Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this work study meeting of the Board of Trustees at Katy Independent School District to order.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, January 12, 2026
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In this meeting
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- 0:05 to 0:29 1. Call to Order
- 0:29 to 1:20 2. Pledges of Allegiance
- 1:20 to 6:36 3. Public Comment
- 6:36 to 7:03 4. Closed Meeting
- 7:03 to 7:43 5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 7:43 to 38:47 6.1 Presentation on the Targeted Improvement Plan for Cimarron Elementary
- 38:47 to 44:01 7.1 Discuss and consider Board Approval of the November 2025 Financial Reports.
- 44:01 to 50:54 7.2 Discuss and consider Board approval of the January 2026 budget amendments.
- 50:54 to 1:20:21 7.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the annual financial audit report.
- 1:20:21 to 1:27:00 7.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of the 2026-2027 Property Insurance Program.
- 1:27:00 to 1:56:23 7.5 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the 2027-2028 Instructional Calendar.
- 1:56:23 to 1:57:06 7.6 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a Professional Development Waiver for the 2027-2028 instructional calendar.
- 1:57:06 to 2:07:35 7.7 Discuss and consider acquisition of New Library Books.
- 2:07:35 to 2:27:52 7.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment Two to the Stewart Builders, LLC. contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Jeanette Hayes Elementary School.
- 2:27:52 to 2:29:26 7.9 Discuss and consider Board approval of an Interlocal Agreement with Cinco Municipal Utility District No. 12 and Katy Independent School District.
- 2:29:26 to 2:29:58 7.10 Discuss and consider Board approval of the contract for the flooring replacements at Cardiff Junior High School and WoodCreek Junior High School.
- 2:29:58 to 2:30:44 7.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of the proposal for interior lighting upgrades at the Education Support Complex and Leonard E. Merrell Center.
- 2:30:44 to 2:32:08 7.12 Discuss and consider Board approval of the contract for the replacement of the electronic display boards at the Leonard E. Merrell Center.
- 2:32:08 to 2:32:44 8. Consent Items
- 2:32:44 to 2:33:41 9. Information Items
- 2:33:41 to 2:33:55 10. 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, January 12, 2026, and the time is 5.03 p.m.
Dr. Gorgorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regards to notice for this meeting?
Mr. Redmond, I do confirm we're in compliance of the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting tonight.
Thank you. KDISD Officer Pickett will lead us in the Pledges of Allegiance tonight.
2. Pledges of Allegiance
Thank you.
Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening?
We do not.
3. Public Comment
At this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak
speak in accordance with the KDIC board policy BED local. As defined by board policy, speakers
who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, January 12, 2026, provided their first and last name, mailing
address, and the number of specific agenda items they intend to address, designate whether they
reside in KDIC, and if they have children in KDIC, 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, 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 and 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 if speakers wish to share
written material with the board please provide ten copies for the secretary of
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 the proper channels as stated in board
policy the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker to seek resolution through
the appropriate policy finally pursuant to texas government code sections 551.074 and 551.0821
the board will not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information
regarding a student and will not discuss the appointment employment evaluation reassignment
duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee 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, we have two speakers.
The first will be David Green, and the second is Sean Dolan.
David.
Good evening everyone, thank you so much.
I hope everyone had a great New Year's.
I was looking at the budget, the budget amendment specifically, and I have a couple of, well
I have specifically a few questions.
The first is, it looks like we're spending about $9,000 for additional repairs to a police
cruiser.
I have questions.
What happened?
Why are we spending an additional $9,000?
And that implies we already spent money on that, and we still didn't fix it.
Now, I thought, and again, I could be wrong.
I thought we had an in-house mechanic shop.
I thought we had a course load to provide that instruction to students.
So why?
Second, I happened to notice that we spent $80 for a membership.
Now, I'm okay.
It's $80.
It's not the end of the world, except it was for a facilitator that was invited to go to a conference.
We didn't just send them.
They were invited to go.
If they're invited to go to a conference, shouldn't the conference waive membership,
or shouldn't we say, hey, if you want to go, you can go, but you're on your own?
My understanding, and I could be wrong here, is that nurses, they are expected to pay for the voluntary association dues
if they want to be part of the National Nursing Association.
I don't remember what it's called.
So if we're making them pay, why are we not making this gifted and talented facilitator pay?
Then, I saw that we took $400, we reallocated it, out of the quote-unquote educational resources budget.
Now, I could be wrong again, but isn't educational resources budget, doesn't that stand for buy students books?
So we're taking $400 out of the buy kids books budget to send a librarian to a conference.
I believe the librarian should go to that conference because professional development matters.
We all need it. Everyone on that side of the dais, on this side of the dais, everybody needs professional development.
But isn't there a budget for professional development? Why are we taking it out of that specific budget line?
And then finally, I love marching band. I do. I wasn't part of it.
I didn't have the hand-eye coordination for it. We're sending our kiddos to a single contest and we're spending it looks like
$15,000 to send our kids to transport our kids. I think it matters that they go
Isn't there a band booster program isn't there like some community support?
Why are we spending 15,000 on a single contest to send our kiddos?
Can they fundraise for that or have they already tried and failed?
I mean when I was in school fundraising was a life skill to teach me how to talk to people and how to engage and
How to you know do so I'm just looking at these items, and I'm just questioning why I'm hoping for some greater clarity some some
Additional information to help understand why these are being spent in the way. They are. Thank you so much everyone
Thank you our next speaker is Sean Dolan
going once going twice all right this concludes the open forum portion of our meeting the board
4. Closed Meeting
will now convene and close meeting is authorized under section five five one zero zero one of the
Texas government code for the following purpose Texas government code five five one zero seven
and 551.129.
The board will now reconvene in open meeting.
5. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
Today is Monday, January 12, 2026, and the time is 543 p.m.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's work-study meeting.
Each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Wednesday,
January 7, 2026.
The Board will receive information and recommendations from staff, administration, and the superintendent
on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be prepared to
take action.
The Board has just reconvened from closed meeting.
In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, any action arising from discussions
in a closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
We'll now move on to section six, public hearing and the presentation on the targeted
6.1 Presentation on the Targeted Improvement Plan for Cimarron Elementary
improvement plan for Cimarron Elementary.
Good evening, President Redmond, board members and Dr. Grigorski.
Tonight we are presenting the targeted improvement plan for Cimarron Elementary, which is a requirement
by TEA for schools identified for school improvement under the state's criteria.
In November, we presented the Effective School Framework, which is the foundation of our
improvement work in KDISD.
This is a TEA model and it's also used to guide the targeted improvement plan.
Tonight you'll hear from the Assistant Superintendent over Cimarron, which is Deb Hubbell, and the
Principal of Cimarron, Lindsey Chase.
We will also have time for discussion and a public hearing.
So let's begin with an explanation of the required interventions by Deb Hubble
Thank You Natalie and as I begin I would like to acknowledge the presence and support of so many elementary
Principals here in the audience board. I hope you notice this big contingency as well as the Cimarron staff members
We work together in this district
All right as the slide shows Cimarron has under Texas Education Code has qualified as a school in need of improvement
improvement. A third consecutive overall D rating constitutes the need for interventions and begins the count of unacceptable performance ratings. So 2025 is our first year of having an unacceptable term affiliated with Cimarron Elementary. And with the state required the state identification of a school needing improvement comes several required interventions. They're listed on the slide and I just want to assure you that we are in
in accordance with all of these interventions.
We have assigned, we've always had a district level
coordinator of school improvement, that's Jen Munoz.
She served as the DCSI for over five years here in Katy ISD.
She works very closely with us
on our campus improvement team.
We have participated in the effective schools framework
diagnostic with region four,
represents TEA in this situation.
We began that process in October,
and let me tell you that is a very robust process.
We had a pre-visit, we had a full-day campus visit with a representative from
Region 4 where we went in classrooms, multiple classrooms, we've had a post
visit, we've had the submission of relevant artifacts which included lesson
plans from all subject areas, all grade levels, as well as student work samples.
So that's been quite an interesting process to get feedback from every angle.
The person who came observed teachers in action, observed planning teams in
session, observe the principal leading a professional development session, observe the transitions,
the kids coming off the bus, how the communications are handled on the campus.
It's a very thorough process, that diagnostic.
We have engaged in what they call FLPS.
That's the Foundational Leadership Instructional Practices and Systems.
That took place in November and December.
We have participated in a superintendent's consultation.
That occurred in November with Dr. G.
We have given the parents and community stakeholders the opportunity for feedback.
That happened on December 11th in affiliation with several events going on at the campus
that night.
It was a great night.
And we have completed and submitted our targeted improvement plan.
That was submitted on November 21st, actually reconfirmed as late as today.
And Ms. Chase will be going into the high points of what makes up that targeted improvement
plan.
And then the last requirement there from TEA and Region 4 is your approval of our targeted improvement plan.
So we're here tonight to present that, seeking your approval next week.
All right.
Ms. Chase?
Good evening.
As I get started, I want to thank our CHETA staff members for being here today in solidarity with me.
So taking a look at our targeted improvement plan, there are three key components.
components. The first one would be a focus on high quality instructional materials and assessments,
specifically that our students receive access to grade level curriculum that are TEKS aligned
every day. The second piece of that being research-based instructional strategies used in
classrooms and student ownership of learning. When we look at our second component there, that's
effective instruction, and this is an area that we focused on greatly this past school year.
What we're looking for there is job-embedded professional development to happen, including observation and feedback cycles.
As administrators, we are in classrooms, our second through fifth grade classrooms, four to five times per week.
And then for our other classrooms, they are one to two times per week, providing feedback to our staff on effective instruction for our students.
Our focus there is to strengthen instruction and delivery.
and we do that not only through that job embedded feedback, but also through
Lesson rehearsal and other items that help support that delivery for students
We have a deep focus on student data analyzing it not just what is the data?
But what additional actions need to be taken as a result of it so that we can ensure that every student grows every day here
at summer on
Finally we have an emphasis on student discourse when it comes to effective instruction
instruction. What we found is that the person doing the talking is the one doing the learning,
so we're really focused to make sure that our students are talking, discussing, and
explaining their answers. Finally, our third component would be staff and resource support.
One of the things that we've done in this past year is had additional staffing, specifically
a student support assistant principal who focuses on our special education students
students and other support areas with high need. We also have a behavior paraprofessional.
We have a part-time social worker who we also share with another campus here in the district.
And then a principal coach that I meet with twice a month for about a half a day at each
time. We also have benefited from increased targeted support from our teaching and learning
departments. Now that I've reviewed our targeted improvement plan, I want to talk about some
some key milestones for you.
So our first milestone that we met in November and December
would be the campus leadership team
establishing accountability goals,
prioritizing growth for all students.
As a staff back in August,
we committed that we were going to hold the rope
for our students.
We are going to make sure that every student grew every day
and I am proud to share that that has definitely happened
based on data so far.
As we move into January,
our campus leadership team is continuing to monitor
our targeted improvement plan implementation.
We're continuing with those weekly observation
and feedback cycles that began in August.
And we're making sure that our teams
all have defined roles and responsibilities
so that everybody knows how they contribute
to the campus as a whole.
Finally, moving into February,
we'll have weekly PLCs with all of our core content teachers.
This is ongoing, but this will be continuing,
along with having an agenda in place
with documentation of next steps.
Again, our focus is on every student growing every day.
Finally, as we move into March and April, we'll make sure that we have an assessment
calendar developed for 26-27 school year.
We'll continue to track and analyze our assessment data to make any needed adjustments before
we move into the STAAR testing season.
And finally, research-based instructional strategies training for our campus leadership
team and plans for our staff to engage in that as well prior to next school year.
So we are requesting board approval of our targeted improvement plan. This was presented
to our families in December and feedback from our parents has been solicited. Our parent
response has been very positive and our observation and feedback cycles are going well. I'm so
proud to say that we're seeing instructional growth on our campus, which is translating
into some incredible student academic growth. We're making meaningful, measurable strides
forward and I'm fully confident in our staff our students and our community
together we're moving Cimarron in the right direction and building the success
our cheetahs deserve so at this time we're happy to answer any questions you
may have thank you board any questions mr. president miss Fox good evening mrs.
chase it's great to see you could you go back a couple of slides to the next one i'll tell you
which one is it's this one i appreciate the detail that you're giving us here my question for you is
can you help us understand the additional staffing provided and how those positions are helping
you with student success sure absolutely so i'll start with our student support assistant principal
and that's Miss Melissa Campworth. She's actually seated right here. And Miss Campworth had a great
background in special education and as such our campus is 35 percent special education. So she
really kind of oversees making sure that our students receive what they need every day. As a
result of her focus on that because special education does require more meetings that has
allowed myself and our other two assistant principals to be in classrooms every day.
day. Looking at our behavior paraprofessional, he is an incredible person who has really
made some great connections and relationships with our students. He helps support making
sure that students get their day started on the right foot and also checking in throughout
the day with them. Our part-time social worker that is with us about two and a half days
days a week really helps to make sure that our families have those wraparound services.
So when you find out that a family is maybe struggling with acquiring food or needing
help with community resources, a campus social worker is a huge help with that.
And finally, our principal coach is a retired principal here from KDISD, Dr. Chris Mitzner.
You may recognize that name.
and so dr. Metzner and I meet about twice a month and she really gives me feedback
on plans and implementation analyzing data and making decisions follow-up
please so are you saying in essence that the students support AP helping with
that's about the arts going to arts and all those things that take your
assistant principals away from classroom help yes and the importance of having
your assistant principals be able to go into classrooms evaluate help teachers
absolutely to help the classroom is where the magic happens and so being
able to be there as a support and to give feedback right in the moment is
huge and very helpful and it's been incredible to see the instructional
growth that our incredible staff has had and to see the academic growth that our
students have had as a result. The same with the behavior paraprofessional. We
we know that across the district and probably across the state that behavior
has become more of a highlight for us to provide support for and so that person
also helps so that assistant principals are not dealing with that exclusively so
So it's important to have those assistant principals available to teachers.
Yes, absolutely.
So the teachers can be the best they can be for student success.
Okay.
Thank you.
What about the increased target support from teaching and learning?
What does that look like?
So our math instructional support is on our campus either every week
or every other week, depending on it.
and our literacy instructional support has also been very present at our campus.
On days when we have PD days, they've been there to lend a hand,
make sure our teachers understand the content,
so that instructional delivery is strong.
And last thing, and do you have an ECODIS number for us?
Yes, ma'am.
Let me give that to you.
This is according to the principal dashboard,
so it should be very updated.
Our economically disadvantaged percentage is 63%.
Okay.
And do you have an active PTA?
We do have a very active PTA.
They are small but mighty.
They run a budget of about $30,000 each year.
Okay.
More questions, Board?
I have a question.
Ms. Calhoun?
I wanted to see if you could help me unpack the student ownership part of your first partnership.
that box sure absolutely so when we were in school the teacher stood at the front of the classroom
and delivered right stand and deliver and so what we're really looking at is making sure that our
students are taking ownership of learning and so by that i spoke earlier about the one doing the
talking is the one doing the learning a lot of times our teachers will have each our students
turn and talk with each other share their thinking and then share out and provide feedback another
Another key piece of that for student ownership of learning is making sure that students have
manipulatives at hand during math instruction so that they're right on target with building
that understanding.
In addition to that, on our walls, if you come in one of our math classrooms at Cimarron,
we do have them covered in what's called white books, which is a very, it's a larger whiteboard,
if you will.
We break students up into groups.
And so you might send three students over to a white book to solve a problem.
As a teacher, you're standing at the front of the class and you can see six to seven
different groups of students solving problems at once.
You can see that this group is right on target, this group is struggling a little bit, so
you can go over there and provide support to them.
So it's not the teacher modeling math all the time, it's students doing the math and
discussing with each other.
Does that make sense?
Mm-hmm.
It does.
I wanted to see, I was looking at our district enrollment reports.
I was just kind of going back over the last few that we've gotten.
And I've noticed that Cimarron Elementary is, we're going down by a little over 400 students per, well, every time that we take these reports.
The last one was just done this week.
Is that impacting, how is that impacting you on the campus to have those numbers?
I think the most current number that I have is we're down by 458 students.
So I'm not familiar with that specific number that you're referencing. I can tell you that
when I started as principal in October of 2021, I had about 620 cheetahs at that time.
My current enrollment, again, according to the principal dashboard that I pulled this morning,
is about 480 students. So in my time we have decreased by about 150 students. Don't check
my math please. But I am aware that we have about 120 students attending bilingual instruction at
James Williams Elementary which is right down the road from us. The other thing that I would say
is that Cimarron is an older neighborhood. They were established in 1980 and so I wonder if maybe
the neighborhood just hasn't turned over yet to younger families but that would
really be a better question for the demographer the other thing that I would
say is that we are a smaller campus and so when you have a smaller campus you
would think that it would be very easy to impact change right and it is but the
other thing that you have to think about is that on a given grade level you
probably have about three to four teachers and so at some of our larger
elementary campuses they may have eight to ten teachers per grade level and so
at a smaller campus one person has a stronger impact because of that all
right that's all I needed thank you mr. president you see me thank you when we
visited when I did a campus visit in the fall we discussed kind of your theme for
the year how are you feeling and how does your staff do you have any feedback
back on your theme your baseball home hit a home sure absolutely um our our campus theme for this
year is one team one dream um because we do have a dream that every kid is going to succeed this year
um i feel so incredibly strong about that and kind of a sub theme there is you belong here there's so
much division in our world today it's so important for our students and our families to know that
they're valued and they're loved and so with that yes absolutely we're definitely one team one dream
as you can see, and we all belong here.
Mr. Cross?
Thank you.
Ms. Chase, thank you for being here.
I know it's not a fun evening to spend with the board, I'm sure,
and what I will say is, just as years being in that role,
is that I have a feeling that when the scores came in,
nobody's heart sank more than yours and that group out there.
And so I say that to say that I know you guys care about kids and you want them to be successful.
And all the schools get support from this building here.
It's called the Educational Support Complex, if I remember correctly, and that's their role here, and I love that they're able to do that.
what I would say is that you know each step that you take as miss Fox mentioned getting
additional staff which is fantastic because you're right guards take up a lot of time they're super
important but it's hard to do both get in a classroom and sit in art at the same time I
love that you have a coach dr. Mitzner amazing amazing lady lover so thank you for for stepping
in and doing that for us I love that your staff is here tonight too so hats
off to our teachers that came out because the Texans are gonna start here
in about an hour which means I should really shut up so we can get out of here
but where I'm where I'm going with this is I know there's a full-blown plan both
both by you as the leader of the campus, by your wonderful teachers,
and then by the folks over here in this building,
because everybody takes such great pride in our kids doing well.
And I know that you do too.
My understanding is we'll have map assessments going out pretty quickly,
and then so that will give us another snapshot of how the kids are doing.
And I just am – I believe that with everything that's going on
and and what's what all you're doing as a campus with support from this these
folks over here I just see good things happening and so hats off to our folks
for doing the doing the work in the classroom that's where it matters that's
where it starts and miss chase thanks for your leadership and your willingness
to to have a coach and learn and grow and you know you never the minute you
don't do that you should not do the job anymore whether you're a principal or
teacher or school board member or whatever but um i just appreciate uh the effort that's being
poured into this by everyone and uh we we believe in in you and your folks and and we think that
we're going to get to celebrate here come may or june whenever we get those scores so
thank you so much for being here and for you all being here tonight
Mr. President? Ms. Champagne? I just have two questions for you. First of all, I'm
happy to see your support here. My first question is, I hope that this is okay,
but could y'all stand if you're with the school? I would just love to see a visual
of it. Wow. Thank you so much for being here. I know y'all have children and
and other things to do at home.
And I know some of these people, like Mrs. Hodges.
I mean, she was my daughter's fifth grade teacher.
She's excellent.
So I have a lot of confidence.
The other question I have is, can you repeat again what Dr. Mitzner's role is?
Sure.
She is a principal coach here in KDISD.
She works with myself as well as several other principals here in Katy.
Okay.
Thank you, Dr. Mitzner.
I know that you're a great asset.
I remember having your school assigned to me at one point and visiting with you a lot.
So I really think that this support is good.
I concur with what Mr. Cross said.
So thank you for saying all those things, especially from an experienced principal as he is.
Thank you so much.
This face how much deeper does the plane go what we have I mean everything that's up there is
Pretty high level right and as a board that's what we look at
But like
It goes way deeper right
Down to the student level things you can focus on certain students and specific classrooms
And I mean I I like to get down to the nuts and bolts trying to stay out of it
but I can assume or correct me if I'm wrong everything that teaching instructor
um using the word accountability as they come in teaching learning is coming in
like it's down to that level of some of the other information we get that it's
not stopping this because is this sounds really great and and then a lot of this
is just stuff we do right I mean like
takes the line materials i don't think we could be a real school district if we didn't have
teak's line materials 100 so and i know as a board presenting that in the public but like
we we've got to know like how much deeper is this going so that when when we all come back here and
we celebrate we know like man this this was it's going to be hard work and it's worth it right i
mean and nobody would disagree with what i'm saying i absolutely know that that's not um but
How much deeper does it go?
I could share spreadsheet upon spreadsheet with you along with, you know, agenda after agenda of the PD that our staff has had, the feedback that our staff has implemented and moved.
I could give you names of students that we're focusing on.
You know, we were able to narrow in on Monday, our PD day of last week, to see which of our students are currently not growing and what plan do we have in place so that we can make sure to have an impact on each of them.
So it's taking these things down to that student level and like with a scalpel addressing the heart of the issue.
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I know that.
I mean, that's what our, that's what the people in this building do.
But I think it's good for people to hear that.
The presentation is great and it lays a lot of stuff out, but at the same time, it's like,
okay, what's going to be different?
It's that.
So, thank you.
Mr. Kemp.
Can I just, just for a second, just so I can kind of say that too, like I can remember
having those kinds of meetings where you're looking at individual kids, you're looking
at patterns too like the thing that you don't get to sit and talk about or are
there certain teaks we're not meeting or there certain kids who are struggling on
certain teaks are there patterns within those kids or their patterns within
grade levels I mean it is you're right we could sit here for hours and look at
data and stuff and I'm glad you brought that up because it is important that that
we get to see the big picture but the daily work happening in those meetings
When teachers are sitting there looking at kids and when the ESC folks come over and we're having those conversations around the table, whether it's with team leaders or the admin team.
And so it does.
It gets it.
It would be minutia deluxe if we sat here and and went down to it.
but I'm glad you mentioned that because it is important that the that the general public hears that it's not just this
Grand plan that that there are the details within that plan that are happening every day at your school
So I appreciate you saying that mr. President
Mrs. Chase when you said you got
Did you say family feedback or community feedback did you Sam what does that look like
So I presented the same plan to our families. At that time they were given a
QR code that linked to a Microsoft form that had questions about do you
understand the plan, you know, do you have anything additional, and what is it that
you hope to accomplish for your child through the end of this year. That was
not only available for parents to fill out at that time, but it's also been
posted on our website since December. It's a little pop-up. If you went
there today you could see it and it would still pop up for you to give feedback on i think and
then in addition to that i've sent that out to our families both in our weekly newsletter that i send
every thursday and also as a separate email too just again trying to get parent feedback
and how much did feedback did you get um we did have responses from four families
families.
So I'm a broken record about the three-legged stool of every student's success and it's
student, school, teacher, and family.
Yes ma'am.
Right.
So we know that teachers cannot work more hours, they cannot love harder, work harder,
or care more.
They already do all of that to their nth degree.
Absolutely.
The piece is the family understanding how they can help, the involvement, just caring
about it, showing their student that is valued here.
We expect great things from you and the teacher.
I always told the teacher, how can I help you help my child because I don't know how
to do calculus?
But what can I provide, making sure that what I don't understand, I provide that to the
support at home to make sure that my student my child can be successful and
so for families is a little disheartening for me right and so that
helps me understand a little bit the and I there is no magic button there is no
button to push to make that be better it also tells me that the families are not
worried about you and about the teachers and how much you love their students or
you would hear from them and so would we so right that's also what that tells me
that's why I ask about your PTA and like when you have family events if they come
oh yes absolutely right yeah I've been to a couple of events at your school and
the family show up and they love being there so hold on I have another question
here so here's my question as we sitting at this day is have heard about planning
time planning time planning time for our teachers making sure they have enough
and now I see that one of your things is more PLC weekly PLC's in the core
content so I'm guessing that that means more time from them targeted specific
specific, content rich to help them help students.
So I know teachers that you're asked to do a lot of things,
and I also know that they're probably saying,
yes, we are better than a score that somebody gives us,
so how can we help our boys and girls?
So I'm guessing that it's a bit more for them
as you're working through a plan.
Am I wrong about that?
do you is it still just kind of the same amount of time or are we asking more and it is the same
amount of time yes ma'am and our our focus there is really on lesson rehearsals so that our teachers
feel strong and confident as they're presenting to students okay so it's are you doing group
plc's or it's not individual or it it is group but if someone requested individual we would do
that too okay my last question for you is how can we help you do you have everything you need
is there something you need from the board that that we can provide to you to make sure that those
boys and girls can succeed at the level we know they can and you know they can how does that
translate into a score the campus we feel very supported and so i would say positive thoughts
Any more questions aboard?
I was a former Cimarron Elementary student.
Oh, is that right?
Product of Cimarron.
I wasn't a cheetah.
I was a superstar.
I take a vested interest in the success of Cimarron,
and I'm excited for when we come back here, as was Mr. Verling.
Is that right?
excited to see the results when we come back here so thank you all so much and
thank you everyone for some wrong this here tonight so thank you miss chase and
miss Hubble and miss Martinez for your presentation I love mr. mr. Redmond that
this is what family feels like when you aren't from Cimarron but you come to
support because you know that at any moment this could be all of us and every
There are students in every school who need us to go the extra mile for them and to do the extra.
And we know that's what you do.
We're grateful for you.
Thank you.
This would be the time we move on to a public forum to receive input on the targeted improvement plan for Samaritan Elementary.
But there were no speakers that signed up tonight.
7.1 Discuss and consider Board Approval of the November 2025 Financial Reports.
So we'll move on in our agenda to Section 7, Discussion Items.
And so the first item for discussion tonight to discuss and consider board approval of the November
2025 financial reports our presenter will be mr. Jamie Hines assistant superintendent of finance
You had a traffic dream to work through there.
I'm surprised everyone isn't staying for financial reports.
Good evening, President Redman, trustees,
Superintending Gorgorski, you have before you, as you do every month, our financial reports.
These are for the month of November. Included in our financial reports are
our financial statements, our construction report, our tax report, as
well as our check register summary for the month of November. Our financial
statements include our expenditures, our revenues, any changes in fund balance, as
as well as an analysis of our expenditures by both function and object.
I'm just going to go into a few of the details for this month.
November is the third month of our fiscal year, so we're through 25% of our fiscal year.
So we can start making some correlations and start making some decisions on how to handle things moving forward.
On the very first page of the financial statements, just quickly going over the revenues,
We're at 3% for the local revenues.
That's our property taxes that we've taken in.
Understand this is through November.
So in December and January, you'll see the majority of those property taxes come in.
And so that will go up significantly.
And then state program revenues are at 47% and federal revenues are at 26%, all in line with prior years.
Again, since this is through three months, that's one quarter of the year, 25%.
So when we look at that expenditure line on the right-hand side of that summary, we're looking to make sure that we stay under 25% on our expenditures.
And you can see we're at 24%, the same place we were last year.
We're actually, if you get out in the decimal points, a little bit lower than that, which means we've got a little bit more underspending, which is a good thing this year.
Going into just one more little detail, and I had a question about this recently.
But on that debt payments, there's a small amount there.
And I just want to go into that.
That's our SPIDA, our Subscription-Based Internet Information Technology Agreements.
And those are multi-year agreements for information technology.
There's only about 15 or 20 of them in the district, but we have to book a liability there.
So that's where that $1.3 million comes from, and that 1% is expended through the year.
Moving on, looking at all of our functional expenditures,
we've got three areas where we're over that 25%.
And just real briefly, one is co-curricular
and extra-curricular, and that comes from
the first semester, we're really spending more on travel
for the students, as a lot of those sports
have to travel around the state for competitions.
Down below that, security and monitoring, that's something that Mrs. Rios has already brought one budget amendment,
and then she'll be doing another alignment, I believe, this month or next month for that,
and that's just moving some monies around to make sure that salaries within that function are aligned with the budget.
And then the other is data processing services, and we've discussed that a few times,
and that's where we have the contracts that we pay up front for the year for
our information technology and that percentage is moving down and should
come in alignment with the percentage of expense next month the only other thing
I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention the capital projects fund or
our construction report on that first page you'll see over on the right the
the amount within each of our authorizations,
as well as our E-rate funds,
and our TERS waterfall funds balances,
as well as our miscellaneous capital projects.
And I just bring that up
because there are some items later on this evening,
but you can see on the right hand side of the estimates
over and under the projections.
If there are any questions, I'd be glad to answer them now.
Questions for?
Board no questions thank you very much thank you we'll now move on to item 7.2
7.2 Discuss and consider Board approval of the January 2026 budget amendments.
discussing consider board approval of the January 2026 budget amendments
presenter will be miss Esperanza Rios director of budget and Treasury
Good evening, Board President Redman, Board of Trustees, and Dr. Gorgorski.
Tonight, for the general fund, we bring forth budget amendments, which are all direct functional offsets.
These functional offsets include staff development, repair, supplies, membership, student travel, and SPDA software.
The approval of these amendments will result in no impact to the general operating fund balance.
We also bring forward a budget amendment for the capital operating budget.
This amendment will fund the, excuse me, the capital operating budget will amend the funding in the amount of $626,773 for life safety upgrades at Seven Lakes High School,
Rhodes Elementary and Franz Elementary, which were approved at the December board meeting.
These upgrades will be covered with the 2023 bond authorization savings. This will result
in no change to the capital projects fund balance. Any questions? Mr. President? Ms. Champagne?
I would like to have you explain the $9,000. We did get an email from the superintendent about that,
I think it was explained but I thought since it was $9,000 for the police vehicle hmm so the
district does have where maintenance to go ahead and cover but there are some things that we have
to do contracted talked out that's what any type of service that we within the district and so
that's through risk management so that's anything that's probably it that was maybe an accident or
where a vehicle police vehicle was involved that we have to go ahead and send those repairs out
to so i can i can give you the details on that there were two two collisions with police cruisers
and uh we they were our fault we have insurance but based on our policy it's really just we're
paying for those repairs so it is uh paying for basically repairs to four vehicles the two that
caused the accident the two that were damaged in the accident um and mr nahman if i've screwed that
up can can help but but that's what that was specifically it was two accidents
we're basically paying through them through the risk management budget but
we don't know that we may have a loss in risk management in the police department
when we budget and so we're just moving money from where you had budget to
to security.
Ms. Thanks.
Mr. Cuzela?
Ms. Thank you.
I'll piggyback up on that.
Just that last part that you said, Mr. Smith,
you're pulling out of general supplies or car repairs.
It just doesn't feel right.
Why isn't it coming out of a budget that makes sense?
Well, the risk management budget has monies.
Most of it is to pay claims where there are big expenses, and that's an instruction.
So in the risk management budget, there's money for instruction,
and there was not money in the police department portion of it.
And so we're just moving it from one function to another.
It's not coming out of any campuses or any real instruction.
It's the risk management's budget.
but that's where since that's the bulk or 70% of our spin that's where a large
portion of that budget was so those are those budgets also will pay for
replacement items and most of our replacement items that in 6399 so that
would be those type of supply budgets because they don't meet a threshold to
be considered capital assets so we'll budget in 6399 for those items because
they are I guess it's smaller in value but we do have that replacement and so
to be able to do that we put that there and at the time it just depends on what
what the need happens within the district and so we'll move those funds
accordingly but all those funds are actually allocated for replacements or
for repairs we just choose to put that money in supplies because most of the
time that is to replace an item so the police department doesn't have a budget
item to to budget for these things that happen accidents just by practice you've
always accounted that way or budgeted that way excuse me okay the budget of
the risk management department is to reduce is to cover those types of costs
those aren't allocated to any campus or any department for those purposes for
so any type of repairs or any type of replacements that are related to storms
or damages those come from the risk management department budget okay and
general supplies is the best place that's where we put the budget like I
said we put the budget there because most of the time we're buying items to
to be replaced, which fall under a threshold of $5,000 to $10,000.
And so $63,999 is where we would buy those items.
So we budgeted that in those items.
It just happens in this case.
We need to move those to repairs.
Okay.
It is what it is.
That's how you treat it.
And it's a reclass, so I get it.
The other question I had was the $626,000 for the, to pay, and that was to pay, so we approved, I had to go back and look.
So we approved for the life safety expenditures for, I think it was a couple of campuses.
That was part of the bond package.
You had a certain number.
it was over by this amount once we got to getting the work done correct and
we're pulling from bond savings to cover this overage this higher cost I guess
yes in 2020 the 23 a bond authorization had looks like 2.7 1.1 and 1.1 million
for those prospective campuses to replace those they came in the three of
them under under budget or over budget and we're just covering that from other project savings um
and i had noticed like on the construction report it's 662 over or and we're we're covering 626
is that some some other numbers thrown in there yes the numbers above that on your report those
those other projects in the life safety systems are part of that subtotal, as you're saying.
Okay. Thank you.
Any more questions for it?
Thank you.
7.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the annual financial audit report.
We'll now move on to Item 7.3, Discuss and Consider Board Approval of the Annual Financial Audit Report.
Presenters Chris Smith, Lupe Garcia, Jamie Hines, and Kayla Smith.
I'm going to go ahead and introduce this one.
Thanks, education code 44.008 requires that all public education agencies like
ourselves require an annual audit. I'm here to talk and introduce our voice
sounded different all the audit firm from Whitley Penn Mr. Lupe Garcia is the
audit partner with Whitley Penn you've seen him before at a meeting like this
probably this time last year and he is here to talk about the audit that they
just completed to turn it over to Mr. Garcia good evening president Redmond
members of the board and Dr. Grigorski my presentation this evening will take
you through the audit results for fiscal year 2025 of both your annual financial statement audit and
the audit of your federal programs. I'll go through some financial statement highlights and then end
my presentation with required communications. The audit process began last summer with interim
field work procedures. We start with a risk assessment, internal control, identifying the
major programs, and the federal single audit performing the majority of the compliance testing
related to those major programs at that time. Once the district's fiscal year is
over, we come out in the fall for year-end fieldwork where our audit
procedures are geared more towards your financial statements, your account
balances, your transaction classes. Over all these months, we're performing audit
procedures to support the opinion that we express on your financial statement
that ultimately is reviewed by many stakeholders outside of the district. As
As external auditors, we can issue one of three different types of audit opinions.
The first opinion is a disclaimer, which really is no assurance.
That would be due to a scope limitation or that the records were in such poor condition
we weren't able to complete our audit and give any type of assurance whatsoever.
A qualification is a type of modified opinion, which would be issued in a situation where
everything was fairly stated except for the areas that we identified in our report.
and then the best outcome in a financial statement audit is to receive an unmodified opinion, which is also referred to as a clean opinion.
I'm happy to report for fiscal year 2025, KDISD has earned an unmodified opinion, so that opinion appears at the very beginning of the financial section of the annual comprehensive financial report.
and what that indicates to external users of your financial statements is
that you're following all generally accepted accounting principles and that
your financial statements are materially correct in all respects. We also issue a
report on the district's internal controls over financial reporting and on
compliance to your financial statements. Our audit procedures did not identify
any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies nor did we identify any
material non-compliance to your financial statements. And the third and
final report we issue is in the related to your federal single audit major programs during fiscal
year 2025 there were four major programs tested in the federal single audit the basis for identifying
those four major programs is your schedule of expenditures of federal awards we go through a
process a risk assessment process to identify your large programs we consider whether there's been
any findings or question costs in the past has there been any findings by any regulators over
the last year because that would increase risk for that particular program and so that's how we
identify the major programs each and every year each of these programs have unique compliance
requirements our audit procedures did not identify any question costs or non-compliance or any
internal control related findings related to your four major programs so good news here as well
because within 30 days the results of this federal single audit and the financial statement audit
have to be uploaded to a federal audit clearinghouse and that's the first way that all
the federal agencies and state agencies become aware of how the district performed in the federal
single audit and financial statement audit jumping into financial statement highlights from the
annual comprehensive financial report itself the district's government-wide statement in that
position is its balance sheet as of the end of the fiscal year so this is a snapshot in time
your total assets and deferred outflows of resources on august 31st 2025 totaled 4.2
billion dollars of that balance that's primarily comprised of your cash and
investments of 1.1 billion and then all the district's capital assets your land
construction and progress vehicles furniture and equipment netted
depreciation amortization that was 2.8 billion your liabilities and deferred
inflows of resources as of the end of the fiscal year were 3.8 billion and
that's primarily comprised of your outstanding long-term bonds payable and
related unamortized premiums that was 2.8 billion and then the district reports two liabilities
related to your participation in the teacher retirement system of texas one is related to
the pension liability and that's um for retiree pension that was 336.6 million and then your other
post-employment benefit liabilities related to retiree health care that was 216.2 million both
Both of those amounts get measured and provided to you by TRS each and every year.
They have auditors and actuaries that calculate these amounts.
This is KDISD's proportionate share of the statewide liabilities.
So KDISD is one of the largest employers in TRS, so you have a larger slice of those two liabilities.
You're required to report these liabilities in your financial statements.
This is information for the state and the lawmakers as they make decisions as to the contributions that go into each of these plans, both for the state, from the employers, and the employees.
And they'll use this information to determine what benefits are appropriate, what going forward will be sustainable.
So rest assured that the district is contributing to TRS for both of these plans exactly like it should.
It's budgeting for these contributions, and so there's nothing that Katie owes TRS whatsoever.
The net position of the district is $412.9 million at the end of the fiscal year.
More information on the pension liability.
You can see as of fiscal year 2025, the pension liability is 77.51% funded.
In the pension world, this is considered a well-funded pension plan.
So current employees and retirees and TRS can rest assured that they'll receive their pension for the rest of their time.
What's different about the net OPEB liability or the retiree health care is that it's not a funded plan.
It's a pay-as-you-go plan, so it's not as funded as the pension plan.
You see it's 14%, 13.7%.
But again, that's how the plan is designed.
This fluctuates more because we're talking about health care, and health care is expensive.
Actuaries have to recalculate this amount each and every year.
People are living longer.
They look at the demographics of men versus women and a long list of other variables that impact this calculation
But you're reporting exactly what TRS expects your report in your financial statements
Your general fund revenues ninety percent of your revenues comes from two sources
State funding and your property tax revenue
State funding was fifty two percent of your general fund revenues property taxes was thirty eight percent
And then you have ten percent coming from other miscellaneous sources
other state funding is primarily TRS on behalf other local funding is primarily
your interest income and then you have a small portion of federal funding that's
actually recorded in your general fund versus special revenue funds to round
out your general fund revenues general fund expenditures 68% of your
expenditures are related to instruction and instruction related services so
that's a functions 11 12 and 13 in your budget student support services is 11%
of the general fund expenditures that's primarily guidance counseling and
evaluation services your co-curricular extracurricular activities student
transportation maintenance and operations that's function 51 in your
budget at 8% security monitoring and data processing that's seven the
instructional and school leadership I'm sorry is 7% of your budget that's
campus-based leadership 3% is security monitoring and data processing a general
administration is that district-wide administration of KDIC. Everything that
happens in this building is there at 2% intergovernmental expenditures or
payments to the appraisal districts and then you have other miscellaneous
functional expenditures.
at 0%, less than 1% of your general fund expenditures.
When looking at general fund expenditures,
it's good to compare yourself to your peers
and see how do you compare to,
in relation to all your various functional expenditures.
So this is information from other large school districts
in region four.
Year one of nine school districts
with enrollment of greater than 45,000.
So from left to right, we have Katie in red,
and then there's the remaining eight
are just in alphabetical order.
Aldine, Cy Fair, Fort Bend, Humboldt, Houston, Klein, Lamar Consolidated, and Pasadena ISD.
All the information on the next three slides is from fiscal year 2025, except for Houston ISD,
their financial statements for fiscal year 2025 are not yet available, so everything there for
them is fiscal year 2024. So we start with instruction, instruction-related services. As
I just covered on the previous slide, it was 68% for fiscal year 2025 for KDISD. That's the highest
of the nine school districts that we have presented on the slide again those
those are the expenditures that impact students in the classroom directly we
have instructional and school leadership KDISD is at six percent that's going to
be the campus based leadership you can see six percent is the lowest there's
Cy Fair also at six percent all the other districts are at seven eight nine
and we have one at thirteen your student support services are the guidance
counseling, evaluation, student transportation, co-curricular,
extracurricular activities. KDISD is at 11% of your general fund is spent in
that area. General administration, KDISD was at 2%. We have to break it down
here into decimals to really drill down into some detail. That's really 1.89%.
The only other district with the lower function 41 percentage is Cy Fair, but
but they're larger and they're able to spread
their general administration expenditures
across a larger base of expenditures.
They're at 1.56.
You have your neighbors to the south, Fort Bend at 2.49,
Lamar Consolidated is at 2.51,
and the other districts are kind of in that range
of the middle between two and 3%.
Maintenance and operations, 8.33 for KDISD.
So you're in the bottom half there for function 51
compared to the other peers in Region 4. And then you have functions 52 and 53,
KD ISDs at 3%, again the lowest of your peers here for those
particular functional expenditures. Intergovernmental 1%, primarily payments
to the appraisal district, and then you have other miscellaneous expenditures
there, where for KD ISD that was less than 1%. So favorable comparisons, just to
give you some perspective of how KD compares to other large ISDs here in the
the region four area. The general fund budget to actual your revenues were
greater than budgeted revenues by 5.7 million so very very close there to what
actually occurred. Your actual expenditures were less than budgeted
expenditures by 10.4 million. Overall you did have an increase to fund balance in
the general fund during fiscal year 2025 of 10.7 million for an ending fund
fund balance of $375 million. Again, similar to the statement in that position, this is a snapshot
in time. You need this fund balance to operate in the fall months until you start collecting
additional property taxes in December and January. So this is by no means your savings account. This
is your working capital. This is how you're going to pay employees and vendors for goods and services
provided at the beginning of the school year until you start bringing in that additional
property tax revenue. Fund balance is reported in multiple categories for a
variety of reasons. Non-spendable is going to be anything in inventory or
prepaid items. You have amounts that may be committed or assigned. Committed being
that they're earmarked by the Board of Trustees, assigned they're earmarked by
management. Earmarked does not mean they've been spent. They've merely been
identified for specific purposes. Anything not in those categories is
reported as unassigned fund balance, which is fund balance that's available
for spending on any lawful purpose. Your unassigned fund balance represents
26.7% of your general fund expenditures. It's been fairly consistent
over the last five fiscal years. You do have a board policy to maintain, it's a
goal to maintain greater than 15% and you've been meeting that goal with
anywhere from 26 to 27% of unassigned fund balance over the last five fiscal
school years. You have two additional budget to actual comparisons in your report. The food
service fund revenues were less than budgeted by $100,000. Expenditures in the food service fund
were less than budgeted by $2.4 million. Overall, a decrease of $6.5 million for an ending fund
balance in this fund of $19.7. Then you have the debt service fund, which is where you record the
interest and sinking portion of your tax rate for the repayment of principal and interest on your
bonds. Revenues were greater than budgeted revenues by $600,000. Expenditures were less
than budgeted expenditures by $100,000. Overall, there was a decrease in this fund of $900,000
for an ending fund balance of $63.6 million in the debt service fund. As part of our audit,
we do review the district's accounting policies. The district is following all current accounting
pronouncements. During the fiscal year, they did implement a new standard related to compensated
absences which are the balances that employees have earned and they accrue
for for time off in the future accounting estimates are part of your
financial statements the most significant one is anything related to
state funding and all the variables that go into calculating that revenue and the
accruals in the financial statements management has has a reasonable basis
for the revenue and the accrual that they made in the financial statements in
accordance with generally accepted accounting principles
Every financial statement audit, not just KDISD's financial statement audit, includes the risk that management can override internal controls. So that's part of our professional skepticism. That's part of the unpredictability that we include in our audit procedures.
because although you have established policies and procedures, we know that
individuals can always decide to do something else and so we look for that
something else as part of our audit. Improper revenue recognition, although
KDISD is not a for-profit entity, there's always the risk that revenue
could be recorded in the incorrect fiscal period. So we apply procedures
to ensure your revenues, especially your grants, your state funding, property
taxes are recorded in the correct fiscal year. We didn't have any difficulties in
performing the audit or completing the audit. We had the district's full
cooperation through each phase of the audit, so we do thank the district for
their cooperation and their patience and assistance throughout the entire audit
process. Our audit did not identify any material misstatements that we had to
bring to management attention. We didn't have any disagreements with management
on any matters related to accounting or financial reporting or any compliance or
accounting estimates we do obtain from management a management representation
letter at the end of the audit that indicates and supports that management
has provided us with all the information we've requested and nothing's been
withheld that would impact a user's use of your district's financial statements
we're not aware of the district consulting with any other auditors or
accountants on any matters and then lastly we do answer questions throughout
the year provide information and guidance to the district but at no time do we feel the position we
take the information we provide impairs our independence to serve as the district's external
auditors so that completes my presentation if there are any questions i'd be happy to take
those questions at this time thank you thank you one of the things that always stands out to me is
I wrote it down between 38 and 41 percent of our funding comes from local taxes that over 50 percent
doesn't even come from our community it comes from the state and when people talk about wow
we pay so much in taxes which we do um it it still doesn't even cover half of what it takes
to educate our kids which is just crazy to me uh board uh any questions for um mr yes
Ms. Bing.
Ms. Thank you so much for coming.
I always enjoy listening to your report.
And actually, it's kind of interesting to read the report because it has a lot of interesting
historical information about KDSD and some present information.
It's very, very interesting.
And I appreciate the time that that must take to do that.
But I wanted to also point out that we've gotten the certificate of achievement for excellence by
GFOA, you can say what that is, and ASBO. And I was just curious how many years in a row have
we gotten those? So GFOA is the Government Finance Officers Association. So these are third parties
that review your report after it's been issued and they have a long checklist that they go through
to ensure it meets all generally accepted accounting principles and the annual comprehensive
financial report this is a this is above and beyond the minimum financial reporting that
you're required to do so you're including extra additional information in this document for the
benefit of the community for the public for the stakeholders that are interested in how kdisd
performed and then ASBO, A-S-B-O is the Association of School Business Officials.
So I think Kayla can provide the number of years. Yes it's 42 years. Thank you so
much to the financial team at KISD and Mr. Smith and I just really appreciate that
and I didn't even know what was going on before you know 2018 but you were still
you're already doing your thing and i really appreciate you keeping us you know budgeted
and well funded and through all the things you know that we've had you know with harvey and covet
and you know whatever and so we've been prepared and i really really want to commend you and your
team for that thank you there's a very strong team in financial services i can see that and so i
I really appreciate that, Mrs. Smith and Esperanza, everybody, and Jamie Hines, everybody.
I know I'm leaving out lots of people because that's a big team.
But I also wanted to point out on page 13 on mine of your presentation, first of all,
are the comparisons to the different districts, is that a requirement in your audit?
So this information is not included in your annual comprehensive financial report. A few years ago when we performed a
efficiency audit that requires you to identify peer districts and it compares you to other districts for a variety of criteria.
So it's not required that this information be presented to you, but I think it provides good
perspective to compare
you to other large districts in your area because you all compete for the same talent. You all have, you know, facing this similar challenges.
So it shows how you're utilizing your resources compared to other large school districts.
First of all, I think that that's great that we can see, you know, that we're doing well.
And I think it's important for us to compare not just with this but with everything, you know.
You know, how are we doing in comparison to the other large districts in our area?
But I just wanted to point out about the general administration and us being at 1.89.
I think, well, mine it says page 13. Yeah, you have it.
But even the other numbers aren't bad, right?
Like the other school districts, like a 2.49 is still a good number.
So I'm just pointing out that even their numbers are good.
We're just better, but I mean, but they're still, would you consider that still a good number?
Like if it was, let's say, 2.49%.
Anything below a three is really good.
We perform audits of over 50 school districts, and it's not, we do have,
in situations where that's 4%, 5%, 6%. So all of these are pretty good. All of these are what you
would consider to be good. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to point that out, that we're doing even better,
but they're all pretty much done good. All right. And let's see. I think that's it. Thank you so
much for your presentation. I enjoyed it. You're welcome. This report is a report the district
prepares so that that's noteworthy too we audit over 50 school districts only
17% of those two school districts are capable of preparing their own annual
financial report so kudos to the KD ISD team here for being able to do that
themselves and and I want to add something thank you mr. Garcia very much
for you and your staff's hard work on this audit and thank you for the
superintendent and the board for setting high expectations for financial services
group but I also want to you know it'd be remiss if I didn't say that all the
budget managers the principals throughout the district grant managers
program managers and such as the food services department etc and their
financial clerks every day could carry a big role in this in the way that this
audit performs and then we're not done tonight after you guys approve this
assuming you approve this next week we will put it ad in the paper that shows
our statement of net position we will
spit shine this document that you see right and that you have here and it'll
end up being something like this but we will spit shine this over the next
couple of weeks and just make sure proof it and continue to proof it and then
we'll submit it to GFOA and ASBO for those awards again but we also will
upload this file both in this format and with electronic numbers or with
basically numbers to TEA that's required and it'll be in an ADA compliant format.
We will file this report with the Municipal Advisory Council of Texas or
the MAC with the federal clearinghouse as Mr. Garcia mentioned GFOA and ASBO
and then Standard & Poor's sent out an email today said hey don't forget to
send us your ACFER by the end of February so we'll be doing that and
submitting all of that information to those interested entities five years are
many years of this is reported on our website so we will once this final and
once you approve it we will put the draft of course on the financials
Transparency's website and then all this information also submitted to PEMS
Public Education Information Management System it becomes basically sent in one
big data file to them so they can crunch these kind of numbers that you're seeing
in front of you statewide and that becomes very important and tool for for
the state to have and then the glue that holds us all together Kayla Smith to my
my left here no relation to me is our executive director of finance and
accounting and brandy heron is our director of accounting she's not here
tonight but they do a fantastic job and working first hand in hand with the
auditors to provide them the information and as mr. Garcia mentioned we are one
of a few districts that have that expertise on the staff to prepare this
this document that again is above and beyond what the majority of the districts throughout the state
do thank you board mr president thank you miss Cuzela thank you very much um appreciate it it's
a beautiful audit flying colors of course um you mentioned efficiency audit and i'm glad you did
and i've always wondered um when the next efficiency audit would be and i guess you are
the same auditor this is a financial audit just to be clear with the public listening it's not an
efficiency organizational audit uh would be fair to say is that correct uh and the last efficiency
audit i've seen is 2021 and when are we going to have another efficiency audit and and so just for
the public listening um that is uh it it it reviews the district's fiscal management efficiency and
utilization of resources and whether the district has implemented best practices utilized by texas
school districts um what is the timeline for that and when is the next one of those going to be
called and that may be i'll speak to that and we we did that in 2021 as part of a precursor and a
requirement to have actually wasn't required that year because of covid but we went ahead and had
an efficiency audit done in 2021 as a precursor to having the vatre they're not required to have
Management goes through and we have a tool that it can get all this PEMS data and we compare ourselves from an efficiency standpoint all the time.
That's an ongoing effort, but we haven't, that was the only time that we formally outsourced an efficiency audit to get an unbiased opinion prior to the VATRE.
So whenever the board or management would like to outsource it to them or to an outside firm, at that point we would do that.
But there's no requirement to do so until we deem it necessary or we're going to have a VATRE or some other thing come up where we wanted to have it.
But, again, management does have the tool that we can go in and slice and dice all our information, and we do a lot of that throughout the year.
Okay, so no no organizational efficiency audits being called for at this moment in time
Okay, thank you
Any more questions about the audit for mr. Garcia our financing board
Mr. Z random question and not holding you to this like it's on the invoice
How many hours does it man hours would it take between your staff and our staff to create this audit?
Well, I can speak to the number of hours it takes from our staff, and it's over the entire audit process, which started, you know, early last summer. It's going to be about 600 hours.
Plus whatever Kayla wants to estimate it takes on their end.
That's a good question. I'd have to think about that one for a while, but it's probably matching, if not exceeding, the number of hours that the auditors are putting in to get all of the requests together and then to build this document.
So if I were a CPA as a trustee and I wanted to dig deep into the finances of our district and figure out are we doing what we're supposed to be doing in regards to legal following policy, all that kind of stuff, I'd have spent well over 600 of my own hours to do that.
Yes.
We outsource that to you plus what our district does because y'all aren't able to just dig through everything.
You've got to have people that are helping you do all that kind of stuff.
Well, thank you.
I'm thankful that we have people that can help us dig through this information and the comparisons
I love that you continue to keep those in the in the reports because again
That allow again that allows us to look at and go where are we benchmark ourselves against other?
districts
And even just the trend we're looking at large districts if we were to grab a small district out in West, Texas
you know their general mission administration may be through the roof because
because our economies of scale are so large that we can have one person do purchase,
well, we have way more than one person do purchasing, but, right, we can do that.
So I appreciate that and keeping that in there.
Again, Board, any more questions before we go?
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
7.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of the 2026-2027 Property Insurance Program.
We'll now move on to Item 7.4,
Discuss and Consider Board Approval of the 2026-2027 Property Insurance Program.
The presenter is Lance Nauman, Director of Risk Management.
Good evening, Dr. Grigorski, President Redman, and Board of Trustees.
The renewal of property insurance program for the policy year 2026-2027 is attached.
Coverage is extended for the following.
buildings, structures and their contents, physical damage, physical damage to buses
and automobiles for catastrophic losses, electronic data processing equipment,
mobile equipment, and musical instruments, as well as boilers and machinery. Major
perils include fire, flood, earthquake, windstorm, named windstorm, and wind
driven rain. As summarized in the attached, the current total insured value,
value, TIV, is $4.9 billion, with an expiring value of $4.8 billion.
Design and structure changes, deductibles, and coverage limits are also included.
The expiring pure property rate is .1598, with the renewal set at .1553.
Additionally, a review of district assets was completed as part of the review coverage
related to contents building values have been adjusted to reflect inflationary
trends the renewal presented was evaluated considering coverage
assessment of risk availability of services and cost the action impacts the
2025-26 general operating fund for property insurance by an estimated
annual premium not to exceed 7.62 million and additional premiums may be
incurred may be incurred as new schools and renovations are completed it is
recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the 2627 property insurance
program just a few little comments I'd like to add to help you kind of wrap
your hands around this. In the presentation we are proposing option two.
We're at a point where it's with the market conditions such we're able to
increase our limits because the size and inflationary trends that we have seen. So
we're seeing increased coverage. The deductibles or will be able to remain
the same. The premiums that I'm quoting to you this evening are not to exceed.
risk management a lot and a lot our broker we're continuing to market our program leverage what we
can and because the market is still changing so we're we're optimistic we may be able to squeeze
a little bit more out of this this program for our renewal of 3-1 before we bind and the premiums
are below what we had initially budgeted back this previous year and i would also add to i think it's
been asking me before, you know, how many carriers or how do we approach this?
It takes, in our current program right now, it takes 21 different insurance companies
to garnish all this coverage together.
Just a little history is that post Harvey, if you will, we were able to secure one carrier
to write the entire limit, write the whole deal, if you will.
But that has since gone away with post Harvey.
So I would just help educate you in that side.
So I would also add with our M&O executive director, Nathan
Pugh and his team, they do a wonderful job
in keeping our buildings in great condition.
And that's reflective when we go to the marketplace,
what the risk is.
And the preventative maintenance that takes place
and with our emergency teams of how we
respond when things happen.
So it's the numbers are good right now and it's a result of everybody pulling the pulling the wagon in one direction. So I commend all my counterparts here in the district to help me put this type program together.
got it. Thank you, Mr. Nauman. I think real quick, I think everybody's going to have the question.
We've got two renewals, and you briefly mentioned it, but if you can give a little more clarity.
Renewal one and renewal two. Renewal one is 11.3% cheaper. Renewal two is only 2.82% cheaper. It's
not the lowest bid, but our documents show why that is. Can you just explain that to board real
quick why we chose that one the or recommending that one the reason is we have the opportunity
to increase our uh our coverage and better coverage for the district we're a large much
larger district um and i also think too you have an opportunity with the market being receptive to
increasing that coverage we'll eventually get back to a hard market and a hard market is defined as
premiums begin to increase and as we go over time when you're in a really hard market it's very hard
for carriers to give you more coverage so we this is an opportunity for us to
have better coverage while yet achieving some some hard dollar savings thank you
board questions in regards to our property renewal mr. president miss
steamy okay this might be a silly question but where it says floodplain
deductible and then flood Creech deductible is that in reference to
Creech Elementary or is that a term that I'm not familiar with?
I'll place that in there and let me back up to Harvey and I kind of keep this going forward.
After we renewed with Harvey, if you'll recall, Creech was a complete total loss.
We completely redid that entire building. The market then said, wait a minute, we're going to
exclude Creech from your flood coverage, but now it is included as part of our coverage and I just
want to historically just make sure we we say that it's it's part of the whole program okay
great i'm glad i asked that because i didn't get that from this so that that's that makes
me i anticipated your question i hope we get yeah you did you did great other questions board
all right thank you very much mr noman we'll now move on to item 7.5 discuss and consider future
7.5 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the 2027-2028 Instructional Calendar.
future board approval of the 2027-2028 instructional calendar.
And our presenters will be Ms. Sherry Ashhorn and Dr. Andrea Grims.
Hello.
Good evening.
Dr. Gregorski, President Redmond, members of the board.
So we're here.
It's that time of year again to think about instructional calendar.
Thank you so much.
We're always looking two years ahead.
So it's hard to imagine that we're already thinking about 20 27 28, but here we are
You'll know that we have three calendars for review and for future approval. We have option a that's our traditional
Calendar that's within the constraints of Texas Education Code that does not begin before the fourth Monday in August
We have what's called our historical calendar what our community is used to seeing that's our district of innovation calendar
It allows us to start a little bit earlier, something that looks very familiar.
And we're excited to offer option C this year, which provides a fall break for students and
for teachers.
Just as a quick reminder and refresher, every year I kind of go over the parameters for
you.
So when we're looking at creating a calendar, there are some things that we have to really
keep in mind.
First, we have to have a minimum of 75,600 operational minutes.
That's bell to bell.
we need to have 187 teacher contract days the law also says we either need to have two bad
weather days reserved or enough minutes banked in case of two days of bad weather
and normally as i mentioned per texas education code we would not be able to begin before the
fourth monday in august but our local district of innovation plan allows us to start earlier
although those are our parameters we do have calendar preferences right things our community
community likes, things we want to keep, make sure we have. We want a full break at Thanksgiving.
When I started here, it was only three days, and I can't imagine ever going back to only having
three days of Thanksgiving break. So we want to maintain that. We want to make sure we have two
full weeks for winter break, a week for spring break. We want to make sure there are professional
development opportunities for our staff within the instructional calendar. We want to make sure
we bank enough minutes for those bad weather days so we don't have to bring everybody back
in case in hurricane season something happens. We really want long weekends
each month if possible, opportunities for our teachers to recharge, and a new
calendar preference that we really tried to look at was a fall break in October.
So our start and end dates, I put them here just on a little chart for you.
Basically that traditional date we wouldn't be able to start until Monday,
August 23rd. That would feel really late for our community and for our staff.
option B and option C with the fall break are both going to start on that
Wednesday August 11th you'll notice option C has a fall break available
The last day for students, both calendars B and C will end before Memorial Day.
So I know there was a comment last year about kind of having that extra time between the last day of school and Memorial Day.
So we really utilized that for an option C to be able to incorporate that fall break.
We didn't want staff or students or community members to vote on instructional days.
So we made sure all three calendar options have 172 days of seated instruction.
instruction, and they all have those five professional development days within the calendar.
So we wanted to make sure teachers and staff had an opportunity to learn and grow on an
equal playing field.
So in short, all calendar options include the same number of instructional days, five
days of professional development, and do account for that one professional development flex
day in July for those teacher categories of IOO and I01.
one so that's also something that we're used to seeing and providing for our staff so at this
point i'm going to turn it over to dr grooms to talk about the survey results that we were able
to receive um and she has some really oh there she is um exciting information to share there
very exciting hey hello uh good evening again president redmond and trustees and dr gregorski
We're going to move into those survey results that Ms. Ashhorn just mentioned.
As we've done with previous years when this board has considered instructional calendar surveys for upcoming school years,
we did conduct a survey with our community, including parents and staff members,
to gauge public perception on these proposed options for the board to consider.
This survey was also made available to our fourth through twelfth grade students who
had opportunity to participate.
The survey was administered from December 16th through January 6th and it was sent out
three separate times following the initial administration.
It was shared as reminders during those three administrations.
So we're going to take a look at that second row there that says parents and staff.
staff. That is the participation rate for those who identified as a parent or staff
member. Survey went out to about 132,000 individuals within those categories with 17,975 responding
to the survey. That participation rate of 13% is comparable to participation rates in
previous years. Last year the participation rate was 12%, before that 11% and even about
about 5% prior to that.
We had four categories of individuals participate
in the survey, students, as you see there,
parents, individuals who identified as staff only,
as well as those participants who identified
as both parents and staff members.
Participants could only select one identification
when they participate in the survey.
So they could not select on the parent
as well as the parent and staff, it was one or the other.
Now here are the results for those instructional calendar options that were proposed that Ms.
Ashhorn just provided an overview of.
That option A again is the traditional calendar.
Option B is our historical KDISD calendar that this board has approved for the past
five years or so.
And then option C is that new calendar option that includes October break and also releases
students before the holiday.
day. Option C received the greatest votes with 56% of participants indicating that they prefer that
option. And on this slide you can see that breakdown of that preference by stakeholder group.
So in that option C category you'll see that parents at 23% followed by
KDIC staff at 17% preferred option C compared to the other calendar options.
And finally, we asked those who did vote for calendar C, again that 27-28 calendar with
October break, whether they would also like to see a similar modification for next year's
school calendar, the 26-27 calendar, and 94% of those participants indicated that that would be
something they would be interested in as well. At the end of the survey, we did ask for open
comments, additional feedback, as we have done with other surveys, and these are the themes that
emerged in those comments. Many folks who participated in the survey mentioned that they
liked the alignment with other districts that are also offering that additional fall break in October.
They liked the balance structured, presented in these calendars.
Some staff were concerned about the give back days because if you're not an educator and
you're working another type of position in the organization, there are some give back
days, seven, that individuals can either use their OT or actually their personal or sick
or vacation time or they can give those days back to the district.
Start and end days, there is a preference to start on a Wednesday, which our calendar
reflects, and to end before Memorial Day.
Teachers are interested in more planning days and fewer professional development days.
And again, these are general themes that emerged from those survey comments.
And then working parents, some did understandably express some concern about additional time
off.
but again overall there was a preference for calendar C which is that additional
fall break any questions board thank you questions mr. Villa yeah thank you thank
you so much was there a highly preferred it sounded like option C was preferred
by mostly parents at a high rate I think you said 56 or it was a lot staff and
And then staff, but staff only voted for that one by 17%?
Correct, 17%.
Okay.
So was there one that the staff overwhelmingly supported?
That received the greatest number of votes from staff.
Option B was at 5.6% for KDISD staff.
Okay.
So option C was also the high one for staff, even though it was only 17%.
That's correct, Ms. Kinsella.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, Mr. President.
Ms. Champaign.
Okay.
I always love a good survey.
So I appreciate that.
I think it's really important to do, you know, what the majority of the staff and the parents
want.
So my only concern, and it does not apply to me, so I'm going to go with the majority
rules and all that and the people who are actually living in that life, which are the
parents and the teachers are not in that life anymore.
But I was a little bit concerned about the working parents.
But if they still overwhelmingly want the option C, I think that, in my opinion, we
should go with what the majority has stated that they want.
But that was my only concern.
It's not my personal concern.
It's just for others.
But I figure parents are very smart.
They'll figure out a way to have their children taken care of.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
Thank you for the presentation and for the data-driven analysis here.
When I heard fall break, I was like, oh, my.
And I thought it was going to be an entire week in the fall, but it's not.
It's a Friday to Tuesday.
That makes a lot of sense to me, right?
Just a really extended long weekend where you could go and do something.
And you're exactly right, Mrs. Champagne, that working parents,
who don't get that off because it's not a national holiday or a federal holiday would
be like, what do I do now?
Because daycares and things like that shut down for school calendars.
But an extended weekend makes a lot of sense.
And now I can see why it overwhelmingly was the favorite.
And my question I wrote down when I saw it was, why not do it in fall 26?
I mean, it can't be that hard to adjust, and if we tell them now, they would have plenty
of time to make plans, you know, set up flights.
I can see that my children attended school in Plano ISD for a short time when they were
very little, and they had a long fall break, a whole week, and then we went to Disney World
because nobody was there, right?
It's not a time when everyone was off.
and so especially you know the children in the eastern part of the country usually don't go back
until after labor day and so it really was kind of nice to be there without all the crowd so i
can see them taking a break and booking flights and things with that still plenty of time for
them to do in 2026 would there be an objection or a reason why we wouldn't just go ahead and
implement that and i know we've been doing two-year calendars to give people time for that
but to give them a couple extra days that's why we made the data available
for the boards should you want to consider that mr. president miss
champagne let me understand so this is still a possibility for next school year
is that right or not so the board certainly has the authority to modify
the currently approved instructional calendar we've done that before with
different weeks so if that's something the board's interested in certainly
that's an option you have available
this is mr. high school principal what do you think no I would say the same
thing I think if we're if we're going to if we end up amending the calendar the
the 26-27 calendar, I think now's the time to do it because, or I guess next week, because it is.
People want to know. They want to plan. What they don't like is, you know, three weeks out or a
month out, oh, we're taking a day off or, you know, kind of thing. I mean, don't get me wrong,
we loved extra days off. It wasn't a problem, but it sure helps if you have plenty of notice because,
Because like Ms. Fox is saying, you know, and Ms. Champagne, we do have working parents.
And they need to be able to plan.
And daycares need to be able to plan and all that kind of stuff, too.
So I think the sooner, if we're going to do it, the sooner the better.
You may not know the answer to this question.
But one of the open-ended feedback and what would affect my family, like Bantober is happening in October.
And so there's a band competition every weekend.
Obviously that's the middle of football games.
When we take a week off in November, it's kinda like if you're in playoffs,
it affects you, but I mean there's four of our ten high schools, or five, occasionally.
So is there an answer for what they just do their stuff and hey,
that's what you get for being successful and part of this program?
Or how would that work for those staff members, students?
Those were some of the comments that emerged regarding UIL.
Often those activities continue throughout the breaks.
And I'm going to pass this to Ms. Hack because she'll be able to speak to this.
Yes, that's not unusual.
I apologize for my voice.
During breaks, we plan in advance whenever for all the events that continue over.
We just had the two-week winter break.
Our spring fine art, athletics, CTE, they plan accordingly for spring break.
It would be the same for fall break athletics department fine arts department CTE department
We work with their coaches and directors and we plan accordingly, but when you're in season you're in season and it's go time
Yeah, I was I was left home
While my parents would go celebrate Thanksgiving you got left we were
Winning we were playing football. You're playing football. You're playing at Thanksgiving. That's pretty good. Oh now you're just bragging over
for them here in basketball during christmas they don't get to go skiing or any of that
because they're doing basketball all christmas break other questions miss fox did you have i um
so when you change the calendar around because it looks like the days are still well of course
it's the same number of days and it looks like that just moved a couple from here to here it
It still looks like relatively balanced semesters.
When I heard fall break, I was like, oh, the spring is really the hard part, you know, making that long spring thing.
But I like it because it's a long extended weekend.
What did you move to not, what did we have?
We also have things, help me here, Dr. Gorgorski.
Like, we have a plan, students aren't at school, it's a PD day or something every six weeks, there's one day, is that correct?
Is it six or nine? Help me with that.
Yeah, at the end of every six weeks, there's a campus day to use as the campus sees fit.
I didn't look at the exact dates on that, but I saw five dates, Sherry, that the campus would retain those and they would have those.
Because those are really helpful for our teachers who need that planning time and those kinds of things and the professional development and the professional learning like we talked about earlier.
So those are still there for them.
But now we're going to give staff some of those days off.
Correct.
Actually, if you look at calendar C for that fall break, I can kind of clarify where those days came out of because we start on the same day.
So everyone starts on the same day of school. So for both
B and C calendars you're starting on August 11th
What we did is we pushed the end date of school from ending on a Thursday
to the subsequent Wednesday
Just my my computer is that's okay can only do what's showing so if you could show right here. There you go
But do you have a calendar picture of the calendar or no? I do not have one within the slideshow
I do know there's one I believe attached within the board item.
So if you look at option C and option B, they both start off exactly the same.
But what we did is on that end date, instead of ending on a Thursday like we traditionally
do, we've moved it to the subsequent Wednesday.
So if I go to last day of students, right?
So we go from Thursday, May 18th to Wednesday, May 24th.
That's four days, right?
So we've added four days to the school year, but two days went to fall break.
One day is going to go to President's Day as a day off.
And then the fourth day is that Monday after Easter that I know we historically talk about and provide,
but this gives a little bit more advanced notice, and it still protects us with those extra minutes, banked minutes.
So having a last day of school on a Monday didn't really feel like it made sense.
And so by extending it to Wednesday, it really did give not only just the fall break, but additional true holidays throughout that calendar.
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne?
So, okay, so what Mrs. Fox was talking about with the long spring break, I know because I used to work for the federal government,
and we always said you know i mean we didn't have spring break but this the spring semester what you
call the spring season whatever it seems so long because there weren't as many holidays you know as
it was in the fall but i think what is so good is that you mentioned that you added in a president's
day so that is helpful for the spring to to add you know because you know you have the one well
we have typically the one day the martin luther king but then it was like forever and ever till
we get to spring break but by adding that in that does give another a break and then of course we
have um i was going to say easter what i think is interesting in this one is that usually we don't
guarantee that one day off you know how we wait until to see if we use our weather days
and then we you know what I'm talking about Dr. Gorski we wait and then we
vote you know can we add that day but you've already added that day so this
way they all know that they're gonna have a break in January they're gonna
have a break in February you're gonna have obviously spring break in March and
then they have the longer weekend in April so I really think that this is a
good plan so I really I really like it thank you got one question do we know
have other districts around us adopted already adopted this is it are they go
into effect 26 27 or 27 28 or do we do we know any of that information we do
have some districts we've already adopted fall breaks on their calendar
some I think are the full week some are kind of the shorter longer weekends like
we have and that's available I don't know those off the top of my head but if
that's something you'd like I'm happy to go through my stack of printed calendars
in my office and provide that list no it is usually those are just one thing that
if it's something that cost us nothing to provide to our employees and we're
talking about mental health and keeping teachers and and and all of our
employees if that's something that not that we're in competition but it's some
some way we're in competition people are gonna compare well and I can get a fall
break over here or i can do that i think it's it's great to consider when there's things like
that we can do that do not cost us more dollars right so mr president i was just going to say
uh i don't know about i just know cyphair does it i know that because my brother and sister-in-law
work there um they went to sedona arizona for their fall break and loved it and i think the
year before they went to the northeast and so uh and just feedback from other employees there they
They seem to really like that idea of being able to travel and just be off if you, you know, at a time that's not your usual times.
And as Ms. Fox was saying, you know, maybe places less crowded and that kind of thing.
So I know that seems to be very favorable in Cyphair, but that's the only district I'm aware of.
Well, I know around the state when districts tried out doing like a, like we are not suggesting this anybody, a four-day school week.
One of the benefits that I learned about was our employees then had a day off on a day that they could do a doctor's appointment or they could schedule something for their kids.
And I think with the fall break like that where it's not on an actual holiday, those things are able to get done.
And so again just continuing to provide value that don't don't cost us enough
Any more Mr. President I like to add that that's so true
And I'm always remember my my Christmas, baby
I'd always have to take her to her child check up on you know her birthday
Which is like a couple days before Christmas happy Merry Christmas to you. You know we were out of school
But anyway, that's just a side note
But what I'd also like to say is that although and I don't want teachers
and staff to bash me for this but although it's so great when we can offer
that that other day off when we don't use the vacation days like the higher
level I have a friend that's a higher level math teacher at a school and it
really sort of messes them up when that's it's not planned for and you know
because they have all their things you know they and it's amazing what one day
can change in someone's lesson plan because they're going to do this this
this this and all these certain days awesome that day is not good but I don't
want you to not offer that I'm just saying it's nice when we can have as
much as we can know about it so that teachers like that can plan thank you
miss champagne I would agree with you the people who are if we don't tell them
well in advance semester AP teachers are going to be really mad at us we don't do
that because you're right three days will matter a lot to those folks any
other questions comments work mr. president so you're saying that the
Easter Monday that we normally say yeah we didn't use our our bad weather day
you can have Easter Monday but they didn't have time to plan that's already
scheduled there and we believe already scheduled so yes I would have people
call my office and say hey have you heard anything are we getting that
Monday off because I'd like to book a flight but I don't I don't want to have
to be here take a day you know and I just wait so I haven't had any bad
weather yet but so it would be a courtesy what happens with our bad
weather days if we don't use them we have two days of banked minutes and
And anything beyond that, we should be able to request a waiver from TEA.
And so those banked minutes are that Monday?
They're already included.
So based on the number of instructional minutes, students go to school every day.
It's already built into the system.
I'll also be asking you next for your approval for a professional development waiver.
And you'll remember that that's 2,100 minutes that go back into our bucket to be able to use for some of that bad weather.
So we're very strategic about the professional development days as well.
Okay. So, Mr. President, I would like to see us modify the calendar for 2020, fall of 2026, the 26-27 calendar, because this seems like a really good idea, and we're able to get everything done, and that'll give us an opportunity to try it out.
And we would know by Monday if people don't like it, they will give us feedback by Monday
and we could pull it from the agenda.
But I'm only one, but that's what I'm giving you feedback about.
Are you okay with that, Dr. Gorgorski?
Yes, I can have the team put together that calendar and I can get that in advance to
the board to take a look at what that looks like.
then we could have it loaded in in board docs for Monday for everybody to be able
to see by that point and then have it as an option should the board want to
exercise that next week when we approve this calendar whichever one we approve
we can make that at that time that decision and it'll just be there ready
to go or not your choice because they've taken that survey is what I'm thinking
and then they're gonna be like what happened to the fall break we don't have
a fall break and they're going to think that it's coming that's what i would think sure
so that would that be we saw the survey results would that be the recommendation
from administration that we move forward on option c with the fall break and implement it in 2627.
okay any more questions regarding that board mr just to clarify uh what trustee fox said
we would be adding an agenda item we're not pulling anything correct we'd be
voting on this for 2728 and then we'd be adding for next school year yes we would
had have an action item that would modify the calendar we have already
approved so we will modify the 2627 new agenda item right yes and so that would
be the one we would pull if people are like wait a minute I don't want to do
that i'm not anticipating that but that is what a work study and a regular meeting are for is to
give our community time to give us feedback based on they're riveted at home watching us right now
mr president i have a question based on what ms cuzella just said because i just want to make sure
I understand. So the action item would be modified. We wouldn't have two different agenda items, would we, to vote for one for the 27-28 and then another one for the 26-27? Or would you just change the wording of we're voting on the 20-27, 20-28 to 20-26 to 20-27? Or will we have two different agenda items?
really matter i think we could do whichever one we want the agenda item here on 7.5 does say we're
talking about 2728 so to be fair uh i wouldn't have an issue with adding pushing that down to
a 7.6 that says and adjust the 2627 i think is what ms gazelle was asking and the good thing
wait i'm so sorry because i i'm trying to go along with you the good thing about doing two of them is
that the other one would be approved already i've been following you i personally think that's
cleaner but because we have a robust discussion about it tonight it's it's
going to be on the consent agenda and so it would be something that if we if we
want to pull and talk about we could where we could just continue rolling
with it so it's kind of whichever way it happens it can be its own or it can be
together but unless I hear different we'll move forward on let's have it be
separate and then it's two two separate uh discussion items that works all right because
one has already been adopted by us um any other questions support all right uh then uh thank you
very much uh miss ashburn you can stay and let's discuss and consider the future board approval of
7.6 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a Professional Development Waiver for the 2027-2028 instructional calendar.
a professional development waiver for the 2728 instructional calendar yes happy to stay this
This is very routine.
You do it every year.
It basically allows us to utilize those five professional development days and receive minutes back.
So the state waives them.
Although we don't have students in the seat, we get to still add them to our minimum 75,600 minutes.
So we'll be looking for your approval next week at that, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Any questions, board?
No questions.
Thank you.
We'll now move on to item 7.6, discuss and consider future board approval of a professional,
sorry, we just said that.
7.7 Discuss and consider acquisition of New Library Books.
7.7, discuss and consider acquisition of new library books, and our presenter will be Ms.
Leslie Hack.
Ms. First, excuse me for my voice, it's a little bit of a struggle, but I'll get through
it.
But good evening, board president, board members, and Dr. Gorgorski.
This is in regards to the new book acquisition summary, and this is something, I'm sorry,
sorry, new book acquisition, and this is something new.
In accordance with Senate Bill 13 and Board Policy EFP Local,
the Board of Trustees is required to approve all new library materials
proposed for purchase or donation to school libraries.
As a reminder, before items are brought to the Board,
KDISD librarians and library services review proposed materials
to ensure they meet Board Policy, Texas law,
and library standards adopted under Education Code 33.021.
As required by law, a list of proposed materials is posted on the KDISD public dashboard at the beginning of each month and remains available for public review for 30 days.
After the 30-day review, the Board is required to approve or reject the list at the first open meeting held on or after the 30th day following public posting.
In alignment with the updated EFB local policy adopted in December, this September through December, new acquisition rosters are now ready for board action.
After the board takes action, library services will notify campus librarians of approved and unapproved titles.
Questions?
Questions, board?
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne?
I know that you have personally told me ad nauseum, and I apologize for this, but I want
everyone to hear this again from you, and I think you've said it publicly also before.
But I just want the public to understand that we have a rigorous process of reviewing books
before we see the list.
Absolutely.
So, can you please explain once again that whole, all those things that happened before we see the list so that the public understands we're not just blanketly okaying the books?
Yes.
I will tell you the process is quite rigorous, and it's been modified quite a bit since probably over the last four to four and a half years.
And as a result, the process is much better.
There is a process in which librarians now, before submitting new book titles for consideration,
they do their own internal reviews.
They follow the same internal review that the district level team that reviews books
in which before they submit that, after reading the book, if it's in certain categories of
the Dewey catalog that we've identified or they've done their review using outside of the
particular catalog items they use the AI tool that we have but they'll go through
their processes then they will sit submit the internal what we call app
tile for each book and it takes them through every question does it violate
violate one of the four Texas laws regarding the books does it violate EFB
and all the requirements of EFB does it violate FA does it violate House Bill
1525 does it violate Senate bill 9 both of those are materials in which require
parent permission for elementary and junior high to have access so it's very
rigorous none of that was done before that book title makes it on to that for
the 30-day public review and comment though we have a review tile submitted
for each one and then at that point the program the library service
coordinators they will go back review those internal reviews that were
submitted and the titles and also run their own checks and balances with any
books as well once that is done on the first of each month those books that
made it through that vetting will go up on the dashboard for 30 days and then
when it's pulled down it's really cycled back through one more time where we take
one more look at it before we bring it forward this particular group that you're
approving today goes all the way back to September because that's when the law
went into effect so we just held them in the queue until EFB local was updated
and then the book titles were released to y'all yes it is very rigorous and it
has changed and it is very well supported all right so mr. president may
I continue please yes so okay that would that's an excellent explanation I hope
that the people who you know are concerned about this listen to this and
hear what you say because I just want everyone to understand that we're not
blanketly you know approving everything we're not librarians and we're not the
really the specialists in this area and we're relying on a lot of things you
know to go in place and they're having many checks and balances for this and
most of this is governed by law the good the whole reason why because I hear
some complaints about this too. The reason why this is now taking two months
rather than I guess the one month that we used to do is because there are
requirements that have been set forth by law. Is that correct? Yes. Everything that we've done,
whether it's changing the internal review process, the reconsideration, when
we order the books, now that the new book titles require board approval, it is
because the law has changed and we have done everything we can to remain
compliant with that and ensure that we are meeting the letter of the law as
well as board policy and any other bills that are out there that require parental
permission for the children access so one last thing mr. president so the
librarians are all obviously aware of the new process but in order for them to
have their books on the shelf and this is just seems you know very elementary i guess but
you know school starts on whatever they said august 11th if they want the books on the shelf
they have to start yes this in early june or may probably to make sure that they can get their
books their new books on the shelf by august 11th right yes and they know about this so they're
Yes, and they know the plan now.
Moving forward, for example, the January books are up on the dashboard right now.
January 1st, the new group went up.
We will pull those down at the last day in January or the first day of February.
You will get that roster of books.
We'll just add it to that spreadsheet that you already got.
We'll add January, and then you will just have one month of book titles to review and
and know that those have followed that vetting process.
Okay, so in the future, because this is a new law
and because we had to wait for the EFB to get updated and all this,
in the future we're not going to have to wait three or four months for books.
They're going to know we have the process now,
and everything will approve them, I guess, maybe in even July, I guess.
We'll be moving forward.
We'll be doing the same thing in February.
Okay, but I mean for the August 11th books,
will probably have to approve them in July for the new for the books coming in
the fall and I imagine because we've kind of been in a holding pattern we
have these books up but they are also have been reviewing book titles to put
up for a spring purchase ahead of the next school year they're always working
in advance thank you so much mr. president miss gazelle thank you um I
I just want to clarify further, the reason why we waited for, I brought this up in August,
wanting to update EFB because we knew what the law was to our policy committee.
So we could have updated as a board policy committee and brought it to the board to tweak
our great EFB policy that was already developed, that led the state and really reflects the
state law that's in place.
there are some changes but it was chosen to wait on the policy update from TASB
instead of leading and in my eyes and going ahead and tweaking this so we
could get these books on the shelves much sooner our librarians have been
waiting for a long time and then people who've been trying to donate books so
that is the reason why we were waiting on a draft from TASB to tell us what to
do that was supposed to be given to us in october but that still didn't come and we still chose to
wait i i didn't agree with that decision but that's what happened and that's what transpired
and hopefully we won't ever incur that again and moving forward it's going to be 30 days
and librarians can move forward yes this is not where the schedule ever going to be a normal
time period and we were waiting on TASB to be clear to update our own policy
that we govern as a board which I I take issue with but I'm ready to move forward
I just want to make sure that's very clear and that's what happened we could
have moved sooner I want to give a very big shout out to one group who has been
waiting since at least September it's a local group here in Katy Texas of the
Daughters of the American Revolution other their chapter name is star of
destiny they've been patiently waiting forever to be able to donate a book to
every elementary school in the district it's very kind they're also considering
donating Spanish versions of the book and it's called Texas before the Lone
Star it's a part of Texas history that's often overlooked before Texas became a
state so I just want to give a shout out to them they're they're local to Katie
here and I appreciate their patience and waiting on this for months now and
hopefully moving forward no one has to wait that long thank you any other
questions for 7.7 board thank you very much miss hack we'll now move on to item
7.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of Amendment Two to the Stewart Builders, LLC. contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Jeanette Hayes Elementary School.
7.8 discuss and consider board approval of amendment 2 to the Stuart builders LLC
LLC contract related to the comprehensive renovations at Jeanette Hayes Elementary School
and our presenter will be Ms. Lisa Kastman, our Executive Director of Facilities Planning
and Construction.
Good evening, President Redmond, Trustees and Dr. Gagorski.
I only have one item this evening.
It is the amendment number two, the final GMP for the work at Hayes Elementary.
The first amendment was approved in October so we could procure long lead items.
This will complete the work we need to do to be finished.
Any questions, Board?
Yes, Mr. President.
Ms. Cuzela?
Thank you so much.
You're so efficient.
I so in this
We're using excuse me. I'm sorry. Yeah 3.4 billion and again 2023 bond project savings
So we also approve six hundred thousand
Or excuse me, we have slated to vote for next week another six hundred thousand in bond savings for the life
I'm watching bond savings on the same bond
So that's about $4 million we've discussed tonight.
And we had another $800,000, $850,000 in December.
It might have been November for a generator, I believe.
So it just brings to mind, I'd like to know, this is more Christmas question.
What has been the, I'm sure we track, the amount of bond savings we've accrued and spent on the 2023 bond to date?
Do we have that figure?
Can I get that later?
And, you know, my, I guess also coupled with it makes me consider this question of,
with each bond that we go up to the public with, are we,
what is our threshold with over and under with saving?
What are we trying to, we don't want to have too much savings,
because then it looks as if we have this big, you know,
account for all these fun projects that you bring to the board that are needed
But yet we don't want to go under so what is what is there some best practice that we try to follow?
Well, obviously we want to cover the budgets and the promise that we made to taxpayers when they pass the bonds
And so that's our primary focus is to write all those projects
And then when we do have savings those savings accumulate some projects accumulate savings some projects cost more money
I obviously this is one of those cases
But through the month of November, we had $24.6 million in Proposition A in project savings.
And so this would go against Proposition A or reduce that $24.6 million in project savings.
And there's not a total on these, but Project A in the 2021 authorization has about $4.7 million at the end of November.
So there is savings that have accumulated again. We we commend their budget obviously more than an over
This is one where it's over, but there should be plenty of capacity to handle that
of course because their savings in the bond, but is there like a
You know a number you're trying we don't want to have too much too much too much savings left
Oh when you when you have savings that what we've done historically in my 20
20 plus years here when we have savings, we apply that towards the projects necessary in the next bond.
So, for example, I'm not sure which authorization it was, but we went ahead and started an elementary school.
I think it was the 2017 authorization.
We started an elementary school, got the contract awarded, started making payments on it well in advance of the bond.
And we were putting the general fund at risk of having to finish it if the bond didn't pass.
The bond passed.
I'm sorry, that was the general fund.
But we've also done things like with project savings.
When Tompkins High School was bid, there was enough dollar savings in that
particular campus alone to build Davidson and Randolph Elementary.
So we applied it, those savings, and built two new elementary schools without having
to ask the voters specifically for those on the next referendum.
So that's probably, that's what we've done when there's been savings.
The 21 authorization, you know, remember that was the right in the height of inflation right after COVID.
We were really worried about that, but there still is a little bit of savings there that will, again,
be used to lessen the amount necessary in the 20-whatever authorization when we go back to the voters.
Right.
Right. So I just, you know, I hear that from different people in our district who are sensitive to bonds and voting on them and how big they are, multi-million.
They're huge, right?
So a lot of that, so I'm trying to get to a figure or try to explain that to the public.
When we have a lot of bond savings and we're spending money on things that weren't part of the plan for the bond, we're spending them fairly responsibly.
and they have to pay attention to how the board is voting and improving that.
But is there any other mechanism for someone to see that well?
Yeah, the construction report shows the over-under.
The construction report does a very good job of showing those project savings and overages.
And then the website that the communications department maintains,
and along with Mrs. Casman and her staff,
help maintain to show the progress of all the projects that were approved by the taxpayers.
Is there a magic number? No.
There's no, like, threat 10% or?
No.
Okay, so literally you are trying to zero out in an ideal world
what you're pitching for the bond on those projects.
Is there a place? Yes, I'm sorry.
Okay, is there a place that it shows and tracks how the what exactly the bond savings were spent on a tally?
per bond yes on the construction report there is a
An estimated budget and it's a zero if it was
If it's a new project that wasn't part of the original scope of the bond when it went to the voters
So any any additional project would would you could identify on the report?
but but not line item though right yes so that's not on what we see but I could
we could see that on the I guess the website or the website and yeah the what
you have is a quite as detailed management has
though can the public see the line item that public's bond savings is spent on
the line item view okay by bond okay proposition everything okay and let me
see if I can come up with an example original allocation for the classroom
doors security system there was nothing budgeted for that originally we spent
well we're gonna spend three point eight million dollars on that safety item but
you can tell off that report it was not a part of the original bond that's the
the only one that I see in the 20 reauthorization okay that's great on your
report that's that the board sees every month okay okay that's great and I'll
refer people to that I think a lot of people are unaware with the detail
that's available online when it has to do with the bonds and how they're spent
appreciate it thank you mr. president this box this is Cuzela may I ask you a
question for clarification did you say fund projects that we use bond savings
for fund projects useful did you say fund I think you did so and when you say
fairly we use savings fairly responsibly what what did you mean by that that
we're very responsible with how we spend our money fairly you said fairly
responsible so when we have complete transparency to our stakeholders about
how we spend money I take objection as do I should all of these people who are
so responsible that they've earned an award for 42 years in their financial
accountability and so would you please make your comments more professional
toward them in how money is spent, when projects, when we have project savings, those savings are used for other needs in KDISD and have been for the 27 years I've been here.
So I just don't think we do things for fun.
We're not remodeling schools or buying roofs or replacing security needs or all of the things we do for fun.
Sure, I'll respond to you if you're done.
Would appreciate a more professional tone from you as I've asked many times
Okay, I feel like I'm pretty professional, but I will respond to you may not agree with me
And you may not agree with the words I use fun probably wasn't the right word choice
Financially we are extremely our financial audit is done with flying colors
Not everybody agrees with you
or the decisions of our board how we spend our money.
If you talk to the public, I hear differing opinions.
And so that's who would maybe see differently
why we're building a brand new OAC building, right?
They don't see that as necessary.
That's their opinion.
Why we built, we used bond savings for a project
that wasn't even part of the bond
when it was explained to the public.
So for them, that's merchant's way.
right? We used a huge chunk to pay for Merchant's Way from bond savings. And when that bond was
pitched to the public, there were certain things we promised and said, this is what this money's
going to be used for. And so when it's not used for that list, I want to make sure there's great
transparency in how it's being spent. That's the taxpayer's money. And they voted on something,
and they voted on a very distinct list. That's not a reflection on anyone in this room,
and don't ever imply that.
I appreciate your perspective.
And so when you say they voted on a specific list,
that specific list was fulfilled.
When there is savings from time to time,
something comes under bid
or we're able to do more than one project at a time
and it's economy of scale and those things.
The reason we were able to build those two elementary schools,
I was on the board at the time,
is because there was a situation that most districts weren't prepared for, and we were.
And so we were able to buy materials at a, like the price of steel went down or something like that.
I'm not sure, Chris, what that was, but it was like we were able to do that.
And so we were able to build two elementary schools without having to go to the voters and ask them for another bond election.
So we are using their funds very responsibly.
And just like you said, it's difficult to understand.
It's difficult to explain the same way we have tried over and over and over to tell people we are not top heavy.
They still believe we're top heavy over there at that administration building.
but every audit will show that we are the lowest,
except for CyFair, we are lower than everyone else in the state
in the amount of money or expenses that happens
in the top-level administrators in KDISD.
But you can't get them to believe it
because that doesn't track with their narrative.
And so the same with bonds and savings and all that's very complex. It's very difficult
I've had to explain the same things you are explaining and so and and I know you get it. You're very very smart and
Understand these details and I appreciate you asking about where to point them for that and so for that I respect you
but it's the
It's the words you use and it's just hard because they're working so hard to make all that work and Katie acid is
Quite successful as we know and so I take it from I'm always coming from help me understand
Help me just direct them to the stuff not like
We're fairly responsible is
is not kind and
Building and let me just reply to you about building that OAC building when we had the bond
committee, we didn't know that those programs at Miller were going to explode and that we were
going to have such great need and we were going to have opportunities to do a water program and a
CDL program and all the other things. So when those things happen in that stretch of time between
bond committees and then selling the bonds and getting the money, we have money to do things
like merchants way which you were very in in favor of for the btp program and for the oac which is
going to serve the needs of those students and provide space for a lot more academic programs
for boys and girls as they learn as they get ready to graduate all of those things were wise decisions
that we could do because we had money to do them without having to wait for years
and do the bond election and get through an election cycle
and gather the bond committee.
That takes a long time, and for us to be able to respond quickly
to needs that are happening and to stand up a virtual school
as quickly as we did, all of those things happen
because the professionals in this room are ready to move,
and if we have funds to do it, we're supportive from this day.
Mr. President?
We are ready for those projects because of our taxpayers who paid into the bond and voted for it.
And I want to respect them.
And that's who I have in mind tonight when I ask my questions.
Right.
And I've already commended the financial team on their audit.
So do not imply otherwise.
I've already apologized for using the word fun.
So I think it's clear my motivation here.
We have great resources online that a lot of the public does not know about.
And that's why I'm asking this question.
We can be very transparent with what we do with their money.
We already are.
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne.
I want to say, okay, so I'm not going to get into.
In regards to the agenda item 7.8.
I'm going to talk about this agenda item.
them i just want to say you know i i don't know much about building and things like that but my
dad was a builder and i always remember him saying you know the price of lumber has gone up or the
price of just different materials that he needed you know he also worked with plexiglas and other
things so i i always am aware of that when we do a bond in 2023 and then we're trying to build it
in 2026 you know the prices of things go up substantially and there's it's really hard to
predict those things that will happen you know we didn't know about a lot of things in our economy
in 2023 that are happening now so i appreciate the fact that we on the other projects there
seems to be you know concerted effort to keep the prices down where they can and to cut costs where
they can so that we can have a savings so that haze can get done you know it's important that
how old is haze i mean it's old right but it needs to be reached i see the principal out there
and anyway so that that population of people really need it i'm appreciative of the people
who worked on the other projects who were able to cut across where they could so that when something
like this happened that a school could get completed rather than having to wait
for another bond for us to vote on so that three more years later we could
finally finally finish the project that's all I have to say about that
thank you that would share I mean even seen here specifically talking about
seven point out with Hayes elementary and then that one we have we used to not
approve expenditures for materials because the market didn't demand it we
we could we could go ahead and say hey we're going to bid this out hey subcontractor general
contractor you're going to carry the cost of all this material and you're responsible to show up on
monday the first and have the material ready for the job uh until it got to the point where it's
like this quote is good for four hours go are you gonna spend six million dollars on the steel yes
no okay seven million it's eight and so i i would say y'all our team has done a great job and board
board may not have understood that's the way it was your steel price is good until 5 p.m and then
it goes up to whatever we wanted to or you'll order it and then when we ship it we'll just
tell you what the price is then and that was the world for 2020 to 2023 it kind of just kind of
locked back in and so I I love the fact that this has started to happen um we were able to go ahead
and spend that money because we do have it and we've saved it to get the materials and long lead
items when when they're due or when when it best benefits us because the people who are working for
us are going to play a lot better when they have the money to buy it up front they can commit to
the job and they don't have to build that in as an escalator on the price when they can get it by the
project now if they weren't going to be able to buy the ac today they're going to price it
in nine months and they're going to put all those escalators in there that's going to drive our
price up but because we do things like this because we respond to change orders and specs
and all those kinds of things quickly we get great we comparatively we get great pricing and
great contractors that want to work with us a lot because miss castman you and your team uh are
work so well with them so thank y'all and any other questions on 7.8 mr redmond i would like
to say one thing and mrs. Casman you get awards all the time you know you get
what did you get like so many years in a row and outstanding whatever you that
certificate is but can you tell us what a for le a fellow just for doing all my
work in the k-12 industry and mr. Redmond is right we have a great
relationship with our contractors and our subcontractors we're fair we pay on
time and people love coming to work in Katy and so outside people are looking
at you and review and you and your team reviewing what you're doing from an
outside point of view and coming up with the conclusion that you're outstanding
so that should be accounted for too so I appreciate the work that you and your
team do get a great team thank you very much thank you for the presentation
7.9 Discuss and consider Board approval of an Interlocal Agreement with Cinco Municipal Utility District No. 12 and Katy Independent School District.
we'll now move on to item 7.9 discuss and consider board approval of an
interlocal agreement with Cinco Mudd number 12 and in KDISD and our presenter will be Nathan Fuchs
senior executive director of operations and we've got you for the for the final four or final four
here let's do it good evening president Redmond board members and Dr. Grigorski tonight I have
four items for your consideration the first item is our standard interlocal agreement between Cinco
Sinko MUD number 12 and KDISD for partial funding of a sunshade structure over the basketball court at Williams Elementary.
Under this agreement, the MUD will contribute up to $25,000 toward the project with any remaining costs covered by the PTA.
In addition, after this agenda item was published, the PTA secured an additional funding from Sinko MUD number 7 in the amount of $15,000.
While this agreement was not originally attached, it is included in your packet this evening,
and we respectfully request your consideration of this additional interlocal agreement as well.
Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Any questions, Board?
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne?
I just want a clarification.
So the Cinco Ranch PTA, they probably got a grant, don't you think, from Cinco Mud?
This is from the Mud.
Yes, yes.
Cinco Mud.
Billions Elementary.
Okay.
From two months, actually.
Okay.
That's awesome. I love it when we can get the cooperation of the other entities to help us.
Thank you.
Any other questions about 7.9? Let's go to 7.10.
7.10 Discuss and consider Board approval of the contract for the flooring replacements at Cardiff Junior High School and WoodCreek Junior High School.
The second item is for flooring replacements at Cardiff Junior High and Wood Creek Junior High.
Each campus will receive our district standard flooring with work scheduled over the summer to ensure completion prior to the start of the 26-27 school year.
These projects are identified in the 2023 bond program.
From earlier comments, this project came in under by $541,861.
Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Any questions, board?
We'll go to 7.11.
7.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of the proposal for interior lighting upgrades at the Education Support Complex and Leonard E. Merrell Center.
interior lighting upgrades at the ESC and Leonard Merrill Center.
The third item is for interior lighting upgrades at the Education Sport Complex and the Merrill Center.
This project will replace original fluorescent fixtures with new LED dimmable fixtures
that will provide immediate and long-term financial, operational, and workplace comfort.
Annual GOF savings are projected to be more than $100,000.
The estimated completion date for this project is fall of 2026.
Any questions for this board?
Are we going to have Mr. Rollins share with us right now?
Can I call him out?
I'm sure.
He's ready.
I see you're ready.
I just, okay.
Bullpen.
Bullpen.
But any questions on 7.11?
Then let's go to 7.12, board approval of contract replacement of the electronic display boards
7.12 Discuss and consider Board approval of the contract for the replacement of the electronic display boards at the Leonard E. Merrell Center.
at the Merrill Center.
The last item is for the replacement of the electronic display boards at the Merrill Center.
The project includes monitors on the end walls of the north and south end, two ribbon boards on the east and west side, scores, tables, and all affiliated control panels.
The display boards were installed approximately 10 years ago.
The scores table and ribbon boards are original to the building and have met the end of their life cycle with replacement parts no longer manufactured.
If approved, this project will be completed prior to the start of the 26-27 school year.
At this time, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Do we happen to have any visuals of what it will look like?
We do. We can get those to you. Yes, sir.
When we had the State of the District, I had some local city councilmen sending pictures of former state representatives sitting there with their heads looking way up at the sky saying,
And Kim, is there something we could do to make this a little more friendly?
Our teams just do such a great job of putting together the media when we do our end-of-the-year awards and all kinds of stuff.
That'd be a great way to showcase our district, I think.
But, yeah, any more questions regarding that, Board?
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll now move on to the consent items.
8. Consent Items
Again, this is an area of board that if there's anything you would like to discuss, I have
a presentation right now.
We have two items, our approval for a foreign exchange student waiver is on there and our
approval of a contract renewal for land and real estate consulting services.
So those documents should be in board docs.
Everybody a chance to hopefully look at those.
If you'd like to pull them and talk about them now, please speak up.
9. Information Items
And then we will move on to information items nine.
And so the board has received the quarterly investment report.
The donated items list has been received.
And we have received the cooperative purchasing contract management fees report, item 9.3.
And then the last one, member information.
Madam Secretary, have we captured any requests from the board for tonight?
So are you good, Ms. Cuzzalla, with looking at the website for the accrued compound expenditures,
or do you want to see that sent to us in some other way?
Mr. Smith answered the question.
Okay.
All right, so that's checked off.
So the other one was actually you brought up, the visuals of the electronic display boards.
And if it doesn't exist, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
I just think I would like to see what it looks like if we could.
Good.
I think that's it.
Thank you.
Well, that brings us to our future meetings.
10. Future Meetings
We'll have a regular board meeting on Tuesday, January 20, 2026.
And there being no further business before the board, this meeting is adjourned.
The time is 8, 10 p.m.
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.