Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this work-study meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District to order.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, November 17, 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.
- 0:01 to 0:26 1. Call to Order
- 0:26 to 1:17 2. Pledges of Allegiance
- 1:17 to 2:30 3. Recognitions
- 2:30 to 14:35 4. Public Comment
- 14:35 to 14:55 5. Closed Meeting
- 14:55 to 17:05 6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
- 17:05 to 1:56:23 7. Reports
- 1:56:23 to 1:58:22 8.1. Discuss and consider Board approval of the September 2025 Financial Reports.
- 1:58:22 to 2:01:33 8.2. Discuss and consider Board adoption of a Resolution to cast Katy Independent School District's votes for the Boards of Directors of Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, Harris Central Appraisal District and Waller County Appraisal District.
- 2:01:33 to 2:07:30 8.3. Discuss and consider Board approval of the November/December 2025 budget amendments.
- 2:07:30 to 2:08:23 8.4. Discuss and consider Board approval of the annual review of investment policies and strategies.
- 2:08:23 to 2:10:59 8.5. Discuss and consider future Board approval for the superintendent to form a naming advisory committee for the purpose of proposing a name for the North Transportation Center per Board Policy CW(LOCAL).
- 2:10:59 to 2:12:06 8.6. Discuss and consider Board approval for life safety and special systems upgrades at Seven Lakes High School, Rhoads Elementary School, and Franz Elementary School.
- 2:12:06 to 2:15:23 8.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of the delivery method update for an infrastructure project in the 2023 Bond.
- 2:15:23 to 2:15:58 8.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment One to the Anslow Bryant Construction, Ltd., contract related to the renovation and addition at Rodger and Ellen Beck Junior High School.
- 2:15:58 to 3:03:17 8.9 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of Policy Update 126.
- 3:03:17 to 3:43:45 8.10 Discuss and consider Board adoption of the Order calling for a regular election of the School Board Trustees to be held on May 2, 2026 and authorization of the Administration to provide official notice of the election as required by the Texas Election Code.
- 3:43:45 to 4:11:51 8.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of the annual course additions.
- 4:11:51 to 4:12:05 9. Consent Items
- 4:12:05 to 4:13:54 10. Information Items
- 4:13:54 to 4:14:08 11. Future Meetings
Full transcript
Automated transcript, not human verified. It is a way to find a passage, not a quotation.
1. Call to Order
Today is Monday, November 17, 2025, and the time is 5 p.m.
Dr. Gorgorski, 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.
2. Pledges of Allegiance
KDIC police officer Kayla Aldava will lead us in pledges of allegiance this evening.
Thank you.
Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening?
No scouts.
We'll now move on to Section 3, Recognitions.
3. Recognitions
We will recognize our new principal for Alexander Elementary School.
We'll let the presenter, Dr. Gorgorski.
Thank you, Mr. Redmond. So before I make the big announcement, which everyone in this room already knows, but I want to give a big thank you to our outgoing principal, Charmaine Hovind there, who has done a fantastic job for us.
And has made me all sorts of promises for the future on other things. But with that, we will introduce Jeanette Rodericks, who is going to take over for Charmaine. Jeanette, if you'd stand and be recognized.
Sounds like a little bit of support back there from some folks, and it looks like you brought
some people with you.
If you would please introduce who you brought with you there.
There's my husband, Andre, and a whole bunch of people from Alexander.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
thank you for coming out looking forward to it congratulations we'll now move to
4. Public Comment
the public comment section of our meeting tonight so at this time the
Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in
accordance with the KDI Steve board policy BED local as defined by board
policy speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday November 17th 2025 provided
their first and last name mailing address and list the number of specific
agenda items you intend to address designate whether you reside in KDIC and
if you have children in KDIC schools will be allowed to address the board
speakers that fail to sign up in advance with the required information will not
be called to speak at the outset of public comment about 5 p.m. speakers
that properly signed up in advance will be called forward individually and
allowed to address the board on posted agenda topics only speakers who signed
up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to speak and if
a speaker is not finished speaking at the end of their three minutes the audio
will turn off the board shall not tolerate disruption of the meeting by
members of the audience if at least after one warning of from the presiding
officer any person continues to disrupt the 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 ten copies
to the secretary for board services before the meeting begins for board
members the superintendent the chief communications officer and permanent
record if a speaker is not attempted to solve a matter administratively through
proper channels as stated in board policy the presiding officers designee
shall advise the speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate
policy and finally pursuant to Texas government code sections five five one
zero seven four and five five one zero eight two one the board will not permit
the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a
student and will not discuss the appointment employment evaluation
reassignment duties discipline or dismissal of a public officer or
employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee should a speaker wish to
address one of these issues they must do so through the appropriate local grievance policies
fng local dgba local cke local or gf local our speakers will be called forward in the order
they signed up to speak tonight our first speaker will be sean dolan followed by ann russi
And I'm asking the board to consider moving our trustee elections from May to November.
Right now, KDISD holds elections when turnout is extremely low.
A few thousand voters end up deciding who manages a multi-billion dollar school district.
With turnout this low, voting is dominated by those already on campus.
That favors incumbents and insider networks and it limits accountability.
A November election fixes that.
Turnout is several times higher and the electorate is far more representative.
Parents, taxpayers, and working families who are far less likely to show up in May.
I've heard concerns that November elections cost more and that's true.
But as history has shown, the greatest costs to this district come when leadership and community values fall out of sync.
This issue matters to me because it revealed how vulnerable low turnout elections are to behind the scenes influence.
When I ran for school board in 2018, I attended what I believed was a volunteer meeting at Katy High School.
No one was there, so I left.
Nine months later, long after the election, I discovered through a records request that KDISD police had opened a criminal trespassing investigation over that brief visit.
I was never contacted or questioned.
It had been quietly used as a whisper campaign to discredit my candidacy.
Tactics like that only work in elections run by the district itself.
That same year the information I published about the former superintendent's academic integrity issue, information that strengthened my credibility, was blocked by staff entirely.
The website I created to share the evidence was banned on district servers throughout the election.
All of that reinforced a simple truth. May elections concentrate power and concentrated power is easier to influence from the inside.
side. May elections favor the status quo. November elections favor democracy. I'm asking the board to
let the full community, not just a tiny fraction, choose its leaders. Let's bring real sunshine and
real transparency to this process and make these elections worthy of the community they serve.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Next is Ann Russey, followed by David Green.
Hi, my name is Ann Russi. I'm a mom to two KDISD students. Tonight, as you consider changes to EFB Local, I want you to keep a few things in mind.
First, local policies should reflect the needs and values of this community. The past two election cycles, voters made it clear restricting and removing library books is not a community priority.
District stakeholders who voted for most of you support students' rights to read, parents' rights to guide our own children, and the expertise of educators.
Tonight, you can steer the district away from book bans and censorship and toward honoring individual choice and intellectual freedom.
Second, every time this policy is revised, we are promised transparency that only obscene and harmful books will be removed,
that trustee concerns will be raised publicly through the established process, yet those promises are repeatedly broken.
Certain trustees and their friends, including a city council member's spouse and out-of-district activists,
have pressured the district to remove books they dislike through the internal review process.
By funneling lists of books through internal review rather than formal reconsideration by committee,
their demands are given more weight than those of KDISD parents.
I urge you to reject the administration's draft,
use the district's DOI status to opt out of the overly broad, cumbersome requirements of SB 13,
and return to the policies and practices used prior to 2021
when these baseless political attacks on our libraries started.
Or at the very least, adopt the non-SLAC TASB policy, which aligns with state laws.
Remove the unconstitutional gender fluidity ban,
eliminate unnecessary book fair restrictions and opt-ins,
require every complaint, whether from trustees, parents, or anyone,
one go through the formal reconsideration process so parents of enrolled students can have a voice
direct admin to stop targeting books challenged elsewhere and return to relying on professional
librarians to conduct ethical and objective reviews of their collections finally this
process requires more transparency as a mom whose children have lost access to library books because
of your actions i should not have to file public records requests or act as an investigative
journalists to find out which books have been restricted or removed and why. The district
already tracks this information, so please publish it. Remember, most district parents don't even
know that y'all have banned books like The Handmaid's Tale, Slaughterhouse-Five, and The
Bluest Eye because library books are not what keep us up at night. We worry about a lack of
public school funding. We worry about safety in our schools and classrooms, and we worry about
our kids learning how to read not what they're reading we are relying on you to begin to fix
what's been broken in our community over the past four years so please start tonight thank you
thank you next is david green followed by jesus niyata
hi everyone my name is david green i have worked in political campaigns for the last few years
and one of the things that I can honestly say is May elections are horrible.
Sorry about that, just kicked something.
So here's the deal, right?
We have our primary election, and then we have a runoff,
and then we have the May election here.
And I remember last year I had to go to the Steve Raddick Center
to vote for the HCAD runoff,
and then I had to go down the street and around the corner
to go to the local high school to vote for the trustees that we have up here.
and I'm like what's going on why I'm sorry not this past year but last year
right like that's crazy why are we making it harder for our parents our
teachers are recently you know 18 seniors why are we making harder for
them to have their voice be heard I mean we've got a hundred thousand students
here in Katy ISD and I mean we have not even a fifth of that number actually
coming out to vote that's crazy even if we have like I don't know you know a
quarter of the the you know let's say you know four to one ratio that's still
not what we're seeing here in the school board elections when it's in May so I
think a November election makes a lot of sense now I don't know if we can do it
seamlessly right now because at the end of the day we're looking at six months
seven months away I don't know if that works I don't have the answers y'all do
but I think you know at minimum we should absolutely be exploring and
looking into changing it from a May election to a November election because
then we could have more parents participate more teachers participate
more business owners who pay taxes participate more students getting
involved in participating I mean we've got a lot of clubs and we've got a lot
of engagement we've got a lot of activity and that's amazing but in order
to stay in a plus school district I think we need more participation so I
I would urge you to absolutely consider moving us to November.
If not this year, then maybe for next year.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Next, Jesus Nieto.
Good evening.
Good evening, trustees.
My name is Jesus Nieto.
I'm a resident in Katy ISD and I'm tired just like the rest of the community continuing
to have to come here and fight for students and teachers well-being.
I'm here today to speak for several students, teachers, and staff who are too afraid to
speak up due to the harsh mandates that our state government and state legislature has
put on us here locally and across the state.
I want to urge this board to reconsider the passage of these local policies
being promoted here today that have to do with gender fluidity because the path
that we choose today will shape not only the safety of our students but the
long-term reputation of the school district I want to remind two members of
this board that the past two elections have made it very clear that the
community members do not approve of these horrible policies that are being
proposed even if they might be supported by certain members on this board isn't
it the job the district and the trustees to include communities input in their
policy proposals seems to me that the current board or administrators writing
these policies are not taking any public consideration to these policy changes
and again I urge the board to be transparent with the public like a
previous commenter said let us know why we are continuing to push these horrible
decisions coming from the dais is there any brave trustee that will speak up I
think Katie is D deserves that at least and let's do better you know we have to
put our students first and we have to play our teachers and staff as well
thank you thank you this concludes the open forum portion of our meeting the
5. Closed Meeting
The Board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under Section 551.001 of the Texas Government Code for the following purposes.
Texas Government Code 551.071, 551.074, and 551.129.
6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
The Board will now reconvene in open meeting.
Today is Monday, November 17, 2025, and the time is 5.55 p.m.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's work study.
Each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Wednesday, November 12, 2025.
The board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and the superintendent on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to take action.
The board has just reconvened from closed meeting in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code.
Any actions arising from discussions in the closed meeting must be taken in open meeting.
We'll now look at item 6.1, consider board approval of a recommendation to rescind the resignation of contract employee Davidson Elementary School teacher Karen Stacey.
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees approve of a recommendation to rescind the resignation of contract employee Davidson Elementary School teacher Karen Stacey.
Second.
Second.
It is moved and seconded that the Board of Trustees approve of a recommendation to rescind the resignation of a contract employee, Davidson Elementary School teacher, Karen Stacey.
We will now proceed to vote.
Board members?
Mr. President, during this discussion moment, Dr. Gorgorski, this is not something that we traditionally see on action here.
There's a reason why it has to come before the board.
Can you explain that?
Yeah, board policy guides this process that if an employee resigns their position or offers
to resign it, and I go ahead and accept that resignation, if they change their mind, it
has to come back to the board for action.
So that's why it comes back to you.
But there's no issue to be spoken of there.
It just has to come to the board for action once we've accepted it.
Contract law, and we're glad she changed her mind, decided to stay.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
So we'll now proceed to vote. Board members please record your vote on the
screen via your keypad. The motion passes 7 to 0. We'll now move on to agenda item
7. Reports
7.1, Katy Independence School District 2025 demographic update.
I'm here tonight to welcome Chris Poole and Susan Cates with Population
and survey analysts. PASA has been working with KDISD since the early to mid-90s. They do a
fantastic job for us. Got a lot of great information for you guys tonight. So here we go.
Okay, thanks, Ted. Good evening, board members, Superintendent Grigorski.
We appreciate the opportunity to be here and talk about the enrollment in the district. I think we
have an awful lot to talk about tonight. I suspect you all are very interested, maybe a little more
than normal to hear some of the things that we have to say.
And so without further ado, we'll go ahead and get into it here.
This first slide is just a little bit of the faces that are actually everything, everybody
that goes into this project.
You normally see my face and, you know, over and over again for the last 20 or 30 years.
And so we normally have Susan or someone here with me.
But everybody that's in this photo actually does do work on the project over time.
So there are plenty of us around if anybody needs anything or has any questions.
The demographic study process is similar.
It has evolved over time, of course, when you've been doing something for that long.
We make tweaks and changes to it all of the time with technology or new opportunities
for information.
But generally, it has followed these sorts of steps.
We have to collect background data every single year, update all of the maps, get appraisal
district information.
The district geocodes the students.
They do a very good job of that.
and of course at this time we have a very lengthy list of where all of the students have been over
the last couple of decades we look at the ratios of students we have to analyze the alternative
educational opportunities that's such a big deal these days that's what we call them aeos
that would be private schools charter schools home schools micro schools all of these other
other things of course economy and housing is a major component here and then we generate
enrollment projections and go from there with planning for the future so we'll hit just a
couple of maps here that look at demographic trends you all have seen
these sorts of maps before this is a five-year look it ends with the fall of
24 data because that's the most recent data that we can get for the entire
state we look at the numeric change here and we've talked about this before about
how there's this growth ring around the Houston area the Houston metro and so
you can see the blue numbers there mean decline the red and maroon numbers mean
big change KDISD still ranks highest when you're talking about an actual
increase over the last five years in all of region four but lamar cisd is right there nipping at the
heels and so it's really close there and after this this year i would be surprised if they didn't
take over that first spot there when we're looking at percent change of course it's a lot harder for
a large district like this to grow at a high percentage and yet when you look at this katie
with 96 000 students it is by far the largest enrollment of all of these top districts that
are gaining such large percentages of students over the last five years.
Cleveland ISD, you know all of that growth that they've got going on there.
Lamar, Waller, but all of most of these are much smaller districts that are
growing at 20 and 30 percent with Katy there being number eight. So this is the
way the growth has looked. I know a lot of you either lived here or have been on
the board for a long time and understand that it has been grow, grow, grow, but
But over the last handful of years, it has been a little bit flatter.
And so we'll talk a little bit about some of the reasons that that is the case.
When we actually look at the plus and the minus here,
it's a little easier to see exactly what's been going on in the last handful of years.
This goes back to 2015.
And you can see in the middle there that 2020 dipped down for COVID.
You guys, this may be the largest increase in students in any district in the state during COVID.
it was still significant and it was a number that would be significant for so many districts.
It was just such a decline for you guys. And then after COVID, it was followed by two years of
really almost unprecedented growth. And we'll come back and talk about that here in a second.
But in 21 and 22, you guys topped 4,000 students. There was an awful lot going on. Of course,
the low interest rates that were post-COVID, but it was also just after the 2020 election.
And so that will be something that we'll talk about. It's tapered off over the last couple
of years we had anticipated some tapering off and had flattened that
growth out there's several reasons for that and then this year we are going to
see a decline in the student population so one of the things that is always
difficult for us to get out of course is the number of kindergarteners and this
is very very important for you guys and for so many of our clients because in a
lot of our for a lot of our clients the number of 12th graders that are leaving
are not being replaced by enough kindergartners and that is causing a net
decrease and so the kindergarten class is of course very important in all of
this analysis and what we can get at though is the number of births by zip
code of the birth mother and we do some data to try to make those zip codes with
population points match the boundaries of the district and everything there's
several things on this graph we do this all the time you guys have seen this if
you've seen this presentation before there's several things on this though
that I think personally are interesting so that dashed line is where we are
are today. So we've taken the births, we've adjusted them five years, and lined them up
with the kindergarten enrollment. So if you look just to the left of that dashed line, there's
several years that the kindergarten enrollment has been relatively, I'm sorry, the birth rate
has been relatively flat. And so that, of course, is impacting you guys over the last couple of
years. We've got on the right-hand side of that dashed line one more relatively flat year and
then an uptick. And so we would expect potentially the kindergarten to uptick a little bit in the
next handful of years. So in your particular situation and looking at this
graph that kindergarten enrollment that green line is on top of the birth rate
and so what that means is that you're getting students due to in migration in
these new homes you are getting new homes that are built when somebody moves
in with a three-year-old and so that means that that birth did not occur in
one of the zip codes in Katy ISD and so it's normally the case that that
kindergarten enrollment is on top of a graph like this of those births in
in districts that are growing rapidly due to in-migration.
Over time, as the district begins to build out,
those lines converge and that birth,
the kindergarten enrollment will actually drop
below the birth rate because not all of the babies
that are born attend KDISD or the public school in the area.
And so to me, when I look at this very last year,
the one that gets us, that little part of the line
that gets us from 2024 to 2025,
there was a substantial converging in that one year
because we have kindergarten students get a whole lot closer to the birth rate
and so the question is at what point in time how fast will they converge and at
what point in time does that kindergarten enrollment dip below the
birth rate and so these are all things that go into the data that we are
providing so this is an idea just region four and Texas and if you're paying
attention you'll notice that that kindergarten enrollment line the green
line here in both of those cases is below the birth rate and substantially
substantially below the birth rate in both of these situations.
And you'll also notice that for Region 4 and for Texas, the births and everything
and kindergarten enrollments are either flat or declining very clearly.
The next thing we're going to talk about is your past and your current students,
because when it really boils down to it, most of the kids you're going to have next year
are kids that you have this year.
But we have to understand what's going on with those kids because they don't have to stay.
And so we definitely look at this sort of a table every single year for all of our clients.
And you guys have seen this before too.
What this does is it shows for each year from 2016 to 2025, it color codes everything from a high in maroon to a low in navy.
It helps us understand the relative size of the cohorts from K to 8 and from 10 to 12.
We leave 9th grade out because there's always a bit of a bulge in there.
And so what you can see is that for years you all have had this large influx of kids that were in first, second, third, fourth grade starting in 2016 and are working their way through.
But a lot of our clients are seeing what you all are seeing here in 22, 23, 24, 25.
That red doesn't just drop on out.
It's very muddy in those numbers of years.
And I think we need another handful of years' worth of data.
but what we are surmising is that as everybody is being affected by these
alternative educational opportunities that we're talking about privates
charters etc that those students may leave in the earliest grades and they
may come back in at the high school levels and so these are the sorts of
things that we're watching and in our projections we have allowed the high
school years to maintain a heavier proportion they're assuming that
something like that is occurring and will continue to occur I mean when you
sit and you know think about a home school or something like that it's one
thing to teach you know basic second grade math at the kitchen table but
physics and pre-cal that's a different ballgame and then some of these private
schools and some of the charter schools they will stop at eighth grade and so
then the parents have to make a decision about where to put those kiddos so that
is something that's going on with you guys we are have allowed in the
projections that to maintain itself a little bit also at your current 10th and
11th grade are really large classes and so that is going to impact you guys
moving forward because we're going to be looking at almost 8,000 students that
will be graduating out in the next couple of years with each class and
presently they're only being replaced by about 5,200 kindergartners that are
coming in and so you can see that differential you got to build a lot of
houses to have that differential offset
this measures the ratios of students per home and we've talked about this over
and over again a lot of people I think probably assume that there are two kids
in every house and there may be but I have a home and I have two kids but
they're in college and so I my my zero student ratio would have to be factored
in with the kids across the house across the street that's got two kiddos in it
and so presently the single-family ratio for the district is a point six seven
now it ranges widely throughout the district from a zero to a one point five
six but the thing that is the most important to me when I look at that
number is how it changed this year and you can see we have a lot of data for
the district i mean we probably could go back past this 2013 um but for from 2013 to 2020 um
really 2023 or so there wasn't a lot of change over that very lengthy amount of time and that
ratio dropped from 0.70 to 0.67 this year and there's only one other district that i have seen
that dropped this year it dropped at 0.04 it dropped four one hundredths of a point in one
year's time and that was very substantial and you guys dropped that three one hundredths of a point
there in one year's time and so it's not we'll talk about the things that go into
that but several pieces are going into the fact that those students those
ratios of students per home are lower than they have been in the past and then
this slide may be to me when it's when we're looking at the data this may be
one of the most important slides that we have to talk about because we initially
you know every year we get data from the district they start sending at two
o'clock every single day I get an enrollment count from the district and
it rolled in on that first week and it's always you know opening test scores or
something how did we do this year on our projections and the first data that came
in just didn't make any sense and I thought well there's something wrong
there's something odd you know threw it away didn't pay that much attention to
it and the further I the further we got in the year it did not normalize and so
So I sat down one time to look at it very, very carefully.
And it was not that homes hadn't occupied.
And, you know, there were schools all over the district that were low.
And schools that shouldn't have been low.
You know, schools that haven't had a lot of housing up or down either way.
And so we had to start digging into it very carefully to try to understand what was going on.
And so we go through and we classify each one of the subdivisions as either active or existing.
And so when we pulled data for the students that are in the existing subdivisions, that's
what you see in that 23, 24, 25 table there on the left-hand side.
And so I've talked about kindergarten and 12th grade and how if you just look at the
total number of kids that are in there in 23 and the total number that are in there
in 24, you're going to see a decrease because you've had a bunch of kiddos leave at 12th
grade and not as many come in at kindergarten.
But that's not what we were looking at here.
We wanted to look cohort by cohort.
cohort. How did your first graders turn into second graders and how did your
second graders turn into third graders? So we really looked more like from K-11
and how did those kiddos become first through twelfth graders in the next year?
You've already got those kids in the district and how did they grow?
and so between 23 and 24 we had students in existing subdivisions that increased 769 at
the elementary level 403 at junior high and 42 at the high school level so with katie being such an
aspirational district there are existing homes that people moved into with kiddos that are
second graders or something like that but when we looked at that same data from 24 to 25 we told a
very different story and so that increase at the elementary school went from 769 down to 247
and then at the high school level there had been a bit of a gain from 23 to 24 and we had a 416
student decrease in those existing subdivisions so those were students that you guys had
in 24 that were no longer in those cohorts in 2025 and so we kept poking at it and then we looked at
the hispanic student population looking at immigration we're hearing all of these things
about immigration and everything that has been going on politically and when
we break that down for Hispanic student population in your existing subdivisions
there had been from 23 to 24 an increase of 453 kids and then from 24 to 25 we
saw a decrease of 294 students and so that's a swing if we go from plus to
minus of 747 kids at the Hispanic student population in existing homes so
So then we pulled back out and looked at Hispanic student population in all of the homes, whether they be active or existing.
And so the district had gained an average of 1,108 Hispanic students between 2016 and 2024.
And so you'd had this gain.
And for 2025, the number of Hispanic students enrolled in the district decreased by 876 students.
And so that was almost a 2,000-student swing, which is about the differential.
we had projected that the district would gain about 1,300 kids and instead they're going to lose about 800 students.
And we feel like an awful lot, the overwhelming majority of that, is due to the decline in the Hispanic student population.
And so we don't have immigration status in any of that.
We have no way to track where they've gone or anything like that.
We were just looking at the Hispanic student population as it was moving through.
And I mentioned on the table before, remember these two really large bars there that were in 2021 and 2022.
I said that we had 1,108 students that were gained average over that time period.
Those two years had 1,700 and 1,800 students more or less gained in those two years,
and those were by far the largest increases after the 2020 election.
And so now after the 2024 election, we were seeing this big decrease in turning point here in that student population.
So I know that's very deep and down into the weeds, but it's the sort of stuff that we had to get at to understand what was going on with the student enrollment.
And it's something that we're seeing everywhere.
Ted's been to a couple of conferences here recently.
They're seeing it nationwide.
An awful lot of our clients are seeing that sort of thing, too.
Of course, another thing that is impacting you guys is alternative educational opportunities.
I've mentioned them.
We've talked about them a lot.
You all know about an awful lot of them.
The map shows how heavily impacted the area is with charter schools in Navy and private schools there in the lighter blue.
We have somebody that contacts as many of these districts as we can.
We get charter school data from TEA, but of course it's lagged.
We won't get this year's data until about May.
And we don't know of any brand new ones that we know are turning dirt or going to build in the fall or something like that.
But we know of several that have been approved, but we don't know exactly where they're going to be.
And when they drop into the middle of the district, they will pull students from the district immediately.
So that's always something that we are going to have to watch.
This is a bar graph that shows over time how students have been leaving KDISD and how students have been coming into KDISD.
So that line at the bottom with the arrow is student transfers in, and we have a bar graph that is showing resident transfers out.
And so, of course, most of it is charter and a little bit to the other ISDs, and that's been relatively stable.
but the green is virtual schools and of course that percent increase of virtual
schools has been really really big because it started it so low but virtual
schools and you know if a student enrolls in a virtual school in another
state they don't even make it into the system and we never see that and so as
that comes on and there's more and more of a thing and I think that's definitely
going to be impacting the district when we sum all of it up for alternative
educational opportunities we find that the district is maintaining we think
I think about 93% enrolling, about 93% of the kiddos that are living in Katy ISD.
And everybody always asks me, well, how does that compare to everybody else?
And so I work for Frisco, kind of like Katy, and they have a whole lot of similarities
for the last couple of decades.
And Frisco right now, when I just finished a study for them, they were maintaining about
91% of their student population.
So it's similar.
You guys are a little higher.
But then the last time we did a study for Dallas ISD, for example, sort of on the other
end of the spectrum.
then they were enrolling we think around 70% of their student population because
they have so many losses to charters and to private schools so with that I'm
going to turn it over to Susan to talk a little bit about economy and then we'll
talk about projections here in a minute thanks Chris good evening as we jump
into our conversation about housing it's important that we touch just briefly on
a little bit of economy information because it does absolutely impact the
housing market we we've seen over the past couple of years stabilization of
interest rates and kind of stabilizing between six and seven percent you know a
few years back we were down below three percent we we got up close to eight but
we've kind of settled in between six and seven but inflation is still resistant
and the Fed has this goal of getting inflation below 2%.
They're not there yet, so they continue to drop that rate.
We've seen it drop five times since late 2024 for a total of 150 basis points,
and we're expecting more reductions,
but that's going to likely hinge on the labor market
that is showing some signs of softening with unemployment numbers creeping up.
All that being said, mortgage rates are showing some resistance in dipping below 6%.
6.25 is where we were last week.
Economists really think that we need to get that rate below 6% to reactivate the housing market.
And we can see why.
When you look at that chart that's up there, median price of a home in KDISD is $340,000.
And when you move from a 3% interest rate to a 7% interest rate, that makes a difference of about $500 a month in a family's budget.
And that's a significant amount of money.
And this is a significant contributor to falling sales in the district.
Sales year over year in August were down 18.5%.
percent. And then we're also seeing months of inventory, meaning houses remaining on the market
longer is moving up. We were down to about one, one and a half months of inventory. We're pushing
up to the number of six, which is a balanced market at 4.58 percent last month. And that's
going to impact home sales and prices. Just a quick refresher before I specifically talk about
the housing market in the district when we talk about land use zones you'll see
this throughout the rest of our presentation you'll see these land use
zones popping up these this is just a method that we have for breaking the
district up so that we can do a deep analysis on smaller portions of the
district and so you'll hear us referring to to land use zones no surprise
there's still a lot of development happening in Katy. The development community is still eager to
find developable tracks in your district. It's been a good market for the development community
for a long time now, but that is becoming increasingly difficult as most of the large
tracks of easily developed land are already in the pipeline. Katy gives us this great quadrant system
with the intersection of I-10 and the Grand Parkway.
And so you'll note from that the quadrant that is seeing the most development over the next 10 years
in terms of projected new occupancies is going to be in that northwest quadrant of the district.
I do want to point out that in this area, the green is subdivisions that are actively developing.
The blue shaded areas are ones that we actually have plans for, that there are some planning
documents in the pipeline for us to evaluate numbers.
There are a couple of manufactured housing communities in that area, Katie Meadows and
Vibe at Katie, and I expect that we are going to see an increase of manufactured housing
communities over the 10-year projection period as affordable workforce housing
we're seeing this trend across the state of Texas really across the nation and
it's important to bring this up because of how quickly those developments can
populate so once they have the infrastructure in they tend to populate
very quickly can have a large impact on the district tend to have very high
student ratio so you can get a lot of kiddos in a short amount of time on a
smaller amount of acreage here are the top five subdivisions in terms of
occupancies over the next ten years all of them in that Northwest quadrant we
have Grange Ellison Aniston Bridgeland and Sunterra Bridgeland has not yet
broken ground in in the district but it will be probably it will be this year
that they'll be turning dirt in Bridgeland and then Santeria within the
10-year projection period will be completely building out their property
that is within the district and they'll be moving to on to Royal ISD with their
property there it's important to note that while we are still seeing really
really significant numbers in terms of numbers of new homes being occupied.
This is now being offset with some of the things that Chris was talking about,
which is slowing regeneration in existing subdivisions.
And part of the reason is that these production home builders, for example,
Lenar in Anniston, can incentivize sales to keep those houses moving,
moving while an individual who owns a home in an existing subdivision has very little
wiggle room to reduce their price and get that home to sell.
So when we projected Anniston last year, we looked at economic factors, but we did not
take into account that Lennar was going to come in with $55,000 off the selling price
and buying down the interest to 3.99% and $6,000 toward closing costs and, oh my gosh,
we're going to throw in an appliance package too and it makes it more affordable for a young family
to to purchase a home and move into one of these subdivisions than it is to rent so we're seeing
those homes continue to sell and that is impacting sales in existing subdivisions so where you're
seeing that larger than 18 percent decline in sales it's in your existing subdivisions
so on this map this is a heat map of where the growth is happening over the 10-year period the
first map shows you the first five years of the period and then again the full 10-year period
period again all of the development is really focused on that Northwest Quadrant as we enter
the second half of the period we're really continuing to watch attractive land um zoo
king owns this is a Chinese uh conglomerate that owns about a thousand acres a little over a
thousand acres and they've owned that land since 2018. that could make a significant difference if
that land actually activates when they purchased the land they said they were
holding it for residential development but we have not been able to ascertain
when they are going to turn that loose but that's going to mean probably
another 5,000 homes in that far northwest quadrant when that cuts loose
and then touching on multifamily development the development community is
is definitely bullish on multifamily in the Katy area there are 13 properties
that are newly built and actively leasing those are shown in the dark
green dots on this map and then there are nine additional projects currently
in construction regionally most of these new construction multifamily properties
are tailored toward young professionals they have rich amenities luxury finishes
They tend to be in these mixed-use developments where they're walkable to entertainment sites and just not really tailored to a lifestyle of families with children.
but because Katy is an aspirational community and people want to get into
the district we are still seeing some students residing in these multifamily
properties and we are projecting over 1,700 new multifamily occupancies over
the 10-year period overall over 40,000 housing occupancies over the next decade
over the 10-year projection period 55% of those coming from traditional single
family subdivision homes we are accounting for some built rent and
manufactured homes totaling about 2% but I will say I would expect to see a shift
into some of the built rent type subdivisions and manufactured homes that
will pull some of those numbers out of single family and then again over 42% in
multifamily in summary over the 10-year period single-family residential in this
10-year period will be nearing build out again the possibility of growth in
manufactured housing communities multifamily continuing to grow but
perhaps cyclically we have when we look at multifamily it kind of ebbs and flows
because the interest rates truly impact the development community on these large-scale
commercial projects with their access to capital. Shifting enrollment dynamics with the price point
of homes in that northwest quadrant being lower than areas that are south of I-10, which is
attracting a younger family demographic into the northwest quadrant, and then the ability of the
the production home builders to keep their products selling which is
stifling some existing home sales net result being some gradual decline in
student ratios in your existing subdivisions and shifting of student
numbers across the district and with that I'm gonna hand it back to Chris
okay thanks Susan I will wrap up here with some slides about enrollment
projections because that's really always why we're here I'm going to talk about
kiddos. I think it's important for everybody to understand how we get to
the enrollment projections of course. So the first slide here is to look at
changes since the previous study and so these are things that we've hit on
already but this is looking at why were the enrollment projections
different from the kiddos that actually walked in the door in the fall. When we
counted the number of new homes that we had projected the new home counts
numbers were quite close. They were not always in the exact spot but though
because if Anniston is offering all of these amazing things and that pulls
students and new home purchase in one spot instead of another but the ratios
of students per home was lower than we had anticipated and so of course that
meant fewer students coming into some of those newer homes those small
kindergarten classes we keep flattening those kindergarten classes and they keep
coming in a little bit lower than we have anticipated and the lower they come
in with those large student classes that are exiting then that's more
differential and the harder it is for the new homes to balance that out and then of course the
intangible trends that of just different opportunities so much fluidity of where the
parents are choosing to send their kids to school micro schools you know little groups of parents
that are getting together and teaching schools in um you know some rental space somewhere and
someone's casita out by their pool or whatever they're doing at some of these smaller places
And then, of course, the decline in the Hispanic population was not something that we had anticipated
to occur this year.
We have, moving forward, anticipated a bit of that to continue for the next year.
We have expected that surely a lot of that decline has occurred.
We have allowed a little bit of that dampening to continue on.
This slide is just a bit of a summation of everything that goes into it.
I know back in the day, the projections for Katy ISD and for a lot of our clients, it
It was pretty much homes times ratio plus your current kids, and you end up with projections.
And yet there is so much else going on at this particular spot.
New housing construction is expected to yield, on average, around 2,000 students, a little less in some years, a little more in some years, for each year of the 10 years of the projection period.
But I've mentioned earlier that your 12th graders that are leaving are a couple of thousand students larger than your kindergartners that are coming in.
And so that's why this slowing in this differential here, you know, the kindergartners have dropped off more than we might have anticipated several years ago due to all of these sorts of things.
Birth rates, we have allowed some birth and then ultimately resulting kindergarten class sizes to uptake a little bit with those births over time.
We have looked at the aging of the student population, of course, and we've talked about that as that red bulge of kiddos worked their way through there.
Regeneration of established neighborhoods, we're just not seeing it.
We're not seeing enough homes moved and sold so that we're not getting a bunch of kids back in.
And even when older subdivisions regenerate, you never reach the number of students that you had when those homes were brand new.
Alternative educational opportunities, of course, and then we're always having to deal with economic drivers and things like interest rates.
And so when we look at what that does to the projections, you'll see they're relatively flat for the next couple of years.
years, and that's for a couple of things.
One, a little bit of continued Hispanic population decline.
Two, those couple of larger 12th grade classes, proportionately larger that we would be expecting
to leave, and then at least one more flat year of kindergarten enrollment before we
potentially see a little bit of an uptick there.
And so, you know, in years past, we had seen some of this coming in, but it is, of course,
it's something that is affecting all of our clients.
that is affecting basically every single school district in the state everybody is wondering we
even gave a talk at tacit has been it was entitled where have all the students gone this year
and so it's a question that all of the public schools are having right now so of course just
like always we have the data projected at the land use zone level and we'll be turning that over to
the district i'd hope to get that to them today it'll be early tomorrow morning for the district
to be using and this is what we use for long-range planning purposes for any rezoning we also of
course any map that you look at moving forward you have to be sure we were
talking about resident students or enrolled students because especially at
the elementary level you have a lot of bilingual program kids moving around and
so that's always something important to keep in mind and these next handful of
slides probably look about what you would expect because if you'll stop and
look at back at the the maps and they get back at the maps that Susan had
about the heat maps where all of the the growth was coming in the one that was
green and blue that showed new developments and things it's all there in that northwestern
quadrant more or less and so this shows the 2030 and 2035 projections by current attendance zone
these are resident kiddos so do realize that there are almost as many as you know 200 students moving
around in some places um and so you can see that now wolf is is red there because it's going to
gain some student population it has a very tiny capacity and it also loses some students due to
tool program so we'll have to deal with wolf they're having some excess students
but by and large of course the numbers are large in the northwestern quadrant
of the district most of the schools are either a thousand thirty or kind of in
that 1280 range the newer ones and so we're looking at young blood if we did
absolutely nothing else with it at 2200 almost 2300 kids in five years and 3500
kids at the end of the projection period the district does have one site they're
kind of in Santerra that can come on and start but that's not going to be enough
to handle 3,500 kiddos at the end of the day. Robertson is going to need some help
when Grange really gets going. Cross is going to be quite full. Faulton a little
bit, McIlwain a little bit, and Budney of course there at the top. And then when
they actually look at the percent of utilization that it looks very similar
but you can give you an idea that when we're looking at Youngblood it's 332
percent of capacity that its current attendance zone is expected that it
there could be three well utilized schools in that attendance zone by the
end of the projection period on the flip side on the southern portion of the
district we may very well see and are expecting to see some capacity space on
the other end of the district and so when we see that graph it shows the
overall projections we're seeing some uptick but the difference is here in
this case that the kiddos where they're going to live that's not necessarily
where we're going to have facility space.
And so the district is going to have to be looking at potentially rezoning in some areas,
potentially building new facilities in other areas,
and it's going to have to really balance that out to manage where those students are living.
So at the junior high and the high school level, you know, it's sort of the same song,
second and third verse there, of course.
It's a little easier to see when we have smaller numbers of attendance zones there.
They're Nelson, about 3,500 kids by the end of the projection period.
But Haskett, Katy, and Stockdick also would be at or well above their capacities of about 1,400 students.
Those that are in red are those that are projected to gain about 200 students over the 10-year time frame.
And similar to the elementary schools, it's that far northwest with Nelson and things that are going to need relief, of course.
There is space elsewhere in the district, but then we're talking about doing an awful lot of rezoning.
and then you also have to deal with transportation and getting students, if you do a massive
rezoning, then you also have to take that sort of thing into account as well.
And then at the high school level, we are looking at big numbers in Freeman.
I created a map here a little while back, that heat map that we've got that Susan showed.
Almost all of the developments on that heat map are either in the Katy or the Freeman
attendance zone.
And so it was really striking.
I knew that's what it would look like but it was still when it came off the printer
it was it was a little striking to see exactly what that concentration looks like in Freeman and
Also, we've gone through and we pulled we aged the students forward
But we've pulled the number of geocoded kids that are in each one of the high school attendance sense
And so especially in the south the second and third grade classes are just itty-tiny
Compared to the eighth and ninth and tenth grade classes and so those are going to move forward and select for Jordan two years ago
it was that their
their largest class was in sixth grade,
three years ago in the fall of 23.
And then it was in seventh grade, and now it's in eighth grade.
And so it is aging on through.
In a few years, the largest of those classes
will be moving out there in Jordan.
And so quite the reverse, though, happens in Freeman.
Its largest class is in the kindergarten level right now.
And so that happens when you've got growth occurring in the area.
And when I pulled that out, when it came off the printer again,
Again, it was like one of these schools is not like the other, and it was Freeman with those very high kindergarten numbers there in its attendance zone.
Same sort of thing here, very high levels of utilization in the northwest with a little bit more space in the south.
And so the district is going to have its work cut out for itself here in the next couple of years.
You guys are going to be busy.
So demographic key study, key findings, just a bit of a summary page here for everything we've talked about.
but this aging of the student population these big 12th grade classes that are
leaving still adding students due to housing but it's just being impacted in
other ways those those big numbers the birth rates kindergarten enrollment
those charter schools and everything and then of course immigration has heavily
impacted the enrollment here in the last 12 months or so so with that we will
open it up to questions thank you board questions I'm sure there's a bunch
I'll start I have a lot okay I thought you guys might so um so overall so so we had a budget I
asked a budget when we were forming our budget back in the summer before our fiscal year of
nine one I was asking about the enrollment numbers because we were down by about two
2,000 kids and I was concerned about that because we we base our budget on a certain projection of
Enrollment and I was told it would level out by
September 1st
And I'm correct correct me if I'm wrong you remember that
correct
Mr.. Smith sure yeah four months ago. We thought we had a very conservative enrollment projection, and then we open school and we're yeah
Uh-oh.
We normally gain a lot of students between the opening day of school and spring.
Labor Day, right?
Labor Day.
That didn't happen.
We gained it, but we didn't gain as much as we had in the past.
Right.
And we are indeed short.
We do typically go throughout the year.
In fact, we grew about 50 students in the last week.
We've got a long way to go.
Historically, we have peaked our enrollment either the last week in April or the first week in May.
we are just pretty far behind the eight ball now you know I think we'll grow
between now and April for May we're not gonna we're not gonna meet that
projection okay so I'm sure y'all are looking at that I mean that's at least
if you just take the basic allotment times 1700 kids that's about 11 million
10 million deficit of our funds from the state okay sure you're all over that so
So overall, what I'm hearing, some takeaways for me, and please correct me if I'm wrong,
93% of our kids that reside within KDISD are enrolling in our district, which is a very
high number, a very good number as compared to similar districts.
Right, so that's why I gave the number for Frisco ISD, amazing district, but they're
enrolling about 91% of their students.
some of it depends on whether or not there are other alternative educational opportunities.
You know, some of our districts that are rural that don't have charter schools and a lot of private schools,
they're going to enroll 97 or 98 percent of their students because there are fewer opportunities to go someplace else.
But, yes, 93 percent is, I think, quite a strong number.
number. Okay. And the other, speaking of charters and private schools, from what I could tell,
I realize that can always be a factor, but it's extremely low here in KDISD. There was only a
0.1% change from last year to this year. Right. Is that what you're reporting? So I'd have to go
back and look at the numbers, but there wasn't a big influx of, you know, three new charter schools
that opened and had 800 kids in them a piece or something like that and so in
knowing that when we were trying to dig down to what was different this year
that was one of the first things we looked at it are there new ones that we
you know didn't know about that opened up or something like that and the answer
was no we didn't see any of those that's why we started digging further on into
the Hispanic student population right so I think it's important to state at least
for now vouchers private schools school choice did not affect that's not the dip
dip we're seeing. The dip we're seeing is what I'm hearing is immigration change and the border.
That is an awful lot of it. Now, the fact that your kindergarten enrollment remains really low
tells me that the fact that you have the charters available and private schools and homeschool and
micro school and all of these virtual things and everything else that is available, that is in any
given year potentially taking students out that we don't ever even see. And so when I showed
showed that
that maroon and navy series of bars, nine of those ten years, the smallest class was
the kindergarten class. And so, yes, we didn't have a big change, a big something that pulled
out a thousand students right now, but of course you guys are being impacted by that
every single day. But the bigger impact, correct me if I'm wrong, and I heard it maybe two
or three times throughout your presentation, was immigration. Yeah, this year, absolutely.
As far as the wrong number of kids. Yes as far as the chat are not enrolled here
Right that could explain that big deficit of enrollment that we have and the reason why I'm making the point here is I don't want
To see it again. Well, I want to see them reject well and
consider immigration law
Current immigration law so that we don't have to deal with that deficit again, right?
Thank you, mr. President the champagne all right ever thank you so much for your presentation every year
I say this with knowing that you your company cannot do anything about this I
just want to everyone to know this I realize that the kindergarten levels are
low and now since we do have you know not just now but we've always had
competition of you know you guys a competition or school choice and there's
a lot of other alternative things I believe that we should try to do a
better job at promoting our kindergarten classes and I'm just going to give you
an example I say this every year but when my son started kindergarten you
know umpteen years ago I found out about it from the Mother's Day out program that
my child was going to and there was a big flyer and you know there's gonna be
a kindergarten roundup in April it was all very exciting and we went to Creech
Elementary and actually Rebecca Fox was the president of PTA then and but I mean
there was balloons and there was games and it was a big party and every kid got an ice cream
and i just think that i don't know if we're still doing that or not but if we're not that that needs
to be a thing that we get back and to try to inspire our moms and dads of four-year-olds and
older five-year-olds to go to our schools and it's i mean if that if they didn't if i wouldn't have
gotten that flyer that day at my mother's day out program I
wouldn't have known I mean I wouldn't I obviously knew my child was going to go to
kindergarten but I wouldn't have known that there was a kindergarten roundup
that I could go to in April that's one thing the other thing is I was going to
ask you to look at page 12 what I think is so interesting on this page is if you
look at and I'm sure you have looked at this in your field you're probably very
interested in this if you look at the kindergarten class in 2016 2017 and you
and you look at its 5192 but then you go all the way down to when that that child
should those kids should be in ninth grade that same class is showing 8049 so
but that's not just that year if you could go down through every one of those
kindergarten classes and project down and see that every year that grade level
increases in enrollment all those new homes that the tens of thousands of
homes but I also wonder because kindergarten is still not a required
required grade in Texas so I always wonder if there's some kids out there
who are going to some other form of school in kindergarten and then are not
going to school at all and then coming in in first grade during the first and
second grade sure we have to pay attention always to how your
kindergarten student your kindergarten class moves to first grade in first
grade to second grade because especially at the kindergarten level there can be
schools like a church school that is a pre-k that also has kindergarten
enrollment and so if that's very widespread in a particular district then
that ratio of kids how they move from kindergarten to first grade is always
going to be a lot larger. So I just I just want I just want I don't know what
we're doing at our elementary levels if our elementary principals and our
kindergarten teams are trying to promote kindergarten or not so I guess this is
something I guess I would want to know as a as a core member well then we write
that down it's something and the first time I heard marketing from a school
school district was probably four or five years ago from a district kind of in this
general neck of the woods.
And now I hear it about four times a day from all of our clients, it seems like, because
that is such a thing that all of our clients are looking at doing is trying to be sure,
especially in the age of social media and everything else, that everybody understands
the amazing things that the district is doing.
And that's another reason that I have to wonder about students coming back in at the
high school levels for example because that's a much more visible easier to see
sort of a thing when you've got a state marking competition right I got it you
know a highly regarded football program or something like that so yes marketing
of course is is really on everybody's lips because if you're if you're a
parent of a child that in this is your first child then you're right you don't
know how great Katie is I mean maybe that's not why you moved to Katie you
now maybe you move to katie because someone's job is near katie or in katie so i do think that
if we're not already doing it that we should do a better job or more of a job or even if we are
doing what we think is a good job we could always be better at it you know promoting our own selves
at that and the other last question just interesting why is wolf elementary growing so much
um some of it is the fact that it pops up as red there's some things going along on highway
six and all but we have to remember that their capacity is I think it's 405
students and so when it flashes red sometimes it's that it is over capacity
of a very low capacity to start with and so that's that's some of it they're
projected to grow but it is some things that are going along on down the highway
there and but it's not like you know some of the things in the northwest I
think it's definitely one of those things that we can deal with along the
away with an ABM.
And that's all I have.
Thank you very much.
I have a couple questions.
Let's go.
We were actually talking about some of this demographic data and the trends that we're
seeing in our last finance meeting that just took place last week.
And one of the things that we did quantify percentage-wise was our Hispanic population
was down, I believe, Mr. Smith, correct me if I'm wrong, we came to the number 6.5 percent
of the Hispanic population decrease.
Am I correct in remembering that, Mrs. Teamee?
You can back me up if I heard that correctly during that meeting.
Mr. Smith, if I got that number incorrect or correct.
I think you got it correct.
I think I got it incorrect.
I think it was like that earlier and it rebounded some.
I don't think it's quite that big a dip.
Okay.
I'm looking at Mr. Hines.
He may know.
It wasn't quite as big as 6.5% at one point,
but sometimes, and you'll find out later tonight,
and a number will stick in my head and uh but we're seeing a fluctuation around that number um
okay so when we look at this and i thought that was really interesting um here when we're looking
at that and to piggyback off of trustee Cuzela's comment based on what we're seeing because that
was one of the conclusions that we had kind of come to during that finance meeting as we asked
the question of why and why did we not see that projection out last year because we see we saw
the projections like you were saying did we anticipate a dip in enrollment last year no we
didn't and so one of the reasons why that we came to was there was no anticipation necessarily of
the administrative changes that we saw at the presidential level and i would assume i would
hope that we would all could assume that that is due to changing immigration laws stricter
enforcement of that and closing of the border.
What I find interesting about this is that, but then also I did read your PASA report,
and I found some really interesting data in here specifically towards homeschools.
And we're looking at the estimates between 500 and 620,000 students statewide.
And then the Pew Research reports give us percentages on why we're seeing such an increase
from going from public education into homeschool education.
And according to the Pew Research,
87 to 83% concerned about the school environment,
75% prefer to provide moral instruction,
72% desire to emphasize family life together,
72% another dissatisfied with academic instruction at other schools.
The other part of this research that I thought was really interesting
is the way that we were trying to figure out how many homeschoolers we have in this area
because we don't track that in Texas. We're one of the 20 states that does not track,
does not require that to track those students. And one of the interesting ways that they came
up with to track those students is geofencing. What I find curious about that is that maybe
maybe not everybody's familiar with geofencing.
So you're taking data that is pinging off of a cell phone
that is being used inside of a building,
and from that you're using that to aggregate that together
and then quantify that and say,
this is how many people are inside of that building at any one time
based on their usage of cell phones.
Am I correct?
Yes.
Yeah.
So when we look at that and we say, okay, well, for homeschoolers,
then we go and we track known homeschool co-op locations within our area.
And then we geofence data inside of that known homeschool area
to then figure out how many kids are in that building
or how many kids we're missing out on for that ADA
who have decided to decouple themselves from public education.
I kind of think that's an invasion of privacy a little bit.
you are going to a cohort of people who have intentionally decided to separate themselves
from a public government institution. And what we're doing is we're then going,
oh, not so fast. We know exactly where you're at. Just because you have that iPhone or that iPad
or even that Android doesn't really matter because you're pinging. There is no place that you can
can hide. What I find interesting is May 10th, I asked a question of 2024 of could we aggregate
data based on what would be illegal immigrant children to quantify how much it costs us to
then educate those children for this exact reason. And yet, instead of taking that seriously,
previously, I was crucified along Houston Public Media for two weeks. And yet now we find ourselves
in a deficit among Hispanic students, which we know, based on information that we've gathered,
we have a large illegal immigrant population that is largely Hispanic, that we can no longer
figure out how much money we would have been in a deficit for to then go and tell our legislators
legislators in this past legislative session hey this is how much money it's costing us to educate
these kids now we're out this money we need you to make it up to us I didn't say remove the kids
I didn't say to do anything I just said quantify the number we can't do it with those kids but we
can do it with American citizens through geofencing that's interesting that's wildly interesting
I find this data concerning one because it puts us in a deficit and two because
of it seems as if when we sit on this board and we continue to ignore what is
called anti traditional public school sentiment and we're ignoring these very
high percentages of why there is anti public school sentiment I think that it
It would behoove those on this board to take this research that I really enjoy reading,
looking at it, taking it seriously, and maybe asking ourselves some questions about what
we're presenting when we are marketing.
What are we presenting out to our public to entice them to give us their trust back?
I just think that this is really, really interesting.
So thank you for presenting the data.
I genuinely appreciate the hard work. I genuinely appreciate all of the information
Then enlightening, thank you
Mr.. President
Have one dangling question on slide 32 or is my number 32 slide
But it's the projected Thank You trustee Calhoun by the way appreciate your comments
on slide 32
the
The projected enrollment over a time frame, there's a graph.
Right.
And so I just looked at the 20 today, or this year, excuse me,
2025 to 2026, 95,260 enrollment.
That's a little high, but that's, or no, that's probably pretty good, actually.
I think that's good as of today.
Comparing that over the next 10 years, the forecasted number, 98,815,
So that's only roughly 3,500 kids.
So that is a projection of only 3,500 more kids over the next 10 years.
Over the 10 years, that's right.
Is that what you expect?
I mean, it seems low to me, but I don't know what kind of perspective I should have on that.
Is that low, high over a 10-year period?
It feels low because we've seen this crazy straight-up sort of path.
and some of that was because of that red bulge of students that was moving
through you had a lot of kiddos but at this point in time they're being
replaced by much smaller classes and so if we assume that in the future your K
through eight or K through nine or so classes look like that kindergarten size
and especially as the district begins to build out and you're not replacing them
with as many kids and the ratios of students that are coming into those
homes are lower then that is a countervailing sort of a thing that's
going on for the homes that are being built. Okay. Yes. So that's a for me that's
a good data point. 3,500 kids over 10 years. Right. Fairly low. For what you have
seen for plenty of districts they go oh my gosh 3,500 kids you know what are we
going to do about this but for you guys it's such a departure from what we had
seen in you know 10-15 years ago. Now the difficulty that I think you guys will
face is where the kids are where they are in relation to the facilities that
are you know being very heavily utilized today but over time that's going to
change a bit all right thank you and then I hate to I don't want to kill this
point too much but just trying to avoid this whole immigration swing and would
you I mean just pasta lesson learned or is there how do you account for new
administrations that deal with immigration differently because it
affected us quite right it's affecting everybody and i'm not sure that very
many people anywhere saw this sort of thing coming
um well trustee calhoun sort of when it comes to to trying to project what
that's going to be and then for us moving forward it was a question of how
much more of that is going to occur right do you model for that i guess
We modeled for about a bit, around half or so, to continue for next year and to drag on into the following year also.
But we don't have any way to get at that.
We can't know whether or not we think that everybody that felt that they were in danger of deportation or whatever has decided to leave.
We can't answer that question, has that ceased?
And we also can't answer in four years' time how that may turn around again.
Right.
Right. But important to remember.
Important to remember. It's important to continue to really pay attention to and continue to reevaluate the factors that are changing.
You know, my gosh, I've been hearing Katie for a long time, but it's also included Harvey and it's included COVID.
And now it's included this. And I'm kind of ready for some stability in this sort of thing again.
Thank you.
Mr. President, I'm sorry. I just have one. It's about the Hispanic vote.
I mean the enrollment so there's no absolute way we can know that that these
children aren't here there could be other factors for them not being in
school they could be afraid to that you know their parents could be afraid of
the possible deportation we have no way to know if they have left the district
or not right what we can tell you is that they're not enrolled in the
district right so they could come back so there's not an absolute way to know
that I mean maybe some have left maybe some have been deported maybe others are
just in their house being homeschooled because they're fearful of any of those
things are possible yes so we don't know so hopefully when things calm down
they'll come back the ones that are still here mr. president thank you thank
you for your presentation always so interesting and mrs. Cazale is correct
3,500 students over 10 years when many years it was more than 3,500 in a year
right so I remember the year we opened for elementaries to junior high and high
high school in one year remember those days crazy when we this is more for dr.
mercy when mrs. champagne is talking about marketing our incredible school
district I mean it speaks for itself it's why people are moving here but as
as the state has made it possible
for people to choose other options
and talked about that a lot,
I wonder if there's a way we could have
some sort of communication that talks about
how we outperform all other schools, right?
Our statistics prove that we outperform charter schools,
private schools, and all the things.
So when you're looking at the best option for children, obviously KDSD is superior in that regard.
So I'll just toss my idea along with Mrs. Champagne's.
How will virtual schools impact numbers?
When we open our virtual school next year, will those children be considered in the,
I mean, they don't require a seat or a building.
How do you compute those numbers?
We have not added students based on a virtual program.
And so that is something that we talked a little bit with the administration about how
to handle that.
And we decided to take sort of a wait and see approach on that to see what that did.
Because it's possible it actually will also enroll students who are presently in school,
in seats in the district that choose to do that sort of thing too.
And so I will say that overwhelmingly all of our clients are talking about virtual programs.
And so I think there's going to be a lot of back and forth.
I think a lot of people are going to share.
And of course, you know, having been here for a long, long time,
I feel like KDISD is going to be a, you know, bright spot there.
But I do think that there's going to be a lot of back and forth in those virtual programs.
I think that's wise to wait to see how that shakes out because we will have them shown as an enrolled student and we will get funding by that, but it certainly doesn't cause us to spend capital on buildings, so that's a positive as well.
as well. So as we talk about physical structures and you see the Freeman, Katy,
Paytoe areas with such huge numbers, it's, you know, it's just, that's a little bit
of heartburn, Dr. Gorgorski, like, well, we need a high school 10 and the difficulty with
that kind of 11, high school 11, thank you, Mr. Cross, I knew that, high school 11,
and I don't know how you get around it with this but I guess we'll look at
virtual options and all those things but then when I see the numbers of some of
our elementary schools that were so crowded they couldn't have any sort of
night for an entire fourth grade they'd have to split it in two nights because
everybody couldn't park there weren't enough room for parents to come and see
their children perform right and now you see those numbers dropping in the hundreds instead of
thousand or or 1500 and i'm looking at those saying wow never saw that coming either so you
know in the in the height of great growth it seems like how how will we manage and now as those
numbers are are changing i wonder will it repopulate as as they do right you see wolf gaining
and some of those others I'd have to look at them but all of those rates are
going to have to change before we see much of that and you never see as many
students as you had before no never that the height right never at the height and
so it varies wildly and we've tried to break it down into if your ratio right
now is a 1.1 because everything is you know some of the Cinco areas and all the
the Southwest they were that high. It would be so great if it we could very
confidently say that it's then going to level out at 0.6 but it varies so widely
what we have seen a lot of times very anecdotally is that it cuts almost in
half over time and in this situation I think the stagnation of the current
situation with housing is is definitely leading us down that path even more.
want which is economic right and so if those interest rates break loose and we
begin to see in some influx in to those areas then then those numbers may be a
little higher great so when we are talking about the BTR's the bill to rent
master planned communities funded by developers built by developers making
tons of money developers making tons of money by owning the homes and then
renting them and we see that students are very transient families are very transient in that
nature which is horrible for student success boys and girls who move to the next place with free
rent or 30 days rent if you move here and or if they move into a bill to rent and they can only
rent and never put roots down or take ownership into a community we from what i'm hearing from
principals they're seeing a lot of turnover of children in those regards
and so are like how I feel about bill to rents is probably pretty easy to tell
right now that's all about profit and nothing about student success in
schools it's not only in Katy it's an awful lot of it everywhere we've we've
classified it as a separate classification now and in the things we
we do because we have to and i feel the same about everywhere it is but do we see those coming
as rapidly as they were before it seemed like in your presentation that they weren't
like 0.5 percent or something right we aren't seeing uh just a huge increase in builder rents
but i in any single master plan community we are seeing build to rent come in as a component so
So Suntera came in and they add a couple of their phases that are build to rent.
With each of these, you know, I talked about the Kew King land, that 1,000 acres comes online.
I would expect to see a portion of that come online as build to rent.
And again, a lot of these master plan communities look at building kind of through the life cycle.
So they put multifamily in their master plan so they can capture that first stage of young professional.
Then they move into the build to rent, and then they expect them to be able to stay.
So that's kind of their mindset as you talk to the developers, is that they intend to build the lifestyle where somebody could start their adult life and finish their adult life in a 55-plus community.
so we're seeing that lifecycle range but absolutely build a rent most of those
we're seeing them have 24 month lease cycles as opposed to you know
apartments you can sometimes get in under a year so we have just slightly
more stability in the builder rent but absolutely you are going to see
transition of students and less continuity for the students life or
or education life.
Did you see in any of your gathering of data,
I had a principal tell me that everybody was coming
and registering and they were all from,
might be wrong about this, but let's say the Atlanta area.
And like they're all coming and it's like,
what brought you here?
And it's like, oh, they're advertising everywhere.
This development, come here, three months free rent,
they'll help you move, they give you money
to help you move across the country,
and they were all coming from similar area did you see that sort of not I've
not specifically seen that that does not surprise me all that would be the case
and in in Frisco specifically have seen advertising outside of the country for
specific subdivisions and so we we had entire subdivisions that populated with
with families from the Indian subcontinent
because the developers had specifically advertised there.
So it absolutely is something that developers do
is they target a certain area that might be...
We did see that in the past
when Detroit was having some issues.
There was a lot of advertising in Detroit,
and we saw an influx of people moving into Texas
from the Detroit area.
And that could maybe be it.
I can't remember exactly where it was,
but I was like, they were just surprised
that every time they came,
they had just moved from the same city.
So interesting.
Okay, when we were seeing,
I'm almost finished, I promise.
When we were seeing last year,
one in three new students were emergent bilingual.
And those numbers were climbing so quickly.
and we were powering up to be able to serve these students everywhere they
were and then to see that decline happen so quickly I think it was you know
caught us all just a little bit flat-footed in that regard and so being
able to serve all children it was you know that was one of the things our
statistics have changed a lot in our economically disadvantaged all of those
things and now maybe a correction here is what we're looking at and I
appreciate you looking at everything and helping us through that and I'm gonna
skip this last thing on my list thank you so much president Redmond I have
another question on the economic side of that I was curious on what your
projections are looking like or what your anticipation is what you're
considering when the new presidential administration is looking at 50-year
mortgages this is another thing that we talked about in our finance meeting is
what is the potential impact of that where in New York you have a Democratic
Socialist I believe is what he called himself who has just elected to the
mayorship there so they're gonna see how socialism works out I anticipate that
there is going to be another resurgence of people running from the East Coast
into Texas and states like
Texas because socialism doesn't work. But besides that, do you anticipate seeing that with those
50-year mortgages potentially coming on board or these new ideas being floated of how to not
necessarily impact? I get it that we want to impact student learning and that's where our
focus needs to be. But when you're trying to sell homes and when we're trying to look at economic
development, we're looking for what Americans are crying out for, which is affordability.
that's going to take precedence on whether or not you can actually afford
the house over whether or not you like the school district can I provide for my
child to give them a roof over their head so when we look at what they're
floating right now what does that anticipation look like from your end so
both from the state and federal level we are seeing a significant attention being
being paid to workforce housing, affordable housing, not subsidized housing, not low-income
housing, but workforce housing, the housing that your average two-income family can afford
to put a roof over their head.
And we are seeing out of the Texas legislature this year a whole slew of legislation that
is going to impact development across across the state one of those being manufactured homes
and the the regulations that the legislature changed in in regards to manufactured housing
is going to show a significant uptick that's why we are honing in on that the the 50-year mortgage
is absolutely going to make homes home ownership more accessible to lower income families what does
that mean to your school district well it means you're you it's going to keep the market moving
so as long as you have land developers are going to keep building homes in that workforce housing
type that we're seeing strongly in the northwest quadrant and you are likely to have students
entering that have financial needs so that that is something to be paying attention to as a school
district you're going to have lower income families moving into homes that
causes some challenges for your district and you have to be aware of that as part
of your planning so when we're looking at I'm glad that you mentioned the zoo
king Chinese conglomerate that has owned that thousand acres since 2018 so
they've been holding on to that investment for close to ten years now
awaiting the opportunity and Katie wasn't a bad place to put that investment now the Texas
legislature has talked about before banning Chinese conglomerate ownership of Texas land
whether or not they make good on that depends on who's running for what office at that time and
with the hope or with the concern there being of that exact thing not that you want to disenfranchise
anyone who is at a lower economic status, but we have to question what does that do to the
district? And we have to ask that question with just cause, because we can see that, you know,
if we're opening up a brand new school and we're automatically setting that as a Title I school
on the onset, what challenges come with that for a number of reasons, not just from a financial,
there's more need that goes into that school that we have to then pour into from an economic
standpoint but what does that do to the social structure of that neighborhood
how are we building those kids up in order for them to actually have the
education that we're marketing that we're giving all of these things going
in to one thing make a difference again I think that that's really predicated
upon who's running for what office and what promises they make in the campaign
now I just again I wanted to see again what that anticipation was of what that
that looks like. But I think that's a good point that you brought up, which is what I'm trying to
piggyback off of, of what does that do for us that we have to anticipate when you open up those
subdivisions and housing developments like that? What do we have to prepare for? Which is why you
have to have that answer. Similar to the immigration questions, you have to know what
those deficits are going to look like so that you can properly plan for them. It's not a tool to use
to try to be racist or to try to cut anybody out but you have to know where
your gaps are gonna be so that you can hold those who are paying you such as
the legislature or the federal government accountable when there are
those gaps and say hey we anticipated this and this is what you need to be
giving us so that we can provide the best services to the community that we
have so that's kind of one of the things that I would like to I wanted to put out
out there when we go forward and when we're long-term planning we're looking
at this of what that looks like of what we're bringing into Katy this is what
we got a plan for whether we like it or not it's not really relevant what it is
is what we're being faced with and to go in to say well we just didn't know or
caught us flat-footed I don't really think we can say that given the
historical precedence that's being set right now so that's on this board not
necessarily on our demographers which provide us with all this information but
but for us to be tuned in enough to where we say, hey,
we're putting two and two together and it's equaling four.
Let's plan for that.
Mr. President?
I'm sorry.
Ms. Hammond.
Okay.
So I just want to piggyback off of what Ms. Calhoun was saying.
So I'm fully counting on the fact that KDIC is prepared to take care of Title I students.
And I kind of look at having more Title I students as more of an opportunity than, I guess I see it as more of a positive thing.
Because, you know, of the positive impact we can make on children's lives.
And thank God they're coming to Katy.
Because, you know, we can rise them up and educate them.
And, you know, one of those kids could become the President of the United States one day.
So I look at it as, that's awesome.
You know, I hope, you know, I hope all those kind of kids come to us, all kinds of kids come to us.
But that's not really what I was going to say, although I am happy to say that.
But, you know, a couple years ago when y'all were here, I kind of looked at it as like,
this is what I thought I heard you say one time.
When the houses were being built to be rented, it was more of that, the millennials, let's just say.
You know, I know millennials are getting older, and my son is actually a millennial at the tail end of it, and he'll be 29 in December.
But they are of this mindset.
It's not really so much about affordability as it is about commitment to something, because those houses, a lot of those are very expensive to rent.
You know, they're $2,500 a month to rent.
So it's not that they can't afford a lot of those younger people, younger than me, but a lot of those are parents, you know, and all that.
But it's not that they can't necessarily afford it.
They just, it's a supply and demand type thing.
This is what they want.
You know, they want the homes that they can move in and out of every two years.
And so I think that, and when you all said that a couple years ago, I thought that was really an interesting thing.
You said something about that, that that's just a trend right now.
And it could go back to, you know, the way we are.
But, you know, I'm not trying to say that our generation is better or anything like that.
But you never know these cyclical things that happen in our economy and what's going to happen.
But, no, I think that no matter what kind of children we get in our district,
we are well equipped to take care of them all.
So, we've got two or three scenarios.
The most likely scenario, which is the dotted line.
Then we've got the reduced scenario and the accelerated scenario.
What's the change from our most likely scenario to the reduced?
What are the assumptions that we could be watching for if those things start to happen?
More charter schools and private schools.
A much more robust sort of voucher program.
and a that that uptick in kindergarten that I saw may go right back down
because the entire region and state is declining and so those are the primary
things that we'll be watching for of course we'll get one more year of data
for birth birth data next year and so did it uptick or did it you know come
back down and charters and privates we are watching for that all of the time
and who knows what they're going to do with vouchers here in a couple of years
And so those are the things that we've tried to factor in to that if we really leave the kindergarten number alone and let the kindergarten sort of work its way through, then those numbers flatten out like that and go diving off.
I feel like this is the first time I've seen there's more area underneath that line.
There is more area underneath that line.
You're absolutely right.
So same question, but the accelerated scenario, what things would we see?
A more rapid turnaround in interest rates that allows more people to buy into some of the existing homes that are in the area.
The people that are like me with kids out of the house to sell and have somebody come in and keep families in those homes.
Some of those larger parcels of land going ahead and breaking loose.
and then a turn of some sort in the sort of fluidity of where else other people
where people are choosing to send their kids to school. If that turns a bit, if we have charter schools that begin to close and those sorts of things.
Thank you. I mean what I know about everybody in this room is when faced with
not that this is like pessimistic data but one thing we've prided ourselves on
One thing KDIC has prided itself on was as fast as we were growing,
that we were handling that growth well and building schools at the right pace and prepared.
And we were able to open a lot of schools and staff them with great staff and provide great education to kids.
And as I look at this, I'm kind of discouraged.
But what I do know is that the sooner we get this information and have it,
the sooner the smart people in this room can have a plan for when.
And because the idea that we continue to grow forever was, nobody ever thought that.
And so everybody, whether we wanted to admit it or not, this was coming.
The district would be built out.
And while we're not necessarily built out now, that what we thought might have been 10 years from now, now it looks like that's going to take a little bit longer.
and but so what I'm encouraged by is the sooner we have this information are able
to look at it the sooner we can make a plan to be wise stewards with what we're
given to run and I think there are an awful lot of factors at play right now
and several of them have converged all at one time the least of not not the
least of which by any means is that Hispanic student decrease you have those
large classes that I mentioned that are unusually large that will be exiting
those birth rates have not upticked the way they could have while you've added
all of these additional homes those birth rates have stayed lower and so
there are several things that have converged together and we have
anticipated some of that but not all of it especially with that Hispanic student population coming in.
So I think it would be very wise of the district to continue to really watch and keep tabs on it
because interest rate big interest rate swing a big immigration swing clearly in
a big charter school dropping in a large charter school dropping in the middle of
the district all of those can have pluses and minuses and they can do it
very very quickly and so i think that's going to be really important for you guys
to stay on top of that because that'll be a new piece of data
when when vouchers are actually given out this next year when they're giving
out or in a couple years when they're maybe changed
you know mr president just to piggyback on isn't the wild card
than the virtual school and are you are you gonna for i mean you must forecast a little bit because
you got slide 17 showing some sort of growth there what is that based on and and how are you guys
meeting meeting because that's the next that's how we need to forecast
are you are you asking indoor the district i'd like to know how are we going to wrap our hands
around because that's money in our pocket that right we need to grab so we
listen to you you know we hear about market trends etc but this is a whole
nother wildcard that I'm curious if you'll provide any forecasting are you
talking about the number of virtual kids that will come into the virtual program
enrolled kids people are gonna enroll that'll increase enrollment not not so
So we decided to not include projections for how many might come in.
And so because we don't know how many that's going to impact that are already here and that are enrolled
and how many that it might pull in from elsewhere outside.
Anecdotally from different clients, when they have open virtual programs,
and there's just been a few around here recently, or when they've opened enrollment,
when they've opened enrollment to districts from students in other districts,
districts. There have not been massive swings, but there have been virtual programs that
have existed in the state, Hallsville and several of these others, and those are rather
large programs that have drawn away from the district. And so it's difficult to understand
the pluses of how many students may come in and find KDI with these virtual programs are
superior. Are they allowed to do extracurriculars or do they love the fact that you teach German
and four or whatever those you know things may be at the end of the day and so we have opted for a
wait and see approach in that regard okay um dr gregorski do you do you have anything to say on
that like a way up did you hear that the way of uh understanding how to forecast our virtual
enrollment i know we're just beginning but we need to start i'd like to hear that yeah we've
We've done some informational webinars and it looks like Dr. Grooms has stepped out,
but she would know those numbers best of how many people have joined our informational
webinars so far.
That doesn't automatically mean they will join, but we will open up our applications
at the start of February and see what that enrollment looks like, which gives us plenty
of time.
Falls right in alignment with what we'll be doing district-wide when we take the data
from PASA.
We work internally with our technology team to look at all of this information together.
And that comes in with staffing and everything else we're doing as we just try to model all that data and see what it looks like.
That's a January, February time, so that's probably a better time to know what the virtual looks like.
But everybody I talk to who's doing virtual or knowing virtual, it's just a total unknown of who will sign up for that.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. President.
A couple more thoughts when I hear some of the discussion.
So both of our adult children have bought houses in the last two years.
Both couples were promised the interest rates are coming down.
Without doubt, those interest rates are coming down, and they never did.
So all the professionals, and probably I could talk to Mrs. Teamey
house especially first-time homebuyers and so there's no real crystal ball for
all the projections economic projections whoever's in government all the things
that are going to happen are not going to happen how rapidly they happen so for
any of us I think to sit at this day us and say we should have a crystal ball
and plan for and know exactly what's going to happen or that we should have
have known that this was going to happen.
Maybe just speaks to a bit of an experience from the dais,
maybe just younger in life years.
And to try to rewrite words spoken from the dais
that are recordable, and try to rewrite and say
that we were trying to quantify students when we talked,
I think the specific language was track illegal immigrants and so to rewrite
that is is a bit interesting those were my words so I'd love to defend them when
you go to dance when you get done no it's okay I'd love to defend them to you
when you get a chance I go home I heard you defend them when you said quantify
Hispanic students instead of the actual word I say that or did I say aggregate
the data was I talking about students as humans or was I talking about the data
Curious.
So, and so my question for you is when we say 500 to 600,000 homeschool students in
Texas, has that been kind of stable?
I remember I spoke with Dan Patrick one time and he said when we were talking about homeschool
students that out of the 5.5 million students, there were around 500,000 who were homeschooled
and that in 5.5 million students was a small percentage.
I'm not sure anybody really knows.
The data keeping in this is really atrocious.
I had a friend that pulled a child to homeschool him,
and so I really got with her and said,
what all did you have to do?
I wanted to understand the process for this purpose.
And she said, I had to say I was going to homeschool him,
and that's it.
and so the data is very very poor and it is not specific to this district or the
next neighboring district anywhere and so it may be that it's clustered heavily
in areas that don't have private and charter school and whereas it's lower
here and so it's there is no good data that we have found they're very
interested in geofencing we've been looking at
is that fascinating really the the the texas state demographer the only way he can get at a
ballpark estimate of that number is to take the census data from the state and number of school
age children and then subtract the number of enrolled students across the state and estimate
how many that are in private schools because private schools don't have to report that
that data as well so it to say that there's 550 to 600,000 homeschoolers it
is an estimate it at best an estimate even from the very best career
demographers that the state of Texas can buy great thank you so much so I'd love
to go ahead and defend what you were accusing me of trying to track actual
people that is not what I meant that is that is not what I said what I said over
a year ago what the question was asked was do we have a way of tracking that
data specific to the data I made no inference that you should track children
although we do track children we do track children in this district we
absolutely do that we get these demographic reports that are based on
human beings that are within our school district that we know where they move to
we know what our racial demographics are we know all of these things we know what
our socio-economic demographics are and demographic is a person is a family so
we absolutely track people we even have little chips inside of our cards that
track where our kids are at all times when they're inside of this district so
the gross misrepresentation that says that I somehow wanted to racially
profile and track illegal immigrant children is wrong, is patently false. Now, the Houston media
decided to run away with that and try to paint me out as a racist or some Nazi Gestapo person
trying to throw people in internment camps for some reason, which is not what I said.
What I actually said was we do need to have that data in order to better prepare
for financially for what could possibly be coming. So I don't understand why you
would then continue to i'm not finished i i don't understand why you would continue to
use i would to use that and to say that i somehow was trying to racially track children that could
not be further from the truth what i was looking for was a correlation of the data in order for us
to financially prepare i would like to stop the debate of this and move on i was accused of being
a racist so i think i have a right to defend myself are you being called in a race this
seeming you had a question afterwards yeah let's go who are you i'm done
miss simi um i just wanted to say miss dr grooms is back so we could maybe dr gregorski referenced
dr grooms i wasn't sure she had set up the webinars but i wasn't sure if she had the data
with her or if ms hack had that of how many people have signed up for it if we don't have it tonight
I can certainly get it to the board. I just don't know how many people signed up for those informational webinars
Okay
And the only thing you mentioned we tracked kids as they moved down our district
We don't have RFI make sure everybody knows we're not able to track our kids as they move throughout the schools
We do use them as they get on the bus or not, so we know where they're at
If they get on a bus we can track when they swipe it
but we don't have the ability to just be like pull up and you know like a parent with a phone
on like 360. Do they have do we know how to track our laptops? Do we have any tracking data within
our laptops to locate these laptops at all? I don't know about that but not every kid has a laptop.
Do we have a communications or information officer who could speak to that? Do we have
any way of tracking and I don't imagine that we do. I imagine that that's pretty expensive
like an iPad would have you can track like find my iPad or something but with
our laptops yes we do we have so each of our students within our school district
has a laptop right now not every student we have one-to-one for three to twelve
okay so one-to-one so for your third graders your twelfth graders if they
have a laptop then we can absolutely know where that laptop which would probably be with that
student throughout the day so we know where the laptop and the student is yeah we it's not active
tracking it's not tracking all the time but if the device is missing we can initiate a tracking on it
so we can track yes okay thank you we can why would we want to track i'm trying to understand
Why do we want this with this particular subject you would track to locate the device?
I didn't say I wanted to track the kids
We're already doing it
But what I said was is I wanted to know what the data was the way that you track demographers do they track data to?
See what is happening? I wasn't asserting that we should track children although we do because they all have devices
Dr. Gorka if
The device could be tracked if needed do we track children during the day?
No, there's not active tracking of students throughout the day.
We do know when a child gets on and off a bus, which is a portion of the students.
Not everyone takes transportation, but a portion of them do.
So we know through GPS if those students got on and off the bus.
It's a safety issue for that.
As far as the Chromebooks that are issued for grades 3, 2, 12, we can track the Chromebook
and find it when it's lost or stolen, and that's what we use it for generally is to
to locate it if it's lost or stolen or missing.
But it's not an active tracking to where we know where every kid is throughout the day.
I think there seems to be a misunderstanding of the word track.
We're conflating this word to mean that you are absolutely watching somebody move like on Life 360.
That's not what I tried to do.
What I asserted was that you should track the data.
All you're doing is watching data trends to know who's here and who's not.
This is not some wild conspiratorial idea.
This is what we do all of the time with all sorts of information.
And then to take that data, to base that data off of what we need financially,
what it's going to cost us, and then how to make up that cost when we're seeing a gap.
That's it.
It wasn't anything more than that.
But what information can you gain?
Just help me figure this out.
What information will you gain?
Well, it doesn't really matter at this point because we're not – I mean –
But why would you want to track someone's financial information?
I don't want to track their financial information.
I want to track how much money we spend to educate people because education is not free.
Although it's given for free in a public education standpoint, it's not free.
We don't have a $1.6 billion budget because education is somehow free.
It's not.
From this day as we've all said things that we wish we hadn't,
but I think your defensiveness is getting us a bit on track here.
No, when you call me a racist or you try to imply,
you give the implication that I made some racist claim
or that I wanted to track human beings, that's not it.
Do we have any more questions tonight for Pasa?
Nope.
Ms. Gates, Ms. Full, thank you very much.
we appreciate you all we'll now move on to discussion item 8.1 discuss and consider board
8.1. Discuss and consider Board approval of the September 2025 Financial Reports.
approval the september 2025 financial reports presenter jamie hines our assistant superintendent
of finance good evening president redmond dr trustees and dr gregorski you should have before
for you for September financial reports,
including our financial statements with our,
pardon me, with our expenses and our revenues,
as well as our fund balance for all of our major funds,
as well as our construction report, our tax report,
and a check register for the month of September.
There's not a lot to these financial statements or the financial reports.
We've only gone through September, which is only one month of our fiscal year.
I do want to point out on the financial statements on that first page, one month is only about
8.3% of the fiscal year.
And so everything is down below that in terms of our sub-objects, except for our supplies
and materials and that's at 9%.
And just, this is something that happens every year
and we bring it up every year so you're probably,
you'll remember it but that goes back to function 53
or technology and the reason is in September,
we go ahead and fulfill all of our annual software contracts.
We do all those at the same time and so then
that percentage will go down over the month.
So that's a very normal piece of the process.
But other than that, there isn't a lot going on
with these financial statements, but I'd be glad to answer any questions.
Any questions, Board?
No questions. We'll move on to 8.2.
8.2. Discuss and consider Board adoption of a Resolution to cast Katy Independent School District's votes for the Boards of Directors of Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, Harris Central Appraisal District and Waller County Appraisal District.
Discuss and consider Board adoption of a resolution to cast
Katie Independent School District's votes for the Board of Directors
for Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, Harris Central Appraisal District,
and Waller County Appraisal District.
The same presenter, Mr. Hines.
So you have before you the election ballots.
for all three of our appraisal districts.
Just to go through a couple of the details,
for Fort Bend and Harris County,
there are two positions available.
They are four-year positions,
so those people who are elected will remain in office
as a director for four years.
Fort Bend, of those two that are available,
there are only two people running.
But for Harris, there are five positions,
positions, or five people who are running in the two positions available.
The number of votes for each of these is different depending on our percentage of the actual
appraisal district.
For Fort Bend, it's 184 votes.
For Harris, it's 58.
As we've talked about before, Waller County is a little bit different than those two.
So they actually have all of their board of directors voted on every two years.
So they have five positions available.
And there are actually eight people running, but one of those, I believe it's Jay Faucho, has withdrawn.
So there are seven people who are running for that particular position.
board of director position.
Bios for the candidates are all included,
all the bios that were provided by the cats.
Be glad to answer any questions.
Any questions, Fort?
Mr. President, I just wanted to comment,
and I don't know if everyone had time to review at all.
Thank you, Mr. Hines.
So for Fort Bend, there's two people, two positions.
uh here's county we got five candidates for two positions and i would just like to say once again
i favor candidates who have a financial fluency um so i'm always a favor of that people who have
cpas and and run numbers for appraisal districts um just like mr bill frazier
and waller county i just wanted to comment that like you said there's seven candidates because
one was withdrawn for five positions and two of those candidates did not provide a bio so for me
i don't know them otherwise though they're out of running for me i don't know who they are
and just i wanted to alert the board of that and make sure they're looking at that um for next
time we meet in december and that personally i think there's some candidates that are
have financial acumen yeah those waller county candidates and some that may not so and i wanted
to provide that thank you comment thank you any other questions board comments
mr heinz next will be item 8.3 discussing considered board approval of the november
8.3. Discuss and consider Board approval of the November/December 2025 budget amendments.
december 2025 budget amendments ms esperanza rios our director of budget and treasury
Good evening, Board President Redmond, Board of Trustees, and Dr. Gagorski.
Tonight, for the general fund, we bring forth budget amendments, which are all direct functional offsets.
These functional offsets include travel, expenses, staff development, repair, salary alignment, and mileage.
The approval of these amendments will result in no impact to the general operating fund balance.
We also bring forward an amendment for the capital operating budget,
budget, which will amend the funding in the amount of $850,296 for an emergency generator
at the education support complex, which was discussed at the October board meeting.
The generator will be covered with the 2001 bond proposition A savings.
This will result in no change in the capital projects fund balance.
And I'd like to add something on that.
Ms. Rios mentioned the 2021 authorization.
At this meeting last month, I did mention that I was going to recommend it come from TERS funds, and I did mention that it was around a half a million dollars.
I misspoke on that.
It's more than a half a million dollars, obviously, and based on that amount, it was my recommendation to move it to the 2020-21A authorization, which is bond savings.
and so that's part of my misspeak that the amount and there is in reading this
mr. beer lean pointed out that it's not it says here that it's for the ESC and
the Merrill Center it's really just for the ESC the it's the only generator that
runs that this building not the Merrill Center there's two of them and we're
We're going to correct that between now and next month.
Thank you.
Any questions, board?
Mr. President.
Ms. Cuzela.
Thank you.
Thank you for clarifying the amount.
$850,000 sounded a whole lot more than what was talked about.
I couldn't remember who mentioned it.
I provided misinformation, and I'm sorry.
Okay.
That's okay.
So it wasn't like it was planned for $550,000, and now we're at $850,000.
It was just a misspeak, I guess.
It's a number that stuck in my head.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, that happens. You have a lot of numbers in your head. I respect that.
Why are we, though, not taking it out of TERS?
I mean, TERS, we have $17 million we're trying to spend down.
It's for the ESC. It's within TERS.
In my thinking on that, the TERS amount, there's no hurry to spend it down.
We could have it 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now.
that money can still be there it's but it's on needs for this lot if you will
between Katie the reason that I made the recommendation out because it was more
than I when I misspoke the 2021 proposition a is there's project savings
in there we've sold the bonds for those and we need to spend that money from
arbitrage reasons and this helps put those arbitrage reasons to find
something to spend it on and it does how allow us to have that teres money which
does not have a limit like like the bond funds do allows us a little bit more
time to make decisions in the future okay but initially you did recommend I
initially envisioned it coming out of the teres fund and after seeing the
amount now how I misspoke on that and I said hey might as well come out of bond
funds too because of the amount my my uh my recommendation channel yes so in essence you're
saying there's a there's a timeline around the project savings of the 2021 project a
uh but there's not a timeline on the teres yes there's a there's a there is a
arbitrage and a political timeline on spending bond funds on the teres we don't have to spend
and there's no time limit on it.
And there's a lot of things lined up that can be done with TERS monies
that if we spent it on a generator, something that we must have.
Some of the things like a roof on this building or whatever comes up,
the list that Mr. Fuchs and I spoke to last week, that's going to run out.
That's a big list.
Okay.
And that was something that we did talk about in the finance committee,
me myself and miss Calhoun and the more we talked about it and more it made
sense to move it away from the tours and go with the props because of your your
plan expenditure for the tours I'm assuming I don't know that list and that
amount yeah a big one that we talked about was just the fact that when we
have to reroute this building in the Merrill Center to not have to go for a
bond or people to pay for that keeping that available with the tourist money
was what's that Esther is there an estimate that we know that roof I'm aware of on the huge roofing
job it's just there's just those projects that we outlined in that meeting and and they are going to
be pricey there's no time limit on it but and then also in an emergency generator that was my
recommendation to move it to bond funds should have done that earlier and I'm I'm over to I'm
I'm over three on this one.
That's okay.
I'm sorry.
You're amazing.
I mean, no one's perfect.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Any other questions?
All right.
8.4. Discuss and consider Board approval of the annual review of investment policies and strategies.
Let's move on to item 8.4, discuss and consider board approval of the annual review of investment policies and strategies.
!
requirements your consideration of item 8.4 meets the requirements set forth in
the public and funds investment act any questions board no questions then we'll
8.5. Discuss and consider future Board approval for the superintendent to form a naming advisory committee for the purpose of proposing a name for the North Transportation Center per Board Policy CW(LOCAL).
move on to item 8.5 discuss and consider a future board approval for the
superintendent to form a naming advisory committee for the purpose of proposing a
name for the north transportation center per board policy cw local dr grimm's will you be presenting
on that or just present i can certainly provide information on this this is for the naming of the
transportation center the north transportation center that is a part of the bond 2021 program
And the item is to authorize the superintendent to form a committee to propose and to review name
Nominations and to propose a name for the board to consider
Any questions on that board
All right, mr. President could we could we for the public explain who is on that committee from the board
the naming committee
committee? As far as the board members, excuse me, the board members. Mr. President, before we do that, I wonder if it's wise to do that because then people will reach out and try to influence the people on the committee. Normally we didn't used to do that because when you name the board members before you do the action, people will call and try to influence when you're happy to have that report after it's meant. So people on the committee are generally
kept confidential until they release information.
I've done it in the past.
Just a thought.
They don't know the names though, right?
The public doesn't know the applications.
It's interesting though.
They would know if they submitted an application.
They would know if they submitted an application.
Sure, if they submitted it.
Right, right.
Okay.
Public is asking, so I just, I don't know if we should be able to tell them who's
on the committee if they ask right well do you have an opinion about that is it
a I don't know it's public information it's yeah I mean I understand I was
curious somebody had asked me today and I was like actually I don't remember the
third person and I'd so I just thought I'd ask thanks for the point okay
All right.
8.6. Discuss and consider Board approval for life safety and special systems upgrades at Seven Lakes High School, Rhoads Elementary School, and Franz Elementary School.
Then we'll move on to item 8.6,
discuss and consider board approval for the life safety system upgrade
at Seven Lakes High School, Rhodes Elementary School,
and Franz Elementary School.
Mr. Nathan Fuchs, Senior Executive Director of Operations.
Good evening, President Redman, board members, and Dr. Grigorski.
Tonight I have one item for your consideration.
As part of the 2023 bond for safety and security improvements,
improvements, we are recommending life safety system upgrades at Seven Lakes High School,
Rhodes Elementary School, and Franz Elementary School.
These upgrades include fire alarm systems, public address systems, master clock systems,
and emergency generators, with specific improvements varying by campus based on the life cycle
and condition of each system.
As these systems age or are phased out, sourcing replacement parts become increasingly difficult.
If approved, these campus projects are scheduled for the completion prior to the start of the
2026 2027 school year this time i'd be happy any questions to answer any questions you may have
any questions board
no questions we'll move on to item 8.7 thank you item 8.7 discuss and consider board approval of
8.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of the delivery method update for an infrastructure project in the 2023 Bond.
the delivery method update for an infrastructure project in the 2023 bond our presenter will be
miss lisa cassman executive director of facilities planning and construction
good evening president redmond trustees and dr gregorski i have the two items for you this
evening the first is requesting board approval for the delivery method for an electrical project at
the maid creek complex the electrical infrastructure for this project was constructed in 1982
and it's the responsibility of kdiisd to maintain and operate there have been various repairs made
over the last 40 years but recently there have been several significant items that need to be
addressed we've hired the services of an engineer and the scope of work would include transformer
and meter replacements which is a specialized trade that can be accomplished through the job
order contracting method any questions board mr president miss emmy um okay i just had a quick
question because I'm looking at the Maid Creek complex right and you know it says
on here that Maid Creek High School opened in 1980 but I was here and I
showed the year was from my recollection was 1984 I think it opened the same year
as the Maid Creek Elementary if I'm not if I'm correct if I remember right
Yeah.
So it makes sense because if the infrastructure,
electrical infrastructure was constructed in 1982,
we couldn't have the school open before that, right?
We could with a smaller amount of distribution.
So I can go back and check these dates for you.
Yeah, because I remember because I was at Taylor,
so I had students leave, and so I remember that.
But so I not that it matters, but I just was like I don't remember
1980 that's when the school the high school opened. I think it was 1984
Okay
Confirm is 1984. Yeah, it was okay. So now we're over for tonight
Well, no, I just saw when I was looking over the water for five so don't catch anything else
That's okay. It's okay. Hey, listen, I make mistakes all the time and I'm not sitting here saying oh y'all made this big mistake
I'm just like that didn't sound right to me, and I'm just trying to do my due diligence
So that's all that's all because I was just not understanding the electrical infrastructure
But now knowing that it's 1984 I feel a lot better so sorry about that
Mr.. President this box mrs. Timmy for someone who's here and always trying to remember the dates and trying to do that good job
I'm glad you knew
Mr.. President
Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. This agenda item is just though to define a new, what do you call it?
Delivery method. Correct. Not expense or project approval. No. We're going to see that later.
Yes. Assuming. Yes. No, you will. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, board?
Thank you. We'll now move on to item 8.8, discuss and consider board approval of amendment one to
8.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment One to the Anslow Bryant Construction, Ltd., contract related to the renovation and addition at Rodger and Ellen Beck Junior High School.
an anzal O'brien construction contract related to the renovation in addition
at Roger and Ellen Beck junior high this is a one GMP instead of two like we
typically do and this would be MEP and similar to what we're doing at Katie
junior high right now and the project did come in 2.3 million under budget any
Any questions, board?
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
8.9 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of Policy Update 126.
We'll now move on to item 8.9,
discuss and consider future board adoption
of policy update 126.
Our presenter will be Ms. Sherry Ashland,
our director of student affairs.
Good evening, President Redmond,
members of the board, Dr. Grigorski.
Today we have the first reading of update 126.
It was a little lengthy.
if you had a chance to scroll for quite a while.
This is really reactive to a lot of just legislative changes
from the 89th session.
And we did add four additional local policies
that were recommended by KDISD administration.
So if you have any questions,
I'm gonna try not to go oh and five,
and hopefully I'll have all the answers.
And if not, we've got a great team of other experts here.
you're ready questions yeah i got some mr president i started with you most of the
time so let me let miss uh champagne go
the champagne oh i'm sorry okay i'm so sorry
so i'm a little bit scattered here but what i'd like to first of all say is there are two
different attachments if people don't see it there's a what we see as number three local
adoption and then we have one of them is just the ones that the policy committee
kind of looked at if B and F a but then the other one is everything else but
included in there is EFB and FA and I just wanted if anyone else is looking at
this the the efb and the fa that's in the tasby one is not the one that we're going to adopt
it's not written the way that we have written it and we're going to adopt it so i'd like to
provide a little bit of clarification for anybody listening in or looking for attachments so we do
provide the legal policies for reference you know those are the changes for law you always want to
read those in concert together and there are two number threes you'll see the local changes from
tasby so everything has be recommended for a change and then the local changes that say kdisd
are the ones that our administration here our teams departments here have asked to make um
in addition to any tasby changes so for any of those local changes that are not necessarily
necessarily legislatively charged or something we're trying to get ahead of like um perhaps the
efb you'd be looking at the attachment for local kdisd so but when we vote on this next week
is this I mean next month is this going to be merged they'll all be approved yes yes so then
that way whatever is currently in the TASB one that the you know will be replaced by the one
that is the KD one yes the KDISD one so you can see what those break down like
who's recommending the language because they're different you know they're very
different and I wanted to point out something that is in ours which or the
FA one there are some things in there about social transitioning and things in
there but ours I just wanted to make sure that people are aware that well you
you know, we've said added some things in there that are not necessarily added into
the TASB one. And then also the, for EFB, I would love it if we could explain, because
a lot of people have questions about, because the board is now going to approve all the
of books, but there's a process before the books get here,
and there's an internal process.
And could you please tell the public what the process is?
They don't think that all of a sudden we're getting however
many books, and then that day we're going to approve them.
There's already something in place beforehand
that we're sort of relying on for the most part,
that we don't have to read 1,000 books.
Can you please explain that process?
The process for EFB?
The process that happens before we get the list.
I said I don't want to go 0 and 5, so I'm going to let Ms. Hack handle that one.
Yes, we do have a process, and we've had it in place for quite a while.
I can't remember exactly when we went up with the 30-day public review and comment dashboard,
and that's where the books, new book titles are put up for a month, 30 days, or 31 days.
prior to those new book titles being submitted those are new book titles that
librarians have reviewed those books and wish to add to the district's inventory
so they will read those books review those books make sure that they are
compliant when they submit the new book title they also do an internal what we
call internal review app and it vets that book and the questions whether it's
the Texas Penal Code requirements, whether it is all the state laws, any
board policies we have, things like that. So they vet that book, submit that book
title, and then it lives up there for 30 days for public review. So there is a
front process and they will even use our AI tool in advance to kind of do a
pre-search to see if there's any content that we may need to take a closer look
look at. And then there's certain categories of books in which tend to be the books that we
have had content that may not have been appropriate, and they will read those books
if they fall in those particular categories. So it's proved to be a pretty robust process.
Then the books will live up there for 30 days. We monitor for comments. If there are comments,
we will pull those books and then do another review before submitting that list. And then,
And then, of course, we have our library services coordinators that are also vetting those titles
while they're up there for 30 days.
All right.
Thank you.
And so a lot of, so what I'm hearing from a lot in the public is that it's going to
take a long time for, you know, change the, you know, vote no on it and all that.
But this is not something that we can necessarily vote no on.
This is a new protocol that's been called by our state legislature and that's the thing.
it's going to be a couple of months really when the librarian orders the book to when
we are actually going to see them on the shelves probably if you think for right now we have a
is it november so we have those books up november and we will pull them down on the last day of
november and then give that roster of books to you at the beginning of december so that you have the
time to review them if they are approved all the new book titles at the december board meeting
then they would be following the board meeting released to the librarians for purchase.
So, am I correct to say that from when a librarian orders a book, it could be about, I mean,
I know that this is new and so we're back logged right now, but going forward, it's
going to be a couple months between when they order the book and likely when they'll see
the book on the shelf.
It's been 30 plus days since they've submitted the new book title because it's got to live
there.
it's probably a couple weeks additional because the roster books will go to the
board for approval so maybe a three-week extension to that board meeting maybe
too much that's not anything that we we can control right okay so I just wanted
to make sure that the public understood that the delay in the books getting to
the shelves isn't necessarily a the board's decision or fault or whatever
It's a process that we are required to follow.
And then also, I wanted to point out a couple of other things I've heard.
Somebody had said that they were afraid that one board member could decide to pull a book.
But actually, I reread the policy that's been proposed, and it says one board member, I'm
not reading it right now but I'm paraphrasing that one board member can
ask for the book to be reviewed you know they have to get it onto the agenda but
it has one board member can ask for it to be reviewed but still it has to be a
vote not one board member can just pull a book off the shelf it would have to
come to vote by the board and the board can approve it or disapprove what the
board member thought is that's correct right so that's not just one board
member can do that and then the other thing is once the board the book has
been approved or not approved it's two years that stands for two years so like
if we if we approve a book to be you know let's say a book was pulled for
review and we approve it to be back onto the shelf then it that that decision
stands for two years and I think that's a good thing and that way we don't have to
keep doing it all the time I'm just pointing out things that are highlighted
and then the last thing I want to talk about is an FNG and that's kind of a big
change to you with the way grievances are and there's a lot in there and I
don't I won't paraphrase everything but I think a big change in it is that it's
going to be posted on the on the website and so we'll be the people will be able
to see parents will be able to more readily see how to go through the
process of filing a grievance is that correct I can go ahead and speak to that
yeah the new law of Miss Champaign does say that the for a formal FNG parent
complaint the forms have to be posted on the website and they are posted
currently on our website. They are currently on there? Yes. Okay. So that's
of September 1st? Yes. I mean that was that's new this year? New this year.
Correct. So that's that's a lot and then if you took the time to read the new
policy once it's been, I guess you can go to board docs and look at it, but there's
some other changes about the time limits and things like that and I think that
it's a more generous time frame that parents have to react to like an informal decision or level one
so that's a positive in my mind and the last one is about the meetings and i can't remember which
one this is but the meetings have to be now um only during times when it's more more convenient
for everybody, for the public to see.
And that, so we already do our regular and our work study meetings like that,
but this pertains more to our special meetings like our workshops and things
that we have typically done during the day, and those will be at night.
And I think that's, those are the highlights for me.
I just wanted to point those out.
I'm not, you didn't do anything wrong, I'm not correcting anything.
I'm just trying to highlight some major changes that I've become aware of.
And for the sake of transparency, the board meeting policy is BE, BE local.
Mr. President, I have a clarification question about something Mrs. Champagne brought up.
Thank you, Mrs. Cazale.
Excuse me.
EFB local does say, so help me understand it because it doesn't make sense to me exactly.
Exactly. The board must vote on the submitted and posted new library acquisitions at the first open board meeting after the materials have posted for 30 days.
Yes. Prior to the vote by the board on the approval of submitted and posted new library acquisitions,
any individual board member may request the board to review for removal any material on the new library material order list by notifying the superintendent and the board president.
the purchase of such materials identified shall be placed on hold that
doesn't clear yes be local I know they were an action it's a top of page six of
me on my so there there's um and no this is the KDSD one KDSD in 1914 oh I know
No, but it's.
You're not under local for adoption tab, are you?
Mm-hmm.
What do you want?
She's under the KDSD one.
My mistake.
That's okay.
No, that's quite all right.
So any board member may request the board to review,
but if the board says, no, we don't want to review it,
does that mean it doesn't have,
it just seems unclear to me if anyone can ask
asked to have something reviewed or I don't know what do you it's because that
can I please explain because I was in the policy committee and what it is is
because anybody anybody in the general population can ask for that to be
removed so not just board members in anybody reviewed I'm sorry reviews so
anybody can ask for it to be reviewed be reviewed and then when it's reviewed it
it will be removed.
So it didn't seem right for us to say,
anybody else in the population, just one person,
but the board member has to be two.
Isn't that what we?
Yes, and that's per SB 13.
So that's why it was changed.
All of that.
Thank you for the clarification, because as you were explaining
it, I was like, it didn't make sense.
sense I get it thank you okay thank you thank you I'm Ash horn it's a lot of
work all of you that worked on this you said and I'm not trying to dig a hole or
anything here but you said there are five local policy updates or I think
before because I count four not five no I don't want to go oh and five I know
that's the five policies it is very important to clarify something and then
And then FNG, or the, I think that's what she was quoting, that's only legal.
There were no local changes.
For FNG, there were local changes within the TASB.
They were TASB-recommended local changes, not KDISD-drafted changes.
So those also follow those legislative updates.
Those local updates are just aligning with different pieces from legislative updates.
For example, Ms. Champagne was referencing the timeline, so they've switched from business days to calendar days.
So with new law they had to go through our local policy as well to make those adjustments
It's in essence legal to our local. Yeah, okay, okay. Thank you, and then so now I have specific questions about
Just a few on EFB local I had asked in the policy committee meeting
On page eight and and miss champagne referenced it
That once the frequency of review
you the two years the two years of where that came from because it originally was one last year and
maybe the year prior and the year prior but now we've changed it to now it cannot be reviewed
again in two years that is part of the senate bill so i i did have ms hack's team i i had also
searched the word two and years and the way that it's written um and i don't have the language
right in front of me i'm happy to provide it before the regular board meeting i would like
I tried to find it.
But it was not easily searchable.
I tried to be independent, but a member of Ms. Hack's team was able to help me find it.
Okay.
I'd like to see that because it is, it's not in line with the EFA local.
That still says one year.
That seems funny to me.
I will triple check that for you.
She's right.
It did the EFA with the two years if it's removed, but EFA wasn't, there were no changes
to EFA.
That seems kind of dumb.
I think it's consistent and confusing, right?
If we have one year timeline in EFA before something can be reviewed again,
and now we're saying two years in EFB.
EFA is running a little different in different areas.
Do you think intentional that you know of?
Okay.
I'm not sure the intent.
I think it's just changed with the rest.
Okay.
Yeah, if you could send that to me, I'd sleep better.
Thank you.
And I liked the FA local, really proud of this policy.
And it just looks like all we did was change the labeling to mirror the SB 12 verbiage.
So now we're seeing social transitioning instead of gender fluidity.
That was the only change.
And then an addition at the beginning and end on, I don't need to mention it, but.
and then FDA local was something I wasn't expecting at all and that was
unlimited open enrollment I remember that being kind of dropped as a concept
I think when we were talking about Lexi high school so where did that come what
First, I need to understand what that really means by what's limited mean and where did
this come from?
I believe that it's going to be referencing to that legacy virtual high school in preparation.
So I'm going to have Dr. Craig on standby in the back and Ms. Hackett will help with
that as far as the transfer process to how we're going to be enrolling students and assigning
them in accordance with our vision.
So, okay, the way I read it was we are now going to be an open enrollment district.
There's a word limited, I don't know what that really means here, and that these students
can participate in extracurricular activities at the school that they're enrolling at.
They have to choose one when they apply, is how I read this.
When they apply, they have to apply.
And they'll be a choice.
They don't live within our district boundaries, to be clear, what we're talking about.
Ms. Cuzela, I may be able to help with that.
With Legacy Virtual High School and the goal of enrolling students and increasing our enrollment,
for them to enroll in Legacy Virtual and they live outside of the KDISD attendance zone,
we are referring to that as what we would call our extended attendance zone.
Districts that are around us that perhaps are still within driving distance, but we
we need to have a policy in place to allow students to transfer in,
even if it is legacy virtual high school to attend.
So this is the updated policy that, and we say limited enrollment.
It is for certain grades because we would only be opening it for legacy virtual,
9th, 10th, and 11th incoming.
So that would be somewhat limiting.
And then there, of course, would need to apply for an inter-district transfer.
There is some criteria to that as well.
Okay.
So this, it doesn't say that, but so our, I guess our application would be indicated
that it's only for high school and it's only for our legacy high school.
Right now it's for legacy virtual high school for incoming 9th, 10th, and 11th graders
that we are considering for them to apply for transfer into KDISD.
Okay.
So then jumping to extracurriculars, which is also part of this update, we're saying
it says limited open enrollment students which in this case means legacy may be
eligible to participate in extracurricular activities as outlined
by the the policy FM and that is something we are currently exploring but
it is pending but with legacy virtual high school open enrollment opening on
February 2nd we do want to make sure that we have this policy in place for
any students across the state of Texas that would want to enroll in the virtual
high school I have to ask where are they gonna play well right now they're not
going to play anywhere because there are some limitations right now with where we
stand with TEA and UIL but we are currently exploring that if that were
figured out is there any can you comment on that I can comment on that and I
might reference we started doing the ideas and planning for the legacy
virtual high school we talked a little bit about this and I will reference back
there is that's at that time I had provided all trustees with like a FAQ
okay with how the legacy was going to operate these were our draft FAQ here's
how this program works you might recall in that FAQ and you might want to maybe
revisit that piece where we talked about an extended attendance zone for kids to
to where a kid who joins the virtual high school from outside our district boundaries
would have the opportunity to choose a school in that extended attendance zone.
Now with that, that's our plan.
That's what we're examining and doing.
There are some new rules posted by UIL that would conflict with that plan,
and I provided the update to the board maybe a week or two weeks ago
of a letter that I had sent to the UIL just asking them to clarify that rule
and we're in dialogue right now trying to figure out how that rule may or may
not be in conflict with the changes in SB 569 virtual so this policy would give
us the flexibility that they may enroll should everything fall in that order
without the policy we don't currently take kids outside the district into our
school district right right right no thank you and i'm clarifying also the public who may be reading
this hey open enrollment yes uh so it's a little confusing if you just read this standalone yes
uh so and for my own clarification i appreciate that um thank you there also on um fda local
where is that talks about a um oh and under appeals appeals for these transfer agreements
What I just mentioned and maybe others are addressed to a student transfer committee.
Who is that?
Does that exist right now or is that a new?
It does not exist right now.
All of our transfers currently are students that reside in KDISD.
So if the transfer was revoked, they have another campus that they can attend.
With this type of transfer policy, when they're coming from out of district, either A, they
They may not be accepted for a transfer into KDISD or at some time they may have their
transfer revoked because they did not meet the requirements of the transfer.
There is an appeal committee.
We have not set that up as yet.
Okay.
It would be pretty standard to other school districts that are open enrollment.
And some districts are open enrollment where they designate which campuses are eligible
for out of district kids to attend.
Some school districts it's all campuses but that would not be the case here right now.
Okay, so this would be a new committee in the district?
Yes.
Specific to the open enrollment, limited open enrollment?
Limited open enrollment, yes.
Okay, thank you.
Mr. President, I may?
Ms. Coulthard?
So one of the things that I kind of had some of the same question
that Trustee Cosella had over the virtual academy enrollment
or virtual legacy enrollment,
enrollment. And I am looking over the letter that was sent right now. I'm a little confused
by it though because on point three it's referencing that a home school student can participate
in UIL programs in a school district in which the student does not reside, but under the
UIL's interpretation of SB 569, a virtual student who is enrolled as a full-time student
in that same district could not that is discriminatory i mean i agree with that the only
issue i have with that is that this board voted to not allow homeschool students to participate
in uil activities so if we then turn around and say but students who are full-time virtual academy
like virtual academy students can participate in uil activities i don't really understand that
because may I just one second the argument was is that the students would not be integrated into
the campus to be around the other kids to build that team mentality to be around each other but
these kids are full-time virtual students so they're not in person on a campus either so if
we turn around and say our legacy academy kids can come in but the homeschool kids whose parents
again making the argument still pay property taxes into a school district they don't get to
participate i just kind of think that's a backhand to our to the people who live here and pay property
taxes here so the the difference between the two types of students that you're describing
and the key word and all of that is enrolled. Right. Okay so remember that
piece of there when you enroll with us you're our student whether you're in
person or virtual for which the district can exercise significant decision-making
over that student when it comes to discipline when it comes to transfer
when it comes to all these things that go on that's different than a student
who is homeschooled who is not enrolled with the district.
I can appreciate that.
So that's the big difference between the two.
It has nothing to do with who's a taxpayer or anything like that,
but I understand the argument there.
The other part of this is if you are going to be in the virtual school
and you haven't, in our process that we have proposed,
if you are going to participate at one of our campuses in an extracurricular
activity for which we allow you to do, you would be on campus for those activities.
Right, but they would still, if a homeschool student was participating in a UIL activity,
they would be on campus for those activities as well, and they would still be under all of our
guidance from our coaches, our discipline management plan. I would imagine that there
would be a way that we would say, hey, if you want to participate, fine, then you have to sign
our discipline management plan, just like anybody who's enrolled, you're still subjected to the
the rules that we have. I mean, that's a, I mean, that's just a small asterisk that we could very
easily take care of. Sure. It's, it's a possibility to go down that route as you've described. Once
again, the difference is enrolled versus non-enrolled. Once again, we have a kid who is
unenrolled with us. They are not enrolled with us, but they come to our campus for an activity.
that's different than a child that's enrolled with us. I know that might not look different,
but it is different when you're enrolled with in the district. I understand that,
but with our taxpayer dollars that we do take in from property taxes, that does go to pay for our
M&O, right? That those taxpayer dollars go to pay for our maintenance and operations that we use to
run? Yes, all taxpayer dollars. All taxpayer dollars from everybody, regardless whether
whether you're homeschool, private school, enrolled or unenrolled,
those taxpayer dollars go to pay for our M&O,
our maintenance and operations portion of our budget.
So those parents are still paying into it.
Now, if a homeschooled student was to take, like, I don't know,
they were a part-time virtual academy student,
let's just say they wanted to take a science course or a history course,
they could do that, but would they then be eligible, or is it only full-time?
These would be full-time, fully enrolled students for which we're collecting the state ADA for those children, which is different.
And once again, I don't want to disparage the part about a taxpayer.
We appreciate all of our taxpayers.
But just because you're a taxpayer doesn't mean you're enrolled in the district.
I understand that.
I understand that they're not enrolled here, but they're still giving their money to support,
whether it is voluntary or not, because the taxes that we have discussed from this dais,
it is not a voluntary option.
You will go to jail if you do not pay your property taxes.
Make that all very, very clear, unless you are a 100% disabled veteran.
Otherwise, you have to pay your property taxes,
which then that property tax is then taken and given to our public school system until the legislature decides to do whatever they're gonna do with it,
which is completely up to them.
But having said that, under the system that we still have, those students are still then, if by this measure with our virtual academy,
those families are then, in my viewpoint,
still should be afforded the same opportunity to participate in UIL.
I don't I don't understand why they're not because you would still be paying into booster which would be separate
You would still be paying your property taxes. You would still be under the guidance of our discipline management plan and
You wouldn't be on campus which neither are the virtual academy kids
that just seems kind of
Strange to me mrs. T me you look like you have something
I think the difference there once again is in the board can certainly amend the board policies
There is a board policy that guides homeschool students being able to participate in extra correct play activities
Not debating the policy nor whether it's a good policy or a bad policy. I'm just
Explaining that there is a big difference between a student who's enrolled with us and one who's not enrolled with us now
You you state that they would have to follow the DMP and do all that
that maybe, maybe they would. I don't know. They're not enrolled with us. I can't exercise
any authority over a student who's not enrolled in our district. The Texas Education Code gives us
significant authority over children who are enrolled with us in our district for a variety
of things, not just discipline, but everything once they're enrolled. But would that not then
be on the board to set those parameters? I feel like that there was quite a bit of leeway that
the legislature gave independent school districts to say hey you can make this however you want to
to your homeschool family so because we voted this down i believe this was a 4-3 vote and that was
voted down to not allow homeschool students um but we could absolutely go and brainstorm this and
completely have make that an argument where if you want to participate you're welcome to
participate just like our virtual academy kids are you just have to sign this dmp that you're
going to abide by our discipline management plan and again does the mno go to pay i mean i mean
let's tease this out for those that are listening what all does our mno go to pay for i mean
our maintenance and operations does that not include our football fields and any of our
extracurricular activities separate aside from booster but maintenance of those fields
maintenance of those aquatic programs, maintenance of those volleyball courts.
I'm just, I'm trying to understand this.
Everything for which you just mentioned, payroll, fields, activities, referee fees, everything in there,
that is all part of our general operating fund.
So then your homeschool families are then paying into that, that which pays and provides the facilities,
and they pay bonds when they're passed, regardless of whether they vote for them or not,
that then go to build new schools, that then go to build new facilities,
that are then used in an extracurricular fashion, which is under UIL.
I think that this is going to be a hard argument if, in fact, that UIL comes back and says,
yes, we agree, you've made a good argument here.
here, how are we then as the Board going to say, but that does not apply to our homeschool
students?
Ms. D' Mr. President?
Ms. No.
Ms. Point of order, please.
Ms. D' This is not on the agenda.
This that we're talking about right now is not on the agenda.
Ms. D' Yes, it is.
Ms. D' I've made my argument.
If you don't want to talk about it, then that's fine, but this is on the agenda under our
update to the policy.
Ms. D' Mr. President?
Mr. Amy?
I appreciate that you want to be respectful of our taxpayers.
With all due respect, though, I feel like allowing our legacy students to be involved in extracurricular activities,
these are students outside of our district that don't pay property taxes.
We're allowing them to do it, but our homeschool families are paying for it, and we're not allowing them.
And I understand you're like, well, as a former teacher, there has to be some authority over these students.
I get that.
But you know what?
Lamar ISD they have superintendent of the year and they have board board
school board of the year they've won both of those awards this year and they
allow homeschool students into their UIL and their activities and so I don't
understand I feel like it's incredibly disrespectful to our taxpayers to say
someone that isn't going and isn't paying those taxes can come in because
they're getting a DA or they're bringing a DA in but our homeschoolers you're
gonna be punished because you don't give us your a DA that's what that's what the
public sentiment is and I think it's wrong I've grown up here I've lived here
all my life this is wrong and I it's very hypocritical and I'm very
disappointed in that and we can't we're smart we're smart Lamar ISD has figured
out how to have some authority over these students if we wanted to do it we
could we're smart people if i may respond i'm not judging taxpayers and i'm not making any comments
about taxpayers tonight let me be clear on that one this is not the any bit of an argument i'm
trying to make on taxpayers and what they can do but i will remind the board that the state of
texas has given the authority to this board of trustees to either adopt a policy for homeschool
school children to play or not to play.
It is not the superintendent's policy.
It's not a policy I wrote and gave you.
It's the board's authority to sit there and then what I feel is accuse me of not allowing
homeschoolers.
Guys, I didn't make that policy and I didn't vote on that policy.
So if the board would like that policy changed, let's change it.
All I'm doing is bringing forward a policy about our virtual school, and if the board doesn't support the policies I bring about virtual school, then just tell me those aren't good policies.
That's not how you want your virtual school to operate.
And I would respect that and say, okay, our virtual school will not operate that way we designed it because the board has authority over the policies.
Dr. Grogorski, I appreciate that clarification.
Hold on.
Let me finish.
Just let me finish.
The problem is there's four people on this board that want to do whatever you want to do,
and then there's three people on the board that just want to ask questions and want to do something differently.
That's the problem.
So, I mean, it's pretty obvious.
Everybody in this room knows it's true.
But it's just not wrong or bad to ask questions and to not rubber stamp everything.
thing and that that's a good thing let's keep our focus on the policy I did have
another clarification that I asked to mr. president let me come to you after
miss thank you mr. president first of all I so I wasn't gonna say this but now
I've been accused of rubber stamping but actually that you know I don't know if
you've paid attention to my history but I'm I'm not a rubber stamper I just don't
rubber stamp your ideas. So I'm not necessarily, okay. Focus on the policy.
Well everyone else has gone off on ten minute tangents and so I just wanted to
make a 30 second one. Also about the policy that they're they're saying is
when they moved here three years ago or two years ago, one year ago, they didn't
even know that this was a possibility. They chose to live here knowing that the
the tax rates were higher.
Nobody made anybody live here.
So they could have lived in any other outlying area and paid lower taxes.
So to say that, oh, these people that are taxpayers are being forced to pay into something
and their kid doesn't go there, nobody forced those people to live here.
Okay, but that's actually not what I was going to talk about.
I wanted to mention something again about FAA policy.
The KD policy, I just wanted to point out there is changes in that.
In 1.6, a lot has been scratched off from the original one and it says it's about the
preferred programs.
What's been taken out is except as described below, district staff will not use pronouns
for students which are in consistence with the student biological sex.
So that was taken out and put in was district staff will not ask a student for their preferred
name and will not use a preferred name for the student if there's evidence at the time
that the use of the preferred name is intended to support social transitioning.
But the big thing that was taken out is in the event a minor student with written consent
of such student's parent or adult student specifically in writing requests or directs
the use of specific pronouns for that particular student, district staff interacting with the
student may comply with such request.
This was all taken out.
So when I looked at the local policy that was given to us by TASB, that was left in.
So actually, I have a question about this.
So a big part of that policy that we got in 2023 said that if a parent wanted their child
to be called by a different name and they gave written consent, that the teacher had
the first amendment right to not do that so has that changed
i'm sorry i'm looking at you yep i'm just because um because it's been scratched out it says however
the district cannot and will not compel district staff or other students to address or refer to
students in any manner that would violate the speaker's first amendment right so that's been
scratched out so miss champion what i can tell you is i'm not going to be your expert on senate bill
bill 12 but I can tell you that these changes were recommended if you look in
the summary sheet that they are updated in relation to Senate bill 12 through
outside counsel so okay I don't have a specific answer for you because again I
don't want to go oh and five but if there's a question you have no no
research for you happy to look at it miss champagne I can get a little bit
light on that for you
um fa policy local was developed by our board council mr brush so when that policy came up
and it needed to be adjusted like miss ash horn explained based on new law it needed to be updated
that policy was not a policy that tasby updated that language for us because they didn't write
write that policy wasn't their policy.
There's in the explanatory notes,
there's actually a note on there from TASB that reads,
please note, no other changes have been made
to this locally developed policy that has legal citations
that address student welfare, parent authority,
and gender fluidity matters.
So at that point, TASB was not gonna update it
because that was something that was created
by the board's attorney.
So we took that policy because it needed to be updated based on new law,
and we gave that back to the board's attorney, Mr. Brush,
and this is the policy he created for the board's adoption based on new law.
Dr. Kragorski, if I may, since we're talking about the involvement of outside counsel,
I will remind the board that KDISD is one of the three lucky districts in the state of Texas
that is part of the Senate Bill 12 lawsuit that's outstanding.
We have a temporary hearing in December on that matter,
and so it could be that there will be provisions of FAA,
which may have to change between now and our next board meeting,
depending on when and if that court rules and how that ruling is going to apply,
whether the provisions of that law is struck down as unconstitutional or not.
Mr. Redman, may I please address Mr. Graham about this question?
So on that paragraph that I just read, I'm just curious.
So right now, I mean, not right now because we haven't voted on it,
but after we vote on it and nothing else changed in December,
is this a thing now where if a parent writes a permission slip
for the child to be called a certain name,
does the teacher still have the First Amendment right
to not comply with the written request of the parent?
Well, I would tell you this.
The way your policy is written is that the parent does not have the right.
Say John wants to be called Julie, and John's a boy,
and he wants to be referred to as a female.
The parent does not have that right under Senate Bill 12.
Our former FAA policy that was drafted by this board,
that it could happen in certain limited circumstances with parental involvement.
I think we had less than 20 kids in the district, 20 families in the district take advantage of that.
But under that former FAA policy, the teacher had the right under the first amendment to opt out of being required to call John, Julie, and vice versa.
That particular freedom still exists in the way that FAA is drafted.
So back to the FDA.
Am I saying that right?
Is it FDA?
Did I say that correctly?
So here the difference is number one, yes, you can choose to live in Katy ISD knowing that the property taxes are high.
Fair. You don't get a choice in whether or not you pay property taxes in the state of Texas. That is not optional. That is what I meant by that.
It is not optional whether or not you pay property taxes regardless of where you live, a high district or a low district in terms of tax rates.
But the clarification that I was glad that you made, Dr. Gaworski, is now we as the...
board can decide whether or not our virtual academy students are able to participate that's
not necessarily your decision what you're saying is this is what you have proposed is that we
accept it is our decision on whether or not homeschool students are able to participate
within sports which we decided in a 4-3 vote that they were not able to participate in sports and
then we would also have that same opportunity to then vote on this policy or an a pending policy
on whether or not our virtual students would be able to participate.
Am I understanding that correctly?
You are understanding that correctly.
Okay.
Yes.
So I'm not blaming you for your proposing this as it is.
My argument here is I think it's a little, to borrow Mrs. Teeney's words,
I feel like it is a little hypocritical to, again, tell our homeschool families,
you do not get to participate, but our virtual academy students do.
do now if you want to join the virtual academy at full time and homeschool just under our guys
then you can participate so you can still homeschool at home we just are going to teach
you your parents aren't going to do it if you're in 9th through 12th grade okay great then that's
fine but that's still the same that doesn't change the argument the argument's the same you just
just don't get to participate unless we homeschool you does nobody else see the mr president
are we finished i'm finished yeah uh thank you very much um i'm in agreement i think fm local
which is where we decided to exclude homeschooling students from extracurriculars
i'm in favor of revisiting that we can talk about that and certainly re-discuss that given what
we're considering for legacy i'm in favor of that i did just want to add a little data point about
money for homeschooling or non-enrolled students per fm legal uh uil there is a uil allotment
so it isn't like we're getting nothing correct me if i'm wrong it says for each non-enrolled
student who participates in a uil activity which are all of our extracurriculars i would assume or
or the vast majority, for a school in a district that allows participation of non-enrolled students,
we'd have to change our FM local.
The district is entitled to an annual allotment of $1,500 per UIL activity
in which the non-enrolled student participates.
So there is some money coming in for that student.
It's not like it's zero.
I do respect it's not the full allotment, but it is something.
I didn't hear that just shared I wanted to share that thank you mr. president
was asked mrs. Cuzela are you addressing that to us or to mr. to dr. Gorg or ski
I'm sharing that for the board okay because it wasn't mentioned it was
mentioned as it's he's already identified that it's our decision so
that would be more appropriate to share with us thank you I didn't ever say
anybody's names any more questions about the policy of the day board
All right. Thank you, Ms. Ashborn. We'll now move on to item 8.10, discussing consider board adoption of the order calling for a regular election of the school board trustees to be held on May 2nd, 2026, and authorization of the administration to provide official notice of the election as required by the Texas election code.
8.10 Discuss and consider Board adoption of the Order calling for a regular election of the School Board Trustees to be held on May 2, 2026 and authorization of the Administration to provide official notice of the election as required by the Texas Election Code.
Presenters, Mr. Justin Graham, our general counsel.
Thank you.
President Redmond, trustees, Superintendent, Dr. Gorgorski, this particular item, it seems
a little bit early in the year for us to be talking about a May election, but I will tell
you since we've condensed our board meetings instead of having four board meetings in like
a five-week period, which we've done in the past, doing the work study this month and
and having the regular meeting next month.
This is why you will see it a little bit earlier in the year.
The item that you have, the order that you have,
is almost identical to the order from last year.
So I'm happy to take any questions you may have.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
I have a transactional question for you, Mr. Graham.
So when, first let me ask you this.
Yes. The locations and the length of time to vote and all of those things here are the same as they have been for the past couple of years.
Yes.
Six early voting, 13 voting day sites. They're all the same.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, great. And April 20th to April 28th with a Saturday voting in between. Those are all similar to what we've had in the past.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
And I'll remind you, we actually, the polls are open 7 to 7, which is much more time than is required by law.
Okay, great.
And they're spread all over the district, north, south, eastern, so appreciate that.
Okay, so I have a technical question, which is once we have a, I don't know if it's a rule, I don't know what to call it,
but that we don't wear campaign, we don't have campaign logo or campaign shirts or things like that inside of campuses.
Once we have called the election, which will be December, is that accurate?
We'll call it in December, yes.
We'll call it in December, and once we voted, then that's kind of when that takes an effect.
is we don't want you to go inside a building you're not wearing will be hard
shirts it would be hard to wear a campaign shirt for somebody that hasn't
formally filed for the campaign and that so you can't actually follow I mean you
can give us and notice of your intention to file but the following period doesn't
open up until the beginning of January okay okay so once you file and then you
you become a candidate that candidates material merchandise and pamphlets that
we don't we discourage it from being on campuses okay got it I knew and like
passing it out at football games and things like that those are the rules
that we have so that happens after that time and discussing those kinds of
things on campuses happens after the election is called or after the final
person has filed right which is it well once the election is called in December
or after all the candidates have filed after a candidate's been filed I
wouldn't encourage staff members to have discussions on who they're voting on
during staff time now of course staff members also have First Amendment or
personal rights that were outside of the school and instructional day okay thank
Thank you for that clarification.
Mr. President.
Ms. Cazale.
I do have a little bit here to share.
I've prepared something.
If I could read this for the benefit of the board to make a good educated decision on this, the order of the election.
Might be a couple minutes.
I'll be efficient.
Is this something you provided to us previous?
I didn't see.
Is this something I missed in my email?
I just chose to prepare my comments to be efficient.
Historically, the board votes to call for a May school board election at the January board meeting.
And so I'm thankful to you, President Redmond, for considering my request to discuss the election date at this meeting instead of January.
Because we do have options that I want to share with the board so we can make an educated decision when voting on the school board election date.
one of the options does have a deadline of december 31st of 2025. so i'd like to share some
facts per state election code local political subdivisions like a school district such as kdisd
may hold their elections in may or november the board has the authority to choose when to have
the election with november elections the board could decide to have elections in even numbered
years or odd numbered years so there are just two options the state provides in reviewing election
election canvas state over the last 10 years for the district I don't think
holding May school board elections serves our constituency before I explain
why I want to state that there is no advantage for me or any one particular
board member here today to hold elections in November I just think it is
the right thing to do given the facts each board members terms would be
extended by a varying amount to transition from a May to a November
election date it would all depend on where they are in their current term and
whether we choose a November election in odd or even years. So just want to say that at the get-go.
Most of this is based on voter turnout. Over the last 10 plus years, the district's board
elections have had single-digit voter turnout every year, with one exception which occurred
in 2020 when the election was moved from May to November because of COVID. The highest ever
turnout was last year with 7% voter turnout. That means that 93% of all possible voters did not vote
and that was a year with the highest voter turnout. Single digit voter turnout is a pattern.
2016, I went back two years, 2% turnout of voters. 2017 in May, two and a half percent. 2018,
18 3% may of 2019 four and a half percent then we went to 2020 election
was moved to November 75% voter turnout for the school board election in 2021 we
went back to May and we had a 4% turnout so back to the pattern before May of 2022
22 and 23 both five percent turnout 2024 seven percent turnout and last school board's election
in may only seven and a half percent turnout so there was a single digit voter turnout for the
last 10 years with the one exception in november of 2020 because of covet voters in my opinion have
spoken for over 10 years and they don't like to come out for may elections now when it comes to
school bonds though seven out of the last 10 school bond elections were held in november
from 1999 to 2023 so we're saying we want the public to vote for school bonds in november
but vote for the people who approve expenditures of these school bonds in may through your school
board members so why not be consistent with the electorate and hold both your school board
elections and your bond elections in November okay when the turnouts pretty
high 75% in November 2020 so there is a cost to consider so to be authentic and
genuine and fair to this topic I will talk about that to be clear the decision
to move an election date from May to November is separate though from the
decision of who should administer the election but who administers the
election does affect costs from what i've understood so i do want to mention these few
things kdisd is very unique in that it runs its own elections the district owns its own election
equipment and the district's legal department headed by district council justin graham administers
the school board election from what i understand this is highly unusual across the state of texas
the vast majority of school districts in texas do not administer their own elections and instead
contract with the county to run their elections but KDISD is unique in that it
sits in three counties so that's what we usually hear for why we administer it
for the November 2020 school board election the district contracted with
the three counties Fort Bend Harris and Waller and this cost was about five
hundred thousand dollars that's that's a chunk of change if we were to hold
elections in November this would be a cost every other year though not every
year because november elections would be every other year by nle by any le so um i'd also want to
let you think about another possible compromise in letting the school district continue
administering your own election and just simply move the date from may to november
this removes the costs discussion the 500 000 price tag roughly approximate
running a May election is $70,000 from what I understand from Mr. Graham from prior meetings.
That may or may not be very accurate, but around that figure. But voter turnout would be higher
since voters turn out in November and they will only be going to one poll site, which is another
issue in May. There's multiple polls that voters go to in May that probably affect turnout. So to
To conclude, voters have spoken.
They do not like May elections.
Voter turnout is dismal and always has been
for over 10 years plus, with the exception of 2020
when it was held in November.
May elections allow small groups or voting blocks
to take over elections and control the district
and determine how a one billion plus dollar
operating budget is spent
via the school board members they elect.
Both Houston and Cy Fair ISDs
do have November school board elections.
some in the state legislature have written bills to eliminate May elections
this is not a far-fetched idea we already hold our school board school
excuse me school bond elections in November November elections would allow
for voters to go to only one poll site to cast their vote instead of having to
go to Katie is deep pool elections then county or city poll elections like they
had to do in all elections prior to this in May so just I recommend to the board
to seriously consider moving the school board election from may to november i realize you know
this this decision to have elections in may was probably made at the inception of the district
i'm not exactly sure when it happened but it was a very long time ago our district has grown
in a gargantuan amount and it's time to seriously consider this um i have a couple of follow-on
questions but i'll i'll be quiet now just i'm sure people might have comments thank you very much
mr president ms fox mrs kuzilla would this extend you're up for re-election this year in may would
this extend your time on the board yes it would extend my time and everyone's time in fact um the
people up for re-election with ms calhoun teamy and i would have the least amount of extension
extension with this. It just depends. November of odd years and November of even years, it depends.
It's a little, it's a transition, but all of you would have an extension in your term and that's a
separate decision or vote where we have to detail that if we were to decide. Do you have the
percentages for the percentage of voters during bond elections that were not in a presidential
year I think we have some of that I don't have all ten years you said 75% in
an election year I just wonder if a bond election had a 75% turnout in a non non
presidential year good question I just know a sci-fer they are November of odd
years and I believe this has to be verified but it was 18% turnout which is
almost triple what our highest turnout ever was so you know that's one
one indicator so 18% turnout for five hundred and twenty two thousand dollars
is what we've spent in them in that other November election versus seventy
thousand okay and knowing that every election has gotten more and more
expensive for candidates we're talking my first election I spent I don't even
know if i spent five hundred dollars maybe a thousand dollars and um that has increased
exponentially i think this past one was upwards of twenty thousand dollars for some to try to get
elected to a volunteer position and in a november election i know those people in sapphire spent
tens of thousands of dollars so i think you're the candidates who would be for for my own perspective
without any data is that people, good, wonderful people who want to help serve schools, education,
and take a volunteer job might be more hesitant to even run if it were going to cost tens of
thousands of dollars. So that November election is quite exponentially more expensive and more
difficult to to walk 181 square miles of a school district our size to for the
outreach and I know that every candidate tries to do that in May elections as
well but anyway just expense it's all about the turnout though for it to have
single digit turnout it for over ten years maybe more I just looked at ten
years is just not it's not it's not good we certainly have increased it a whole
lot in the last no we haven't sure from 2% to 7 yeah from window it so 2% so you
think 2% turnout 10 years ago to now 7% is good
triple okay mr. president I echo what mrs. Fox said about the I hate to deter
good people running when it becomes a matter of can I afford to to run and I
know there's good people all over the district who you know may not have the
means to in thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars but I
also did a little bit of math seventy thousand dollars a year for ten years
every year would be seven hundred thousand dollars ten years so to be half
the time right five hundred thousand dollars times five two and a half
million dollars so that's still 1.8 million dollars and that's 300 teacher
salaries that we can't you know that we won't have so that's 30 teachers a year
versus not 30 teachers a year. But the other thing is that I have done a little
bit of research too. First of all, I really appreciate the time that you took to do it.
Because you actually did provide a lot of, and I'm being very serious about that, I appreciate the time.
You're welcome.
To do that and to gather the data. And I think, because I do want you to know that I used to be on that side.
I used to want it in November until I started realizing actually the 2020 election is what changed my mind about that.
is because there were all these big numbers, right?
But there weren't 95,000 people,
excuse me for saying this,
who know Greg Schulte or Leah Wilson.
I mean, I love them, but they don't all know them.
The people who vote in May
are people who know what, you know,
they've done the research
and they have an invested interest in it.
The people who were voting at that time,
I did a little bit of research actually if you're number one on the ballot then
you're going to get a substantial lead not more votes then if you're number two
or three or four or five or six or seven you know that um just where's your data
we have to you have to back it up okay well I mean I just google it and every
single one of them will tell you that every every single one will back that
that who well you want me to google it right now I mean I can come up with no I
don't okay don't waste the time all right so I'm just saying if you look at
the research over the last I don't know what I was looking at was from like the
90s on it says that they and also school board elections also favor females really
yes and so if you're running against if it's a male and he's number three on the
list and you're the female on the top you're going to have stronger a stronger
chance at it now these are with uninformed voters I'm not talking about
all voters I'm talking about uninformed voters and the voters who typically vote
in May seem to be more informed voters this is what I think that we're all
after we want the informed voter to vote that's all I have to say about that okay
I would request a trustee champagne for you to back up what you just said that you're saying with numbers
Not opinions that the first person listed has a greater chance to win and that if you're a female
It's interesting
I also want to make sure you understand there is a November in odd years
option and that's the deadline for December 31st next month to decide on
that for one reason or another that's the way the code is written the law and
and that would perhaps be a compromise something to to consider it's it's not
as big of a voter turnout usually because it's not a federal election year
but it is more than May so so this is Cousela that would mean that it would be
a November 27 election correct so you would extend your term by a year and a
half and you would extend yours by two if I wanted to if I wanted right we're
all don't single me out and so that's the point I made please don't stir the
pot here no I'm just everybody's term on this diaz would be extended no matter
what option we went with okay that is off the table so but it isn't be very
clear the three people that are up for election would have the least extension
I have nothing to gain in this okay I'm doing this and bringing this up because
it's the right thing in my that's how I feel because of voter turnout one more
question is November elections tend to be partisan for the most part the
The primary is the most partisan, but when we vote in November for governor, president, or none of the big years, it's still pretty much a partisan election.
Which Republican, Democrat, you're voting with R's and D's next to their names, is that correct?
Until you get to the very, very, very bottom of the ballot.
In even years.
The school boards are.
In even years.
Okay, if we were to choose that.
And then it would be nonpartisan people at the bottom, county elections, city elections, and school boards.
So I agree with Mrs. Champagne.
Many more uninformed voters in a November election than people who pay attention because the May election is school district.
But just to counter, all voters pay taxes, all voters invest into the school district.
To disenfranchise them and have an election hidden in May, I mean, it's a descriptive term.
Based on single-digit turnout for over 10-plus years, I think is a disservice to the voter.
Do all voters have an opportunity to vote in May if they choose?
I understand, but they've spoken in over 10 years.
They're not coming out.
President Redmond, I have a question.
Ms. Calhoun.
How do we know that they're uninformed?
Yeah.
Do we have, like, a data, or is that just anecdotal that we just believe that they're uninformed?
Is there a data cohort that I haven't seen?
That I don't have data on, but I can, I just, just.
Anecdotally.
Just ask people in general.
So you believe that they're, I mean, but we don't have anything to actually support.
We're just making an assumption.
that they're uninformed when they vote in November but they may I'm not
assuming that they all are uninformed I have no idea the number of that we don't
have anything to actually back that up to say that they are all uninformed in
November I never said the word oh I don't like no I didn't say most either I
said that there would be informed voters that vote in November no idea of the
number though to be fair there are uninformed voters that vote in anything like i mean that's
well obviously if you have 95 000 voters in in one vote in one time and then 10 000 in the other
you're going to have probably statistically more uninformed voters that's just based off the number
that's just based off of a collective number that's not actually that's not they're not
correlated like you can't give me you can't give me a percentage saying that out of 95
because it's a baseless argument because you have no data to support it because you're just making
an assumption off of an anecdotal thing that you've heard that says that people who vote in
november are uninformed but you have nothing to back that up with trustees if i may i can provide
some some data okay let's talk about numbers i know miss uh kazella had some numbers in there
let me start by let me start by saying since i've been in this district when i first got hired here
that was not at my job title.
It was one of those, somebody walked down the hallway and said,
oh, here's one of those other duties that's assigned.
Now you have to run the elections here.
In fact, we had a full-time, almost a full-time position person
doing that at an administrative level.
We are different than other districts.
So, for example, when I was general counsel in my former district,
we contracted with the county because we were in one county,
and they had the ability to administer our May elections.
Now, I have approached the counties about when this duty was assigned to me about running
our May elections, and I was told by Harris County that they were not willing or not able
to do that.
Again, it's a process that we've done here locally for as far back as anybody can remember.
When I talked to the Bill Hastings of the world, for as far back as anybody can remember.
In 2017, they talk about voter turnout.
So in 2017, we had about 4,100 people vote.
In the last election, which would have been eight years later, that number increased by
over 400%.
So you had an increase of over 400% turnout to 18,000, over 18,000 people voted in our
last election.
And that number is trending, that number has been trending upwards.
I will tell you that we also in this process have been in the last few years
partnering with the city of Katy. The city of Katy does not own their own
elections equipment. Their equipment's no longer valid. They approached us several
years ago said will you partner with us to run the election locally. That saves
taxpayers that live in the city from double dipping there as well. It doesn't
really have any additional cost for us. I will tell you when we look at our when
When we look at our local elections process that's here, and it's a process that we've tweaked a few times since I've been here,
let me tell you this.
First of all, I'm very proud of the process.
I'm proud of the team that does this for us.
I also will tell you that everybody that sat on this dais, and Dr. Gorski talks about the number of trustees that he's worked with in his tenure,
everybody since I've been in this district has been elected, all seven of you have been elected under this process.
It's a well-known process.
People know where they can go vote early.
They can know where they vote day of.
When we talk to the counties, and talking to Harris County in particular, now in Fort Bend County, they're polling.
I have a better relationship, just the district has a better relationship with the Fort Bend County Elections Administration team,
because I think that they have a little more stability there.
That's just the nature of the turnover.
So they do host some voting in some of our facilities, but Harris County does not, and they will not.
they would they they've actually told me we refuse to hold early voting in a kdisd school so they
won't so for those of you who can go to maid creek and taylor and cinco i guess cinco's not in cinco
and harris i don't know but for those of you that can walk into those schools and anybody can in kdis
and vote in those schools you will not be able to do that if we move the election to may
Now we talk about the cost, so the cost in 2020, it cost us about $470,000 extra to contract with the counties to run that election in November.
Now that was a presidential election, so your turnout's going to be historically high, right?
Anywhere from 70% to 80%, depending on what precinct you were, that's going to be historically high.
However, you're talking about 2020 dollars and we're talking about now six, seven, eight
years.
I don't know however long we go with that.
I know that in my former district, which is much smaller than Katy, we wrote a much larger
check and it was only one county.
So I'm a little bit apropos of that.
add up we've also again we
we run our own equipment. If we were to say, okay, Mr. Graham, if this board was to task me and say,
we want to extend our terms and we want to move the election to November, that's the direction
that this board wants to go. And we want you to just duplicate your process, duplicate your
process, same cost, same everything. And let's do it in November. I will tell you what the problem
you're going to run into is that you're going to have to vote in two different places, right?
Because if I'm, if KDISD is running the elections with our six early voting sites and our 13
polling day locations. If we're doing it in November, you're still going to have to go vote
for your president or congressman or Texas constitutional amendment in a different place
than you are for the KDIS election if that's done in November. My other concern about moving it to
November would be the staffing. The staff that we use in May, and for those of you who have been in
this district and voting for a while, you probably recognize the same faces. It's a lot of the same
folks we those folks like our process we actually don't pay as much as for Ben
and Harris County for those folks but we seems to it seems to be a good process
here and we've got folks that are really committed to the district I worry about
losing our staff it's already hard enough to find them in November and in
May and then we're talking about a November election where the counties are
really ramping things up I worry about not having the staff to do so I will
tell you that everybody that's registered to vote in the November election is also registered to
vote in the May election. Everybody who asks for a paper ballot, a ballot by mail for the November
election also gets a ballot by mail for the May election. So those processes are similar and do
not change irrespective of where they're at. That being said, I don't have a position on this. This
This is the board's decision, but I will tell you it's been fairly consistent,
and it's a thing that, again, proud of the process,
but I will tell you the increased turnout by over 400% turnout over that less than a decade,
also proud of that, too, because it feels like the community is paying attention to what's going on in this room.
Mr. President, just to be clear to the public,
look, 400% turnout could be misrepresented.
People might understand that as some huge number,
but that's 2% to 7.5% turnout, which is, in total terms,
we have 240,000 registered voters, roughly, in this district.
And 93% of them did not vote last year in the school board election.
Yes, ma'am.
And I will tell you, in KDISD, it's traditionally partisan politics have not played a role in the May election.
And they certainly will in November.
I'm not mentioning partisan politics at all.
So you mentioned Harris County would not agree to run our election in November.
In May.
Okay.
So Harris County would.
They have to by law.
They have to by law.
Right.
But they will not use our facilities for early voting.
So if you're one of our several hundred thousand registered, it's 140,000 registered voters that are in Harris County, you will not be able to go to a KDISD facility to cast a vote.
Also, we do not have, there is no early voting location in Waller County in the boundaries of KDISD.
So if you are a voter in November and you want to go vote for your school board, you have to travel outside of the district to cast that vote because there are no early voting locations for Wallach County within the boundaries of KDIC.
My understanding is that when we hold an election, whether it's odd or even year, in November, they must be joint.
It has to be a joint election by law with some sort of other political subdivision.
typically the county in November, just like the city of Katy has a joint election with us in May.
But in November, we have to, by law, have a joint election.
And they have to be shared poll sites.
So I don't understand what you're – that is not correct, correct?
I mean, the county polls have to be used.
So again, so again, Waller County as constructed for those of you who live in Waller County and
that's where we saw the PASA maps earlier, the PASA maps earlier, that's where a large portion
of our red growth is in Waller County. As currently constructed, there is no early voting
location for Waller County voters to vote within KDISD. So that means if your kids are going to
Kane Island, then you have to drive outside of the district to go cast your vote. And
if we do November elections for the trustee elections, again, you can't, right now, a
teacher that lives in Harris County, which may teach at Katy High School, can come across
the street to the Merrill Center and cast a vote in Fort Bend, even though they live
live in Harris County. In the November uniform elections, you have to vote within the county
that you're in. You cannot vote. You will not have the freedom that we do in November and May.
Sure. And now just to offer to the discussion, Waller County voters are a very small percentage
of our constituency. Harris County and Fort Bend are the vast majority, not to discount our Waller
county voters and then also are you clear that there is no early voting waller county location
for the upcoming november election are you you know that to be true already
just obviously i don't know what's going to happen in 11 months from now but what i will
tell you is that traditionally waller county has never had an early voting location uh within the
boundaries of KDISD. That would include the last election from a few weeks ago.
Sure, but it could because of the growth as you talked about. It could, but it
again in the November election we lose control over the polling locations. Do we
have a cost figure for the November bond elections? Because those are those are
all I mean those are administered by the county right there's a joint ballot by
the county so they have always administered seven out of the last ten
bond elections over from 1999 to 2023 in these county poll sites there's not been
an issue that I know of and is there a cost figure for that there is I don't
have that again the light the latest November election I can point you to is
2020 okay but would it could you and if not you can tell me later but would the
cost variables be about the same for a November bond election as a November
school board election that happened in 2020 I mean it's is it the same formula
I don't know that's that and get back to you because if it is then we've already
been doing that for seven of the last ten bonds since 1999 in in the county
poll sites so seems to have worked mr. president I would like to say one other
little tiny thing for just to support the May election also through through my
time here and and I was a proponent of doing the November election but having
been on the board and seeing all the different people you know board members
coming on and getting elected I do think that as a matter of structure the May
election works very well with the school year because we get we get people
elected in May they have all summer to train and school starts August and I'm
not saying that you know nobody's 100% but they've had three months of training
onboarding and otherwise when you start in November because I remember this
actually with Leah and Greg it was it's it's a it's an issue they came on and
then all of a sudden they get in all these reports and all these things and
then they they're in the middle of the school year and it's very hard to train
someone that quickly to be ready for their first meeting in November when
we're I mean just look at our agenda and that we have now and they don't know
what they're doing you know so just as a matter of order and and all that I like
I like the May election for that reason too I bet TASB would work with us I mean
we're the fifth largest school district in Texas I bet if we had November
elections TASB would be willing to work with us Mrs. Calhoun let me explain the
election was November 6th yeah we have a meeting was today November 17th they
They have, well, they don't even get.
I didn't get any training on my first meeting.
Well, I know, but summer is usually low.
Summer agendas are usually not huge.
It's the budget.
It's the budget, but.
And you get no training.
It's just your raises.
Okay.
It's a lot.
A lot of that training you can do online.
Any other questions about the election?
Mr. President, I just would like to recommend that the board,
you consider forming an ad hoc committee to tease this out I know this is a lot
of information to make sure this is teased out and clear for the board and
perhaps consider for December 8th before our December 8th meeting when we will
vote and I would I would volunteer for that committee to have a committee go
through and see if we want to consider moving this yes and and perhaps you know
Cleaning out my notes make sure that's all standardized for everyone to read make sure we have good numbers
We have a number for bond elections how much they cost
And some maybe some of the open items that were discussed
I'll consider that. Thank you. So the
committee would
spend time with admin bringing more numbers together and
Is that?
I'm not sure
How much more time and money we want to spend on a process that seems to, I don't know,
I guess it's up to you to decide.
Just sounds like a constantly asking for people to spend a lot of time and money.
These people's time is a lot of money.
So unless we have a great direction of, you know, that is significantly being considered to change, it might just be a lot more time and money.
Mr. President?
I don't see it as a lot of time and money.
It's probably one meeting, just like we do with the policy committee meeting.
and for me the process may be working well but if the output continues to be a
failure that might be a strong word but for 93% of people not to be voting 90%
93% 89% not to be voting over 10 years is a huge number and I think it's worth
the board to do due diligence to understand what the options are and
that's what I'm trying to present I just wanted to mention one more thing from
From Election Code Chapter 271, I wanted to offer this.
It says that it does not require a district to enter into a contract for election services
and allows the district to continue running its own election as long as joint polling places are used.
So that could be a piece of law that we could use to cut down costs and still have a November election.
And that would be something we could discuss in an ad hoc committee instead of taking the time up tonight.
Mr. President?
Ms. Champaign.
I just want to say I don't feel that the elections have been a failure.
I mean, y'all, we're here.
So unless you want to say that the elections were a failure
and that's how you got elected is through some failure,
then I don't think that we can blanketly say that the elections were a failure.
In terms of voter turnout.
Because the people who came to vote for you wanted to come to vote for you.
And the other people who didn't come either didn't want to vote or they didn't want to vote for you.
So it's probably good that they didn't come.
No, I don't think they knew there was an election.
That's my premise.
No, I think that they know there's an election, most people.
Because I know a lot of people who don't vote in May and they know about the election.
I don't.
All right, item 8.10, are there any more questions for counsel or discussion?
Thank you, Mr. Graham.
8.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of the annual course additions.
I will now move on to 8.11, discussing considered board approval for the annual course additions.
Dr. Sinead Bell, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning.
Hey, how are you doing?
Welcome.
Thank you.
Sit right here.
A little bit of height difference between Mr. Graham and myself.
Good evening President Redmond, Board Members, and Dr. Gagorski.
I'm here this evening to present proposed courses for the 26-27 school year.
Each year the Division of Teaching and Learning facilitates a comprehensive course review process.
This includes gathering input from central office and campus staff about potential course additions and revisions for the upcoming school year.
As requests are submitted, the Division evaluates each one using the following criteria.
course content availability of curriculum availability of highly
qualified staff student interest alignment to the teak's technology and
facility requirements impact on existing programs long-term sustainability and
alignment to the district's to treat strategic plan we also continue to
consider the state's expectations for the district to design coherent pathways
pathways that enable students to complete programs of study and earn industry-based
certifications.
Aligning CTE courses into robust pathways, particularly those for careers that are in
high demand, high skill, and high wage careers in Texas has remained a priority throughout
our strategic design process over the past years.
Teachers and administrators are encouraged to recommend new courses and provide input
on revisions.
Additionally, district-level staff who support course implementation review each proposal
before a final recommendation is made.
Based on this collective input, the administration is recommending 12 new courses for the 26th,
27th school year.
From our Career and Technical Education Department, we have AP Business with Personal Finance,
Business Law for Real Estate, Business Management, Extended Practicum in Construction, Practicum
in construction and principles of architecture. From our secondary curriculum and instruction
department, we have three courses that support our academic decathlon program that just represents
each year that a student participates. We also are recommending AP physics, mechanics, AP physics C,
mechanics, and AP physics C, electricity and magnetism. Methodology for academic and personal
success is the last course that we're recommending. So I want to highlight a
couple of the course additions. First to start with CTE. AP business and personal
finance equips students with the knowledge and skills to navigate career
planning, financial literacy, and introductory business concepts. This is
developed alongside college faculty and industry leaders. It's a year-long course
that mirrors the first year rigor of a college business course and offers
students the opportunity to earn college credit and an industry-based certification.
The next three courses, the Principles of Architecture, Practicum in Construction, and
Extended Practicum, are courses to support a new underground utility detection services
program that the district is launching in partnership with USIC.
As industry experts have identified a critical shortage of trained technicians in a number
of fields including this one and with texas experiencing significant growth in large-scale
construction there's a strong demand for accurate utility location services these courses will
prepare students for a rapidly growing essential industry the business law for real estate course
will allow us to transition our current real estate pathway from a two-year to a one-year
program giving students more flexibility in planning their coursework and the business
management course has been designed specifically for Legacy Virtual High
School to ensure students have a pathway to earn the business and industry
endorsement. The curriculum and instruction department is also
recommending three new academic decathlon courses as I mentioned and
these courses currently exist for our student for student participation in our
academic decathlon program but the new courses that we're proposing align
better with the skills and the concepts and things that they are working through
to prepare for their academic decathlon preparation. These courses better align
to the skills they're developing, which also includes critical thinking,
communication, collaboration, creativity, and time management, and allows any
teacher with a valid certificate appropriate to the grade level of
assignment to teach these courses, thus increasing scheduling flexibility. Our
Our current courses are connected to one particular content area, and so a teacher has to hold a certification in that particular content area to teach those courses.
The new state innovative course gives us the opportunity to have any teacher that holds a certification for any content area in our high schools to support those students.
And the methodology for academic and personal success course is designed for students receiving specially designed instruction.
It focuses on developing the organizational, academic, and personal skills necessary for long-term success in high school and beyond.
And finally, probably the most exciting course for many students and families, is the addition of AP Physics C.
These two courses are ideal for students pursuing engineering, physical science, and other STEM majors, and they have been requested by students for several years.
We anticipate high enthusiasm from students and families for the AP Physics C courses.
And a complete list of the proposed new courses with a little brief description is included in your board packet,
and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.
President Redmond, I have a question.
Go ahead.
Thank you so much for presenting this.
One of the things that I am increasingly concerned about,
and I feel like a lot of parents are when we're looking at our future and we're looking at these courses,
is how are we preparing for AI when you have these courses?
How are we preparing for that for these?
Because these are courses that are higher level courses
for our graduating seniors
or for those in high school, obviously.
So how are we making sure that like with an AP business
with personal finance, how are we making sure?
I'm not saying that that's not important.
I like this.
I like that we're focusing on personal finance.
I think that that's amazing given the state of our national debt.
Obviously, we could all use a course in personal finance.
I'm not arguing that.
But how are we making sure that we're preparing our students to be able to enter
into a workforce with the knowledge necessary to compete in an AI world with some of these courses?
I know like where the physicality, like with the construction, that's amazing.
You're doing something with your hands, right?
Welding, obviously, that's not on here.
but you're doing something physical with your hands that ai is not necessarily coming in to
take over does that make sense of what i'm asking and where my concern lies sure so like a couple
things as we add new courses we look at a lot of different components obviously we look at what
students need to be prepared for as they enter the work phase so it's it does this no good to prepare
students for things that we did when we entered work the world of work we have to prepare them for
or what they're going to be walking into.
So when we add courses, we not only look at one aspect,
but we look at multiple aspects.
So with the AP Business course with personal finance,
business is probably one of the most popular majors.
And so that's reaching students that maybe haven't
taken an AP course yet.
It's a CTE pathway course.
So within that particular course there,
and that's a College Board course,
there are components that are aligned to workforce and what students are going to
be entering into so whereas a lot of the different courses that we we offer
especially when we partner with College Board our dual credit courses our
courses are designed to get students ready for where they are going and what
they will enter into and when it comes to AI you know teaching methodology
pedagogy those pieces are really important to ensure that students are
are skilled and equipped to critically think, to problem solve.
You can pop anything you want into AI, and it can give you,
it's only pulling things from the internet
all together in one space.
In the world of AI, it's important for you
to be able to prompt.
And so to be able to discern, is this true information?
Is this accurate information?
So the skills that students need to be prepared to address
all the things that they will be faced with as it relates to AI
is really where we focus when we're talking about our unit plans, our TEKS,
the supports that we have in place for students. We do have internal
discussions and committees working through like how are we preparing our
students for AI, how are we helping our teachers to prepare our students for AI.
They're using it so our job is to ensure that we're equipping them to use it
properly and correctly. So it may not be a course you AI the AI course, it's how
How do we teach our students how to be prepared to use these things so that they're the ones really, if you will, controlling the functions of AI?
Right. And I understand that. And I appreciate that, that we're teaching them how to integrate with AI.
But the larger concern out there is that AI is going to be replacing people in these workforce jobs that we're training them to do right now.
So my question is more targeted towards how are we staying ahead of that curve to try to ensure that the jobs that are going to be available are actually, that there are jobs available for our students and we're teaching them how to critically think outside of just what we're preparing right now.
Is there a plan in place to make sure that in the next five years, by how fast AI is outpacing us, it's learning itself.
I mean, it's teaching itself.
It's learning as quickly as we put the information in.
AI is learning it, and it's learning it at an exponentially faster rate than what we are putting the information into.
to. So I want to ensure that again that we're staying ahead of that curve for our students
that we have a pathway for them that gives them a job opportunity that isn't going to then be
outsourced to AI. Does that make sense? Yeah, no that makes perfect sense. So let me just talk about
the three courses related to the program with USIC. There has been a huge swing. We swung away from
trades to everybody goes to college and now we're back because we don't have enough plumbers,
we don't have enough utility workers. AI can't do those things. So, you know, we have our water
operating licensing program that launched this year and we have a good crop of students that
they're in there and they're really engaged in that work. Our new utility program, utility
detection program, is with a company where you'll see a truck, USIC. I see them everywhere now. Once
we started to talk about this particular partnership i see these trucks everywhere
and they are like especially in the dallas area they're building a lot of infrastructure for ai
they're building data warehouses well they can't build the data warehouses to do all the things
that ai is needed because they don't have enough plumbers they don't have enough utility workers
so our programs that we have in kdisd are preparing students for those jobs that ai can't
replace those where you need the people. Whether you go workforce route, whether
you go into welding, whether you go into the military, whether you choose to go
into the college route, we want our students to be prepared to you're either
creating it or you're either working within it but we're not behind by not
having courses that are forefront based on high demand, high wages or of
interest to students. We don't put courses in place that let's just give
kids something to do. We look at market data, we look at trends, we look at how do
we make sure that there's a pathway for all of our students no matter which
pathway they decide to go. And I think those are the things that we diligently
look at when we're adding courses but then also when we're determining how
we're training teachers, what resources we need to provide. Dr. G and I have many
conversations about AI and what we need to do to prepare our students and our
teachers and how can we ensure that when they leave KDISD that they are truly
prepared no matter what pathway they go into so I don't know if I'm asking you a
question directly but it's it's it's a lot of it's a lot of moving pieces yes
and it's all moving very very fast and so I know it's hard for us to keep up
with that at the rate in which it is moving and so I was really excited when
i looked at this and i saw the construction specifically because like you said these are
jobs that ai can't do and so we want to empower our students to say not only to step into that
role but to be excited about doing something like excited about being a plumber excited about being
a welder excited about doing these kind of blue collar jobs that for a long time maybe you wouldn't
have necessarily been interested in maybe you'd rather do something else that requires a four
six or eight year degree but even with that we're looking at medicine in itself
which is turning more and more towards AI where you're gonna have surgeons that
it's an AI robot that is doing your neurosurgery or your heart surgery and
so what happens to those kids with that capability that walked into the medical
field and now they're no longer needed because a robot can do it faster safer
and more efficiently than a human can so we just want to make sure when I see
these things that we're planning for that long term because this doesn't seem to be slowing down
you know say for some kind of global event that knocks out all of our internet and then we're all
back to the stone age but does that make sense yeah totally and i think the the key word is
adaptability is really important so if you look at the slate of courses i mean we have the full
gamut from an ap business course to our construction practicums and construction
it's covering any spectrum that you want to go. So ensuring that we provide a
multitude of pathways for students is really important. How do we market those
more blue-collar jobs like that when we're doing that? And this may be getting
off topic and so I apologize if it is, but when I again I just got really
excited about the construction part of that. So when we do that how are we
marketing that to make that lucrative or attractive to our students who maybe
might look at something else so I think we are dealing with students who are
very keen into what they want to do and how they want to contribute in society
and so we partner with dr. grooms and her team in the communications department
when it comes to marketing by reaching out to cohorts of students going around
to our high school campuses to showcase the programs we've done that with the
CDL program with the water operations program through mailers through
information nights we we try to we blitz them with all of the information we do a
lot of ensuring that our counselors are trained up so that we're able to you
know market to students and they may have students that may be of interest
there are also different fairs that we have that kind of showcase these are the
programs that we have going on and then what one of the things that we did last
We did a mailer to our students that were already enrolled in like the principal's course, the first course that could lead to a particular pathway, whether it's our trades, whether
it's our teaching, whatever we have built out, the key is marketing.
I can bring courses to you all every year and no one's in them.
So this is the part, step one.
But after that, we have to market to ensure that our parents and our students, especially
our parents, are aware.
Just having high school kids, if I didn't ask the right questions, I wouldn't know that,
hey, that information came home.
So we've kind of done some parenting outreach as well to ensure that our parents are informed
so they can work alongside their students
and make good decisions.
Do you have one last question?
Do we involve families that are already like entrepreneurs,
like with our plumbers, with our construction workers,
with our welders, with our waterworking people?
Do we offer like a career fair
to where we highlight those
who are already in a trade level job
to then come and maybe showcase what their business is
and then have that be marketed to our students to say,
hey this is my business that i've started this is how you get into this this is you know what i do
is that something that we do to help highlight all of that so we have an event coming up in january
um january 27th i believe find your future and it is an event that's being um paired our cte
department and our school leadership our counseling team they're working in conjunction
to provide that event for our community.
And basically what that is, we'll have representation of our people out in the industry that represent
one of the programs of study, one of all of the programs of study that we offer in KDISD.
We'll have representation for each program of study based on kids can pick a course,
but without knowing what does that look like in the real world, how much money can I make,
Kids are like really driven by what's the dollar that they really want to know
But we'll have industry partners will have higher ed and when I say higher ed we partner with HCC
They do a lot of
CTE courses and things in the trades. We'll have some other colleges there as well
And this gives our students the opportunity if they're interested in construction trades
There will be representation there from business partners businesses in the area that will be there to say
let me show you everything that you could do if you were to select a career in the trades.
This is how what you're learning in your classes translates into what you would do in your
career.
And so that's the 27th of January.
So to answer your question, do we have a set for parents?
Not necessarily totally parents and entrepreneurs.
However, we welcome any parents that would like to be partners.
We do lots of different things to showcase different careers to our students.
But that event is essentially what you're speaking of, organized in a way to help students understand what the translation is from courses that they're taking to career.
So my suggestion, just throwing that out there and then I'll be done, is that if we did that, if we could throw out some kind of wide net to cast out to our community.
We have you know 96,000 kids all of which are coming from families to say hey if you are an entrepreneur
And hey if you have this and you want to showcase how you got your business started
We would love to host you and have you show this to our kids to show them what they can do without
Necessarily a college degree, but with a trade background. Here's what this looks like from an apprenticeship program
Here's what this looks like from how much this cost of me to get started like what you're talking about
But involving that investment piece from the families that are already here
thereby pulling in the rest of the community and showcasing that.
That would just be my suggestion to that.
I think it would be really well, I think there would be a lot of really good response to that.
And again, exhibiting something that to the kids seems lucrative,
that they can easily grasp to whereas maybe an eight-year college degree is outside of their grasp
because it's really expensive.
It's really expensive to get your doctorate.
So let's do something that is going to be just as lucrative financially, but maybe more easily accessible.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Mr. President, thank you.
You know, of course, auditions are my favorite night.
I love these.
I'm not going to talk about academic decathlon.
I'm sure Mr. Cross has stuff like that in AP Physics C.
My son has been graduated a while now, and he had to study that on his own so he could take the AP course, you know, I mean a test.
So they'll love that.
I love the construction one, all of these.
And the real estate, combining that into one year instead of two, brilliant, right?
So I love the construction one, too.
too it's just really good and i love how every year you bring new ideas and then they already
take off last year i think it was i believe it's only been a year that the water management thing
with in combination with infomark who provides all of the labs live labs where our students can
become aren't they like interns so yes they will have um they have internship opportunities where
they're going on site that's forthcoming yes right and they'll get paid while they're working for
infomark correct and we didn't have to provide anything only a classroom right did they provide
the teacher as well yes yes yes like brilliant to go out and reach out to all those companies and
use them because they need our kids they need our our workers we have incredibly exceptional
exceptional students and those kids are loving that. They are. As they are all the things that
we're doing so many more. So a question for you without too many specifics in the academic
committee we talked about a couple of other ideas I thought I might see them tonight maybe
does it just take longer to get those ready? Yeah so anytime we partner with a new company a new
partner to bring a new program, it does take quite a bit of time. So anytime we have new
courses that we have to partner with, whether it's with HCC or an outside entity, we have
to crosswalk courses. So they have what they are preparing students for, for their work
specific, but we have to make sure that the TEKS are covered. And so in some cases, it's
It's not 100% crosswalk, so therefore we have to create components in several courses to
ensure that we cover all of the TEKS because we're required to do that.
Also in looking at the facilities and the space and the teacher, so there are a lot
of different components that have to happen.
So timing, we basically start the course proposal process, I'll finish this round up and then
we'll just get right back to the table and still talk about what's happening in 27-28.
So I always feel like I'm living in another year.
I asked Dr. Coffey, I'm like, what year are we in?
Because I don't function within the same year because we're always planning a year out.
So just because you don't see that this evening, that's still in the works.
There's the work going behind the scenes because we'll be right back at this again.
When we start the proposal process for new courses for 27-28, that will be in August.
So it's a fast turnaround.
around once we get school started it's time to open it up again so it'll be
here soon and you're probably pulling from the same kind of pond for for all
of these things which are more hands-on boys and girls who want to do hands-on
and get in there and is this this construction one in the utility thing is
that the one that also pairs so well with our CDL yes so once we get the
program launch our next phase which we've already discussed is how we compare that with our CDL so
students would be trained and certified through the USIC for the utility work and then how can
we also get those students through our CDL programs because they need students to drive those
vehicles vehicles as well and so anytime that we can have crossover and compare and get more
students certifications before they graduate that's just only helping the student further
further along in their career choices after high school.
I appreciate that.
I love the Find Your Future, great idea.
And I remember a marketing video maybe that made by the Miller students
that talked about new programs and I think it was the trades.
And it talked about how much money they could make and
it really was a great outreach.
And I guess they showed it at eighth grade and
we have career fairs in junior high, is that right still?
and so I know that there's constant doing that.
I'm glad you did the mailer to the home
because not everybody's going to see that great video,
but boy, that was impressive too.
Yeah, the videos and just finding new programs and partnership,
I have to give credit to Ms. Kinnear, our CTE director.
She does a really great job of being a super sleuth
and getting all those pieces out in terms of finding partnerships,
and then they did do a great job with creating those videos.
So I have 40 more questions. I'm only going to ask this one. The AP business with personal finance, of course, sounds incredible. Do we have something like that that's not AP level? Is there a personal finance? Yeah, I think financial literacy should be a requirement. I think it should be in the standard curriculum for every student, of course.
We do have a couple courses like that, but there's also some revisions based on current legislation related to personal economics and finance.
So we do have courses like that.
There are TEKS.
There will be some refinements to the course that we have as it relates to personal finance and economics.
And there's some changes coming from the state.
We're waiting on some specific guidance from TEA.
But, yes, we do have those courses.
is thank you so much mr president champagne dr bell i just have some comments and not questions
first of all there are a lot of junior highs that do do the work the job fairs and so that's up to
the principals though and i know freeman high school just had one too so i think that your idea
is very good mrs calhoun but it's also i think would be great like the print all the principals
did that too, especially junior high level before they're, because by the time they get
to Miller, it's almost not too late, but they've already kind of made up their mind that they're
going to be in that, you know, it's good to make their decision before they get to Miller.
That's just a comment.
The other comment is, I understand what Mrs. Calhoun is talking about with the AI and taking
over and everything, but I have a child that is a CPA, and so she did a lot of these finance
classes, but there still is the need for that personal touch.
you know that she still needs to go out and meet to meet her with her client or
make a phone call and I I'm sure AI will take start to take over things but right
now her her human ability and her you know the human side of her is very much
needed in in the industry of EY where she works so so I I don't think that
this that the AI will take over all the things you know immediately so that's
just a comment on what I've been making.
Thank you. Thank you. I love it, though.
Any other questions, board?
Thank you very much.
All right.
Well, then, board, next
9. Consent Items
item is our consent items. Are there any
of those items that the
board would like to pull off to discuss?
9.1, 2, or 3?
9.1.
All right, then.
Section 10, we're looking at information
10. Information Items
items. The donated
items list has been received by the board and madam secretary do we have
any captured any requests from the board tonight yes I would like to personally
request I'm just interested to see what what if anything that we're doing across
our district for kindergarten promotion and if there's something that's
district-wide or if there's things going on at different elementary schools
schools because I really do personally feel like we should be marketing ourselves better
and you know and even if we are doing it already you know we can always be better and better
and better because we need to recapture some of these kindergartners and then also um I
think Mrs. Cuzzillo wanted the webinar data about virtual school
oh the webinar attended yeah the webinar not specifically the question originated
it was my question dr. Gorski's suggestion that we get that answer on
how are we planning for virtual school are we projecting that enrollment and
also she had numbers I think of how many people attended the webinar
And then the EFB, the two-year requirement.
I wanted to see where it was.
In SB 13.
We got it.
Thank you.
And also the cost of the bond elections.
That happened in November.
The November bond elections.
Did I miss anything else?
That's what I thought.
Thank you.
Thank you.
well then our next board we will have our regular board meeting on monday december 8th 2025 there
11. Future Meetings
being no further business before the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 9 54 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.