your council and certainly dr
gregorski and all of us could have read this beginning last wednesday and given and be ready
for their input tonight but all we're hearing is complaining about how this came to be on the
the agenda I would like to discuss the wording of the policy right so when it
says historically school activities are not scheduled on Sundays for the
well-being of students and protection of mental health Sundays are a time for
rest leisure and friends this doesn't sound like policy language to me and I
I just thought maybe in there just lots of side-by-side things.
It doesn't fit the policies that I'm accustomed to reading,
and so I would like to have council input on that.
Superintendent Grigorski, normally we build policy
with the collaboration of our administration,
Dr. Grigorski and usually Mr. Graham.
Is that correct?
Yes, ma'am.
So if you'll give me some leeway to step in here.
Again, I'm counsel for the district, represent the best interest of the district, advise
on policy matters all the time.
It's been highly unusual for us to have a trustee develop a policy outside the process
of corresponding with my office or outside legal counsel.
What I can tell you is I cannot provide my legal advice in this public forum, but I can
provide some practical implications such as the sunday prohibition says shall not schedule
so i can think of a dozen one-off situations whereby perhaps the church is recognizing a
team that won the state championship or perhaps it's christmas time and the elementary choir
has been called to come participate in some something on a sunday those will go away i
I will also tell you it's very unusual for us to cite a regulation within,
to cite something that's not even codified in law.
Because when we talk about how things are structured right,
it's law and then policy and then administrative regulation.
Well, the TEA side-by-sides fall way down here.
So let's say that TEA decides to revise their side-by-sides tomorrow
and this policy is in place,
then we have to go through the two-month cycle or the one-month cycle
for this board to then revise our policy to not be in compliance.
Also, I will tell you that the language that's cited in here
is not cited accurately from the statutes,
so that would be something that, from a practical perspective, I would say.
But ultimately, what I've heard here is that this is,
I'm hearing from one party that this is happening rampantly,
and I'm hearing from my experts at the dais that it's not happening,
and we are not aware of it's happening.
So I guess the question is, in the circumstance, I think the superintendent asked, tell me
the situation where this happened and let me go look at it.
My understanding is nobody could point to a specific school or a specific individual
or a specific sport or a specific UIO rule.
Now if that's the case, if there is specifics, then this is one of those let's let our administration,
if we trust our administration, we trust these gentlemen here, if we trust the campus administration,
We trust our care sponsors to follow the rules and perhaps we ought to start there
Again, a lot of these things I think are best set or regulation, but I'm happy to provide my legal advice
in the policy committee setting
Mr. President, you know, we just recently had
Board was a team building
Session where we were shown the amount of minutes that we spend talking about things that don't actually
pertain to student outcome or towards governance in any way and then the
amount of time that we just spent talking about a policy that is not even
relevant to the one that was on the agenda is a little alarming to me and
shows me that that that amount of minutes that we were shown that we spend
talking about off-topic time time things is absolutely true that it wasn't it
It wasn't embellished at all.
But beyond that, when we look at our policy, my understanding is we're still waiting for updates to our local policy from TASB.
Updates that we're still governed and we're still, by law, required to follow these policies as of September 1.
It's now late October going into that, and we still don't have those.
And this is supposed to be a collaborative effort
That was my always always my understanding from our board members to talk with our lead council
To do what's in the best interest of the district to listen to our community and then to make adjustments as follows
And so if we hear hey, there is a problem. Is it widespread? Well, I don't know but we have somebody saying that there's a problem
So let's look into it. Let's adjust our policy as such to stay within you. I oh
I'm not saying that you shouldn't do cheer competitions on Sunday. I understand that there are those
extenuating circumstances with different sports. I'm not asking you to not have a cheer competition
or not go to state or whatever the competition is for for an individual sport. That's not what
I'm asking. What I am asking is to protect Sunday, to protect one day of the week for our students
and families and our staff that they don't feel like that they have to do x y or z and if it's
just a practice practice isn't policy practice is an idea that everybody just kind of goes along
with policy is policy and so i appreciate your expertise i'm not trying to discount that at all
so please don't take this as my trying to be disrespectful or trying to undercut you in any way
but when we look at this and i say okay well maybe we do need to address it if we didn't know about
it then we didn't know about it but when we're presented with a problem then we
then we try to say okay let's look at this it's it's not a knock on anyone
mr president if i could um also add on to what mrs calhoun was saying about the
training we had that said we have a huge percentage of our time talking about things that
that don't directly impact student outcomes,
meaning academic success.
This whole agenda item falls under that.
So for us to discuss the importance of following
a process that works, using the committee process
that a lot of people like, and doing those things
would have prevented, if we'd had inclusion
of Dr. Gorgorski and Mr. Graham to get this ready
to just say sure we're ready to go but to have all this discussion about
something about prohibiting a practice on a Sunday has nothing to do with
student academic success disagree so what I'm hearing is we have two main
points that we want in this policy one we want to follow you I'll that Sundays
are not used except in extenuating circumstances into we don't want anyone
willing to be punished if something were to happen there. Is that summing up? Yes, thank you,
President Redmond. And then I'm also hearing that there's a desire to use the policy committee,
have our experts come in to share some of that information and get feedback from legal. Is that
an accurate understanding? Yes. So moving forward, we can come back on next week and just vote with
with no changes, or we can create a,
we can go ahead and schedule a policy committee meeting,
go work on this, work with the district,
come back and present a policy that is,
hopefully makes everybody happy.
It may be a little bit cleaner
to what our council has mentioned
about being able to put in exactly
what the legal ramifications need to be.
We may remove a section that comments
on the policy that doesn't maybe match if that language is right,
would that be something that this board would be okay with?
Or is it something that we want to move forward with it on for Monday,
our board meeting, and bring it to a vote right now or on Monday?
Mr. President, thank you for asking that question,
but I don't understand the need for the policy at all if it's redundant.
So it's already been covered in the UIL as every single person in here
that is a staff member has said.
Dr. Graforski, Mr. Graham, Coach Carter, and Mr. Archer.
They've all said that it's already in our UIL.
I never understand the need for a redundant policy.
If it's already there, you could have even something that said
C UIL and the reference or whatever.
But I don't understand the need for an additional statement
that will only further complicate things for our teachers who have a lot of
stress over trying to follow policy. Point of clarification, could you explain
what that complication would look like? Well the complication is now we've made
it into a policy even though it's already in in the UIL I don't know if
it's a law or policy requirement it's already there but then to add it into
the policy makes it seem like it's another model that they have to follow
they have to follow it anyway right so they have to follow it anyway but it
just so from what I hear from staff members is that this some some of these
new policies puts a lot of stress I'm talking about new policies we're talking
about this policy and I'm placing this in a potential new policy that could be
voted on and approved adds to the stress level of teachers sometimes because now
Now we made something, a policy that was already a law.
So it makes it seem like we think that they're not following it.
We know that they're not.
I'm just telling you what I hear.
Just like other people say this, that you hear things and Mrs. Teamey hears things,
Ms. Cuzela hears things, and I also hear that when something like this is made into a policy,
it makes them feel like we didn't trust them enough to follow the already in place law.
Okay.
I understand that.
Did you have anybody reach out to you specific to this policy?
I've only had one.
That's a great question.
I've been on the board now.
This is my eighth year.
This is the first time, and I've heard from one person in the community.
So I'm not saying there's a lot of…
So recently you haven't had anybody reach out to you about this,
or you haven't reached out to anyone about this?
You mean from the board?
No, I mean from the community that you're talking about.
I've had one person.
Okay.
I have another clarification.
Mr. President, if you don't mind, we made the distinction that this does not affect student outcomes,
and I wholly disagree with that because if a student is in class and practicing Monday through Sunday constantly,
we know how hard these athletes work.
We know how hard these kids are working.
We know what's happening.
What is their stress level?
What is their mental health level?
What is their sleep like?
What are they getting that absolutely impacts student outcomes?
So I wholly disagree with the idea that this will not impact student outcomes because it absolutely does.
These are kids.
They need a day of rest.
Mr. President, Mrs. Calhoun, I appreciate your theatrics, but they are not constantly practicing on a Sunday.
I didn't say that they were constantly practicing on a Sunday.
That's not what I meant.
You're taking it out of context.
What I said is if Monday through Sunday you're at school from 7.30 to what time, you're practicing after school, you're working out during school, but you're always doing this, that is constant.
Always doing it.
School, life.
Constantly doing it.
So my thing is, my point is this has been proven that it is a rare exception.
It has not been proven.
I've heard the experts say this is not something they hear. They gave us their
opinion. I appreciate your opinion. Please hear me. I appreciate what you're saying.
It has not been proven. We have had somebody who has a community member so
then prove to me that that person is wrong. My understanding is that person
was able to address it with the campus leadership and found a resolution she
she was happy with. So if there's one person that complains and there's no one
else out there that's experiencing this. I think if one person was able to
address it with leadership, campus leadership, and find a resolution, I am
confident that would happen over and over. Are there other times that we don't
know about? They have found resolution or we would hear about it. If they don't
find resolution and they talk to us, we would tell them to talk to one of these
people when I say excuse me not sir I'm I'm talking I can hear you that we I
agree with mrs. champagne this is a policy created to take time away from
very busy people to create a solution to a problem that's not very prevalent you
You said that about another policy that turned out that it was a prevalent problem.
But it was a handful of children after all those years that had.
I don't know.
You should go check out those libraries.
Ms. Calhoun, Ms. Fox, finish, please.
You're right.
The team building was ineffective because of your disrespect for other people at this
day who have as much right to speak as you do.
Disrespect to who?
So we're talking about a policy.
Is there any more comments on the policy?
Yes.
So I'm hearing no meeting from one.
Yes, Ms. Cullen.
So we just heard that these kids apparently are not stressed out
and they're not, you know, exercised to the hilt or whatever.
And athletics, I see what these kids are doing,
so I'm sorry to say that they're not is crazy.
Apparently you're not familiar with what goes on in high school.
Point of order, Mr. President.
Beyond that, who said that?
I believe Ms. Fox's statement was that it was not happening every day on Sunday.
Okay, so let me ask a question here.
If there is a thought process that if you don't go to practice on Sunday that you're going to be punished
or you're going to have your starting position removed, and that is a well-known.
I'm just speaking in generalities.
I don't know that that's a well-known, but based off what we're saying, we'll just assume, carefully assume.
So that communication was never communicated that people would lose starting positions.
Okay.
There were things like they may receive a demerit that would have...
Or a punishment or a consequence.
We'll just say that, a consequence.
So would that then prevent someone from saying something for fear of either their child having
a repercussion put on them or the child themselves saying something and being like, I don't want
to take that heat from my coach.
I want to make my coach happy.
I want to please them.
I want to be there when they ask me to be there.
I'm not saying that they would anybody would do this in a nefarious mean spirited way
That's not what I'm saying
But what I'm saying is do we not hear about this more?
Because there is a thought process that would be behind it if I'm not going to say anything
Because I don't want to be the only one to say something so when we finally do hear about it
That's not necessarily. It's a one-off it may be we don't know
Because we haven't investigated it we don't know
No. So I haven't gone around to every high school team or athletic or whatever it is to ask that question. I don't know.
So you're advocating we take this and investigate more before we bring it back?
I'm not advocating that. I'm just saying it doesn't have to go that far. It's simple.
And you can make instant, you can make things with our legal counsel to make provisions for extenuating circumstances like cheer competition, like fine arts, like we want the kids to compete.
Nobody's saying that they don't.
Which is already UIL rule.
But it's not policy.
Mr. Redman.
Policy to follow the rule.
Okay.
I mean, is it?
I've believed that before.
I've believed that before.
Ms. Teeming.
Yeah, so I'm just not sure I see a downside to us not just putting something short and simple in there.
If the policy committee wanted to work on it, this is where I keep going back to,
is we are here to represent our community.
Our community has come and spoken tonight.
It's tried to speak with Trustee Cuzzalla and the policy committee multiple times.
This is a former teacher, a parent, and in our community, and that's our job.
Our job is to represent the concerns of our community.
And so I don't understand.
I guess I don't see a downside in clarifying this policy.
It doesn't have to be complex.
It can be shorter than what Ms. Cuzzalla proposed.
I don't care.
I mean,
but i just i don't see a downside in us saying we are hearing you public and we're going to act
in your on your behalf i do that's our that's why we're here and i understand that maybe you know
other people in the room maybe don't want this but i don't we work for the public we work for
the public we don't work for i serve the public i don't serve the superintendent i don't serve
his cabinet i serve the public and so i'm concerned when the public speaks it's my heart's desire to
represent that in our policy mr president may i please address that thank you miss heeney yes
mr campaigner okay so sometimes i've seen the public come here and there's been a hundred
speakers who talked against something but we still made the policy this time we have one person that
came i'm not saying that there's not more but one person out of 95 000 kids 97 000 whatever it is
and should we make a policy so it just seems kind of hypocritical to me that we
would make a policy for the one person that came and talked to us but not for
not not to help the other hundred people one night that came and talked to us
because they were talking about porn and libraries they were not that was not the
night I'm talking about okay that's not the night I'm talking about the champagne
So wait, wait, can I please finish?
So I'm just saying there may be more, and if there are more,
I would love to hear from them, honestly.
But if right now what I have heard from is one,
and a lot of times, I'm sure you all are the same way,
once something gets on the agenda and if it's something that a lot of people are interested in,
I will receive text, phone calls, emails, but I only received the one, the initial one.
so I just think it's kind of not not that it's not important but that it's
spending a lot of time for a person for one person that has come out and said
something when we already have this in a law now like I said just let me finish
and I'll be finished but if a lot of people had come about a hundred people
or 50 or even 25 then I would say wow this this is a thing you know and maybe
we should address this but yes I believe in listening to the public but right now
it's been one person well okay mr. president thank you so I appreciate
bringing up 100 I did do some digging and vast majority of those people did
not live in our community so I'm just saying just because someone comes up and
speaks doesn't mean they're representative of our community I don't
represent the people that live in Idaho or New York or Washington DC I represent
Katie tech Katie is D Katie is D community so that there were why if you
flown in to have it have a little to stir up the the the evening so and they
were not our community I just wanted to make sure teachers coaches everybody out
there it's being implied that somehow i don't trust you and that is incorrect uh i respect
you very much and this policy is to help you uh when we set things in policy it takes should take
some weight off of your back so that it's a district-wide policy so that's what this is
intended to do it's not intended to have any mistrust whatsoever in any of our cabinet members
either or district leadership so this is really meant to make this place a better
place for everybody the when you say that it's in law that I don't believe
that is correct we're talking about one document which are UIL rules which is
not a law correct me if I'm wrong and the rules are talk about practice on
Sundays and in competition on Sundays they do separate that but it does not
talk about a student not having a repercussion for missing it doesn't
address that am i incorrect on that do either I hate I'm not trying to put you
on the spot I'm correct correct and so that's one of the goals here is to make
sure our students are not punished or you know just a level set the playing
field for everybody to everybody take a deep breath this is the way we operate
right and and that's what I'm hearing so we're just trying to put it in print
when we put you know when you have a rule in the classroom and it's an
unspoken rule and or nobody knows what the rule is because it's not written up
on the wall people are confused and things happen and sometimes it's
unintentional but to help things operate smoothly and to communicate we put
things in print and we put it up on the wall that's what I see happening here
with this policy and and that's that's the gist here i don't like the political jabs i'm not here
to jab anyone either i i want this to be better for everybody in this district including our staff
and everyone in this room so i'll i'll leave it at that mr president i'm just disappointed that um
when you make a rule or a policy or a law that people have to follow it implies uh-oh they don't
trust me to do the right thing or I wasn't doing something right now, what's wrong?
And you take away the control of those people who have the best interest of whatever they're
involved in and their students to become the best at what they can do.
And this policy is aimed at people who are doing extracurricular things, probably, in
most cases.
And those things are the reason why kids come to school.
They love their extracurricular activities, and if they're not practicing at school with the coach, they're probably practicing at home.
You know, their instrument, their craft, whatever it is.
And so until I'm confident, so I just want to say that I believe that the people in charge that are guiding children to be as successful as they can be in the area they're involved in,
and I trust them, and they want Sundays off too.
My goodness, they need Sundays off.
So my thing is, until I have data that says that this is needed
and that it's happening, I don't remember your words, Mrs. Calhoun,
but if it's happening in lots of places,
I would think that principals would know, coaches, parents would know,
and we'll hear from people because they pay attention to the headlines and the
things we talk about here and they watch our board meetings so if you know that's
happening let us know so that we can write a policy if it's needed but dr.
Gorg or ski my question for you is as you saw this on the agenda did you do
any investigating did you ask if it is happening in our district and what did
did you learn, if you learned anything?
Yes, so even earlier so than when I first saw the first draft of that policy being sent my way,
I had inquired because a parent had reached out to the board.
That email did end up coming to me, and I asked the parent.
I said, where is this happening?
Help me understand better so I can go investigate it.
I don't want Sundays being abused.
I want to make sure that our athletics and fine arts folks are following the UIL rules on that.
So I did inquire and that's when I was able to turn up that most recently one was approved.
That's to my knowledge right now.
I don't know if others are pending out there or if there's more coming
or if principals have signed off anything that maybe they didn't send to the fine arts.
I do want to be clear on that also.
I think I've said it before.
I want to make sure.
The rules are super clear about athletics, super clear.
I don't think there's anyone even asking coach Carter for anything on a Sunday ever for athletics
There is a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to fine arts and academics
Okay, so
But that's where I went for a source of information to find out because I did want to address the problem if I thought it
Was a problem and make sure the guys took care of that for us. Just what what is presented here today?
Does it remove that wiggle room?
I think the way the policy is currently written it would still give wiggle room.
There's the part it...
Barring unavoidable circumstances that have been approved.
Okay, I'm not sure what that would mean exactly.
We could try to tighten that up and understand it better.
But currently right now on a rare circumstances for some teams
barring unavoidable circumstances
the UIL rule reads something along the lines of the superintendent or superintendents designee in our
district that has always meant to go through your principal and then talk to somebody at the district level and
Get a second set of eyes on that and see if we can find something
reasonable to go ahead and approve
to prove rare circumstances.
So the contest rule follows that piece already.
And that's what I expect our Fine Arts
and Athletics departments to follow.
Mr. President?
Ms. Box.
What about the instances Mr. Graham brought up
about honoring a state championship team at church
or to sing at a nursing home or something
for their Sunday service or things like that?
Those would not be addressed in UIL because...
Would they be prohibited because of this policy?
That would be a question that probably Mr. Graham would have brought up had we met as a team to better understand that and define that.
what are the board's wishes of a policy when it comes to non UIL extracurricular
activities that do take place other types of extracurricular activities that
could take place on a Sunday I don't think we have any rule in place to
govern or guide that that's just going to go through your principal and then
that could be addressed in the policy correct mr. mr. president champagne is
Is there a way that sometimes I've
seen this happen in the past that we could vote on this now
and then doesn't mean it has to be a permanent thing,
but then that way we would answer the question
and we could either move forward with the policy committee
or whatever?
That hasn't been our practice.
I think that would be totally good.
We've entered into a meeting where everybody
knew that was going to happen.
It wasn't something that we changed
in the middle of the meeting to go from discussion
to making taking a vote so unless the entire board said right now we're gonna
do that and don't get the impression anybody's gonna push for that right now
are we gonna mr. Prudy sorry mr. Sala and go ahead president ribbon or council
I thought policy had to be listened to twice publicly so it's not even
permissible by law there you go okay and just if we want to operate this way I
don't understand the problem of putting it in print and if there were Sunday
visits for a nursing home to sing or a state champions to be recognized at a
church those would be things that be approved or not a prayer that hopefully
approved by the go through the approval that's what it's written right here and
hopefully they would know the process to be approved and it would get done in
time and then we're using our our staff time to do paperwork no paperwork very
simple phone call no no this can happen on Friday they say can you come and sing
on Sunday so now we have an inconvenience some principal or the
superintendent or superintendent says you need to read everything to send out
the paperwork to sign it and here it is Friday night at 10 and they're going to
think it's an email or a phone call I know but people have lives too and so
they're expected to be off at that time so this this will happen because those
Those situations do happen a lot, last-minute things.
President Redman.
Ms. Calvin.
So are we to understand that from this discussion that the policy committee will be meeting with lead counsel,
with our input from our directors?
Is that what we're looking at?
Is that what this board can expect?
If I were making a proposal, I would say that, yes.
There are three following our board operating procedures.
There have been three people that have requested to have this on the agenda, so barring one
of those three, saying they would like it to go to committee, honoring our board operating
procedures by keeping it on the agenda.
It's really up to the people who supported putting this on here.
If they would like it to go to committee, then we can go ahead, we will take it, schedule
a meeting, and then bring it back here as soon as the committee's done with it.
Mr. Redmond, I'm sorry.
I want to beg to differ with you on this.
It's on the agenda to be voted on next week.
I would like to vote on it next week.
I'm not saying I don't want to go to a committee also,
but I want to vote on this next week.
But traditionally, it's always been honored that if someone that requested it
to be on the agenda were to ask to pull it
or that would not maintain three people supporting it,
it would be pulled off the agenda.
end so so I don't and we don't post until Wednesday afternoon and so between
now and Wednesday I'll be open that if somebody wants to go to committee let me
know and we'll get that scheduled otherwise as of right now it'll still be
scheduled to be on the agenda for Monday that's seem fair is there anything
different from our operating procedures that that seems out of line with no I
just want clarification thank you I just do want to take this opportunity to
please if we could maybe uh improve communication uh between uh committee members this could have
avoided some of this so to share that ms champaign did agree to go to that meeting and then her
schedule changed so she was going to go meet with the parent but i've received feedback we talked
on friday afternoon at 4 30. yeah but we still had the ability to put it on or schedule whatever we
wanted to so we did talk that friday afternoon um you you had support so there wasn't really a need
to keep dragging it out um and so there little little little details there earlier communication
you emailed on tuesday and we didn't talk till friday yes at 4 30. so that was like before the
close of business to get something on the agenda i didn't know what to do no one's communicating i
was working i had a job i understand um and i called you when i could um but at the same time
hopefully sport knows in instances like that would continue to honor any time
frame that is is there so if it because of my schedule that's I'm not able to
respond to you by a certain amount of time and you've done your best effort to
get that information to me I have no reason not to honor that knowing that
was if that was my schedule so if I were to get something at 5 or you you sent it
to me earlier in the day requesting that and I'm not able to get back to you I
would view that as when you sent it to me so we've never had that conversation
out loud but that's all I want to be treated and so that's what I would honor
you thank you any other questions related to
item 6.9 all right moving on we've got seven quarterly investment report it has
7. Information Items
been received by the board the check register item 7.2 August 2025 check
register has been received the donated item list the KDA independent school
district has been received item 7.4 board cap recap of board member request of information
madam secretary we captured any requests from the board yes um mrs fox would like some information
about the glass at the front of the buildings the new renovated buildings and possibly as mrs
teaming suggested hearing something about that from mr martinez in closed session about the
the safety and security of that.
8. Future Meetings
All right.
And we will have our regular board meeting on Monday, October 27, 2025.
I'm sorry.
Can I ask just one question?
I didn't see any of the Ten Commandments in the donated items.
Am I missing it?
Because I do know that a church, Sunday school,
they raised money and donated quite a few.
But I don't see them on here.
they're probably up beyond next month okay there's a deadline on those if we
don't get them by a certain date then they don't appear on that report but
next month they'll be on there but if it's a specific one you want to check on
just email me who okay I'll make sure we have it and I can tell you if we have a
record of it okay but it'll appear on next month's report okay just a friend
of mine did a lot of work and he's you bet they've been coming in and they'll
will appear on those reports okay great thanks sorry I was looking to see that
many of those show up at the very bottom page seven and eight for the non cash
donations there's several different places yeah there are some though I
thought I missed them as well all right there being no further business before
the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 7 46 p.m
Official documents
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