Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this regular board meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School Districts of order.
Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, October 27, 2025
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In this meeting
The headings and the descriptions beneath them are the district’s own words, taken from its index of this recording.
- 0:03 to 9:38 1. Call to Order - Upon announcement by the presiding officer that a quorum is present, the meeting will be called to order. The presiding officer will verify that the meeting has been duly called and notice of the meeting has been posted for the time and manner required by law.
- 9:38 to 13:35 3. Recognitions
- 13:35 to 1:09:37 4. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
- 1:09:37 to 1:10:01 5. Closed Meeting
- 1:10:01 to 1:10:47 6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
- 1:10:47 to 1:31:52 7.1 Academic Presentation - The Effective Schools Framework
- 1:31:52 to 1:51:49 7.2 Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Report
- 1:51:49 to 2:06:40 8.1 Presentation of the District's rating on the Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST).
- 2:06:40 to 2:07:51 9. Consent Agenda
- 2:07:51 to 2:19:20 10. Information Items
- 2:19:20 to 2:19:31 11. Future Meetings
- 2:19:31 to 2:19:58 12. Closed Meeting
- 2:19:58 to 2:21:37 13. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
Full transcript
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1. Call to Order - Upon announcement by the presiding officer that a quorum is present, the meeting will be called to order. The presiding officer will verify that the meeting has been duly called and notice of the meeting has been posted for the time and manner required by law.
Today is Monday, October 27, 2025, and the time is 5 o'clock p.m.
Dr. Goworski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to the notice for this meeting?
Mr. Redmond, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting tonight.
Thank you. And you'll take over introducing our pledges of allegiance.
I will. We've got many special guests with us here today, but we're going to start with our special guest from Holland Elementary, Jack Genesee, fifth grader.
I see his principal is out there, Principal Griffith, and maybe even more importantly, Bonnie Holland as well, one of our namesakes.
parents named Chad and Lorena Genesee and has a sibling Margaret as well. We've
introduced a lot of kids here but this might be the first one who enjoys
studying zoology. His favorite animal is the tree monitor, a lizard that is found
in trees. Jack has three pet turtles that are red-eared sliders and he enjoys
studying science. And from Gretchen Hollier, Jack's fifth grade language arts
teacher Jack is one-of-a-kind kid he makes learning fun for others and is
extremely intelligent Jack is a fun fact joke making voice of a professor big
hearted kid my life is better because he's in it and from Ashley power Jack's
former fourth grade math and science teacher Jack is a passionate student
with a deep love for science and animals hopes to become a zoologist one day Jack
is a joy to have in science class I always appreciate how eagerly he shares
his knowledge and enthusiasm with others. But before we bring Jack up to do our
pledges I'm gonna go ahead and introduce over to my left over here the Pato High
School Choir who will be doing our national anthem tonight. The principal is
Dr. David Paz and the group is the Chamber Chorale Ensemble Forte meaning
this is what we do best. Music director Sarah Prudian and Roland Rodriguez and
the student group here tonight rowan anderson zach savellos taylor curry antonella do maline
jazeen galdamez amani ivy alex jordan quentin lambert daniel mendoza hayden winn semroth new
Andrea Ramirez, David Teagle, Stephanie Timinini, Eddie Velez Reyes, and Melissa Zierherovic.
All from Pato High School.
And a quote from music director, without music,
I would have never been able to meet the people that mean the very most to me in my life.
Singing calms the mind and soothes the soul.
And these children continue to bring me so much joy every day.
So with that, let's go ahead and bring our pledge leader up.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God,
one and invisible, with unity and justice for all.
Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas,
one state under God, one and invisible.
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Thank you.
And Jack, you can come on back up to the microphone and share your remarks with us,
and then we'll do some photos right after that.
Good evening, President Redman, board members, and Superintendent Gorgorski.
My name is Jack Genesee.
I am a fifth grade student at Bonnie Holland Elementary.
I've been at Bonnie Holland Elementary since fourth grade.
It takes a little time getting used to going to a new school, but eventually you get to find your place.
I enjoy the PE teachers because they're pretty funny.
We have the house system, and I am in the blue house, which is the house of dreamers, and gives me my identity.
I have great interest in zoology and the study of animals.
I find reptiles most interesting.
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful day and continues to.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. President, Mr. President.
Ms. Champagne.
May I say something real quick?
I want to give a shout-out to Sarah Prudian, the choir director,
because she was with me at Taylor well with my kids and I know from personal
experience she is an awesome teacher and I enjoyed going to Disney World with you
on the 20-hour bus
thank you very much do we have any oh let's go we move on to three
3. Recognitions
recognitions and I'll start us off with the presenter for those of you have
turned it tuned into our board meetings recently you've noticed a new tradition
that we started this year at each regular board meeting trustees are
showing their school spirit by wearing the colors of one of our ten high
schools and tonight we're proudly representing May Creek High School and
sporting their bold green and white and go Rams trustee dawn champagne tonight
she serves as our Katie I Steve board liaison for May Creek High School and
I'd like to invite her to share a few words
Ms. Champagne. Thank you President Redmond. I'd like to take a moment to recognize
the incredible educators, coaches, fine arts directors, and staff members who've
helped shape the proud legacy of May Creek High School. Many of you are here
tonight and let me also add I know y'all are called the Creek right. Founded in
1984 May Creek serves more than 2,700 students and offers a rich academic that
includes advanced placement, honors, dual credit, international business, and a wide
range of career and technical education courses. The Rams have built a remarkable
tradition of excellence earning UIL, marching, band honors, demonstrating
outstanding leadership in naval JROTC, and producing athletes who have gone to
compete professionally and even in the Olympics. With its strong academics,
academics, celebrated arts program, spirited athletics, and impressive alumni, May Creek
High School truly lives up to its motto, Rand Pride Never Dies. And I just want to add a little
thing. I was assigned to you all in 2018-2019 school year, my first year as a trustee, and now
I'm assigned to you again. And when you, when I walk into that y'all school, I mean, you can feel
the energy and you know mr edwards was there when i started and now mrs herring is there and it's
it's the same energy and i appreciate the service that you give to our children
and let's give a round of applause to may creek educators
thank you miss champaign if we could invite up all our may creek educators here to take a photo
with the board we'll take that real quick and then continue on in our meeting
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do we have any scouts in the audience tonight?
Seeing none, we will continue on to Section 4, Public Comment.
4. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
At this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance with KDIC Board Policy BED Local.
As defined by Board Policy, speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, October 27th, will be allowed to address the Board.
Board. Speakers who signed up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to
speak. Speakers that signed up to speak on non-agenda items will be allowed 90 seconds to
speak. If a speaker is not finished speaking at the end of their allotted time, the audio will
turn off. The Board shall not tolerate disruption of the meeting by members of the audience.
If, after at least one warning from the presiding officer, any person continues to disrupt this
meeting by his or her words or actions, the presiding officer or his or her designee may
request assistance from law enforcement officials to have the person removed from the meeting.
If speakers wish to share written material with the Board, please provide 10 copies to the Secretary for Board Services before the Board meeting begins for Board members, the Superintendent, the Chief Communications Officer, and Permanent Record.
If the Speaker has not attempted to solve the matter administratively through proper channels as stated in Board policy, the Presiding Officer's designee shall advise the Speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate policy.
Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code 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 employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee.
Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must do so through the appropriate local grievance policies, FNG local, DGBA local, CKE local, or GF local.
Our speakers will be called forward in the order that they signed up to speak.
We'll start with agenda items tonight.
And the first speaker tonight will be Tamara McFarland, followed by Trevor Anderson.
Good evening, trustees, superintendent, and KDISD leadership.
First, as a mom, I'd like to thank you all for implementing Resolution SB12.
And for years, Cousel and Calhoun have worked to protect the physical safety and students
and also to remove explicit and gender ideology content.
And those efforts are now fortified in state law.
So thank you.
Regarding the security agenda, years ago I had requested metal detectors starting at high schools.
Our schools already have amazing officers and security measures and this would be the next logical step.
Even in small claims court you have to go through a metal detector before you enter the court.
and I noticed that you installed one here today or at some point.
I was at the Fort Bend County Commissioner's Court the other day
and they were just installing a new metal detector.
And so this inexpensive security feature we see in public facilities
such as courts and airports would be wise for our public schools
to enhance the safety of all students and staff.
And I know that it would bring parents peace of mind.
So I don't know if this is in the works, but if it isn't, I would appreciate consideration.
I also heard the news report October 10th of a felon that made online gun threats against a KDISD high school.
And in court documents, it did show that he did say that, but he didn't call the school, but he said that to a family member.
Police pulled him over in a police chase, and he had a loaded gun and lots of ammunition.
So hopefully he would have never acted on that, but I just think when you hear these stories and then also students that have brought firearms over the years, you know, very rare, obviously, but I would be grateful if you would consider metal detectors.
So I know that each and every one of you care about this district and its children.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate you.
Thank you.
Next is Trevor Anderson, followed by Bonnie Glenn.
Good evening, members of the Board of Trustees,
superintendent staff, and community members.
My name is Trevor Anderson, and I'm a student of K to ASD.
I'm here tonight because I care deeply about the safety
and security of our schools.
I want to talk about a student's right
to stand their ground and defend themselves.
Every day, students in KDASD walk into their schools,
trusting that they're entering a safe place to learn,
grow, and be themselves.
Sometimes that safety is broken.
Conflicts happen.
Someone gets shoved, hit, or cornered.
And that moment when a student is attacked or threatened,
their instinct isn't or shouldn't be to run away,
but it should be to protect themselves,
not exactly to hurt the other person,
but stand their ground and stay safe.
The problem is that under our current discipline policies, students who defend themselves are often punished the same as those who start the fights.
Same consequences, same record, no matter the situation.
It may seem fair on paper, but in reality it punishes students who are just trying not to be hurt.
The policy today tells students to flee, inform, and tell.
Sometimes running away is impossible or safe.
Sometimes the only thing the student can do is stand their ground, block a hit, or strike someone to stop the attack.
The current policy doesn't protect those students. It teaches them that defending themselves will get them in trouble.
That isn't justice. It's fear disguises fairness.
Let me be clear. Violence should never be encouraged or excused.
But there is a difference, a big difference, between being the aggressor and being the victim.
A student who refuses to be a victim, who stands firm and defend themselves reasonably,
should not be treated like a troublemaker.
They should be respected for their courage and their right to stay safe.
Across Texas and across the country, other districts have begun updating their codes of conduct
to recognize self-defense and standing one's ground as valid considerations when disciplined decisions are made.
they look at the full context who started it tried to walk away and he was
just protecting themselves KDISD has always been a good leader in academics
and athletics and student character we can lead fairness and safety to masking
the border of your discipline policies and add a clear language that protects
the students right to use whatever means necessary to defend themselves when
attacked because when students know they'll be treated fairly they'll feel
safer. When they feel safe, they can learn, grow, and thrive. Just what you are here to
make possible. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Bonnie Grenz.
Good evening.
I haven't been here since masks.
So I'm proud of my son, Trevor, for that.
I know we're a little late on the whole self-defense thing.
Those of you, I don't even know why some of you are still here.
Your kids are grown and gone,
but you still feel the need to vote on active district policies as if it has any bearing on your lives.
Rebecca Fox mentioned it.
And there was a chance that this could have changed when we had Mr. Perez, but we're not there anymore.
So I'm proud of him.
I have told him that he should expect absolutely nothing to change.
It won't change.
I told him you know come here tonight speak nothing it won't make a difference
but he really really still wanted to so to add what he said and I know that some
of you already know this that self-defense is a right it's not
violence it's not mutual conflict KDISD compared to other large districts is one
of the only ones that has such strict language around self-defense so the inability to flee
makes it obviously much more difficult to make self-defense claims i watched the um july 21st
board workshop and i saw justin graham inform the board that self-defense is very rare
But that's because you don't know what true self-defense looks like.
You think that this looks like a lash out in anger or an irrational escalation indicative
of a weak-minded person such as yourself.
But that's not what this is.
The problem is you're brushing aside true self-defense, which is actually rooted in
mental fortitude and carries with it the courage, clarity, and principle to be able to stand
your ground in defense of yourself or someone you might be obligated to protect so for what it's
worth i'm proud of i'm aware of other students who are unable to make self-defense claims and their
parents are proud of them also for standing their ground my children know you're not going to flee
that just encourages a bully to come back again and again and redmond i don't know what you're
doing voting against policies like this and all these people here tonight i don't know what
they're here for and i'm not going i'm trying to not make assumptions but it has anything to do
with sexualization of children in schools ask yourselves why are you targeting water
park schools places where children hang out go there are nightclubs there are things
adult places to have conversations like this and schools are not the place for that thank you
we'll now move on to non-agenda items and there'll be 90 seconds uh for your speaker we'll start with
miss tana weiss followed by kelly hamilton point of order president redmond um can i miss Cuzela
i was under the understanding there were 56 people or excuse me 30 plus people who had signed up
to speak yes ma'am they were given 56 seconds they were notified that by the district yes um and you
You did read in the opening, as defined by board policy,
I'm quoting you, speakers who signed up by 2 PM on Monday,
October 27, 2025, will be allowed to address the board.
But we have over maybe approximately 15 people
who have now been told they cannot speak.
Can you please?
What happened?
I had some light on that.
Absolutely.
Board policy says that the first 20 people signed up
will be allotted the 30 minutes.
I was informed that there was an error made communicating a 56-second time frame.
And then when I was informed of that, I realized I didn't have the power, ability to change board policies and individual.
So I said, what does board policy say we'll do?
So we enforced that.
I'm sorry, can you clarify?
We're following board policy.
The first 20 people who sign up are allowed 30 minutes as allotted between them.
When were you informed of that?
this afternoon right before the meeting okay right before but all our public
constituents or people who came to speak we're not we're in we're not informed of
that go back and look at the email when they when it was sent out to it to
address them I would I would request that what you read that we've been
reading for since I've been here every meeting nothing states that only 20
people will be taken so that comes as a surprise so update our board policy or
update the what you state as board president I think that's her we can do
that we do we do call on could you reference our board policy BD local but
this next agenda we will make sure we address that with everything I think it
it might be fair to honor the people who came to speak who did sign up if the
board would choose to whether that be just not follow our board policy we can
absolutely do that I move to make an exception tonight to honor the public
who came everybody I second so it's a little bit confusing we don't have an
action item here. So again, what Mr. Redmond states and what every former
board president has stated since 2002 is that public comment is governed by board
policy BD local. That's the board policy that this board is governed by. That
board policy specifically says, and I'm going to quote your policy, only the
first 20 speakers who sign up um will be allowed to speak on non-agenda items and so while there
was an email that was sent in error about 2 30 to folks that said hey you have 56 seconds that was
once it was called to attention that was remedied about 350 so less than an hour and a half later
was remedied and said hey uh the board and i spoke and i spoke directly with mr redmond
and as the presiding officer of this meeting just like presiding officer the
of the past he has to follow board policy so if that is something that you
guys want to change in the future my recommendation is going to be let's
submit that to the policy committee have them review that process so that's
that's going to be my recommendation president Redmond I really do not agree
with counsel for tonight I understand it is in policy but that is not transparent
to the public it's never been what we've read so they've never and they were
confirmed to speak so I'd like to ask you president Redmond to please honor
the people who signed up and are here present to speak when their name is
called the original list
As a board from now on, there are no rules, no policy to follow.
There's not a standard that we should uphold.
No, we're upholding the policy.
It's there.
But you have the power to honor the people who were confirmed
and give grace for the mistake that was made.
Absolutely understand grace and the ability to do that.
The standard that's been set by this board for years has been to stay with what our policy is.
There have been times that there's been opportunities to veer from that.
But as a board, we've voted on and approved these policies and said this is how we'll act.
Looking at the list, there are people that are on both sides of the issue.
you did consider, do we make that change?
And then came to my senses that as an individual,
we don't have that power.
So is the board.
Mr. President, in the past, we have had people,
when they had to come and sign up by a certain time,
we've had students who were in an activity who
were trying to get here, and they didn't sign up in time.
They were denied the right to speak.
We've had people stuck in traffic, employees who signed up in time but didn't get here
for the 445 sign-in sheet.
They were not allowed to speak.
That happens repeatedly.
And so, I mean, we have policies for a reason and we can certainly revisit them, but many
of the trustees on this dais have served on the policy committee and I'm pretty confident
they're familiar with policy and everything in there.
and we could have changed it before now if that was going to be a problem.
But, you know, I know there are many people who look through the policy with lots of attention to detail.
This is not new to them.
And so I think if we're going to follow the law, our policy is the law of the school board.
President Redmond, if I could respond.
What is, that has nothing to do with tonight, that when they arrive,
what I'm talking about is the district confirmed with 30 some odd speakers that
they were to speak tonight they were given a time that they were allowed 56
seconds or something like that so a mistake was made and this is yes but I
don't agree with the correction is what I'm taking issue with I think we should
honor the public this is about First Amendment rights speaking and this is
our public it's not a complicated concept um so um thank you miss gazzola so ruling
ruling on the point of order we will continue to follow policy and we'll follow what our policy
says we will update the communication to our public we do want to provide every opportunity
for them to speak we also want to make sure it's fair for everyone that's come before them that we
We applied the policy and we'll continue to apply it going forward unless it changes.
Point of clarification.
Ms. Calhoun.
When you're talking about making this clear, we're trying to be fair to everybody who came before them.
On those other instances where the people sent notification that they had been accepted to speak,
I know that we changed the policy that you had to sign in by 445.
That is no longer policy.
You can sign in.
We've removed that.
that. So prior to did they just get if they signed up and they were the 21st person, then they
wouldn't have been sent confirmation. So that's where the difference is that we're talking about.
The difference is, is these people were sent confirmation that they were going to be allotted
time and the freedom and the ability to speak. That's a distinction that it was our mistake.
We own the mistake. We give the grace to the people who made the choice to come and speak,
regardless of whether I agree with them or not, that's irrelevant.
They were given the opportunity to, and they said that they had confirmation that they were going to.
I saw the list. It was 32 speakers on non-agenda, four speakers on agenda, 36 speakers in total.
I agree. I think that we need to move forward with honoring the people that we told them that they were going to have the opportunity to speak.
That was our mistake, our bad. We need to own it and make it right.
We also did communicate that it was an error and we sent them the update that they weren't
going to be able to speak and we did that an hour and a half ago.
At 3.58, when people have made all sorts of plans to get here, to try to be here, knowing
that they were going to have the ability to speak, I don't think that that's right for
us to make that decision.
I'm not making that decision.
I think I'm...
Mr. President.
I would just respectfully ask you to reconsider because I don't even know who was going to be speaking and what they're going to be saying.
But I do I don't want to be an elected official that doesn't allow people to speak.
Yeah, you're saying.
So not an agenda item.
So it's not something we can legally take action on tonight.
So it's not a vote.
We can change the way we, we're a board, we can change.
I'm just saying we can't vote on it.
I'm taking into consideration.
So in the future, Mr. Graham?
If the board's feedback is we want everybody that signs up to be able to speak,
then we can do that.
that as an administration we're required to follow the policies that you guys have set.
The policy that you've set says the first 20 speakers.
There was a clerical error made as soon as it was found out.
It was remedied.
The problem that you get into, and I'm not going to go into a ton of legal advice,
but if you've had presiding officers in the past that have waived certain rules,
you really run the risk of some viewpoint discrimination,
Irrespective of the 12 people that are now, that have signed up late or signed up past
the 20, and I know that on this particular item, as I look at the list, I see folks that
will be on both sides of that aisle.
Irrespective of that, that's the risk that you run as a board.
That if you're going to violate your own policy, if you're not going to say that these are
the rules we have in place, and I will tell you at the outset of what this board president
and every former board president has said for a long time
is that the KDISD board policy BED local governs this.
That's the first sentence that's said.
And so this board's policy says the first 20 speakers.
And so that's what we're honoring.
We're honoring this board's policy.
And if this board wants to do something different,
then that's something we can revisit,
and I encourage you to submit your comments to the board policy committee,
and we will go through that formal process
process so that we're not viewpoint discriminatory.
Mr. President, no one in this room, when you sign up to be a speaker, states their viewpoint.
That is discrimination.
You need to be very clear about that.
On the topic of discussion, some people make the choice to declare what their viewpoint
is on it.
Again-
i would like to see that well it's on your list where's the viewpoint mr president topic of a
discussion people but not everybody i think the point is an inaccurate statement to state like
council said that when you sign up to speak you have stated your viewpoint that is discriminatory
all right okay i want to i want to provide a point of clarification and i'm going to go through the
list this is a publicly available list if anybody wants to see it because what i've told you is that
there are people speaking on both sides of the aisle so i'm going to read from you from two
different speakers one says that trustees kuzella and calhoun should be censured at the board
meeting tonight the other one says a defense of calhoun and kazella to explain their actions
so we we could all understand as learned people that those are two different sides of the aisle
and those are folks that are actually after that those are folks that fall within the 12
people that have signed up late. You guys have had it. You guys have a copy of that.
You have had it in your file, in your folder there. So for you to say that we now don't have
a difference of opinion, guys, I'm reading from what was put down on the list. It's black and
white. Not on every speaker, General Counsel. I didn't say every speaker. I said that.
And your statement is inaccurate.
accurate. Mr. President, Mr. President, Ms. Teamee, then Ms. Fox. Okay, thank you. How is it
discriminatory to not allow everyone to speak that signed up that got an email confirmation?
I don't understand. I'm sorry. I'm not following that that could be discriminatory. If we just let
everyone speak that got an email, how is that discriminatory? Right, so again, we're going to go
into an area of legal guidance which I would not give in public, but what I have said in
the past is when we've given exceptions, you run the risk.
If you do not, your board policy has been adopted and been approved by council, both
myself, TASB, outside council has approved this particular policy.
Every time that a board president makes a decision to step outside of this, which has
happened in the past, you run the risk of being viewpoint discriminatory.
Mr. Fox. Mr. President, I wonder if there are people who were sent the email and said that
there's a correction to be made who didn't show up tonight. So that wouldn't be fair if we break
the rules and say, okay, we're going to let everybody who showed up and then they didn't.
So it's really just not fair. The people who got the email and chose not to come because they were
told they would not be allowed to speak and now we're going to let some speak and then we didn't
give them an opportunity i just think that we are having an op we're creating an an unfair
decision here i want everyone to speak to and email me call me i'll listen to everyone
this mr president miss gazelle could i please have clarification
if we cannot bring this to a vote right now
clarification on like a rule on your point of order I would like to vote to allow the all the
speakers who can't came to speak can we put that to a vote president Redmond that would not be I
don't believe that's legal I mean of all the things we can do it's not an agenda item it's
It's not an action we can take.
So to rule on the point of order, I do hear what everyone's saying.
I also know that this could be a conversation we have every single week
because something could happen.
Ms. Cotlin, I do understand your point on the error with the email being sent out.
Ms. Fox also here, what you're saying about the people who got the email and then did
not show up and then would be left out.
And so I think we're guided on policy and if we want to change that, then we can change
policy.
So we'll continue on following policy and the 20 people who are on the list, they will
have the opportunity to speak.
They'll have 90 seconds here and we'll continue on.
so first speaker tonight on non-agenda items Tana Weiss followed by Kelly Hamilton good evening
president Redmond dr. Gagorski and board members um y'all have just proven what I'm about to say
my name is Tana Weiss and tonight I was going to read a letter I've had from teachers across
the district who've been waiting for several months to have their voices
heard now I'm not wine because each month gets hijacked by miss Cuzela miss
Calhoun or miss Timmy's antics outside the scope of their duties as school
board members which is really a fitting metaphor for what they are doing to this
district taking away the focus from our students and staff ensuring that their
public lies and outcries on social media and in these meetings take precedence
over the business of our district.
Ms. Cozella, your online bullying of anyone who doesn't look like you
or think like you or go to church at your church is shameful.
Ms. Calhoun, your racially charged comments have no place here.
You were elected to serve all students.
And Ms. Teamey, spreading falsehoods about who speaks at these meetings
while welcoming your own out-of-state allies is pure hypocrisy. The three of
you spend more time fueling division than supporting student success and it
shows as does all of your backup back here. So yes I'll hold on to my teachers
letters for now but make no mistake their voices and the truth. Thank you.
Next will be Kelly Hamilton followed by Sophia Peruzzi. I would like to remind
the audience that we have decorum we follow and just appreciate you continue
to follow that miss Hamilton first and then miss peruzzi you'll be next thank
you I did cut it to 90 seconds and I'll just or 50 seconds so I'll just stick
with that I'm Kelly Hamilton and I've been a classroom teacher for 36 years
and I still love working with the kids in the classroom I'd like to thank
Ms. Hubbell for clarifying that team meetings during teacher planning time are voluntary.
Unfortunately, not all campuses receive that message, so I've shared with you two documents
that were sent to me from teachers which are forced to team meet weekly and reprimanded
if even one of those members doesn't show up.
These teachers are hesitant to speak because, like many other Katy teachers, they've seen
administration intentionally move teachers to a non preferred grade level
or subject for speaking out I'd like to publicly thank my campus Woodcreek for
thinking outside of the box and moving our schools PLC's to dismissal time with
coverage so that teachers can collaborate without impacting our
teacher planning time and our instructional time
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ms. Peruzzi, followed by Kenneth Smith.
Good evening, trustees.
My name is Sophia Peruzzi.
I'm a KD resident.
Ms. Calhoun and Ms. Cuzela, you have fought to take away the right of parents to decide
which books their children are allowed to read from the school library.
You have taken away parents' rights to allow their student to be called by their preferred
names.
You claim to act in the name of parental rights, but your actions take away choice from everyone,
including parents.
Now you believe it is your duty to call on KDISD residents to vilify the LGBTQ community.
Your words on social media were clearly intended to pressure Typhoon Texas to cancel Pride.
Trustee Cuzela even condoned doxing the owners by allowing their personal contact information to remain on her social media posts,
resulting in threats and ultimately forcing Typhoon Texas to cancel Pride out of concern for safety.
That is not leadership. That is intimidation.
and KDISD deserves better.
As public school board members,
please stop using your interpretation of religion
to promote hate in our community.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next will be Kenneth Smith,
followed by Wei Jinghao.
Or Jinghao Wei.
Kenneth Smith?
Nope.
Then Jinghao Wei.
Good evening, Board of Trustees.
My name is Jing-Ha Wei.
I'm a KDISD parent.
First, I would send my special thanks to Trustee Mary Ellen Cozella and Trustee Morgan Kaohsiung
for courageously speaking out against the KD Pride event.
The activities associated with that event were not appropriate for children.
Thank you for protecting our students.
Secondly, I'd like to thank you, all the trustees,
for supporting the placement of the Ten Commandments in KD ISD classrooms.
classrooms. The Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of America's moral and legal heritage. I truly
believe they belong in our public school classrooms. Thank you.
Next is Luke Liu followed by Amelia Smith.
Thank you Edmund Pratt, a parent and a teacher. I support and appreciate
Trustees Kozala and Cahoon for speaking against the Katie Pride event to protect our children.
Thank you for supporting the placement of the Ten Commandments in the classroom. America
becomes the joke of the world and is doomed when she prides herself on sexual immorality.
I'm asking Board President Redmond to protect our children from groups such as Katie Pride
right, so the path from trans people to hateful school shooters would not be possible.
I urge President of Acadia Pride Amanda Rose, Harris County Commissioner Leslie Branius
to stop corrupting our young people.
We'll boycott any organization that cooperates with evil.
We'll love sinners.
We'll hate sins.
Jesus warned us, if you do not repent, you will all perish.
American children may not know how to do math, but they must know the simple eternal truth.
God only created male and female, abortions, murder, homosexuality, homosexual orientation is disordered, homosexual acts is a grave sin.
So, Michael the Archangel, pray for us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Amelia Smith, followed by Lynette Alidon.
First of all, I'd like to remind everyone that this is not a church.
This is a school board meeting and this is about our children. So let's keep the focus on that
I'd like to tell you about the Katie pride event that I attended with my children my 70 year old mother and my 90 year old
grandmother
It was an event that was full of love and support for my transgender daughter. What did we do there?
It wasn't all this sexual deprivation that these people keep talking about. I don't know if they've ever gone to this event
We talked with organizations that provide resources and support to the LGBTQ community
We wore our rainbow shirts and took photos and my daughter was beaming with all the love and support that she was experiencing there
We are thankful for this family event
So this is the event that Mary Ellen Cuzela and Morgan Calhoun have called a celebration of depravity and child sex grooming and use
Their position to rally hateful people in our community to cancel
Earlier this year you refused to let teachers call my daughter by her preferred name and pronouns forcing me to withdraw my child from her
school
school not only did you take away my child support at school but now you're going to go outside of
school and take away her support from Community Resources as well how is this okay this is not
okay to the two of you stop harming our children to the rest of you don't let this happen
thank you Miss Lynette aladon followed by Tamara McFarland
Good evening, Dr. Gugorski and the Board of Trustees.
I'm Lynette Alidon, a retired KDISD librarian concerned stakeholder.
I would like to address my concern regarding some recent issues with some of our current school board members.
One of the KDISD school board member code of ethic is tell the truth.
However, two board members have recently violated it.
Mary Ellen Cuzela and Morgan Calhoun publicly participated in the hate and misinformation campaign on their personal social media accounts against a local nonprofit organization, Katie Pride, that preceded Typhoon Texas' decision to abruptly cancel a private event contract between the venue and Katie Pride.
KDISD staff members have been told by our district and our state that words they say
or content they post publicly, even if done so on personal platforms on personal time,
may still carry professional consequences.
Teachers can be disciplined for engaging in behavior that negatively reflects on the district
or is perceived to interfere with their ability to do their jobs.
While I was a KDISD employee, I was mindful of what content I posted on my personal professional
social media accounts.
tonight I asked the board why should that be any different for the school
board members miss Calhoun and miss Cuzela are representing the district
and should be held accountable for their actions our request that these board
members should be publicly censored for their slanderous comments and actions
directed at Katie's LBGTQ community thank you
Thank you. Next will be Tamara McFarland followed by Jesus Nito.
Hi again. Trustees Calhoun and Cuzela have been the trailblazers on this board for the protection
of students and parental rights and I applaud them for that and now Texas has the strongest
child protection and parental rights law in the country mirroring their work so
thank you there is so much hate-filled misinformation circulating about
trustees Morgan and Mary Ellen that these dedicated volunteers and moms do
not deserve I didn't see anything false that they posted and you must think they
have a lot of power to cancel an event of that magnitude they have a right to
their beliefs and the community saw the advertised all ages drag performances and drag story time
and this raised alarm bells a simple search of the headline performers kian kismet and serena
the teen spellman showed pictures of their sexually explicit performances
And the Texas Penal Code prohibits these types of performances in the presence of minors.
Now, I'm not saying that that is how the show went, but the community had a right to be concerned.
So I think that if the organizers had not, you know, advertised that way, we would not have this issue.
Thank you.
Jesus Nieto.
Followed by Lauren Rosenberg.
Good evening.
My name is Jesus Nieto.
I'm a community organizer and a board member of KD Pride.
And my pronouns are he, him.
I am a member of the community here in KDISD.
And I'm here to demand accountability for trustees Morgan Calhoun
and Mary Ellen Cuzela. Their false claims about pity pride caused panic leading to
last-minute changes in our venue. For three years our celebrations have been
completely family-friendly yet the trustees choose to spread fear through
baseless claims with misleading photos and false statements harming families,
students, and the broader community who look forward to this event as a safe and
inclusive space. Teachers in Texas are being held accountable for their
personal social media use with elected officials calling for their firing and
and even sharing their personal information.
It is only reasonable that school board members
who are entrusted with guiding our schools
and upholding public trust should be held to the same,
if not a higher standard.
President Redmond, it's time to take action.
No more wishy-washy comments.
You and the other colleagues can take action,
which is through a form of censure,
which is a public reprimand.
It's simply a slap to the wrist,
informing them that their behavior is not to is not to be had anymore in this
district so please president Redmond as a community member you need to
take action it's time thank you
Lauren Rosenberg followed by Julie Ames
Good evening President Redmond, members of the board, Superintendent Grigorski, and everyone here tonight.
My name is Lauren Rosenberg, and I'm a parent with two children at Pattison Elementary,
and I'm here tonight with a message of gratitude.
I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Pattison Elementary PTA as their PTA president.
The student population at Pattison has been rapidly growing over the past several years,
causing us to outgrow our campus. Portable buildings were brought in and
our entire fourth grade team, which was 10 teachers and over 200 students, were
utilizing these for additional classrooms. Thanks to the 2023 bond
committee and the support of this board, our aging campus was selected to receive
an addition of 10 classrooms to our building. I want to extend our heartfelt
gratitude for your vision and commitment in supporting the 2023 bond that has
made our campus remodel possible. The 2024-25 school year was spent under
construction and our school motto for the year keep going keep growing was very fitting as our
campus was growing both academically and physically we adapted and learned to live through the
construction and at the beginning of this school year we were able to proudly open the new fourth
grade wing of pattison elementary because of your leadership and the community's trust in your plan
our school now has a beautiful new wing with 10 additional classrooms we know that projects like
this require dedication foresight and collaboration thank you for prioritizing the safety of our
students and educators and believing in the future of pattison elementary thank you thank you
julie ames followed by keegan tollison
julie ames
all right we'll move on to keegan tollison
I'm reading this for a concerned community member and parent, but also as someone who belongs to the LGBTQ plus community that has been directly impacted by the actions of Trustees Morgan and Mary Ellen.
What transpired over the past week was not merely a moral failure.
It was a constitutional and ethical one.
Following inflammatory social media posts and public statements made by these trustees, Typhoon Texas Water Park abruptly canceled the Katy Pride celebrations.
This event was meant to provide a safe, family-friendly space for inclusion, joy, and community connection.
Instead, it became the target of coordinated backlash fueled by rhetoric that originated from individuals untrusted with public authority.
The trustees' conduct represents a serious breach of the Texas Education Code, the Texas Government Code, the KDISD Board Ethics Policy, and the U.S. Constitution.
When elected officials use their positions to publicly discredit marginalized groups, they are not exercising free speech.
They are acting under the color of law and their words carry the power and implication of the office that they hold.
The First Amendment's established clause prohibits government officials from advancing or endorsing religious viewpoints in a way that infringes upon the rights of others.
Likewise, the 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law to all citizens, including LGBTQ plus students, parents, and families.
the action of trustees Callahan and Kuzilla have eroded these protections by
creating a climate of hostility and fear signaling that discrimination cloaked in
religious rhetoric is allowed within our district. Thank you.
Next will be Mei Yang followed by Nancy Eddy.
Good evening, dear KISD Board of Trustees. Thank you for this opportunity for me to pray for our
school district. Our Heavenly Father, Creator of the Universe, I humbly come here to you to first
thank you for raising up Trustee Mary Ellen Cuzela and Trustee Morgan Calhoun to speak against the
Pride event, whose performances and activities are not pleasant in your eyes and inappropriate
appropriate for children of all ages. Lord, please send the guardian angels to be with these two
courageous trustees and all the other ones who voted for placing 10 commandments in KSD classrooms.
Blessed are your hearts. You are the angels who are protecting the children of our school district.
Lord, you are the way, the truth, and the life.
May you send Holy Spirit to touch each and every one of us hard in this room, so we can
all know the truth sooner or later.
You are a merciful God, but you are also the God of righteousness and judgment.
I pray that we all repent and ask for your forgiveness of sin before it's too late.
as you are the only and final solution to all our difficulties, weaknesses, and problems.
Thank you.
Nancy Eddy, followed by Heather Tolleson.
Nancy Eddy, followed by Heather Tolleson.
Miss Eddy? No, Miss Eddy? Heather Tolleson, followed by David Jiang.
My daughter didn't have enough time, so I'm going to finish. Under Texas Education Code
11.1511B, trustees are explicitly required to promote a positive climate for learning and
ensure compliance with all applicable laws and policy. Publicly targeting a segment of the
community particularly one that includes district families and students violates
the statutory duty and undermines the fundamental trust between district and
those it serves faith should never be a weapon to wound or defile
divide, it should call us to love, empathy, and justice. When trustees invoke the name of God to
justify exclusion or intolerance, they misuse both their platform and their principles they claim to
represent. That misuse is not just morally indefensible, it is a potential violation of
the establishment clause, Title IX, of federal civil rights protection against discrimination
based on gender identity and sexual orientation. You, board, are now facing a defining moment of
silence and inaction which which will signal complicity or you can choose to
be accountable and hold them accountable I urge this board to take the following
immediate actions issue a formal public statement reaffirming Katie ISD's
commitment to inclusion equality and the protection of all students and families
without acceptation number two conduct an ethics policy review of trustees
Calhoun and Cuzela public communication to determine whether they have violated
at district policy, Texas Education Code, or state ethics standards. Require
comprehensive constitutional diversity and inclusion training for
all trustees and district leadership. Thank you.
David Jiang, followed by Bill Wallace.
Bill Wallace, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, KD Pride
I would like to thank Trustee Mary Ellen Kozila and Morgan Cohen for speaking out against the KD Pride event that was planned at Typhon, Texas.
The activity and performance associated with that event was clearly inappropriate to children.
And it took tremendous courage to stand up for what is right and to protect our students.
We are so blessed to have both of you serving at this board for over 100,000 students in
the Katy area.
Thank you so much, Ms. Mary Ellen and Ms. Gord Morgan.
We all support you.
And I would also like to express my gratitude to this board for supporting the placement
of the Ten Commandments in our classroom.
By allowing our students to see the Ten Commandments on a daily basis, you are affirming that education
is not only about academic knowledge, but also about character and world-view building.
The Ten Commandments offer our students clear moral guidance to distinguish right from wrong,
anchor them in principles that endure the truth.
Thank you all of you for your leadership and thank you for your commitment to raise a generation.
Thank you.
Bill Wallace followed by Claudia Turcotte.
Bill Wallace, W-A-L-L-O-S.
There he is.
Followed by Claudia Turcotte,
and the final speaker after Ms. Turcotte will be Neil Stratton.
Thank you very much for allowing me a few seconds here.
My name is Bill Wallace.
I'm a pastor.
I'm here tonight to thank Morgan Calhoun
and all you ladies or men who have stood with her.
I want to thank you for loving this community and Jesus Christ enough to stand for the truth of God's word.
I want to say to you that you have sown much good seed and you will reap a great harvest.
The next thing I want to address is some of your pastors.
I want to address some pastors in Katy, Texas.
To the pastors who chose not to be here tonight,
because of a lack of courage or fear of controversy,
I say this to you.
If you choose not to get into this battle,
KD Texas is going to experience a level of depravity that hasn't been seen since Sodom and Gomorrah.
Thank you.
Ms. Claudia Turcotte, followed by Neil Stratton.
Mr. Wallace, your time is up.
Thank you for being here tonight.
Ms. Claudia Turcotte.
Followed by Neil Stratton.
Good evening.
Trustees Cuzela and Calhoun,
thank you for having the courage to speak up about the Katie Pride event.
You are willing to sacrifice your own comfort for the sake of vulnerable children.
We need more of that from our leaders.
Many of the people in the Pride event are likely well-meaning with good intentions,
so I don't fault them for doing what in their eyes seems harmless.
However, we Christians know that children and drag queens, transgenderism, and adult sexual preferences do not mix.
So I ask myself, why didn't everybody on the board speak up?
I'm pretty sure all of you profess to be Christians.
Christ said,
inspiring and I'm hearing a lot of chatter behind me about there is no love
I can tell you that the definition of love is willing the good of another and
without truth you cannot have love and without love you cannot have truth thank
you final speaker tonight will be Neil Stratton
Good evening, thanks for having me.
I voted for Ms. Calhoun and Ms. Cozella for one reason,
because I knew they would stand up for the children of KDISD.
They were doing just that with their actions.
I hope everyone can hear me.
KD Pride chooses to have a presence at Typhoon Texas for one reason,
and that's to influence the children of KD with their lifestyles.
There are millions of other places they could celebrate their organization.
Ms. Cuzela and Ms. Calhoun deserve commendation, not censure, for their actions.
I wish we had more members of KVSD's school board who acted as they acted.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. President, point of order.
I know that Ms. Kelly Hamilton, our second speaker, I believe,
she referenced that she gave us some paperwork and I didn't I didn't get it
is there any way we could get that oh okay got it okay great and then I had
one other item I wanted to share because a speaker made a reference about a
conversation that trustee champagne and I made last week there were 98 speakers
at the August 28th meeting 98 speakers signed up 41 of them I did the work 41
41 speakers were not in KDISD or had no public record of that speaker associated with that
address.
So 41 of the 98 signed up.
12 speakers didn't even show up.
A multitude of form emails were blanketed into our email and most of those were received
from out of the state.
I don't have an exact number of that because those emails have been archived.
But when you take all of those numbers together, yes, my statement was true.
A vast majority of the speakers were not in KDISD or did not have any public record of them living in KDISD.
So that is important that the public know that.
And my last comment is, in 2025, in the legislative session, Texas made this policy, our policy, law, providing that the majority of Texas citizens support this policy.
So I don't agree with what you said respectfully, Trustee Champaign.
You are wrong.
The majority of people were not in our district.
So factual response, not a point of order.
all right you wanted a factual response yes okay thank you this concludes the open forum portion
5. Closed Meeting
of our meeting the board will now convene in closed meeting as authorized under section 551.001
of the texas government code for the following purposes texas government code 551.071
551.074 551.076 and 551.129 thank you
6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
the board will now reconvene an open meeting today is Monday October 27 2025
and the time is 726 p.m. on behalf of my colleagues I welcome everyone to this
evening's regular board meeting each board member received the agenda and
documentation for this meeting on Wednesday, October 22nd, 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 action arising from discussions in closed
meeting must be taken in open meeting. We're not taking any action based on our closed meeting.
And we will move on to Section 7, academic presentation, the effective schools framework.
7.1 Academic Presentation - The Effective Schools Framework
And our presenter is Natalie Martinez, our Executive Director of School Improvement.
Tonight I'll present to you the effective school framework and how we use this model to continuously support improvement in KDISD schools.
schools.
This is a TEA framework that started with reviewing research-based best practices and
putting them into one common framework.
It is not rocket science.
It's an organized comprehensive approach that includes educational work from the DeForest,
Marzano, and Bamberg-Santoyo.
It supports the belief that schools need to assess their current reality, build a common
vision around prioritized areas, and receive and deliver targeted support.
This leads to improved student outcomes for all schools.
To begin, I'd like you to sit back and watch the TEA overview of the framework.
Is the campus successful?
How would schools know they're on the right track?
Introducing the Effective Schools Framework, or ESF, a collaborative and aspirational model
model of success designed for all campuses. The ESF provides a clear vision and shared language
for what effective schools are doing. The framework captures those best practices districts and
campuses strive for on a daily basis. It's targeted, focused, and is easily accessible to any campus.
Consisting of five levers, the ESF encompasses critical aspects of teaching and learning. Each
Each lever identifies district commitments, essential actions, and key practices that assist school leaders in their improvement planning.
These instructional strategies are research-based and proven effective.
The framework provides a basis for school diagnostics while ensuring alignment to resources and support.
The Effective Schools Framework supports the Texas Education Agency's vision, improved student outcomes for all the children in Texas.
The effective school framework has been utilized in KDISD for the past six years now.
We use this framework to guide continuous improvements towards student success.
The framework includes five levers, strong school leadership, strategic staffing, positive
school culture high quality instructional materials and assessments
and effective instruction although it seems basic each lever is broken down
into specific essential actions and success criteria schools study all
levers with us and as a leadership team they choose their focused area for the
year as you can imagine all of these things are in place when running a
school but we narrow the focus to one to strengthen the implementation and support
for the school year. In KDISD, many of our schools choose to focus on effective
instruction and strong school leadership and as you can imagine those two go hand
in hand. The framework is meant to build a common language and common
expectations for the campus. Validating and reinforcing best practices helps
build capacity among our leaders and teachers. Here are two examples of how
how schools may choose to focus.
Example 1 shows the importance of small group instruction and key components to strengthen
the practice.
Example 2 shows the importance of data-driven instruction and key components of how to move
forward with this practice.
Once a campus determines their lever and their success criteria, the implementation begins.
In KDISD, we have a five-system approach that focuses on communication and support.
A monitoring tool is used to write down the common language and the common expectations so that everyone is on the same page.
Next, we teach the expectation to ensure we are setting everyone up for success.
Once the expectation is taught, we inspect what we expect.
This is critical during the implementation process and leads to great dialogue between educators to support building their craft.
Data is collected on the implementation which tells campus leaders where things are going well and where additional learning and support may be needed.
Finally, communication is key. We stress a two-way communication between staff and leaders before, during, after, and always in this process.
The big idea is to ensure everyone is set up for success and supported in their areas
of expertise.
We also have schools that are identified to work through this process in collaboration
with central office.
Identified schools are assigned a support team that includes assistant superintendent,
principal, the campus leadership team, the school improvement team, CNI team, and if
appropriate we also include all sped and the intervention team as well there are
three meetings in the fall to not only discuss their focus area and data but to
also walk classrooms and support leadership teams on how to coach each
other and teachers enjoy getting to see the teachers in action and being part of
this implementation plan in the spring we have one additional meeting to
discuss map accountability predictions review supports and address any barriers
that still exist. Campus visits are for the identified school but we also have
opportunities throughout the year for all participating schools to meet and
collaborate about their work and their implementation plans. At this time I'd be
happy to answer any questions. Board any questions? Mr. President. Ms. Cuzela.
Thank you, Ms. Martinez. Appreciate it. I wanted to ask, and please help me out here,
usually when we see academic reports and outcomes, it's at a quite high level, which I understand,
and I know how you guys tease it down to a very minute level. A lot of times I hear the public
say, well, what about all the Title I schools? You know, they're not succeeding, or how did
they grow and do we have a report that the board can see periodically of that segment of the
population of our school so that we can constructively work as a board for academic
outcomes and support your efforts because I usually I see I mean there's such great success
but I know there's parts of our district that are drowned out by that success and we don't I don't
see that or I don't feel like I see that do you have a recommendation for me or
is there a report that could be given so that we can see more of the minutiae
where it needs help and discuss how the board can support that the data can be
run in many many ways and so by ratings if we're talking about state
accountability absolutely we can also put an asterisk by schools that are
title one so you know automatically which ones are title one that kind of
helps just pull it out to a different level right yeah like the title one schools that'd be great to
be able to track isolated isolated i want to see isolation of of where we have things where we're
trying to work on the growth of the outcome i typically like to i can isolate title one schools
but i do like to show the longitudinal so you can see year after year the ratings and not just a
letter grade but a number grade as well but also keep in mind that there are different domains
in the system and so sometimes you'll see growth in one domain you may not see
it overall so we can do it in both different both ways where it's just a
high level overall but then two domains included so you can see it a little bit
more detail yeah that would be fabulous so I can have a perspective of where in
the district we need to to help out and in you know I've read a lot about the
the Mississippi miracle people understand with literacy and so I think
they focused on like a fourth grade literacy level uh that's part of that uh mississippi
miracle if anyone knows what i'm talking about sounds funny but they achieved quite high success
with where they were and they focused on the fourth grade literacy rate i believe do we have a
uh do we watch fourth grade literacy reading this so house bill three is more about third grade
uh so in our state that's where we where we watch that piece but i would say our our teams watch all
grade levels but the House Bill 3 is what you're gonna see when we pull out a
specific one okay I know we are obliged to do that because that's how the state
defined it maybe there's something else we could do on top of that to be to be
discussed the high schools I had a question from someone a constituent who
was used to seeing the I don't I think this applies the campus profiles for
high schools that are given that accompany transcripts when they're sent out for high
school students?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
It's called a camp high school profile.
They were wanting to see a certain range from 2019 to 2025 to current to kind of see the
growth or what has changed.
Is that public information all years?
Ms. Kinsella, we update the campus profiles for all 10 of the high schools every year.
with the data from the previous year,
courses that they're offering,
and yes, that's been a process every year,
so we would be able to pull those from each year.
They should be able to get that from any year that they need.
I'd have to check to see if they're active on the website previous years,
but of course they all have a deadline
that they have to have their profile updated for this year
so that it goes with the transcripts when they're sent to colleges.
Okay, but prior years should be on record somewhere.
Somewhere, I'll check on that.
and it's public information yes okay and just for the public to know that's like the the profile of
the school it's got star performance sat act um demographics and performance it's a it's a nice
resume of the high school per year so i would they all use the same template so i would like
to have that 2019 to 2025 campus high school profiles for our wonderful high schools i
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
Dr. Martinez, thank you for the presentation.
Could you go to slide six, please?
One more back.
That one.
This one?
Nope.
Yes.
That one.
Common language and expectations.
That one.
So I'm very fortunate to be on the academic committee last year with Mr. Redman, this year with Mr. Cross.
And so I get to speak with you and Dr. Bell and Dr. Caskey at length about what you all do and how you do it
and how you reach every child and in every campus, you know, those who are very successful
and those who are on the road to being very successful.
So when we see something like this,
and it's just a quick, like, OK.
But the amount, I just want to call attention
to the amount of information in each one of those bullets.
The amount of things that happen,
differentiated resources, quality questions
in small groups.
So as I'm on my walking tours of my assigned campuses, and I go classroom to classroom,
wherever the principal wants to take me, and I just walk through a classroom, they don't
know I'm coming.
I like it that way, and principals do too.
And you just walk in and you'll see a teacher working with a small group, three or four
at a time and in every corner of the room small groups of children with an activity with an
assignment working they love to sit in the floor they love to sit on bean bags all those things
but they're working with each other and the manipulatives they have the assignments they have
it's not it's not just oh go find something no it's very intentional and that's my word this
year is intentionality seeing it every classroom every teacher every school as you walk through
it's i said my jaw is tired from hitting the floor and my heart is too full i can't keep it all in
and my face is tired from smiling at seeing all of this happening and meanwhile there's the data
you're gathering data and your group is helping and supplying all of that and how to help
Will you go up another one maybe?
That five systems, I wrote that down.
That five systems for successful implementation.
There's lots of ways of implementing something, but if it doesn't get you to your result,
and you talk to us about what that looks like and how to get there.
And it's, you know, okay, five systems, there they are, just bing, bing, bing, okay, those
look great.
And you read it and you're like, okay.
But that's not easy.
That is very specific.
lots of data built in there, lots of things that you're looking for when your group goes in and you just observe.
You're looking for something different than what Dr. Bell's group is looking for, which Dr. Caskey's group is looking for.
It's complicated and it's specific and it's targeted, the wrong word, but it's targeted toward the success of the successful implementation.
And so it's not just students, it's teachers, it's paras, it's special ed.
And the next one, I'm almost finished, I'm almost to the last slide, Mr. Redman, just
give me a minute.
This one on page eight, the next one, just again, it's just a whole bunch of words on
a page and you read through them and go, sure, sure.
But the Office of Other Languages at OOL, SPED, Intervention, every one of those is
is a different team with specific outcomes they're
looking for.
And right, Mr. Cross, specific things that they implement.
And everybody coming together, it's just fascinating to me.
And the more I know about it, the more I
see when I'm actually witnessing it.
I put a lot of pictures on my social media
to share with the community and say,
I wish you could come with me, but since you can't, here's what I see. And then here's the
intentionality. Here's a small group. Here's the, these were kindergartners reading sentences off of
the projector on the wall, whatever that's called, smart board probably. And they were, they were
reading. I was like, I looked at him and said, is this first grade? No, it's kindergarten. We can
read. And they, it was just so in their word for the day, uh, when they're talking about emotions
was surprised and i was like mrs fox was surprised that you could read by yourselves right and full
just precious and yet you know all the intentionality and the teacher had a way of
congratulating them that was quick easy they knew what the thing was that they'd pat yourself on the
head or whatever and then right to the next thing there are no wasted minutes i just want our people
to know this is not a look look at that they they learn to read we've got it
done not every day is probably as successful as what they wish and I know
teachers are never satisfied they always think of the one more thing they could
do or wish this one you know I need to do more here and so I just wanted to
talk about that the goals and strategies the observations the data that you put
put together and the data that Mrs. Cuzela asked for,
it's all there.
And we have it for every campus, and you're
looking for growth and improvement and tweaking
just the littlest thing.
And I love what you said, data on what's going well
and where it needs a tweak or two,
and the support that they have to do that.
I continue to be impressed, surprised, and delighted,
and so stinking proud of our district.
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne.
All right.
Thank you for your presentation.
I'm going to try to be kind of short,
but I did want to say something about the academic committee.
Well, first I was going to back up.
So before, there was a couple of trustees that came in 2020.
They were elected in November that year,
and in January it was Leah Peters and Greg Sheltie, January we got what we used to get
was this huge long report of like 500 pages and I remember they said that they read the
whole thing and they don't know why they have to read it and what are they trying to memorize
and then not long after that we had an academic committee, you know, maybe when Mr. Perez
was here and said that, okay, let's just consolidate the information and then that was good and
And then I thought there was a link on something that, you know, that anyone could go to.
Can anyone go to it?
We still have it.
Okay.
And then, Mrs. Cozzella, maybe that information is on that link that you're looking for.
It's a link with those 500 pages of stuff.
And is that right, Dr. Caskey?
So there is a link that they could go and research that, too.
Okay.
I just want to be able to monitor that on a regular basis from the board's perspective
and know how does that translate to what we're doing and what we can do for that.
I hear you.
But I'm just saying you can do that and you can look at that link and you can find the
information and you could go back in time probably and compare it and all that.
The other thing I wanted to add was the 2019-20, that you wanted the information from 2019.
I think that's interesting.
I wonder why.
And it's okay.
but just just because we all know this that 2019 2020 was ended up being a
terrible school year and then you know that you had the 2020 2021 you know we
were in COVID so the I will never forget this the comparison of like the 2018-2019
school year to like I don't know the 2020
2021 school year was so bad but not with that just with us across the nation so if you look at the
just the 2018 2019 school year and then you compare it to let's say 2021 2022 it's kind of
like not fair because it's like we had to like restart over again almost in a lot of ways do
you agree with that i mean it was digging out of a whole kind of a thing i would say for any
comparative data it's always about the story behind the numbers so that the numbers are what
they are but digging into why the numbers are that way is extremely important so looking at it before
coven and after covid you know the story the numbers are still valid yeah i just wanted to
point that out that i mean i think it's fair for anyone to want to look at information but like you
said we just have to be realistic about why numbers were the way they were and why they are
the you know i i think covered was a terrible thing and i think we're just now i don't know
how it is but i think we're just now getting to that you know back to that where we were so
like gravy you know back in 2018 2019 school year and i think that's it so i appreciate
your presentation and i agree with mrs fox that it's fun to see the kids and teachers
working together and doing great things on our district mr president i do have one question
Dr. Martinez?
Ms. Fox?
Do you have the support you need from the board to reach all of the students
with the approach that you have outlined here?
And if you don't, you would come and ask us for it.
Yes, ma'am.
OK, thank you.
Any other questions, comments, or word?
Thank you very much.
We'll now move on.
7.2 Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Report
We'll now move on to item 7.2, a tax increment reinvestment zone report presented with Chris Smith, our chief financial officer, and Nathan Fuchs, our senior executive director of operations.
Well, good evening, President Redman, Superintendent Dr. Gorski, and trustees.
Tonight we are going to do a, I would call it a wrap-up, if you will, of the tax increment reinvestment zone, or the TERS.
this can also be called in some communities a tax increment financing or a tiff we call it a
teres a tax increment reinvestment zone in getting Katie course this all started in 1999 prior to me
coming to Katie and probably prior to Nathan graduating junior high but we're here to kind
of bring it home tonight by the way with with a summary of of of of what the teres is and the
uh the teres again was established i started in 1998 um as a tri-party agreement between the city
of kate katie isd and the katie development authority uh and basically what it did is it
provided a mechanism to sell tax-exempt bonds through the kd development authority of 25.6
million dollars that built our next door neighbor here the leonard merrill center
okay so that built and established it with those bond proceeds uh and again those were issued back
in 2002. um the construction multi-purpose center was done with that and uh it was it was used um
and those excuse me i'm tongue-tied i'm getting ahead of myself i apologize um this is the ters
the zone that's about 430 acres uh there uh you may recognize that that kidney shaped or that
bean shaped uh deal in the middle that's katie mills mall uh fort bend county would be that
line you see on the right uh that's the division of harris county so anything to the mall side of
it is fort bend county it's harris county to the other side of it then you can see the uh
uh, Pinnock area, um, uh, where it's the, the, I guess it's the bottom part of that slide. You can
see the golf course there on the bottom part of that slide. And it moves up along Pinnock along
the side and then grabs what I would call CC pizza and Popeye's chicken, et cetera, et cetera,
on up to I-10. There's the, that's the, that's the zone. That zone is connected to two pieces of,
of property of katie isd it follows the roadways that goes up to the danover place uh uh on danover
street which was the old kilpatrick elementary is now it's just a half a dozen or so very nice oak
trees and a lot and then the building and the facility that katie high school and we are sitting
on essentially this entire complex is part of the tours and so the monies the proceeds of the bonds
although was built on this site the this whole agreement that we were speaking of
and what I'm going to speak to in a minute the phones could be spent at one
of those two sites anywhere on this piece of property or on that Dan
oversight the the TERS the the sake the part inside that boundary was to
to establish a tax base to pay the balance back.
And so the bonds of $25 million were issued
and the taxes from that over the last 22 years
have been used to pay those bonds.
Essentially what happens is when the tax bills go out,
we collect those dollars from in there.
From an accounting standpoint,
we load those on our general ledger,
or recognize those as revenues to the general fund.
At the end of that fiscal year,
we put a liability due to other governments
of the amount of those taxes that were brought in.
We send it in March of the following year
to the Katy Development Authority.
They pay the bonds and any expenses associated with those bonds,
and then they send the money back to us.
That money coming back to us
is essentially what we're going to talk about,
what I'm talking about tonight when I talk about the dollar amounts. We've received $36.6 million
in tax collections in excess of the bond payments related to paying back the principal and interest
on that facility next door or the waterfall. $36.6 million have come back to us. And then
over that time, we've earned $2.2 million in interest. So that's kind of how the TERS has
worked. I will say that there was a time where the value of the TERS, which is about, I think,
last i saw about 430 million dollars that's all the property the taxable value with inside that
that zone that i showed you earlier it's about 430 million dollars um
that value in large part has also not been recognized from a state funding standpoint
over the years it's been a good investment a good agreement that kdisd got in back in the in the
time and with that I'm going to turn it over to mr. Fuchs so we wanted to kind
of give you a little example of past projects that we've done over tours with
tours expenditures it's here at the ESC various office renovations we went down
some over at the what we call the HR building that we bought that from
Brazos Valley Credit Union we went in and did a renovation to get it get it up
up to kind of our standards and make it usable.
If you remember right across the park line over here,
it used to be the old show arena for CTE.
Now it's the new Martha Key Center.
Moving down, Katy High School Synthetic Turf,
the original turf that went in back in 2010 was paid for out of TERS dollars as well.
Next slide just shows you kind of a recap sheet of TERS projects.
That's something that goes out monthly.
And if you look at the very bottom right now,
we're showing a little over 17 million currently in tourist funding that's available.
So what would we, what kind of projects are we looking at moving forward in the future?
What we look at are components that have reached the end of their life cycles,
no different than what's in our current bond election, like roofs and chillers and so on.
And then looking at that, what projects will save us by doing out of our GOF?
For instance, lighting projects.
To do a lighting project here in the Merrill Center, we're looking at probably saving roughly
about $100,000 a year out of our GOF just by doing a lighting project.
So that's the kind of approach we're taking.
Our emergency generator here, we have currently catastrophic failure.
We're in the process of replacing that, but that would be something high on the list that
that we're going to be moving forward with.
New roof and building envelope, same kind of format
or concept of moving forward, looking at efficiencies,
how can we improve efficiencies throughout these two buildings.
Display boards in the Merrill Center and 1200th room,
they've kind of reached the end of their life cycle.
They need to be replaced.
And then turf placement for Kitty High School again.
It was done back and resurfaced in 2018.
2018, it's going to be due pretty quick to get resurfaced.
So not a favorable item to put in the bond election,
so it's one of the things we want to take a look at.
And then in closing, really just what the funding enables us to do.
It enables for KDIC to reinvest in critical infrastructure
while reducing the burden on our general operating fund.
And I want to just follow up what Mr. Fuchs said on the emergency generator.
that failed late last month and we did we have ordered through his budget we've ordered the
emergency replacement of that of about five hundred thousand dollars that handicaps a budget that's
been fresh in the month of september and so what we would what i am going to be doing
recommended the superintendent is bringing a budget amendment next month to allow us to use
use TERS funding to pay for that since it's on this facility. It was not expected to have the
catastrophic failure, and it is a life safety thing. It replenished his budget, so the things
that he did plan on doing with that budget, he's able to do. This is an AI-generated thing. I'm
kind of proud of it because I'm not that good with that kind of thing, but I did think it was fitting
that this whole TERS process that began in 1998, although it's in its sunset and there's not going
going to be much of it. And by the way, note 10 of our annual comprehensive financial reports
speaks about this in detail. If you ever want to learn a lot more detail than I covered tonight,
it's in note 10 or our debt note of our financial statements. Won't be there long
because of that sunset. But the fruit on the tree is there is still some money associated with it
we can spend and the good news is it doesn't compete for maintenance and operations dollars
for salaries for the people of this district that deserve as much salaries as we can give
them it does allow us to not ask the bond payers to pay for things that we've the taxpayers to pay
for things through bonds that uh that we don't have to issue for these type of things that mr
Mr. Fuchs has explained to you and that may be out there on the horizon to spend.
Thank you. Board, any questions? Ms. Seamy. Thank you for going over this again. We talked about
this in our finance committee and I thought y'all brought up a good point about why an emergency
generator was so important. Do you mind going over that, giving a little more details about why
that's important? I think the public would enjoy hearing that. Sure. So the
emergency generator, when the power goes down, it provides backup power more or
less. The backup power feeds the kitchen freezer coolers, it feeds the PA system,
it feeds the fire alarm panels, what we call life safety type of equipment. We're
also going to look at redoing the circuits in this room when we have board
meetings to where the power goes out, everything stays up and running. So
So really all the life safety equipment runs on the emergency generator when it fails,
I mean when the power goes out.
Okay, so when we were in our meeting,
we were talking specifically about how it would be good for the Merrill Center.
Well, the Merrill Center has its own generator that was replaced several years back,
but they're on two separate generators.
Okay.
Okay, that's not what I understood.
Okay.
That's probably because you heard it from the B team here.
My bad.
Okay.
I assumed it was one.
I didn't know.
okay okay okay okay okay my second question is when did we replace the
generator then for the Merrill Center I want to say five years or so ago I'm not
don't quote me on that but it's somewhere in that vicinity and how long
do they usually last we try to proactively replace them about every 20
years okay and then on the 17 plus million that we have left in that terse
fund does there is there a stipulation on you have to spend that money X amount
it by a certain time or is that just we are ours just yours as a trustees to
spend as we deem necessary I don't know if it could be kept out there forever
again if there's money that needs to be spent on this play this somewhere on
this lot or the other lot you can avoid dollars by spending okay I just didn't
know if it was like um you know the the federal the the federal funds that we're using to redo
some of our kitchens to my knowledge there was no deadline at all okay thank you very much
thanks for the details mr president miss Cuzela thank you um thank you so much i'm so glad that
you did a presentation on tours it's such a mysterious creative little deal there
that a lot of people may not really understand and i'm still learning um so i think that's great that
the public gets to have exposure to that um i'm glad it's on the agenda uh the um so just a few
basic questions i have to say i've not heard of kda i'm used to katie economic development council
is this some some other entity um i don't know the details of it it is described in in note uh
note 10 uh in details but essentially it was developed for this purpose this tri party
party agreement, the KD Development Authority, and it was only done to do some infrastructure
out at that facility at that 476 acres for this transaction.
And I'm not sure what its fate is after KDISD's involvement.
I'm not sure what it is.
Okay, so it was an agreement, just to be clear.
here Katie KDA you said back in the 90s this is not you but but someone with a master plan here
created the KDA it sounds like a legal entity or something I don't know I'll go check it out
with the city of Katie as a separate entity and the school district is that what I'm understanding
yes so the city of Katie is a separate partner in this Katie is someone else in the district it was
structured like that in order to apply by the rules of the state which allowed this type of
incremental financing to happen okay and so that was kind of dictated to us by the rules of the
game of the state at the time yes okay and then thank you and there will be no other future tours
there is that correct this is this has been this is old business right as far as law this is old
business we in March of 25 we paid the last liability we had with them and we
are have we received the waterfall back and we have received that back so as far
as we know there's no more financial transactions that happen between the
district and the KDA time will tell because this is our first time to sunset
a terse as well but but we don't think there are any transactions at all left
now left if they are it'll be extremely minor thank you and that's for for this ters i was
curious this is just in my ignorance i don't know if there would be a future new tax investment
reinvestment zone that's no longer a possibility correct i i think it is i think the ability for it
to be an uh an incentive for a school district i think that's all gone uh as i understand it so if
If there were someone that approached the district about entering into a new TERS,
there probably would not be the financial benefit that we were able to receive on the particular arrangement that's sunsetting.
That is no longer available as I understand it.
Now, I'm not an expert in TERS, but as I understand it,
they're very difficult for school districts to justify that type of arrangement.
There's no incentive.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'll look into it too.
And the Danover property, such an interesting little piece of boundary there out of the middle of nowhere.
I don't know what went on with that.
I know you weren't involved with that, but have we invested in that piece of property with TERS?
Do we ever see any money going towards that?
When the Danover facility or the old Kilpatrick Elementary was raised,
it was done with general fund dollars, not TERS dollars.
It was raised with general fund dollars.
But as far as I know and recall, there's been no money, no TERS dollars spent on that piece of property.
If there were, they would be on that report, on the detailed report in your financial statements.
And I don't think there is.
Okay.
I mean, I haven't been on the board that long, but I was curious.
You can remember it all, but I don't think there is.
Okay.
And it is important.
I love the way you stated that, that the public understand.
understand we should never really see any bond projects for Katie High School, Leonard Merrill
Center, or the ESC for now in the short term, unless there's some big gargantuan piece. We
should never see it as a bond project because we've got TERS, right? I don't know if I ever
said never see, but we don't have to see some of those projects within that amount. So when the
roof goes on this building and it starts raining in here, this is the administration building,
my gosh, well we could have a resource to pay for that, whereas not having to go to the voters for
For a roof for this building. Yeah, but we have used bond funds for the additional
The facility construction that's going on right now at Katy high school many
different projects have used regular bond funds, but but
TERS
Can be used. Okay, and that's driven by the price tag, I guess maybe or
What the price tag in the type of project? I mean again
in type of project okay appreciate it thank you mr. president miss Fox thank
you for the presentation I remember when this all started and it was very
controversial like so sit with them all and I'm all coming here and all the
things and all of that but what what a blessing it's been for our school
district and for the city of katey as all of that development happened and grew up that we had an
additional source of of revenue in conjunction and work with the city of katie kda is the katie
developmental authority and skip connor is the chair and we've had lots of talks about this on
friday mornings ms kuzella so when you see him he he's the keeper of all knowledge when it comes to
this and we talk about all the time how sad it is that it's going away and how can it ever you know
could we extend it and can be extended and so love to have another one but like you said very
complicated has to be very specific those types of um it's not lined up that looks like there will
be another but it certainly has been a great thing to watch and to be a part of and answer to your
question mrs kuzella some of the things that have happened at katie high school have been so very
expensive right like the renovations and the and you know the add-ons but and like chromebooks
probably came out of bonds as we went through everything else but these this is more like
emergency things or something specific that that came up that was specific to our building
or their building that wasn't like blanketed in all the schools throughout
the community so I remember when it was like 27 years and I thought oh my lands
that's forever I was like that is a very long time and here we are done
it'll do the great job explaining it board any other questions I like the AI
eye picture the Sun setting on thank you we'll now move on to item 8 public
8.1 Presentation of the District's rating on the Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST).
hearing first a presentation of the district's rating on the financial
integrity rating system of Texas first and then we will move on to a receive
public input on that evening good evening president Redmond trustees and
dr. Gorg or ski they're going to show you schools first today schools first is
the financial integrity rating system of Texas it was adopted also in 1999 by the
state legislature it's a statewide accountability system for school finance
and this is the 23rd time this board has heard this school's first presentation
the first rating is designed to encourage public schools to better
manage their financial resources to provide the maximum allocation possible
to direct instructional purposes there are 21 indicators we'll go over as
quickly as possible many of these are specifically relevant to the public and finance industry
and several of them have sliding scales between zero and ten points and we'll go over each of
these as we go through the indicators each district receives a letter grade based on a
numeric score with a being the highest score a district can receive this year's first rating
is based on the audit that was presented to this board in January of 2025,
and it was based on the 2023-2024 school year.
So indicator one is the simplest indicator.
It's was your annual financial report filed by the deadline.
And yes, it was.
We filed it on January 27, 2025, the day after this board saw the financial report.
Indicator 2 asks, did the district receive a clean or unmodified audit opinion on the financial statements as a whole?
This was determined by our external independent auditor, and yes, we received an unmodified opinion on our financial statements.
Indicator 3 confirms that the district has made all required bond or debt payments, and yes, KDISD has made all of its required payments.
Indicator 4 confirms that the district fulfilled its obligation to governmental agencies such as TRS, Texas Workforce Commission, and the IRS for payroll withholdings, contributions, and has fulfilled any payroll-related obligations required by the district.
And yes, the district has fulfilled all of these obligations.
Indicator 5 was re-implemented last year after five years of not being scored.
There were a few adjustments made and it was reimplemented to account for changes implemented
by GASB or Governmental Accounting Standards Board regarding pension liabilities.
This indicator confirms that the district has a positive net position and yes, the district
passed this indicator.
Thank you.
Indicator 6 measures the percentage and change in fund balance to see whether or not the
fund balance is declining too quickly, and if it is declining, whether the sufficient
fund balance remains to operate for at least 75 days.
The district's average change in fund balance over three years was a 6.7% increase because
of our growing enrollment and there was not a decrease and because it was an
increase the district automatically passes this indicator.
Indicator 7 measures how long in days after the end of the fiscal year the
district could have dispersed funds for its operating expenditures without
receiving any new revenues. KDISD scored the maximum 10 points for
for exceeding 90 days of cash on hand.
In fact, Katie had 131 days of cash on hand as of August 31,
2024.
Now, I'm going to pass this presentation over
to Mrs. Smith.
And I just want to comment that Mrs. Smith did the lion's share
of all the calculations and all of the math
behind presenting or submitting this first report.
report.
Indicator 8 measures whether the school district had sufficient short-term assets at the end
of the fiscal year to pay off its short-term liabilities and the district received the
maximum number of points for this indicator.
Indicator 9 simply asked did you spend more than you earned and the district will automatically
pass this indicator if the school district had at least 60 days cash on hand and as stated
by Mr. Hines on Indicator 7, the district had 131.8 days of cash on hand, and therefore
we received the maximum number of points for this indicator.
Indicator 10 measures how accurately the district forecasted revenue by comparing budgeted revenue
to actual revenue, and this indicator is not currently being scored by TEA.
However, we continue to monitor and meet this threshold.
Indicator 11 recognizes that high growth districts incur additional operating costs to open new
instructional campuses.
And the district receives full credit for this indicator by exceeding 7% growth in students
in the last five years.
KDISD actually grew 14% during that timeframe, giving the district all 10 points for this
indicator.
indicator. Indicator 12 asks about the school district's ability to make debt payments,
and the district received eight out of the ten possible points, which is common for fast
growth school districts, and this indicator does not have an allowance for student growth
as the prior indicator did. Indicator 13 measures the percentage of district's budget that is
spent on administration and although the districts our size are allowed
administrative cost ratios of 8.55% to receive full credit for this indicator
Katie's is one of the lowest in the state at 4.04% and this means that Katie
is able to put more money directly into the classroom indicator 14 is meant to
track if a declining enrollment school district is also decreasing its staff
proportionately and if a school district increases in enrollment the district
automatically passes this indicator so Katie is deep past this indicator 15
measures how well the district was able to project average daily attendance for
the coming biennium for payment purposes and projected adas compared to actual in
the district received all possible points for this indicator with an
extremely small variance of only 0.004 percent so we pass indicator 16 measures
measures the quality of data reported to PEMS and in the ACFER to make certain that the
data submitted by the district to the state is the same in both of these submissions.
And there is a difference of only $650 on reported of over a billion dollars in expenditures.
And so the $650 variance was just the result of rounding differences between the two reporting
frameworks.
And so the district passed this indicator.
Indicator 17 asks if the district's independent external auditors found any material weaknesses
and internal controls and they have found none.
An internal control weakness would create risk for your district of not being able to
properly account for its use of public funds and that would need to be addressed immediately.
But KDISD passed this indicator.
Indicator 18 measures whether the district is complying with laws, rules, and regulations
related to the expenditure of grant funds, contracts,
and other state and federal funds,
and the district received all...
possible points for this indicator indicator 19 measures whether the
district is complying with legal requirements related to financial
transparency by posting all required information and the district is fully
compliant with all postings and I'm gonna hand it over to mr. Hines now
indicator 20 confirms whether the school board has had the opportunity to discuss
and consider the finances of the district as they relate to property value and funding changes?
The answer is yes.
As you all know, Mr. Smith has presented on and discussed state funding and property values
many times with this board leading up to the adoption of your budget.
Indicator 21 was introduced last year and ensures the district hasn't asked TEA
for an adjusted repayment schedule in consecutive years
for an overpayment of foundation school program funds due to financial hardship
the answer to this question is no the district has never needed an adjustment
meaning the district passes this indicator and I'm proud to say that
Katie ISD received 98 of 100 possible points on TEA's first rating which
equates to an a or a superior rating for the 23rd year in a row in addition to
this presentation you have a packet available with the historical first
ratings along with that are some required disclosures that are required
for first including expenses incurred and reimbursements by the board members
who served during the 23-24 school year as well as any outside compensation and
gifts received by the board or the superintendent there were none it also
contains any business transactions had anyone on the board owned a business and
done business with the school district they would have been required to
disclose that and again there were none this concludes this presentation of
KDISD's first rating thank you and happy to take any questions thank you
board are there any questions mr. president miss champagne I just I just
want to really really give a lot of kudos to y'all's department you have a
98 and that's a superior rating and i do have a question to follow up with it but well two
questions so how many years the first question how many years in a row have we had this because i
want you to be able to brag about that well first off it it's the whole department and and the
district as a whole working together but but 23 years now for a rating yes ma'am that is so awesome
But the other thing I wanted to ask you about that was, what do we get for having such a
good rating?
Well, much like accountability, we don't get anything.
It's a measure of how well we're doing and essentially how much, how well we're putting
our resources, our financial resources toward instruction and putting it into the classroom.
That's really what it's all about.
And the higher your rating, the better you're doing at that.
I would say it goes hand in hand also with the type of things that the credit rating agencies are looking at.
Different format, schools first, credit rating, but they look at the same type of indicators to look at our finances,
and we maintain a great underlying rating, and it saves lots of interest because we have a better rating.
So there is some benefits to it, not necessarily with first, but having good indicators when it comes to financials,
especially in a fast growth district, it helps.
reduce our interest costs or keep our interest costs down because of our borrowing needs.
That's so important, but I have one more.
Now you led me to another one.
Is there any other school district in Texas that compares to us having 23 years in a row?
I'm just curious.
I would say a lot of them do.
A lot of districts do.
Some of this pretty, I don't want to say low standards.
low standards some of it is in a district with the kind of expectations
that our superintendent and our board as of my department and for the entire
staff as part of this not just my department but really the principal's
anybody that's a budget manager has a role in this but the expectations are
based on what it is some of them are pretty easy for us some of them are
difficult and for us it goes back to we're a fast growth school district
where the we were the fastest growing school district in the state uh through the 23 20
sorry the 24 25 school year and that's hard to do to keep some of these ratings when you have
that kind of needs from a growth standpoint both on the general fund and the debt service
and to be only 650 off on over a billion dollar budget that is
to me crazy I'm probably off that much every month my very low budget that is
the name I has been very happy but I really I really admire that that is
really outstanding thank you for y'all's work on that
it's gazelle president thank you very much and you mentioned that part of the
report so all board members received this thank you very much um i did look through it and i i
noticed and you mentioned it the reimbursements received by the superintendent and board members
for fiscal year 2024 are included here is that public record and is that on our website somewhere
like is this report that we see here and we do publish this i don't know if we we don't put that
on the debt this binder out there we put the presentation and it's out there for
several years but this actual package we have not published in the past okay but
if someone were to ask I mean absolutely it's here to a minute or board member
it's worse it's on our general ledger which anything on our general ledger
subject to sure to that but we have not put this PDF out there on the website
just the presentation that you saw tonight okay thank you any other
questions word thank you very much and I assume we have no one signed up for a
public input all right then we will move on past 8.2 to our consent agenda I
9. Consent Agenda
could send agenda shall include items that were discussed and considered at
the previous work study board meetings as well as items of a reoccurring nature
The board shall be furnished with background material for each item. Consent agenda items shall be grouped together under one action item. All items shall be acted upon by one vote without separate discussion unless the board member requests that an item be withdrawn for individual consideration from BE Legal and BE Local.
Are there any items that the board members would like to remove from consent agenda tonight?
No. Then I will now entertain a motion for the consent agenda.
mr president ms champaign i move that the board of trustees approves the consent agenda for items
9.1 through 9.9 second it is moved and seconded that the board of trustees approves the consent
agenda for items 9.1 through 9.9 we will now proceed to vote board members please record
your vote on the screen via your keypad the motion passes seven to zero
10. Information Items
We'll now move on to item 10.1, board committee updates.
The quick update, our finance committee met three weeks ago prior to, I think it was three
weeks ago, prior to our work study meeting where we reviewed the first and talked about
the TERS.
Our policy committee following our work study this past week is scheduled to meet on November
4th which we will be discussing the policy we discussed last week as well as
some updates to our local and legal policies that came out of the
legislative session those those are the two things right now that are on that
agenda for a policy committee to meet on November 4th and then this Fox academic
academic committee met?
Yes, the academic committee met.
We covered a lot of things and you saw the main thing that we talked about that Dr. Martinez
presented and they bring us a thing called a one pager, usually that kind of takes all
those 500 pages Mrs. Champagne was talking about and breaks it down into small pieces
for us to digest and you know continue to be very impressed with what's
happening in our district academically and on Friday at the state of the
district it was incredible and that's probably online for everybody to see are
we guessing that dr. grooms is that correct it's online it's very impressive
You might think it's lengthy, but really if you delved into every piece to the depth I wanted to, we probably could have been there all day.
But it was very, very impressive and a lot of the things that are happening we talk about in that academic committee, you know, things that are coming and how they're working.
And the CTE, correct me if I'm wrong with this statistic, 32,000, 32,000 children are enrolled in CTE programs.
programs. You know, that was just one of the astounding statistics that came up. Mr. Cross,
did you have some things to add? Well, that's what I was going to say. It feels like not that long
ago we were trying to figure out what are we going to do for those kids who don't want to
take off to a four-year college, and that number kept growing over the years and growing, and so
the fact that we're really working hard to address that and giving kids different opportunities,
It really matters.
And again, just the challenges that are existing within our district from all over the place.
And just post-COVID issues.
We've got just the world the way it is.
New challenges, technology, AI, and all that stuff.
And we've got our folks working really hard on all that stuff.
and working with campuses and also you know campuses being able to provide back
that expertise which is to me what has made Katie such an awesome place over
the years is that you know we realize we have a lot of talented folks in this
district here obviously in this building but also it you know 80 campuses and and
so fact that you know we're able to work together really makes a difference and
And so to watch that play out in that meeting and get that kind of data and see the work that's being done, just like, yep, keep going.
Keep doing the work.
All right.
Any other things to add to committee meetings or anything?
Board?
Mr. President, I wonder if, as we talk about the state of the district, if Dr. Gorgorski has anything he'd want to add about that.
You want to give us your speech right quick, just to run down.
but like for example in that CTE the slides popped up and it was being being
being all across that those that screen and just scroll after scroll of all the
things the CDL the real estate the wastewater management the auto tech net
all all of the things it's just so good to see it's not just the two things
anymore it's all these things yeah there's a lot of stuff going on with CTE
And like Mr. Cross said down there, we've got probably 30% of our population does not go off to college.
So we do need to fill that gap with a lot of opportunities, different things.
And we have been increasing.
One of the other reasons why we're trying to expand the Miller career, get kids off the wait list, get new programs in there,
continue to offer things that are high demand, high wage, high skill programs for those kids.
I think sometimes, you know what I mean, the great part about talking about CTE is wonderful
because we're doing so many things, but sometimes that overshadows all the great work we're
doing just in academics, you know what I mean, to get those other groups ready for college
and career and getting out there and doing different things that way.
So sometimes it seems like we take a back seat to that, but I don't ever want to forget
about all the great work that's going on on our campuses academically to get those kids
prepared for life outside after high school because I tell you our kids are
second to none once they go to college thank you mr. president I just since
we're now discussing a lot with other committee members I just want to provide
for the public who's listening to make sure and clarify something you did
mention that the policy committee is going to be meeting on the agenda item
that was removed from our work-study meeting so the agenda item was removed
moved from today's agenda and it will be discussed in the policy committee and
that has to do with the proposed changes for board policy FM local that relate to
Sunday's so that's now going to be discussed in committee which involves
mr. Redmond miss champagne and I and whoever else would like to be there from
the district staff thank you so you know where that's at thank you mr. president
My understanding for our process, procedure, policy, wherever it sits, is that something to be removed from the agenda must be removed by someone who asked it to be there.
Is that still the way it works?
Correct.
Okay.
So someone who added it on asked for it to come off and then for it to go and work with the policy committee.
Thank you for that clarification.
Thank you.
We'll move on to 10.2, recap a board member request information.
Madam Secretary, did we capture any requests from the board?
This is what I have. Mrs. Cosella wants a couple of things that are kind of in the same subject.
She wants to see the reports from the Title I schools, and she wants like an isolation of those schools too.
Do you want like previous years too on those two to kind of watch the report?
I think Ms. Martinez suggested previous years to see a trend.
okay and then did you want to know anything about the fourth grade the
Mississippi the fourth grade literacy rate that's an indicator that some
people watch it it's involved in miss what miss the state of Mississippi did
with literacy did you want to see the fourth grade literacy rate yeah that'd
be kind of cool if we have that I'm not sure what that's an indicator we track
I don't know so I don't I don't want to ask for something we don't try we just
track third grade according to HB 3 all right this is what she stated then she
also wants the high school profiles for previous years from 2019 to I guess last
year school year probably yes and also along with that I was wondering if we
We can, where is that link that I know we have that link?
What page is that link on with all the academic stats and stuff like that?
The one-pagers along with all the quarterly reports,
there's a quarterly reporting schedule that my team follows and does that.
And you may recall that my assistant, Ms. Alvarez,
has now put all of those reports in the board's share folder.
so that's where they live now so all those reports anything you need and
though then that way that's better than me just sending them then you got a dig
form later they're in yes through a different email and find those different
reports from different years they'll all be in there from every year as we start
dropping the campus profile that that one pager that goes out with transcripts
when kids applied no no that's something different I don't I don't think unless I
misunderstood what mrs hampton there's a link that there's a paschi i think it's a it's an academic
report that has links in it to all the sorts of data the board has requested over the years oh
okay i like that so that's where all of that is in there that's separate that's cool yes but there's
another link with all the academic you know this the all those 500 pages and stuff where is that
So the one pager that you just received, I believe last week perhaps, it has, I'm not looking, I had it up a minute ago, but it does have the STAAR scores are in there.
There is a prior year comparison.
The Title I campuses are identified in that report.
They're not pulled out separately, but they are identified in that report, and that's two years.
TELPAS is in there.
GT is in there.
Industry certifications, I believe, is in there.
They're about five or six.
This one that you just received is data rich.
So there are many, many pages.
Where is that?
It's in the one pager that Mrs. Alvarez sent out.
So you received multiple reports.
It sounds like Dr. G said that they're in a folder for the board.
Yeah, we no longer send them.
Like I used to put those in emails to you and say, here it is, the one pager, here it is.
And there were five or six reports in an email.
And then I think it was in July is when we changed.
And they're in your share folder.
the board's share folder all right but where where can that I thought there
was a link that the public could go to that link unless miss champagne if
you're talking about just data from the state the public can go to the Texas TEA
taper reports and they can look at any school district in there and those
reports are I don't know how many pages those are but that is a lot of data and
you can search for it by school year but that's what the public can see and
there's also Texas schools gov you can look up any campus lots and lots of data
any campus you want to be clear what I was asking for though is not anything we
were just discussing it's it's a campus profile correct we're on okay we understand the distinction
okay and there was just one and i hope it was obvious just to make sure we get it but we need
to update the board script okay for speakers thank you all right then we will have uh item 11 future
11. Future Meetings
meetings we'll have a work study meeting on november 17 2025 and there'll be a regular board
meeting on monday december 8 2025. the board will now re the board will now convene and close
12. Closed Meeting
Closed meeting is authorized under section 551.001 of the Texas Government Code for the following purposes.
Texas Government Code 551.0821 and 551.074.
It is necessary for everyone to please clear the room as the board will convene and close meeting in this room.
Thank you.
Time for a restroom.
One second.
I'm sorry.
13. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
The board will now reconvene in open meeting.
Meeting today is Monday, October 27, 2025, and the time is 10.04 p.m.
The board heard a level 3 DGBA grievance 25-006 pursuant to Katy Independent School District policy,
DGBA legal, and DGBA local regarding employee grievances in closed meeting.
In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code,
any action regarding this matter must be taken in open meeting.
Do I have a motion on the level 3 DGBA grievance?
Mr. President? Ms. Champaign? I move that the Board of Trustees denies the level 3
DGBA grievance and DGBA 25-006 thereby upholding the decision of the level 1
and level 2 hearing officer. Do I have a second? I'll second. All right and we will
now proceed to vote board. We have a motion to deny the level 3 DGBA
grievance and DGBA 25-006 thereby upholding the decision of level 1 and
level two hearing officer on your keypad will now proceed to vote
motion passes seven to zero there being no further business before the board
the meeting is adjourned and the time is 10 0 6 pm
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
The motions and votes for this meeting have not been recorded here yet. Whether any were taken is not stated either way. The agenda and the recording above are the primary sources.