Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this regular board meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District to order.
Katy ISD · Regular Board Meeting
Katy ISD Regular Board Meeting, February 23, 2026
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- 0:03 to 12:21 1. Call to Order - Upon announcement by the presiding officer that a quorum is present, the meeting will be called to order. The presiding officer will verify that the meeting has been duly called and notice of the meeting has been posted for the time and manner required by law.
- 12:21 to 19:20 3. Recognitions
- 19:20 to 47:56 4. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
- 47:56 to 48:21 5. Closed Meeting
- 48:21 to 49:59 6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
- 49:59 to 1:30:35 7.1 Katy ISD Artificial Intelligence Framework
- 1:30:35 to 2:19:54 7.2 Nutrition and Food Service Department Overview
- 2:19:54 to 2:21:37 8. Consent Agenda
- 2:21:37 to 2:36:29 8.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of the February 2026 budget amendments.
- 2:36:29 to 3:02:35 8.8 Consider Board approval for the design of the Opportunity Awareness Center.
- 3:02:35 to 3:04:16 9.1 Discuss and consider Board adoption of a Resolution Authorizing the Acquisition of Land and improvements for Waller County Appraisal District.
- 3:04:16 to 3:05:07 9.2 Discuss and consider a formal reconsideration request of the library book, Cat Kid Comic Club.
- 3:05:07 to 3:14:04 9.3 Discuss and consider a formal reconsideration request of the library book, Fake News Phenomenon.
- 3:14:04 to 3:19:36 10. Information Items
- 3:19:36 to 3:20:42 11. Future Meetings
- 3:20:42 to 3:21:09 12. Closed Meeting
- 3:21:09 to 3:22:17 13. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
Full transcript
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1. Call to Order - Upon announcement by the presiding officer that a quorum is present, the meeting will be called to order. The presiding officer will verify that the meeting has been duly called and notice of the meeting has been posted for the time and manner required by law.
Today is Monday, February 23, 2026, and the time is 5.02 p.m.
Dr. Gorgorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to the notice for this meeting?
Mr. Redmond, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for a meeting tonight.
All right.
Will you go ahead and present our students for Pledge of Allegiance?
We are.
Yes, we're ready to go with our Pledge of Allegiance.
We have a special guest with us here tonight, Mia Bella Roman, fifth grader over at Katy Elementary.
I see Principal Beth Grimmett out there.
Folks, Callie and parents, Callie and Juan Roman.
She's got a brother, Carlos.
Carlos special interest reading singing acting dancing and cheering and we're doing other stuff with cheer tonight as well.
Favorite subjects reading and writing from some of her teachers and school staff from Lindsay Mitchell fifth grade teacher.
Miabella is a hard-working and dependable student who can always be counted on to give her very best.
She is trustworthy, takes pride in her responsibilities, and approaches everything she does with dedication and care.
From Colby Dykes, counselor, Miabella is pure sunshine on our campus.
Takes time to talk to the younger students who look up to her as a student house leader.
Miabella sprinkles kindness throughout our campus.
From Delicia Hansen, teacher, Miabella is a role model for younger students and an amazing house leader.
She exemplifies the character traits of our house system every day, perseverance, optimism, loyalty, and strength.
Miabella continues the legacy of excellence here at Katy Elementary and in Katy ISD.
And from Megan Hanzelka, fifth grade teacher, Miabella consistently strives to do her very best in everything she does.
her strong work ethic positive attitude willingness to learn makes her a
wonderful role model for her peers she sets a high standard through both her
actions and her character Mia Bella's strong work ethic sets an example that
reflects the values of our school so before we bring Mia Bella up I want to
also recognize over to my left here the Freeman High School Orchestra who after
our pledge they're going to perform the national anthem for us principals Gina
Cobb and the music director Jennifer Jinyal. So with us students tonight
Mateo Cardenas, Valentia Rivera, Evelyn Howard and Alejandro Gonzalez Rodriguez.
And a quote from our music director Mateo, Valentina, Evelyn and Alejandro
represent the heart of the Golden Eagle Orchestra. Members of this quartet were
inducted into the Orchestra Leadership Council, have Freeman Orchestra's first
region orchestra member, have earned superior ratings at solo and ensemble,
and most recently made Freeman history as one of the first ensembles to qualify
for state UIL solo and ensemble. As founding members of this program they
are already building a legacy of perseverance, volunteerism, and dedication
dedication to musical excellence.
Let's go ahead and start with our pledge.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
honor the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God one and indivisible
© BF-WATCH TV 2021
© BF-WATCH TV 2021
Thank you.
Good evening, President Redmond, board members, and Superintendent Gorgorski.
My name is Miabella Roman.
My time at Cady Elementary has been legendary and still is.
Friends, teachers, and the house system and so much more add to the legendary memories I've made.
One reason my time has been legendary is all of my amazing friends.
My friends have been all so nice, funny, and have made my year so special.
They're a little crazy sometimes, but that's good crazy.
Every year I have been at Katy Elementary has been amazing because I've had the best teachers in the world.
The teachers that I've had have been patient, kind, and funny, especially Ms.
Hanzelka. She has helped me realize I don't need to overthink things, not even
a teeny bit when I overthink a lot of it. I shouldn't question myself and be
confident in what I do. She has made me a better student and better person.
Other memorable learning experiences were the egg drop, science experiments,
instruments, LLC, fishing trip, and drum fit to name a few. When I was old enough, I could attend my first father-daughter dance. I was so ecstatic. I loved being able to get all pretty and go out to dinner. It was a time I was able to bond with my dad. My favorite part was the slow dance because it was just me and him. These are the moments that I'll never forget. My favorite school activity by far was participating in this year's Frozen musical.
I really wanted to have a main role since I hadn't had one before.
I worked hard and I got it.
I was nervous about it, but I think it went well.
Once it was the day of the show, my nerves went away and I had a lot of fun on stage.
At Cato Elementary, we have the house system.
My house fits me better than any of the other ones.
A year later, I was able to apply to be one of the first house leaders.
I got in as a house leader in my fourth grade year. I enjoy having that
responsible role during the house rallies. I like having that pressure on
me during the meetings and everything. At the end of my fourth grade year I was
able to apply to be a fifth grader house leader. I was so unbelievably proud and
shocked when they called my name for the second time to be one. I loved being able
would be a role model model for the younger grades in conclusion my time at
K elementary has been so legendary I can't believe they're almost over I'm
pretty old now while I look forward to these junior high moments I will always
hold these memories in my heart
Thank you so much for leading our pledges this evening and for talking to us about your
time at Keggy Elementary.
We can tell that you are a leader through and through and all the things that you've
been able to do are going to prepare you one day for maybe one of those chairs.
We're very proud of you. I know you love to be elementary school and this is your certificate
and then this backpack is only for the children students who's
through the present for MUDAR National Anthem.
So there are many people who have been here, very special.
So that's for you too.
And what I'd like for you to do is come right back here
and we're going to stand under that case sign
and we can stand with a lot of people.
Come on.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
3. Recognitions
At this time, I'd like to introduce Brandon Webb, Director of Communications, for the
recognitions portion of our meeting tonight.
Good evening, President Redman, trustees.
superintendent gregorski the university in a scholastic league held the 2026 spirit state
championships in fort worth last month our student athletes had a strong showing that
reinforced the district's reputation as a statewide leader in fine arts programs
tonight we are proud to recognize the taylor high school cheerleaders as they made history
in clinching the campus's first ever cheerleading title during the event.
The Mustangs secured the top spot with a 92.9 cumulative score,
edging out Tomball and Jordan High Schools.
These student athletes combine school spirit, performance, quality, and
athletic skills at the very highest levels.
At this time, with the Mustang cheerleaders, Officers Tara Salamon,
McKenzie Ruiz, and Ava Maldonado, along with Head Coach Nikki Gregg,
coaches Kelly Alderman and Emily Cabana and Dr. Melinda Stone, Taylor High School
Principal, Damon Archer, Executive Director of Fine Arts, and Lakeisha
McGowan, Assistant Director of Fine Arts, please come forward.
Thank you.
Congratulations to you all for an outstanding year.
This concludes our recognition portion for this evening's meeting.
At this time, I'll now hand it back over to Board President Redmond for the Seven Lakes High School recognition.
Well, actually, Brandon, I'm going to jump back in there because I guess I was so excited to do cheerleading and recognize them.
I skipped over an item on there which was our new principal of Windbourne Elementary
which I was supposed to recognize. So without further ado Nicole Frias,
where's Nicole out there? There she is with a brand new baby.
So Nicole is the new principal over at Windbourne. She's already started in that position and have
you brought some folks out with you tonight? You've got one in your hand there so who have you brought?
Now is it my turn?
Yes.
All right.
Give it back to me.
Thank you.
Congratulations to our Taylor High School cheerleaders and to our new principal.
Continuing our tradition of highlighting each of our ten high schools,
schools. Tonight, trustees are recognizing the Spartans of Seven Lakes High School for
their outstanding achievement and community spirit. Trustee Ms. Morgan Calhoun serves
as our KDIC board liaison to Seven Lakes High School, and I welcome her to offer a few words.
Ms. Calhoun?
Thank you, President Redmond. I'd like to recognize the educators, parents, coaches,
fine arts, and other staff who have helped build Seven Lakes High School's legacy.
Seven Lakes High School opened its doors in 2005, and every day its school community reflects
reflects the spirit of its alma mater.
Sacred are these halls of learning,
wisdom taught with honor,
true loyalty for hallowed
values striving to pursue.
And pursue they do.
The Spartans have developed traditions that reflect
excellence in academics, athletics,
and fine arts. Over the past
two decades, students have earned numerous
honors, including Science Olympiad
National Championships, and
numerous UIL state titles
in cross country, wrestling,
wrestling, soccer, volleyball, and cheer.
Seven Lakes High School musicians also earned the prestigious John Philip Souza Foundation
Settler Shield, a national honor recognizing excellence among marching bands.
The campus has consistently been recognized by the Texas Education Agency as a high-performing
school and ranked by Niche as one of the top high schools in the state.
across the spectrum Seven Lakes blends academic rigor athletic triumphs
artistic prestige and alumni distinction in its proud and ongoing Spartan legacy
let's give our Seven Lakes campus a round of applause
Principal Finneson, would you come up and take a picture with us?
She was out here earlier.
There she is.
Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening?
No scouts.
Then at this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance with KDIC Board Policy BED Local.
4. Public Comment/Citizen Participation
As defined by Board Policy, speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, February 23, 2026, will be allowed to address the Board.
Speakers who signed up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to speak.
A total of 30 minutes is allotted for open forum non agenda items
With the time divided evenly among speakers the maximum time allowed for any speaker is three minutes
speakers who signed up to speak
I got lost on my notes on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to speak
Speakers who signed up to speak on non agenda items will be limited to the first 20 speakers
Speakers that signed up to speak on non agenda items will be allowed
three minutes to speak tonight. If the speaker is not finished speaking at the end of their allotted time, the audio will turn off.
If speakers wish to share written material with the board, please provide 10 copies to the Secretary of Board Services before the meeting begins
for board members, the superintendent, the chief communications officer, and permanent records.
If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels,
as stated in Board Policy, the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker to seek
resolution through the appropriate policy.
Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code Sections 551.074 and 551.0821, the Board will
not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a student
and will not discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline,
or dismissal of a public officer or employee, or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee.
Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must do so through the appropriate local grievance policies,
FNG local, DGBA local, CKE local, and GF local.
Our speakers will be called forward in the order they signed up to speak.
We'll start with agenda items.
and our first speaker will be autumn Mahler followed by Lindsey Yang good
evening dr. Gorg or ski president resmin and board of trustees my name is autumn
Mahler and I'm speaking tonight as a parent in the district but also on
behalf of my co-workers at the opportunity Awareness Center for those
of you who are unaware of what the OAC is I teach students who made a mistake
They did something to break the student code of conduct and have been removed from their home campus for a certain period of days,
typically 30 to 45 days. I'm wearing our school shirt this year.
Our motto is changing lives, rewriting stories. As a teacher at the OAC for the past nine years,
I feel like this is exactly what I do on a daily basis.
Currently, we have the ability to support our students. With the new model, I'm concerned about losing this ability.
I have a ninth grade student right now who did not earn any credits for a semester before she came to our campus.
Because of the support I'm currently able to offer in my classroom, this student is experiencing success.
The last quiz she took with me today, she earned a 90%.
I've been able to help her with study skills that she never learned elsewhere,
and hopefully she will take this newfound confidence back with her to her home campus when she leaves my classroom.
Acts like this may have helped me rewrite a story. We may not see her again.
Speaking now as a parent of two KDISD students, one of my huge concerns for the building is
safety and security.
If one of my sons breaks the code of conduct and earns himself an OAC placement, I doubt
that I would want my son to have the ability to stay home.
That's rewarding his bad behavior by allowing him to sleep in and do class when he wants.
If my son gets caught smoking on campus or something like that, something that would
potentially rate a virtual placement, I want him to attend school, not have the ability
to smoke at home while I'm working. I fully believe that this is a concern of a lot of parents in the
districts. So assume my son is now on campus and in one of the four high school rooms at the new
building. Now imagine that at the home campus there's a fight in the lunchroom and 13 students
get OAC placements. One parent decides to keep their kid virtual so 12 students gets added into
these four rooms. This is an unsafe situation as you're now unable to separate these students.
In this scenario, you now have three students who fought each other in the same classroom.
This is an unsafe situation for the other students and the staff that have to manage that classroom.
Our current setup allows us to separate these students into different zones and arrange their schedules
so there is minimal contact throughout the school day.
The current plan would move us from 22 high school classrooms and 13 middle school classrooms,
or 35 classrooms total, to 14 secondary classrooms.
classrooms. This is a real safety concern for me. I hope you will all reconsider the
current plan for the OAC. While I understand that change is constant and necessary, and
we're good at changing our building, I do not believe that this plan is in the best
interest of many of the students we serve. Whatever the plan is, I want to make sure
I can still help change lives and rewrite stories.
Thank you. Lindsay Yang, followed by David Green.
Good evening.
I'm returning today as a mother of three to urge this board to improve the school lunch standards in Katy ISD.
Having previously provided you with much documentation, you must be aware that our district continues to serve fast food and junk food that violate the newly released USDA dietary guidelines.
It is unacceptable to blame children's taste buds for a menu filled with junk food.
These choices are made by adults.
Children will eat healthy, well-prepared food when it is provided, especially when you remove sugary options that are engineered to be highly addictive.
I ask you to listen to the 20-plus parents who submitted personal letters today regarding this critical issue.
I hope the board takes these appeals seriously.
The American dream includes a healthier, brighter future for our children.
Yet our current district food choices risk passing on preventable, not genetic, but preventable chronic diseases to the next generation.
No parent desires this outcome.
With both federal and state governments responding to the current health crisis,
KDISD must serve the will of the people and comply with the new guidelines.
USDA guidelines that emphasize serving a variety of nutritious meat and vegetables.
Meat and vegetables, not just fruits, and definitely not pizza, mac and cheese,
french fries, sugary cereals, and candy day after day.
Instead of allowing primarily high carbohydrate menu items,
the nutrition department should seek to meet children's dietary needs for protein,
essential omega-3 fats, vitamins and minerals, empty carbs, provide calories, but not adequate nutrition.
The nutrition department should prioritize offering a wider variety of vegetables,
not just raw but even cooking them in healthy ways.
It should also prioritize a variety of different high-quality meats and healthy recipes.
recipes.
Finally, KDISD should limit dessert days and remove ultra-processed foods, including those
entrees that use refined wheat flour.
Daily our children are being served items like Doritos, fruit roll-ups, frozen juice
packs, pizza bagel bites, emoji potatoes, corn dogs, and ice cream.
You know this is not fuel for learning, this is harm.
Study after study confirms that these dietary choices lead to lifelong chronic illnesses
like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. KDISD is one of the largest school
districts in Texas and our state ranks sixth in the nation for child obesity.
Our district must take some responsibility for the ongoing health
crisis. With your leadership, our district can abandon bad food policy and be a
positive influence for a great number of children and families. Thank you very
much thank you our next speaker is David green followed by Jesus Nieto no David
David Green? Jesus Nieto.
Good evening. Superintendent, President Redman, and Board of Trustees.
My name is Jesus Nieto. I am a community advocate,
a Forever student, a non-profit leader, and
and I happen to be running for KDIC School Board Trustee
position five.
I'm here tonight regarding the federal court's
preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of key
provisions to SB 12 here in our district.
For those who don't know what a preliminary injunction is,
it's an order from the judge ordering you to stop it.
Let me emphasize that this is not a political debate,
but a binding federal court order.
The judge was explicit that the district is enjoined from implementing policies pursuant to Section 3, 7, 24, and 27 of SB 12, or otherwise enforcing those provisions.
That means the policies and practices adopted to comply with those sections must stop immediately.
And it's very important for the community to understand something else that came out of this case.
KDISD's attorneys asked the court to dismiss the district from the lawsuit.
suit. The court said no. So rather than this district being able to step away from the impact
of these policies, the ruling makes it clear that Katy ISD remains responsible for what is happening
in our schools and for how students are being affected. This is a moment for accountability,
not distance, because right now we have students that are still living with the harm
these policies created. We have educators that are still operating in confusion. We have campuses
that still do not have a clear direction.
And every day without action increases both the legal risk to the district and
the real harm to students. So tonight I am asking you all to lead. During closed session under
agenda item 5.1, direct your board attorney to provide clear legal guidance on the following.
One, which local policies, administrative regulations, and district practices are tied to
the enjoined sections of SB 12. Two, what immediate steps are required for KDISD to come
into full compliance with this federal court order. Three, what actions must be taken to
restore student opportunities including student organizations and access to supportive learning
environments because leadership is not about trying to step away from a problem leadership
is about taking responsibility for the students in your care a strong board ensures compliance
with federal court orders a strong board protects the district from further litigation a strong
board makes it clear that every student in kdisd has rights that will be respected please use your
closed session tonight to get the legal clarity this community deserves and come back into open
session ready to act president remin i call on you to call for a special session to address the court
order within the 14-day timeline given by the judge i implore you all to take action as you
are all in the final the final decision makers in this district our students can thank you
Next, we'll have our non-agenda items.
Brandy Aguilar followed by Rob Bailey.
Brandy Aguilar.
And we'll move to Rob Bailey.
Rob Bailey.
Claudia Hoya-Eichenberger.
All right, good evening, KDISD board.
I am currently a resident of Katy for 18 years.
I have come to you guys as Katy girls youth director for lacrosse.
I have been using the campuses of Cinco Ranch High School to practice lacrosse.
We currently have 45 girls in the program for the youth.
We lost the program for the high school.
We only had 10 girls.
So our high school girls are now playing for four different districts.
because we do not have A, access to fields and lights.
It's our big issue out here.
We are not, I know, a UIL sport.
But I look at it as I don't have a kid in this program anymore as KDISD.
My kids graduated from St. Grant High School,
but I did produce a Division I lacrosse player out of our program.
Currently, we have 10 girls playing lacrosse at the college level.
We have 22 boys playing lacrosse at the collegiate level.
I just come to you to consider that we put lacrosse in the PE program curriculum at the elementary school level as we go further up.
because we we found out from us lacrosse that if we start in the elementary school level it grows
the programs and then they go into junior high and high school so i'm just coming out here as
a concerned parent and as an athlete myself and also as a coach that 95 of our kids belong to
katie isd that play the sport i just want for them to be able to use all the elementary schools if
possible for field access right now we do not we are so small and our budget is so small we can't
afford to play our games in any of the katie high school campuses um so i'm just coming to you guys
to for you guys to propose having lacrosse in our school district thank
you thank you next is Tiffany King followed by Angela Shaver Tiffany King
All right, Angela Shaver.
And next will be Jennifer Jesse.
Good evening, Board.
I just wanted to talk about the protests that went on.
I feel like this is after the fact.
But public education is not free.
It's funded by the taxpayers.
The taxpayers are paying those children to learn.
they're paying those teachers to teach they're also not paying the teachers to
push the politics the way politics are being taught in school today kids must
be checked out by a parent or a legal guardian in order to leave class when my
stepdaughter got married my husband went to check out his son and the lady behind
the counter said so what's he going for oh well sisters get married well that's
an unexcused absence so they have to be checked out but yet they can just walk
out of class to go protest it's also been stated kids have a right to the
First Amendment which they do they have every right to a First Amendment but not
on the taxpayers dime school goes out what 333 45 whatever this they can voice
their First Amendment after that disciplinary action is needed for the
students and or teachers that walked out of class and they both need to publicly
apologize to the city to the taxpayers that's paying for their education that's
paying for their paycheck my alma mater has already disciplined teachers and
students and it's been broadcasted school is for learning not for politics
that a plus and Katie is there for a reason let's bring it back let's the
talent that were in these young boys and girls tonight you could see me out Mia
Bella's face just light up when she was talking that is what you want to take
through school with you you want to take that kind of feeling joy through school
all the way to the end and that that's what's needed but that's what I had to
say thank you for your time thank you Jennifer Jesse followed by Marcy Sable
Good evening, President Redmond, members of the Board of Trustees, and Dr. Grigorski.
My name is Jennifer Jesse, and I know you've seen me before, so hello again.
And I am an in-class support paraprofessional at Davidson Elementary, and I have supporters here.
Actually, my whole team of in-class support paraprofessionals is here tonight.
And I have teachers and the principal.
I want to begin by acknowledging the staff and program adjustments occurring across Katy
ISD.
These changes affect employees, students, and families.
I stand in solidarity with those impacted.
I also stand with those students and families who are navigating gender issues in the schools
and SB 12.
wealth. I understand enrollment changes affect state funding and district budgets. However,
compensation remains one of the clearest indicators of how we value the people serving our students.
Since the last time I addressed the board, I have taken on a second job and I am moving into a
smaller one-bedroom apartment. My paraprofessional salary does not come close to qualifying me to rent
or purchase a home in or around Katy. I withdrew money from my retirement savings to secure
housing and pay taxes and penalties to do so there are paraprofessionals in
this district facing much more difficult financial circumstances than mine I
share my experience as one example many paraprofessionals leave the district
because compensation and health insurance costs are not sustainable
turnover requires repeated investment in recruiting and training new staff while
while disrupting continuity for students.
Tonight, the orange packet that you should have received,
I am presenting compensation data
provided by the Public Information Office.
The booklet in front of you
includes current paraprofessional compensation data
alongside the MIT Living Wage Benchmark
for Fort Bend County.
I respectfully ask you to review the data
and consider whether current compensation provides the stability and
support our students and KDISD employees deserve I have another 37 seconds I just
want to point out in there that there are I think when 1,600 paraprofessionals
are paid less than $20 an hour and a great percentage of that is paid less
less than $15 an hour.
What else?
And I separated the police from the other paraprofessionals.
And you'll see it, I really ask you to look at it
and see how much.
There are people working full-time jobs
that are making $11,000.
Thank you.
Marcy Sable followed by Amelia Smith
good evening president Redmond superintendent dr. Gorg or ski and school board members Marcy
Sable I would like to start by saying thank you to the board and superintendent for granting all
employees the 3% salary increase on that recent freezing day I thought about the
M&O workers who are out ensuring our campuses were safe secure and ready for
us to return their dedication matters tonight though I would like to speak to
you about the KDIC paraprofessionals I have watched as a paraprofessional had
her car repossessed right here from the ESC parking lot I've seen another
other paraprofessional wheeled out of this building on a stretcher after
working seven days a week for weeks on end. I know other paraprofessionals are
facing similar hardships. Our work as KDISD paraprofessionals is challenging
and complex. We navigate custody disputes, legislative mandates, discipline
disagreements, and high-stake parent interactions. We serve a community that
is culturally diverse intensely communicative highly educated deeply involved in their students
lives and rightly hold us to high expectations meeting those expectations requires professionalism
discretion and a tremendous level of skill we've heard that kdisd paraprofessional pay is in line
with other districts but does it make sense to measure extraordinary employees
by a market average you're not comparing apples to oranges you're comparing
apples to apple pie with Blue Bell ice cream on top a campus secretary is most
often the point of contact for the campus for the last four years there has
been an approximate 80% turnover over secondary campus secretaries likewise
Likewise, our financial clerks have made significant contributions toward the district receiving
accolades for financial transparency.
There has been an estimated 50% turnover in this employee group.
Teacher retention is reviewed annually.
The question is, are paraprofessional retention rates examined with the same vitality?
Recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and training new staff again and again requires time and
resources is that the best use of a principal's time i respectfully ask that you recognize the
value and complexity of our work and compensate us accordingly thank you for your time
thank you amelia smith followed by kenneth smith
I am exhausted. I am exhausted from fighting against hateful and bigoted people like some of
you on this board to protect my daughter from those who want to harm her just for being who
she is. My daughter is transgender. She has a biological condition that she has no control over.
She's not hurting anyone by being herself.
I truly fail to understand why you fight so hard against her and other transgender students
in our district.
What is it about her that you are so scared of?
She's a 13-year-old girl who just wants to go to school and be with her friends and learn
and grow.
Is all of this truly worth it?
Is it? Is it? She's standing or she's sitting right here. Does she look scary to you?
Can you please tell her to her face that she's not worthy of basic human respect?
I want you to really look at her. I want you to know the face of a child that you are harming.
On Friday, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of SB 12
until the lawsuit is fully resolved in court.
I'm not naive.
I know that the Federal Appellate Court will likely step in and pause it as soon as they can.
So once again, I am standing here before you,
begging you, asking you to please stop your policy
prohibiting schools from calling transgender children by their preferred name and pronouns
and to respect parents' rights to decide what is best for our children.
Because of your hateful and incorrect policy, we had to withdraw our child from the district and pull her out of her school.
You took her away from her teachers and her friends, and you forced her to sit at home doing online schooling.
You communicated to her that because of who she is, she is not worthy of basic human respect, causing irreparable harm.
Then, you went out of your way to attack her community support resources by trying to cancel the Katie Pride event.
The actions of this board over the past several months are inexcusable.
You are a complete disgrace, every one of you.
I'm now calling on you to stop this and do what's right.
You have the power to stand up against this and protect the children in your district.
To protect my child, please.
Are you going to stand here again and tell her that because her gender doesn't match the one that she was assigned at birth,
that you're going to keep a policy in place that demoralizes her and strips her of basic human respect?
Stop being cowardly.
Do what's right. Stop harming our children.
Thank you. Next is Kenneth Smith.
Well, in case you haven't gathered, that was my wife.
To piggyback on what she was just saying, it's not just the injunction that was decided.
You didn't even get to the merits of the law because your defense of what you've decided was so pathetic
that the judge said, I don't even have to bother worrying about the law.
and that is so profoundly fucking terrible it's not even remotely close to funny because we wanted
the merits of the law to actually be considered and you couldn't even defend yourself for harming
these kids you just don't care and you get up there and say it's not me it's not me and that's
what we keep running into right we had our first grief oh by the way we were level three grievance
today too uh but our first level great grievance we're we're told she cared so much about the kids
oh i care about the kids that's why i'm here and then when she had a chance to do something about
it she says her hands are tied that's what you guys have all said your hands are tied by this
law the they are they're not tied the acl you told that you're not the acl just proved
they're not and you continue to say they are then we go to the assistant superintendent and again
i care about the kids it's why i'm in education no you care about your damn paycheck that's what
you care about that's all you care about don't care about my kid you don't care about these kids
It's disgusting. It really is. You're in a position to do something. I just sit here and watch my kid get abused. Do something.
Thank you. This concludes the open forum portion of our meeting.
5. Closed Meeting
The board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under section 551.001 of the Texas Government Code for the following purposes.
Texas government code five five one zero seven one five five one zero seven four
and five five one dot one two nine
the board will now reconvene an open meeting today is Monday February 23rd
6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
2026 and the time is 724 p.m. on behalf of my colleagues I welcome everyone to
this evening's regular board meeting each board member received the agenda
and documentation for this meeting on Wednesday February 18th 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 and
in accordance with chapter 551 of the Texas government code any action arising
arising from discussions in closed meeting must be taken in open meeting.
The first item is 6.1, consider board approval for employees who are being recommended
to receive administrative, probationary, administrative term, staff member probationary,
and staff member term contracts.
Mr. President.
Ms. Champagne.
I move that the Board of Trustees approves for employees who are being recommended
to receive administrative probation, administrative term, staff member
probationary, and staff member term contracts. Second. It is moved and seconded that the
Board of Trustees approves for employees who are being recommended to receive
administrative probationary, administrative term, staff member
probationary, and staff member term contracts. We'll now proceed to vote.
Board members, please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes 7-0.
7.1 Katy ISD Artificial Intelligence Framework
We'll now move on to our report section.
And our first item in our reports is a KDISD Artificial Intelligence Framework.
Presenter, Dr. Sine Bell.
Good evening, President Redman, Trustees, and Dr. Grigorski.
I'm here tonight to speak with the board about the district's artificial intelligence framework,
specifically focusing on why and how we are building the framework,
what it will accomplish, and the immediate steps that will take place in the spring and summer.
The goal of the AI framework is straightforward,
to ensure AI is used in KDISD in ways that strengthen learning and operations
while protecting instructional quality, ethical practice, and student privacy.
Preparing students today requires helping them understand not just how AI works,
but how to use it responsibly.
This includes evaluating information, using tools ethically, and maintaining academic integrity.
The AI framework will be grounded in the district's mission to ensure these practices
align with KDIC values and expectations.
expectations
There are four primary reasons a district that we need a district framework
First AI is already supporting learning and productivity across classroom and district operations
Second a shared framework will help ensure consistency across campuses and roles. So expectations do not vary by location or position
third clear guidance protects instructional quality
ethical practice, and student privacy.
And finally, the framework provides leadership, clarity, and confidence while preserving professional
judgment and innovation, ensuring staff feel empowered, not restricted within certain guardrails.
This framework will support instruction by providing clear, consistent guidance for the responsible use of
of AI in teaching and learning, ensuring that AI enhances rather than replaces effective
instructional practices.
It is designed to strengthen high-quality instruction, equip students to think critically
and act responsibly, and establish shared expectations for AI across the district.
The framework is being developed by a cross-departmental design team to ensure it is practical, consistent,
and grounded in real classroom practice. The work is iterative allowing for
ongoing refinement based on stakeholder input and evolving needs. This framework
will incorporate input from the board, district and campus leadership,
instructional staff, students, parents, and the community to ensure clarity,
relevance, and shared ownership. We are intentionally building shared
shared understanding so the framework is clear, teachable, and supported across the district,
ensuring it guides practice in meaningful ways rather than existing only as a written document.
The framework is built on several core components.
Vision and guiding principles establish the purpose for AI use in KDISD.
Role-based use expectations define ethical and responsible practices for students, teachers,
teachers, campus leader, and central staff.
Data privacy and security guardrails ensure that protection of student and district data,
which is critical as tools increasingly rely on data processing and online platforms.
In addition, the AI framework addresses academic integrity and transparency by establishing
clear, teachable expectations for appropriate AI use.
It also includes, will include an AI oversight and review process to ensure that tools, practices, and vendors are carefully vetted.
Finally, the framework emphasizes training, support, and monitoring.
Both staff and students will receive AI literacy training focused on effective and ethical use,
and implementation will be monitored to ensure consistency, safety, and positive impact across the district.
A critical component of this work is building AI literacy in a developmentally appropriate
way.
For grades K through 5, the focus will be on foundational AI literacy, digital citizenship,
and early critical thinking skills.
In grades 6 through 8, the emphasis will shift to information literacy and ethical decision
making, helping students evaluate sources, recognize risk, and use AI tools responsibly.
For grades 9 through 12, the focus will be on preparing students for use in higher education
and future careers, ensuring they can use AI appropriately while demonstrating authentic
learning and skill development.
For district staff, AI literacy focuses on practical applications, including instructional
planning and differentiation, workflow efficiency, responsible and ethical use, data privacy,
and the use of vetted district approved tools looking ahead to the spring in the
summer our action plan includes three major deliverables first we will
continue AI framework development finalizing the work and preparing it for
rollout second we will implement mandatory AI training for all staff to
ensure consistent expectations and guidance across the district and third
we will provide AI literacy professional learning so staff feel confident
implementing responsible practices and supporting students effectively this
intentional sequence allows us to establish clarity first build capacity
next and ensure consistent implementation district-wide our aim is
to ensure Katie I see leads with clarity and responsibility leveraging a eyes
benefits while protecting students staff and instructional integrity I welcome
any questions that you have at this time thank you dr. Bell board I would point
out that we at the board's request had the district bring this to us earlier
than they normally would so just putting it out there that there there are
probably many questions that will not be able to be answered at this point as far
as specific details and processes and whatnot but we wanted to start the
conversation early so just to let you know we asked for this earlier than that
It probably was a finished product to put out in front of us.
So that being, we'll take any questions.
Mr. President?
Ms. Cazale.
Yeah, I really want to thank Trustee Calhoun for taking the initiative on this.
I think that's how it kind of ended up here tonight.
So I appreciate it because I agree.
President Redman, we need to talk about this.
So I have a few questions.
I'm going to try to do them in an intelligible order.
So I apologize if some of them get out of order.
So when I look at AI, one just overall thought, I'm more interested in how we can use it less, use it appropriately correct, know how it's a tool,
but making sure we're extremely careful with how we're using it when we're trying to teach kids and kids are trying to learn.
Because, right, AI takes over quite easily.
I was listening to an example, here's one example, where a kid was taking a test and they know how to cheat using AI.
The teacher caught it.
They're watching online the kid's actions, right, because they're all taking their test on their Chromebooks.
But the kid knew how to use AI to then put in typical grammar mistakes and spelling that a teenager would make to then make it less perfect to make it even more perfect.
Does that make sense?
So it's quite advanced.
So I would love to know how we can use it less so that we can avoid all that,
but still make them ready for the future.
It's a high calling, but, right?
How are they learning anything?
And how does the teacher know what they're actually transmitting
and teaching their students when we have outcomes like that?
Because that kid did quite well.
It didn't come through because there were typical mistakes.
I'm adding to the discussion and I just hope that that's taken very seriously.
K through 8, you know, building AI literacy, what do we think that looks like for K through
3?
I mean, why are we even going there that young?
Well, I think that's part of the benefit of having a framework to have discussions.
AI is here in students in elementary school.
We utilize some of our district resources.
Just about every resource that we have has some type of AI agent in it, a chat bot,
or there are different things that kids have access to.
Everyone is putting something AI-related into different tools.
And so it's not necessarily, I would say, related to let's teach the children how to use AI to do these particular things.
But it is a part of a lot of the online tools that we have.
And so in terms of what that looks like, I don't think it would be the same, obviously, for our high school kids, right?
But for elementary students, they need to be made aware and educated.
And so AI literacy is just understanding the different tools that we have in the district and how students should use those appropriately.
Sure.
Yes, I agree.
and extremely important so I can tell we're at the very beginning the all
right how will you is there have y'all gotten to the point to where you're
actually gonna gather how are you decided have you decided to gather the
input you mentioned you were gathering input from stakeholders has that been
decided how that be rolled out yet or so we have a cross-functional team
multiple every cabinet member here is has someone that's represented on our
team and so everyone has a part to play so anytime that we're trying to seek
feedback from the community we have different venues to do that different
opportunities that we can gather that feedback which I think is really
important so you know from our students from our community from our parents from
our trustees everybody's feedback is important to building out this framework
work that will really kind of help navigate help us navigate um what ai means in our community and
what it means for for our students in our district all right so to be determined i guess the specifics
i know the comment i wanted to make i've i've heard i think it was something um
trustee calhoun referred to and maybe trust trustee uh cross about uh the study or i think there was a
maybe a Senate hearing or something where experts if you will I forgot his
name but he was offering research that there's been a cognitive decline over a
certain time period of digital learning and so he was linking that to digital
learning and so I just hope that studies like that are considered and that
honestly moving forward we use it less and we use it as a tool as needed but we
We don't lead with that.
That's my position.
Mr. President?
Christine?
Thank you for your presentation.
I appreciate your time.
Can we go to slide seven?
Yeah.
Okay, stakeholder input and feedback.
Yeah.
Yeah. Do you have, can you give us a tangible examples of how this feedback will look like or how it will take place?
So I think these different categories, I can give you an example of students because we have something coming up.
I believe right after spring break, Dr. Gorgorski has student leadership panel or circle that he meets with monthly and there are different topics.
And so the topic for that particular meeting is, is AI.
And so we're developing the session for those students, gathering some feedback from that particular student group, opening discussions and conversations.
And so when we think about getting feedback and developing an AI framework, it's not as if it's developed and go put it in front of people and say, hey, tell me what you think.
It's let's get some feedback, and that helps to kind of drive the development of different pieces.
So we have other outlets, obviously.
Obviously, we have our different parent groups that we can reach out to.
We have survey tools that we can utilize.
We have our district teacher leadership forum.
We have our principals that we meet with on a monthly basis.
So we have already structures and systems in place to gather feedback.
This would be one of those topics that we would develop some sessions and learning around
so we can gather feedback from different groups.
Okay.
So when you're saying parent groups, what kind of parent groups?
We have our Katy Council of PTAs. We have opportunities where we can pull parents in.
There are just different ways that we can gather that, where we can bring people together.
Different departments have different group structures that they have.
Would you make it open to the public for parents to come, or would you just suggest handpicking certain parents?
Well, I think as we develop the framework, this is something that we want to get as much feedback from everyone as possible.
And so as we think about how can we gather feedback that's representative of our entire community,
those are things that we'll be working through as we begin to develop those strategies.
Okay. And then how do you see it happening for board input?
Well, this is an opportunity right here.
I've noted a couple things that are pressing.
And then of course the regular communication in terms of through dr. Gagorski is
a mode of
Operation that is typically used when any questions or comments are needed
Okay
Okay. Thank you very much
Mr. President, mr. Payne, so I know this is at the
Infancy stage, but I'm kind of thinking that this is kind of like a how
when word was new or something and it was kind of like a user like I'm just
going to teach you how to do word I actually took a class on that and kind
of funny in the 90s but in other words it's not really won't correct me if I'm
wrong it doesn't seem like it's really part of curriculum it's just being aware
of tools that are at our that we can use or that children can use is that correct
I mean, is that more of what it is?
Not really part of curriculum, though, yet.
I would say that the focus is AI is a part of our world, right?
So to ignore it when we know that our students are interfacing and using it,
we want to be on the front end of teaching them how to use it responsibly.
We have students that will be graduating, going to college,
and they need to know certain things.
They need to know how to grapple and navigate.
So it's not a 20-point plan, let me tell you everything you need to know
and how to use every single AI tool, I think having that framework provides the parameters and the guardrails
and what's allowable and what's not allowable and talking about academic integrity,
talking about data privacy and student safety.
Without those pieces, you can leave people up to guess how to navigate it themselves.
And so by having a district framework that crosses teaching and learning,
that crosses operations and and all the district all the things that we do it gives our whole
community and our district staff the appropriate guidance that's necessary to ensure that
what is being taught and what is being used is safe and reflective of our community values
thank you and just another if you're taking the input i think it would be so good
if you had some classes for parents.
Because, you know, when technology was evolving
as strongly as it was when my kids were younger,
you know, the parents were kind of,
I don't mean on purpose,
but we were sort of out of the loop,
you know, because our kids were learning all about technology
and the parents were at home,
not necessarily up on what the kids knew.
and so sometimes there would be little classes for parents to take about the
technology I just think you know the parents need to be aware also of what's
what's out there that's just nice
this government thank you thank you so much for doing this and when I presented
some ideas to dr. Kroporsky and to president Redmond about this this was
was the hope that this would be the beginning
of a conversation that is a longstanding conversation
because as AI has come out and really taken off,
it's, I've said this before and I'm gonna say it again,
and we're all gonna figure this out sooner or later,
AI is outpacing us.
Like it's, as soon as we figure something out,
it's rolling over and doing something,
not within weeks, months, or years, but within days.
So we're looking at a whole brand new landscape
for all of us not just in the education space but in the workforce space it's
different for everybody one of the things that I came away with kind of
shocked with was recently Dow Chemical who is one of the chemical plants and
refineries and is a very large chemical plant and refinery laid off 12% of
their staff it was 4,500 people that got laid off at just turned over and the
reason why is because they were going towards ai to replace those people they were issuing over 800
million dollars in severance checks they're not bringing those jobs back so that affects us
because there are people that work in those chemical plants and refineries that do live
within our community that that is a household income that now has got cut in half if you've
got two household incomes or they don't have one right now and they're having to look at something
something else. And so when we as the education space look at that and we say, okay, well,
how do we prepare our students to enter into an AI world? That's a very serious question
that we have to bear that burden of responsibility. So I appreciate this conversation and I hope
that this is not the last conversation, but like I said, this is an ongoing conversation
because this is going to evolve and we have to take everybody on the trip with us while
we figure out what we're doing specifically in the higher education space um i talked to um
i talked to a guy at rice who he is like their front-facing guy for education and ai and one of
the things that rice is doing and houston um what are they calling hcc no it's not houston community
houston city college thank you houston city college they're both offering degree plans
in AI, which I think is great, and it's a step in the right direction. I also think
you're going into a field that is not going to need you. More of what it's needing is somebody
to babysit it. So when you prompt AI and you send your AI agents out to finish out a code or to
finish out something, you're really just making sure that that code is written correctly and that
if it gets into a hiccup you can then give it a different prompt in order for it to fix itself
you're not writing code anymore like that the era of that is over the era of software engineering
is over and we're teaching kids how to do this and how to go to high school or to college to do this
and taking on student debt that they will not be able to pay back because there's not going to be a
job for them to gain to pay back that student debt. So we have to, we've got to
pivot. We have to pivot in the way that we engage with AI and the way that we
set our students up to engage in an AI world that no one has seen before. And it
sounds alarmist and it is kind of crazy. It's kind of insane. Who thought that we
would be sitting here talking about a robot who talks to another robot on a
computer figuring out problems without you saying anything to it this is like the jetsons this is
wild and it's promising and it's also there's some hesitancy there so i think that there's
major developments that we could be really really excited about and i also think that there are some
things that we need to take into consideration and you seem like you're touching on these points with
what we're talking about with this framework of helping to give our teachers instructional
leadership here I think that that when I also met with a group of students and
parents and that was one of the biggest things that I came away with from them
is that when we have our students and they're going either into higher
education or they're here and they're turning in their their work online one
of the things is that teachers will say okay you can't use AI but you can use AI
AI. Then they send the work into Be Checked. And the problem is, is the hallucinations that come
with AI, it will say, oh, well, anything that has like a 5% return, you used AI completely and you
cheated. And so now you're out, which could be Grammarly, which is what A&M is doing. You can't
even use Grammarly to check your grammar through an AI chatbot or it's nothing. You get no grade
for it so how do we figure out a balance does that make sense of where the
concern is for that how do we integrate with this and work with this as a
complement and not a crutch that's and that's probably one of the major
tenants in an education setting in the school district that we want to ensure
that our students know how to do we spend a lot of time with our higher ed
partners and there's very interesting perspectives on that right some of what
you've shared and then there's some that are like hey let's teach students how to
use these things and so the goal of having a framework is how do we take all
of this and bring it tight into a space that's preparing our students for where
they are developmentally and what they're going into and those will be
many of the pieces of guidance and artifacts and training that we'll provide
for our teachers and our students so that they know that it's not a crutch it
doesn't take the place of doing your work but there are ways that it can be
used and how you use it so that you're in charge of of that particular tool and
not just using that tool just to get something done and there's no learning
that that has taken place to trustee Cusela's point and I saw the same it was
a teacher that was discussing what they had done at school that day and one of
the things that he came away with is that same student that he spoke to who
had used AI and on the Chromebook the teacher was watching what he was doing
while he was writing through this essay and he had thrown the prompt and did all
of these things well he asked the student later he goes hey I was just
checking on what you're doing with that prompt what was the prompt and the student said oh i
don't know and the teacher said what do you mean you don't know and he said i don't even know what
the question was i just i don't know so you don't even know what the question is that you're
supposed to be answering turns out it was about ai so you copied and pasted this into your chatbot
and then have the chatbot make the spelling corrections or spelling mistakes that a high
schooler would make in order to frame it out to make it look like you did the work and you don't
even know the question that you're going to get an A on because it made just enough mistakes to
where it won't be diagnosed as AI and you can't answer the question. That's scary for a high
school senior in this instance to be getting the grade and the credit for it and going on to higher
level education without having that muscle strength brain wise to defend an argument.
that's concerning. So that's where I'm at with this. I have a level of excitement and a level
of concern for what we're looking at. But I hope that everybody sees this. And when we're talking
about data processing, when we're talking about administrative things, when we're looking at all
of that, that is fast and furiously moving towards an AI world. And it's not something that we have
to go in with fear it's something that we have to go into with preparation and discussion discussion
and dialogue which is what you're doing and thank you i appreciate that thank you president redmond
for allowing us to have this discussion and not just for us but for our community as a whole to
know that we hear you we see this and we're going along this ride with you and we're taking it
seriously mr president mrs gizella sorry just one more comment like uh the um on the other flip side
So this is how what we just discussed mostly was how to get our students to learn and use their cognitive ability and help them solve problems.
But then on the flip side, but alongside that, we've got our Miller Career Center and we've got our water treatment licensing, I think we call it, in rains right now.
And so those are equipping students for specific skill in a job set.
And I'd want us to be very careful with how we invest in those programs to make sure we're considering AI and how that's influencing all of the skills our kids are acquiring in Miller.
Like the mechanics or a lot of that's probably already revolutionized.
And so how we invest in Miller, we need to be smart considering AI.
eye so that point come across make sense um can I speak to that just I know I'm
talking a lot and I'm sorry but this is like near and dear to my heart and so I
talked to one of the parents that I talked to you is a hiring agent for one
of these very large companies one of the things that she said that was the most
concerning is the lack of skill tangible hands-on skill that she's seeing people
coming into young kids come into it with and she said we don't necessarily need
people to process things we need tangibility skills and because the ai isn't quite there yet
to where your hvac plumber or your hvac guy or your plumber is coming in to tweak something in
your air conditioner you may talk to the ai assistant in order to make the appointments
you're not talking to the front office person but the ai isn't there to actually fix or maintain
the HVAC unit yet or like your your landscaping or whatever those manual
jobs those blue-collar jobs and we've talked about this before the blue-collar
jobs that we haven't necessarily always pushed we've really pushed University
model and like going towards a four six eight year degree that's more of what's
changing rather than trade like Miller Miller has still has honestly a lot of
need in the workforce where she's seeing major dips in jobs of where we don't
have the people to fill them when you build the database centers do you have
the people to actually build the center build out the framework of that no does
Does that make sense?
One good example, sorry, it's like there's robots driving trucks.
So just so you know, we don't need drivers.
And it may be that the blue-collar jobs need to know how to use AI.
It's going to be a part of their job is all I'm saying,
and we need to invest appropriately in Miller.
Yes.
Thanks.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
So I read a statistic that said there are 140,000 vacant jobs right now in trades, in
jobs that need people who are aging out and retiring with no one to backfill.
For every five people who retire, there are two people ready to take over.
That's why we're seeing such an increase in cost of any sort of repairs in our homes.
and while they probably will need to use AI, I agree, I don't think AI is going to replace.
There are too many variables in who fixes the kitchen sink or who fixes the bathroom.
All of the things, there are too many variables for AI to come in and build a robot to replace each one.
I have a friend who works at the Amazon plant near Igloo,
and I asked, do you use robots for everything?
And he said, no.
Our robots work really well when you have the same size carton
that you need to place in the same size shelf,
and we don't do that.
We sell toothbrushes to air conditioners, so we use people.
So some of those things are automated,
but so will it get there?
Quite possibly.
I think we can't possibly see that far into the future.
But for the time being, I agree those programs at Miller are preparing kids to be successful,
many of them by the time they leave high school and many to prepare them for college.
So I still appreciate those programs very much,
and we'll have a lot more to say about this as it develops in the future.
Dr. Bell, are there already curriculums and whatnot created for, like, does the state of Texas create TEEX or anything along the lines of AI to be guiding, educating the kids, or are we kind of creating it as we go?
Well, right now, TEA hasn't provided a lot of robust guidance as it relates to AI.
I believe that was something that is to be forthcoming out of this last legislative session.
Obviously, when those things do come, we'll definitely welcome that.
So as of right now, we're just, as we do in KDISD, pulling together our team
and finding out what's important to our community and making sure that our kids
are prepared so we're still waiting on that specific guidance but nothing
formal as of yet and it's not like the frameworks are gonna be like hey use
grok for this or notebook LLM for something else or you should get
perplexity like right it's it's more the principles and ways that it can be used
or dangerous to use?
And that's actually what we don't want.
We don't want just a checklist of tools
and like, use this, this is fun, this is cool.
There's so much more to living
in our current ever-changing world
and AI is a part of that.
And so we want to make sure
that we're providing the guidance
that our teachers need
in order to ensure that students are engaging
in learning experiences and tasks
that require thinking.
there are ways to AI proof what's happening in your classroom and so there
are ways to ensure that students are are thinking about what they're doing and
the work that they're producing so I think this is something that will be
welcomed by our staff for sure because it's a lot it's a lot going on out there
and and when you're working with children and preparing them for their
future clarity is kind and so we want to make sure that the expectations are
clear that we have consistency across the district so it really is to help everybody move along
and navigate all the things that are coming to us that that's constantly changing as it relates to
ai and ensuring that our kids are prepared to go to whatever it's the next thing whether they're
going to university or whether they're going straight to the workforce that they have the
skills and tools to adapt to whatever space and setting they're they're going to be walking into
when they leave KDISD. We could possibly create an agent that just tries to keep
kids from cheating. See if it stays ahead of them. Cut off all the routes. Watch that kid in that seat.
Right, right. That's been a part of public education for quite some time. So we just have a different
different thing to navigate. Different tool and different different things that
we have to work through. One last thing. Have you watched the Senate hearing?
over AI?
Parts of it.
So I would encourage anyone here or that's listening
to watch that Senate hearing on the tech impact on youth.
It was done on January 15th of this year,
and there were four speakers that were there,
a doctor and then a psychologist,
a neuroscientist who was a classroom teacher,
and they talk specifically about with a litany of questions about what the
technological impact is on our youth and how we can track that all the way back
to Jonathan Haidt has wrote a book about this multiple books but most recently
wrote a book about the social social media impacts and that's one of the big
ones but technology in the classroom and what that looks like and so I think
taking all of that in and assessing where we're at and how we move forward
with tech inside the class classroom K through 12 is a really important thing
for us to assess I know that every kindergartner to 12th grader has a
Chromebook about so third okay so third but I do know that there are
who are kinder through K through two, who have PTAs,
who have bought books and iPads or the such.
And so it doesn't really matter what size the screen is,
we can see the direct impacts of that on our youth,
starting when they're little bitty guys
going all the way up to college age,
or to, I'm sorry, graduating age.
So I would just really encourage people to hear
what the experts are saying on this,
and I know expert can be a subjective term,
but when you hear what these four people were talking about
and the questions that they were asked and how they approached that,
it opened my eyes.
And then talking to your kids about what they're seeing with AI,
talking to the students, which you guys are doing,
and I appreciate that because they know more about it than we do.
So thank you.
Thank you again.
Mr. Seamy.
Mr. Cross, didn't you share about a section of it
that talking about Generation Z, Gen Z.
Do you mind sharing that?
Because I don't know if everybody heard that.
Well, and I think it's what Ms. Calhoun,
I think we're sharing the same stuff, yeah.
So it goes back to that, what she had mentioned earlier,
when they looked at generations
and they checked IQ, academic performance,
and each generation kept creeping up until this one.
And they looked at, you know, it was correlation stuff,
stuff, not causation, but they were looking at things like when did schools or school
districts go one-to-one technology.
They look at social media.
Jonathan Hike, yeah, read his stuff and there's a lot of good stuff out there about social
media and technology and youth.
So it is.
I agree with everything that's been said here.
It's tricky in the sense of trying to navigate technology.
You can't ignore it because it's in the world, it's part of it, but at the same time, you know,
I think the research continues to show us that the more kids spend time they spend on screens, you know,
that that's not, it doesn't benefit.
You know, there's a law of diminishing returns there.
You know you get you get so much and then boom after that we're we're going the wrong direction
So I agree with with all the stuff that's been said it's it's trying to figure out that balance right and and
Just like we did
You know 15 years ago
we are
Schools are always playing catch-up with technology, right? I mean, I'm not Steve Jobs or you know
I don't pretend to have any kind of
special knowledge with tech and AI and that kind of thing.
So usually we are playing catch-up.
And like 15 years ago, we're talking about,
oh, bring your phones to school because that will enhance learning.
And sometimes it did, and oftentimes it didn't.
It became a distraction.
And we even had our legislature go, you know what?
Those phones are not great for kids in school.
And so I say all that just to say that, you know, I think this will be an evolving thing.
Like we can come back here in six months.
And, yes, the technology, the AI will be advanced just in six months, I'm sure.
How we deal with it, you know, and what we're teaching our kids, but also what, you know, how much time are they spending on screens at school?
Because we know they go home and you know many of our kids are doing that at home
Whether it's they are on a Chromebook or a MacBook or iPad or whatever
So it's that idea of you know, there's been studies even
Reading a physical book versus reading something on a screen and the way the brain processes that and again, I
Know expertise there. I'm not one of those experts
So I just say that if you look at the body of research that continues to kind of show up, it's generally not, it doesn't seem to be great for kids and learning if we overdo that piece of it.
Mr. Cross, you said that so well.
Thank you for sharing that.
And I really appreciate that.
And I appreciate, too, that you're, you know,
supportive of you know just every now and again taking a pause and reassessing
because actually I think that love that's loving our children well the
times I look back and I was the best parent to my kids was when my husband
and I reassessed what we were doing was not working and tried something
different and I think my pant my kid our kids would say the same now that they're
adults so thank you for thank you for your statement I appreciate that
Any other questions for thank you mister very much dr. Bell we'll now move on to
7.2 Nutrition and Food Service Department Overview
item 7.2 nutrition and food service department overview our presenter will
be miss Alexa Carrier executive director of nutrition and food services good
Good evening President Redmond, board members, and Dr. Grogorski.
Thank you so much for having me here today so that I could have a discussion and speak
to you about our nutrition and food service department and advocate for all of the really
great things that we're doing in order to provide healthy meals for the children of
Katy ISD.
The mission, I'm so sorry for the thing there, the mission here is to promote healthy eating
by providing nutritious meals to the students and teachers staff and visiting
patrons of the district so another part a second fold to this and our mission is
to make sure the kids not only are provided healthy meals nutritious meals
but we also find that it's really important to have an inviting environment
when they step into our serving lines what we do at that point because it's
not just about getting them there one time we need to get them and keep them
and come in because as we know a hungry child cannot learn and that is an
ultimate goal it's our mission is to feed the children of KDISD so I first
want to talk to you a little bit about our team and we have one executive
director we have three associate directors that handle different parts of
of our department. We have two registered dietitians, but four total on our staff,
including myself and one of our associate directors. We have 10 administrative staff
that are at our NFS office that handle everything from preparing our claim to making sure the
eligibilities are run correctly, all kinds of odds and ends that are a part of what we have to do for
the compliance side of it. We also have a warehouse. We have three warehouse men and we have a warehouse
house supervisor as well. We have nine food service coordinators. Those
coordinators are the heart and soul of how we kind of connect what's happening
in our kitchens to what we're doing in our NFS office. They're assigned to
different campuses and they are ensuring that our operations are people being
taken care of all of those odds and ends on a daily basis. We also have field
specialists and they're all in themselves are very important to us. We
We only have four of them, but they are a huge part of when we have a manager out, when
we need additional training, they're going in to make sure that our staff are taken care
of.
And then the magnitude of KDISD, we have over 750 cafeteria staff.
And so we are a well-oiled machine.
We do everything we can to make sure that these kids are fed, and they're fed well,
nutritiously, with very healthy meals.
So let's just talk about what we do.
We are a federally funded program, which means that we are regulated by USDA, TDA, and then
of course we have our local designations that we have to follow here at Katy.
We have a lot of federal programs that we actually run here under the nutrition, food
and nutrition division under USDA.
We've run the National School Lunch Program, we run the School Breakfast Program, we run
an After School Care Program, we also run a Child and Adult Care Food Program, which
is what we call At Risk.
You may have heard it, it's called our Supper Program.
We run a Summer Food Service Program in the summer for kids during the summer, and then
we're also involved in what we call our Food Distribution Program.
All of these are federal programs.
they're all similar but they're also very different they have different meal
patterns we have different regulations tied to each one depending on what meal
we're serving which group of kids were serving what age grade group a lot of
different things so we're going to talk about that a little bit in a minute I do
want to reinforce our ultimate governing body is USDA the Food and Nutrition
Division they are the ones that regulate us that's where we get our federal
funding from so everything that as far as reimbursement through our food
distribution program through the meals that we serve starts out with USDA from
there any kind of regulations that are further specified from USDA then are
dictated through Texas Department of Ag so we have other rules that only Texas
applies so you know across the nation we're all under USDA but depending on
what state you're in you can have even more rules and regulations that are very
particular to your state and then of course at our local district procedures
as well we're making sure that we're compliant at all three levels so I'm
going to talk about these in general I'm going to go through a meal pattern we're
going to talk about claiming procedures operations procurement of goods meaning
how do we get everything in our back door and special diets there's a whole
lot more to our department but these are the kind of the high points that I
wanted to talk about a little bit today the first of all is meal pattern and
offer versus serve if you'll notice here this is our tray we have biodegradable
trays in our campuses and you'll notice that there's some words there in
different colors that is to show you the foundation of what our meal pattern is
all about whether or not it's a breakfast whether or not it is lunch or
after-school snacks supper we rely on these components okay so we have milk we
We have fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, meat alternate.
And when we look at these, for instance, like vegetables,
it's not just that we have to provide a vegetable.
We have to meet subgroups.
So over a week's time, depending on if it's a red-orange, a dark green, a starch, a legume,
and other, all of these different subgroups, we have minimums that we have to meet
that we have to provide throughout a week.
And so every meal that comes through, that they're offered throughout the week's time,
and we have a cycle menu we have to make sure that all of that is met just for vegetables we
also have regulations that are tied to the types of milk that we provide fruit and vegetables are
a big component we cannot go through a breakfast meal without a child picking up a half cup fruit
in order for it to be a reimbursable meal they are required to pick up a half cup fruit when a child
comes through we're making sure that they are picking up items and that fruit is there if it's
not we have to send them back and ask them would you like a fruit you know we
need to get that into your diet same thing with lunch it's a little bit
different because fruits and vegetables are there they have to get at least a
half cut fruit or vegetable when they come to that line again it's a
requirement and then after that they pick and choose what they want to eat
our grains as well have minimums and maximums so depending on the age
grade group and when I say that I mean like K through 5 6 through 8 9 through 12
Depending on those age grade groups then dictates how many ounces of grain that we provide daily
and then over a week's time.
The same thing with our meat-meat alternate.
We are regulated on what we're supposed to provide on a daily and a weekly basis.
So depending on the different age grade groups, it is different and it's different depending
on the type of program that we're running.
The term offer versus serve is a little bit different.
you know when you think of offer it's like what we're offering on a serving
line versus what is actually served and so when we look at this a child comes
through the line they could pick up a straight tray meaning every single
component right they can do that right now we have the choice and it's required
at the high school level to implement offer versus serve so when a child comes
through they have to have a fruit or a fruit or vegetable but then they can
pick and choose the other items that they want they have to have at lunch at least three of the
five components three of the four items at breakfast a lot of different rules that come
into play but ultimately you may ask you know why are we doing offer versus serve a couple of
reasons it's really important that kids can look at what they want in a line and choose it they're
more apt to eat what they choose versus us giving them a full tray we also consider waste you know
if we're giving them a full tray of food then how much waste is occurring at the tail end of it
and so all of these kind of are why we implement these different types of procedures um to benefit
the child and you know we do have we are in consideration of the waste and our budgets and
procedures and everything like that as well a little bit more i won't go into too much yeah
i could talk forever i feel like but um we also look at um the amount of fat right saturated fat
has to be 10 or less we look at whole grains so those grains we're required to have 80 percent
of our whole grains um our grains to be whole grain and kdic it's a hundred percent we choose
to do that because we know the benefit of a whole grain so every grain that you see on the line no
matter what color it is right could be lighter or darker they're all 100 whole grain really
important that we instill that nutrition from when they're pre-k all the way through
So when we look at claims and operations, right here you'll notice it says 85 feeding
sites.
You may say to yourself, we do not have 85 schools.
We don't.
But I want you to think about a lot of our high schools.
We have a 9th grade campus and we have a main campus.
We have kitchens in both.
We're feeding out of both simultaneously, all of those children.
We feed Merchants Way.
This January we started feeding Merchants Way.
It's another site.
So there are a lot of sites and ins and outs that we do feed that we transport so that our reach is very large.
We want to feed all of the children.
And so we make sure that we're flexible.
We know exactly what we need to do in order to make sure those kids are fed.
That is the goal.
A hungry child cannot learn.
We have to feed them.
We also have monthly claims.
So because we're regulated by the federal government, we have to make sure that any
data that collects, right?
So a child comes through the line, we indicate that they are a reimbursable meal, it's tallied
in the computer, all of that is just kind of coming together on a regular basis.
At the end of the month, all of our sites are pulled together into our claim.
And I have to tell you I have a staff that works so closely with our claims because even one meal
It's off right we have to investigate we have to find out we have to go back to our production records
We have to go backwards right we're looking at what's happening on a daily basis to make sure that we're accurate
These are federal funds we take we do not take it lightly we make sure that we're doing that correct
There's multiple programs at every school so depending on their eligibility
They could have breakfast, lunch, supper.
We could be running somewhere out of some of those sites, not all of them.
And then that food distribution program deals with our DOD funds and processing.
We also have the community eligibility provision.
You may be familiar with the phrase CEP.
So we have 33 sites that actually have that provision running at their schools.
If you're not familiar, that simply means that those sites have this provision that
allows all those children to eat at no cost.
In determining those campuses, it depends on those free and reduced rates, and those
are campuses that have been determined to have this provision that allows them to eat
at no cost.
We don't claim them all at no cost, at a free rate, but they are given that provision or
eligibility procurement of goods so how do we get all the food there right you think of all of those
sites there's a lot of on the back end operations that happens and so we are follow not only
compliance as far as meal pattern we're looking at other aspects on our operation size but we are
also highly regulated in procurement so under usda and then tda we have a different set of procurement
rules that even the district has and that involves how we procure different
vendors our contracts so all of nutrition and food service we do our own
RFP we make we do an RFP for our distribution for our groceries our
disposables small well small wares large equipment everything that we get we have
our own procurement and so we can control that we know exactly what is
approved on a contract is what we utilize and then we're held to those standards as well
a couple of things you might have seen a big orange truck back of a kitchen if you ever do
that's labatt that's our main distributor they make delivers at every campus twice a week and
that is so that we get the best the fresh everything that we need highland dairy is our
dairy company they deliver every day to every campus every single day they're delivering milk
because we go through a quadra beta mill number one i mean we want the freshest we want to make
sure that it's the dates are appropriate that we're doing the very best for our kids
so ordering as well so everything that happens at the campus level our managers are phenomenal
these are people that have learned how to utilize our systems to be able to track
their production and then know how to produce orders it's a high level thinking to all of our
staff that are out there that were able to maintain this ongoing production.
These are little restaurants. You can think of them a whole bunch of mini
restaurants out there. We also have special diets. So I talked about the four
dietitians. So we have a team of two very closely knit dietitians that handle all
special diets. If you don't know, we have about 1,400 district-wide. And what I
mean by a special diet is this is a child that has a life-threatening
allergy or disability. And so there's a process. They have to go through a
medical authority, prepare the correct paperwork, that sort of thing. Once
they're notified, we get that information from the nurses. We work closely with the
nurses at every campus so that we can make sure that our kids are safe. These
are allergies or life-threatening issues that we want to make sure that they are
good to go. But the second fold of that is that if we can provide an opportunity
for a child that has some type of life-threatening right allergy or a
disability they can still come through the line and get a meal I can tell you
how much that means to children so what we can do on our end to look at their
menu our dietitians take those menus their special diets and then they
generate their own individual menus when that happens then the child gets to come
through the line they get to eat with us and I tell you like that's one of the
greatest things that we see is that we're able to provide that for these kids but really what
happens is they have a computer it's a discrete pop-up that tells our cashiers that this child
has a special diet it then indicates for them to look at their paperwork to make sure that
that child is receiving the correct items it happens with every child that has a special diet
every day every time they come through the line
so did you know maybe that we serve 73,000 meals a day on average sometimes more sometimes a little
less that's how much we're generating on a daily basis out of all of these kitchens we spend about
300 to do that we spend about 345,000 a month on local milk just milk alone I always like to like
think of like how i can relate to that and so that's about 2.5 million gallons of milk on a
month right it's awesome our kids are drinking milk wonderful we also spend about 300 000 per
month on fresh produce again i'm thinking pounds because that's how i look at produce right that's
about 165 000 pounds of produce a month it's really important for us to give opportunities
to the KDISD students, variety, everything that we can, because we do recognize that
every child doesn't have all that at home, right?
What can we do when they're with us?
Menu planning.
I just wanted to touch on this a little bit.
You know, we do a lot.
Menu planning is ongoing.
We have a team of registered dietitians, but we utilize our managers, our coordinators,
our field specialists, all of the above.
to kind of gauge what's working what's done we're typically working a year in advance we have to
determine our entitlement and usda foods a year in advance before we get to the next year and so
it does take a lot of effort to look and to predict kind of what's happening so these things
that we do this is what we consider we look at first and foremost any updates policies and
regulations if anything we know is coming down the pipe if we know that it's going to something's
going to change we're obviously going to be compliant no doubt and so we look at that but
we're also looking ahead i will say we're i will say we're very forward thinking i that is something
that i really admire about a lot of my staff is that we're always trying to think ahead to see
what is the next step what can we do better what should we be doing at the next phase
We also look at availability of products.
So remember that whole procurement, we establish RFPs that have line items of all, you know,
our distribution of grocery has over 500 line items.
So all the different items.
So those are established through a contract that's binding to us.
And so we have to then determine, do we have a product available?
If not, we have to then add it to our RFP if we can, if it's during a renewal.
all those new and nuances to see if it's available I'll also say that Katie's
huge last year I'll give you an example last year in the spring of in March we
want to bring strawberries in which we're fixing to do again because it's in
season in order to just feed one day at our elementary schools we had to bring
in nearly 500 cases of strawberries and guess what everybody wants strawberries
when they're in season so define vendors right we can't just go to HB because HB
is actually taking all the strawberries believe it or not we're getting them
from other vendors we also want to provide what's local we look for our
local vendors because we want to put it back into Texas right that's a big part
of what we look for but it takes the volume Haiti is huge which is awesome
but it does take more than just making a small request menu testing throughout
throughout the year. In a minute I'm going to show you some pictures of what we do. Menu
testing new items is ongoing. Whether or not it's in the fall, the spring, the summer,
we test at different levels. It's really important for us to know our people. When I say our
people, I mean our students. It's really important for us to understand what they like, what
they want, what's trending, how am I going to get them and keep them. Really important.
And then acceptability of our current menu.
So we, because we have this phenomenal computer system that tracks our production and everything
that we do, we can see what entrees these kids like to eat over others, what vegetables
they prefer, what can we incorporate more, all of those kind of aspects to enhance our
menus going forward.
So some outreach and action.
So this is the Try It Tuesday.
This is one of the things we do on a monthly basis. This was when we did
grapefruit. I just love these pictures. But they, this is where we, not
necessarily introducing a whole item in there, but as you can see we've cut up
pieces. They come through the line and they get to try it. Sometimes when it's
just on the line, it's a new item, it's kind of, you know, the kids are like, oh, I'm not gonna, no, not gonna take that whole thing. We put it in
little portions. We say, just try it, smell it, something. It allows them to have that
opportunity we know then whether or not it they take it or not it's something do
we want to roll out right it is a fruit the next time gives us a lot of really
good feedback and it's a lot of fun this is our discovering my plate you can't
see it roll well on the screen but this is another initiative that we do with a
lot of our campuses this one particular was at Bryan Elementary and Diana our
dietitian that's speaking in there we go out and they said we do the PowerPoint
point right for that's the thing we're talking about nutrition we're trying to educate pe classes
but we're also doing something even better we bring samples of very like different types of
fruits and veggies just sample sizes and the whole point of this is exposure we ask them to smell it
we ask them to tell us what they think it is sometimes they have no idea because we do try
to bring in different things we let them sometimes touch so we brought in a whole stick of um
Brussels sprouts, right? You know, Brussels sprouts come on a stem, if y'all don't know,
they're not in a bag, naturally. And so we brought a whole stem for them to see where it comes from.
Again, it's about providing this openness, opportunities for kids.
This is on the left side is where we're actually testing. I think this is the southwest.
If I'm not mistaken, at Pato High School, we're testing it. We're just trying to see if the kids
like it. You know, we have different methods. You can see them on the back there telling us
writing because they don't have phones anymore we used to do the QR code or
really good data we don't do that anymore so now we've got to find other
ways to get their input the one on the right is just a fun picture this is
exemplifies our staff anytime they can make it fun on the line this is Hutzel
Elementary they've taken our fruits and vegetables built this display we're not
asking them to do that this is how much they love what they do they love to see
the kids smiling one on the left is a catch night so that's again our one of our dietitians there
woman elementary jessica the manager so we do a lot of different catch nights we go out we have
giveaways we're asking nutrition questions we're typically giving away some type of fruit to to do
that with them as well the one on the right that was a new adventure this year we took a whole
bunch of high school kids to a food show it's a food show that we typically go to
but my associate director of policy and procurement Talvo she was like hey let's
take some kids I don't know okay we'll take you I did have to ride the bus so
that was interesting I'd been on a bus in 30 years but you know but we took
them and what was amazing was number one we have great kids they were phenomenal
phenomenal like they were just the best and number two they gave us such great input I had a blast
and I learned a lot of what I thought they would like versus not so we had a list of things we
wanted them for sure to try because we were already seeing the products and we just it was
eye-opening that they had the acceptance of foods what they wanted to try more of it was just a
great experience for us all so we will definitely that was the first time we had done that these
These are more pictures, Catch Night on the left.
We have that Try It Tuesday.
And then the last one is actually me with my group.
And we're doing a selfie.
They didn't really want to do a selfie, but I'm old,
and I like to do selfies.
So that was a selfie with all of us.
Around us out, I just kind of want you to know highlights,
recognitions that we're doing.
So we do things because we want to.
I will stress that.
The decisions we make are so that we're
doing really good things for kids.
We're feeding them well.
But because of that, we also have to follow guidance compliance.
So one of the things is last year we had administrative and procurement review.
This covers everything from operations, claim and compliance, menu, meal pattern procurement, financial criteria, everything under the sun.
It happens every five years. It is looking in depth.
It takes us six months to prepare for it. They're there on site for four days in our campuses.
I'm happy to say that we had zero findings across the board.
My staff worked so hard.
We worked day in and day out, but this exemplifies what we're doing, our passion for what we're
doing.
So very happy to report that.
We also in 2425, which we'll see the next one come out, anytime you can see a food pun,
so turn up the beat, right?
So this recognizes our summer meals and we were awarded a national distinction out of
199 programs nationwide as one of these nutrition programs that provides outstanding summer meals
one of our biggest parts in the summer is kids are not necessarily getting meals so
anything we can do to bring them in again that's what we're doing local i'll talk about local all
the time because part of usda wants us to keep things domestically right so in the united states
We have to meet standards there, but TDA wants us to keep it in Texas
It's not required to keep it in Texas. It's required to keep it in the United States
Do we keep it in Texas as much as we can we do?
Because we want to give back to those look our local community and so this was an award we got last year
Which is phenomenal we were called the cream of the crop
Hence another pun food pun TDA awarded this us
us that serve local food and teach about local agriculture.
So we receive the highest designation for that.
It's really important.
Some of the things that we do is True Harvest out of Belton, Texas.
If you're ever in the schools, look at our side salads and large salads.
You'll see this really nice green lettuce.
You don't know, we do not grow lettuce in Texas.
You know why?
It's too hot, it's too arid, we cannot serve it.
So our lettuce is actually hydroponic.
it comes from belton texas the greatest thing because we give back to those local farms
it provides these aspects we get citrus from the valley and you know all different kinds of things
our pizza some of our pizza comes from waller texas those alpha foods that we get so we really
pay attention to as much as we can sometimes it's more expensive right to get those local but it's
important it's important to texas that we do it as well upcoming grants so we just got a couple
of grants dairy max this is a non-for-profit that works with different dairy farmers throughout the
the center part of the united states they awarded us 50k for procuring new breakfast carts breakfast
is key to kids starting their day correctly but what it's also important to remember is that we've
got to get kids in through the line and into the classroom really important that happens quick and
efficiently and so we have these um carts that we've now purchased we're going to start once we
get them in we're going to roll them out kids can go on both sides we can load them up be more
efficient get kids where they need to be which is back into that classroom and then the last one
that we just were awarded tda farm fresh culinary workshop really excited i'm not going but my staff
is but they are going to a four day or a five day workshop at the culinary institute of america in
san antonio we were chose to send four of our staff members including a manager field specialist
one of our dietitians and an associate director they're going there because we want to know more
we know that we we're always on the forefront to see what new recipes new applications new
techniques this is the opportunity for us to do more to be at the top of our game
so again i just thank you so much i know that was a lot i appreciate you letting me come in
and talk to you about what we're doing again our passion is to feed kids nutritious healthy meals
that they want to eat right so that we can feed no hungry child cannot learn i'll say that over
and over again it's really important to it do you have any questions thank you board any questions
Mr. Puzder.
Mr. Capain.
Yes.
I want to thank you so much for you and your team of all the 750 people plus all the other
people because when I go into schools, a lot of times I will go into the cafeteria and
I've oftentimes eaten lunch in there and those are the most hard, well I'm going to say that
and then
the bus drivers and all the other custodians.
Everyone's hardworking, but that is a hardworking group of people.
And every one of those awards that you received
and the grants that you've gotten are well-deserved,
and probably you should get even more.
So I don't have any criticism at all.
I'm just applauding everything that you do,
but I do have three questions.
I'm going to ask all the three questions,
and then you just tell me about them, okay?
Great, yes.
All right.
Alright, so I'm just going to list the three questions.
How do you qualify for summer meals?
And how many schools have the supper at the schools?
And what is the food distribution plan?
I don't think I discussed that. I'm so sorry.
So summer, it depends on the site.
So some schools are what we call an open site because it's based on their eligibility.
So depending on what schools are open for summer school, where they're located in our district, we determine then which ones are open.
We actually don't have to have as many that we have open. We're required for those that are 50% or above to have open campuses.
You know, we don't have that, but we still recognize that we have people that need summer meals.
And actually summer meals are open to anyone. They don't even have to be in the district all the way up to 18 years of age.
So that's how we determine that it's a combination of seeing summer school and then also
Those that are sometimes construction if we have renovations we can't have a school open
So it just depends on that they pay for the they know it's all free. Okay, all summer meals are free. Okay, and then
You made a remind you. Okay
Supper at the schools, so I'm not sure exactly how many I think we had 20
We just had a review, 25, I believe.
We just had our CACFP review, which we did great, no bindings.
So those are also based on eligibility,
depending on what type of program that we're running,
and they are free as well.
And the last one was food distribution.
The last one's food distribution,
and that simply means that we are provided this opportunity,
if we take advantage of it, to receive entitlement
through the federal government, through that food distribution program.
In a sense, we receive this additional $4.3 million that is entitlement.
So we don't see it in our bank, but we get to use it.
So about $800,000 of it we use directly to DOD Fresh, which is our fresh fruits and vegetables, so that it offsets.
What it does is it helps offset food costs.
We need more.
I'll say that.
We need always more in order for us to offset a lot of these prices and costs.
but that's how we utilize it it goes into where we get our entree items
fruits and vegetables a lot of different components so we can opt into it and
then utilize those funds and we use every penny every year mr. president
miss Fox thank you for the presentation loved it very much I loved that school
lunch week pictures that are there that was oh that is that was yeah and the kiddos were
can you give me examples of some of the things that are on those five component trays when you
say all the grains are whole grain i'm like skip it for me right so i know children are thinking
that too but what even if they're lighter color like what are some examples of things that go on
on a school tray in a week?
It depends on the day.
So anything that might have a breading, right?
It's going to be whole grain.
We have to choose to pick items that have some type of,
if they do have that.
So that's anything from a snake finger.
It could be our whole muscle chicken breast, right?
We have what we call a premium chicken sandwich.
So that is a whole muscle chicken breast
that has a breading on it.
And then the buns as well.
So our buns that you find on there are 100% whole grain.
Sometimes we have pasta, so we have our meat sauce and rotini, so that pasta is a whole grain pasta.
Sometimes we have a breadstick or we have a roll.
So when you look at, depending on the age grade groups, right, so that you think of the older kids, they're going to need more calories.
That means they're going to tie more grains, more meat, meat alternates, more portions there versus our K through 5.
So just depending on how we incorporate it and what's needed, whether or not it's a one-grain
every day or a two-grain that we offer.
Our mac and cheese though, for sure the pasta in there is a whole grain pasta.
So anything that's made with flour, right, is a grain.
And the types of, I've been in lunchrooms with a half a grapefruit on the tray and I've
never seen so much waste in my life.
So how did the kiddos like the little taste of?
It was mixed. It was definitely mixed. I grew up in South Texas where we had
Ruby Red grapefruit and they're phenomenal. We were able to get that
version. If you just serve them a grapefruit from somewhere else, it's not
gonna even come close to the value of a Ruby Red. And so it was mixed for sure,
which is what we get all the time. But at least they tried it. For me as a
dietitian, any moment that a kid is willing to try, because they're not gonna
to have it at home is critical um to then maybe try and maybe not that again if they don't like
it but they might try something else the next time what are some other things you've had that it's a
try tuesday and you've so we have um different types of um green beans we've had green beans
before squash has been on there we also have harvest of the month which is very similar
um so we work with our distributor i mean to get off of the try it tuesday but we also it's the
same concept working with our distributors that allow us to bring in items we like to ask for
local first because we want to see where it's coming from and we always have marketing out
it tells you where where it's coming from mushrooms squash green beans strawberries
oh we just had dates go back and look at your um our social media really cute but we had dates
with no kids for sure but dates that they got to try so just a variety of
things and what's available to us as well great I have questions about summer
that mrs. champagne s thanks mrs. champagne so we get a lot of questions
about why so many snacks like children don't get those snacks at home why do
you offer them at school so and how does that fit into the nutrition sure so we're also guided and
we have guidance that really is restrictive on what we can actually sell in a school or provide
so even it comes down to what we call all apart so you know even if there is an ice cream sandwich it
is totally different than what you're buying in a grocery store and we have an actual uh
they call it a calculator, but it depends on the serving size, it depends on what type of item it
is, and then it tells us whether or not, how many calories, how much fat, all of those components.
If it's a snack item, it's going to look at sodium, it's going to look at calories, it's going to look
at fat, on whether or not we can even bring that into our kitchens to sell. It's also up to the
parents at this point. You can go online and you can restrict at any point our parents if they don't
want their child to be able to purchase or they want them to purchase only on Fridays. I remember
when my children were small, right? Put in there only on Fridays or they would buy everything all
week long possibly, right? But we leave that up to the parents to dictate what they want to do for
their own child versus dictating what we should do for all. We think that's up to the parent to
decide that. But we are highly regulated on what we provide. So like a little Debbie snack cake,
you don't have those kinds of things?
It depends on, well, we may have a cake or a brownie.
We have a brownie, but it is Smart Snack compliant.
It's going to have a specific amount of calories.
The serving size is very specific.
It's not what you're going to buy in the grocery store.
It's very tailored to what we have to provide for school nutrition.
Okay, and my last question,
until someone else asks something that makes me think.
but if it's 340 I've million gallons of however much it was gallons of milk how
many cartons is that the teachers and and volunteers have to help that's one
of my favorite things at the beginning of schools help open milk but sometimes
we can't open them either right mr. cross mr. president is gazelle hi thank
Thank you very, very, very much.
I'm going to try to be real efficient.
It's getting late.
I love the Try It Tuesdays.
I think that's phenomenal, great, exciting to expose them to so many things.
So thanks for the efforts there.
You talked about, I might have zoned out just a tad,
but you said parents can dictate the a la carte items or any of the menu choices.
The menus are on a cycle.
So they can go online at any point,
see exactly not only what we're serving on a particular day they can see the
nutritionals tied to it as well they can talk to their children they don't kind
of it's not you don't pick your menu right it's not that kind of application
but it's it allows a parent to talk through what the items are what the
child wants not do their own I guess input at the home and then online as
well for anything else that is sold even if it comes to a second portion so maybe
at the high school level you want to allow your child to get a second portion of something that
is stipulated in our system as well by child by parent they can dictate how often what they want
down to how many times a week or the dollar amount all of those things okay and the reason why i was
asking is and i've heard this it's i'm not trying to pick on the one parent per se that's been
speaking recently i think she's bringing up some great points um but she was describing a lunch
lunch calendar and saying that 10 out of the 18 days there's cheesy bread items so whether it's
pull apart cheesy bread french bread pizza cheese pizza cheese la la la and i realize on those days
there are other options right but the kid who loves pizza might actually or cheese might be
choosing these cheesy items 10 out of the 18 days so how can we avoid that what what is the
Does the parent have any sort of control or, I mean, other than trying to parent their child before they go to school?
Sure.
I think it comes down to that first.
We do give other options so that the child has the ability to choose what they want.
But we're also, you know, children choose what they want to eat and what they're going to consume.
And if they want the cheesy option, then yes, if it's there, they may choose it every time.
We provide that offer versus serve.
We provide three different options every day. That's how we provide that
Opportunity or variety for our children. Okay. Okay, and I guess the
one way that you could
Limit that would be then USDA coming down or or other regulations saying hey, we got a short only five days a month
Oh, absolutely. I mean that's that's part of the regulation what's tied to right now and anytime anything comes down into a proposed rule
for advocating and then if we're told to limit particular items right now our
components are set up to grains meat alternates right so it's very specific
and then it's tied to calories and fat and staying within those ranges and so
then we have that flexibility on what our students want to eat ultimately it
is we want to provide variety want to provide the best quality that we can but
but we want them to eat it.
We want them to want to come in and consume the food.
Calories, yeah.
I understand that point.
So part of the, I think some of the energy behind this
is the Maha movement, Make America Healthy Again.
I mean, there's a lot of energy and interest around that
by some, not everybody.
Right.
But there was a new food pyramid, right?
Yes, ma'am.
And so a parent was very diligent and gave that to me.
But it's inverted, right?
right it's inverted and it is published by the USDA and so but I did look up it
was just published January of this year yes I think or released perhaps I don't
know the right word so I realize it's pretty new it is it's it's in its
initial phases so what typically happens for us and if we read through I have a
couple of memos that I can share as well but right now what they're doing is they
are they are now looking at how they're gonna align the new DGA is the
dietary guidelines for Americans, how they're going to align it with the nutrition, the food and
nutrition division at USDA, because the DGAs are encompassing our population in the United States,
right? And so they are now, USDA is given guidance that they are taking the new DGAs and they're
looking to see how it aligns specifically with school nutrition. What happens is they will put
out a proposed rule. So at some point, we don't know, we've asked for a timing which we don't know,
they'll put out a proposed rule that allows us to advocate to speak to it to
comment because there's a lot of things we need to make sure that we advocate
for our departments that there's funding behind it whether or not you know what
are the trials and tribulations so that we can do what they want us to do so
there's that time for comment and then it goes back and they actually then
issue that new rule when that rule comes out then that will dictate the timing of
it what exactly we're supposed to do because it's very vague the DGA is a
pretty vague when you read them and they're done on purpose so that they
then they can then dictate how that's going to be implemented in other
programs okay so if I heard you correctly there's no it's a very open
timeline right now I dependent on the USDA and actually they've given guidance
to comment yes ma'am and they've given guidance actually in these memos that
tell us as the operators of school nutrition and that food and nutrition
division that we are to follow our current regulations. So our current
regulations are in place. They have not changed those. So until USDA comes out
with a new proposed rule that's voted on, it transitions into the final rule, then
that is when we would have to make any kind of changes. So right now we're in
compliance, we're following our rules and regulations, we're actually, we can't go
outside of those. We have to follow what's been established. Last quick question. If a
parent is interested in working with you giving input showing a part of this
what's the best avenue for them I think there's a lot of different ways they can
reach out to us but we also have parents that come to our shack meetings which is
a really good neutral place that we talk about everything from wellness to
nutrition we we have a lot of schools that have asked us to come out and speak
to their PTAs we're fixing to go to one in March so it's a time for us to gather
input we are highly regulated there are things we can and cannot do but you know
we want the input we don't mind it I'd rather have a discussion and talk to
somebody about what we are doing what we're not doing what we can and cannot
do then it leaving it up for air yes for us to determine it so a lot of different
avenues they can just reach out though we have a lot of parents that actually
reach out mm-hmm good thank you so much yeah Mr. President can I real quickly
Thank you so much for your presentation.
I'm not sure the public realizes how highly regulated you guys are,
and I think there's a lot of hoops you all have to go through.
I appreciate that.
And I just wanted to also say my daughter and I got to serve in the summer,
serving food to our community through our charity league,
and we really enjoy it.
So I encourage people that can and can get approved to get in.
And it's really life-changing to give people food.
Mr. President, I want to make one last comment.
I know that you all do so much,
especially you have to keep up with all the children's allergies
and things like that.
And like you said, the cashier, I guess, scans, whatever.
And I really appreciate that.
So I just want to share that when my daughter,
who's now 24 years old was in elementary school she used to buy her lunch in
kindergarten first grade and then she didn't buy it again until her fifth
grade year and we did that we looked at the calendar of all the food and she
says she wanted the nachos she goes and gets the nachos and she comes home that
day and says that she only got chips and no cheese and I called the school is
because she in kindergarten we said that she had a milk allergy and so she only
got the chips anyway so I really want to you know applaud you I mean that was a
while ago but you really are looking at those absolutely safe guys number so she
just got chips that day but anyway it just goes to show you know obviously
cheese has milk in it and so we ended up not getting lunch anymore that year but
it was okay but that's that's another huge hurdle for you all because there's
so many restrictions yes
you have a questions for just one more shout out we have breakfast week coming
up first week in March if any of y'all want to come and serve with us you're
welcome just reach out to me we can set you up we're gonna have a lot of its
It's festive time for breakfast week.
So we would love to have you if you want to come.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
As you were sharing the overall scale of how much food moves through our buildings
and the number of kids that are taking care of a breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
it reminded me of a time when my kitchen manager didn't show up
and I had to pick a meal and cook it for 40 people for like a week or two.
and how happy I was when I hired someone to replace that position and just you
think like oh yeah that would be easy no all the things that you shared today
just a little bit of a flashback so thank you I'm so thankful for your team
and we are doing mr. president may I make one more comment this Fox my
favorite place to be at any school it's in a hallway to see our community and
and especially in any cafeteria.
And when I tell a principal I want to go to the cafeteria,
they're like, no, no, you really don't.
And I said, no, I really do.
Because children are sitting with their friends,
they're talking about things they love,
you see what they like to eat, what they don't like to eat,
and just who they are, and you see all their little heads
in one room, and you just kind of see
what the family looks like at a school.
And I adore being in a cafeteria, because they're happy.
and see what they choose when they go through the line.
And we love to go to school lunch and to school breakfast
because we get to sit with students and talk to them
and they're delightful.
Thank you for creating that opportunity for our children
to be able to socialize and understand what it means
to eat at the table with other,
all of that kind of thing when my kids ate
in the back of the van on the way to soccer practice.
you know that's where we did dinner most of the time thank you very much I will
8. Consent Agenda
now move on to our consent agenda for this meeting a consent agenda shall
include items that were discussed and considered at the previous work study
board meetings as well as items of a recurring nature the board shall be
furnished with background material for each item consent agenda items shall be
grouped together under one action item all items shall be acted upon by one
vote without separate discussion unless the board member requests that an item
be withdrawn for individual consideration and found in be legal and
be local are there any items that board members would like to remove from the
consent agenda tonight yes I'd like to remove 8.7
I'd like to remove 8.8, the OAC design.
All right.
Any other items?
I will now entertain a motion for the consent agenda.
Mr. President, I move that the Board of Trustees
Trustee's approves the consent agenda for items 8.1 through 8.18, except for items 8.7 and 8.8, which have been removed from the consent agenda.
Is there a second?
Second.
All right, it is moved and seconded that the Board of Trustees approves the consent agenda for items 8.1 through 8.18, except for items 8.7 and 8.8, which have been removed from the consent agenda.
We will now proceed to vote. Board members please record your vote on the screen via your keypad.
The motion passes 7-0.
We will now move on to item 8.7 discuss and consider board approval of the February 2026 budget amendments.
8.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of the February 2026 budget amendments.
Thank you, I still have some questions. I, you know, went over it over the weekend and thought some more about it.
and I know Mr. Smith is not here tonight,
so if somebody from the finance team can, Esperanza or Jamie, Mr. Hines,
could be able to speak to some of the questions that I have when we're looking at this.
One of the things that I am concerned about is still that $17 million shortfall
that we're looking at based off of demographic and enrollment data.
I know that we've been told that we didn't see this coming,
and I'm really confused on how we didn't see it coming.
And it brings up other questions along with that.
May 6th of 2024, I asked a question specific to demographics and enrollment, specific to what the cost was related to that.
And what I was told is there's no way we can ask questions like that.
It's not legal.
And then there's no way to correlate that data or there's no way to compile that data.
We have no clue.
And now I feel like I'm looking at the answer, which is $17.6 million.
And I know that because it's demographically related specifically to EB and ESL.
Our demographics tell us this.
We pay PASA to give us these demographic reports, which is what I asked for almost two years ago.
specifically for this reason.
I don't understand.
Are you referencing when you were asking if we could track students?
I was asking if we could track data on what it costs to educate illegal immigrants.
I was asking that question specifically.
I don't think that anybody could have determined what was going to happen with this.
I mean, I'm honestly shocked at how everything has turned out.
Because it's not just our EB students.
It's all the demographics that have changed because the enrollment isn't here.
So that impacts bilingual.
It impacts GT.
It impacts SPED.
It impacts anything that we get any type of funding for.
And I get that a lot of that is related to EB.
But I don't think anybody could have determined at that point.
I remember that meeting I left that meeting crying
I'm so sorry if you left that meeting crying and I said a lot of meetings that I've left here crying for some of the
Things that we say here, right?
But I will tell you that I don't think that any of us at that point could have determined that
You look at the news right now. I don't think anybody would have
Guessed what that would have looked like for how did you not?
Because there was a mandate that was said that we were going to I'm sure I'm really not trying to be ugly to you
So please do not take this in a way that make that I'm not trying to be ugly about it
But as a fiduciary duty when we have to do this and we're not pulling back on GT programs
We're pulling back on EB and ESL programs
so are you not trying to correlate that to the changes that we're making to the
staffing plans
Is that what is that what you're are we trying to call when we're looking at right sizing and I asked the question last week
Where are we right sizing and the answer was for EB and ESL classes? I asked this in a private meeting
I have asked this in a public meeting and
so when I look at that and I say well, uh
At two and two is four here. I mean
How did we not anticipate?
That there was going to be
Demographics that were going to shift when we had a president come in office who was going to enact
very serious immigration policies that had not been done for years.
How did we not think that that was going to impact us in South Texas?
And when I asked the question not to demonize,
but to get an idea of what the cost is,
and I was told we couldn't figure that number out.
Well, now...
We can allocate a cost to anything, right?
You want to tell us?
So no one explained that to me.
10 percent, 5 percent. I don't think we thought that we would lose the amount of students that we did.
Let me go ahead and jump in here in this conversation. If you have specific questions,
I want to make sure every trustee can answer or get answers to anything financially related. But I
don't want to continue down this pathway of putting our financial team to answer questions related to
immigration. Okay. We spent a significant amount of time in that meeting talking about
illegal immigration because I remember answering the question. I cannot tell you and I will not
track illegal immigration. I'm not asking you to do that. But I can tell you demographically how
many students we have and I can tell you the amount of money we get per student and the weighted
funding per student when those students enroll but to sit here and then as you
can ask the questions which are fine but to criticize the district and tell us we
should have known how many students would come in a following year across
the state of Texas when enrollment is down across the entire state of Texas I
don't think anyone can answer that question I asked what the cost was
That's what I asked two years ago. I asked what the cost was. Could we come up with a cost?
What is the cost of educating illegal immigrants?
Because it's not nothing.
I cannot tell you that. Nobody can.
But we can weight this.
We do not track a student's immigration status.
So nobody in Texas could tell you an exact cost of what it costs.
You're going to tell me there are certain data points and certain markers that we would
not, that we don't keep track of and there's no way for us to say, hey, we know that when
someone comes into this country illegally for whatever reason, that there are going
to be certain markers that they're going to hit and that they're going to need.
And we know that.
We know these things.
Certainly.
Are you asking me to speculate on a student that comes to our district who may be here
illegally in this country, whether or not-
whether or not that student gets a certain service.
That's what you're telling me to speculate.
The kid comes here and you want to know.
Statistics are all about speculation.
That's all they do.
We speculate statistics all the time in order to figure out data, to figure out budgetary items.
And we take that and we say, okay, we've got to speculate.
We've got to make educated guesses on what we're doing by watching trends.
And when we can see demographically things are going up and down and we can see our cost is going up and down, then we can make better decisions.
And now we're stuck in this position that I'm like, okay, well, I feel like we probably weren't going to get it all right.
And I'm not asking for you to get it all right.
I'm not asking for you to be 100 on everything.
So please don't hear me saying that.
Well, listen, I'm going to put it this way.
We can continue down this pathway, but I'm going to go ahead and apologize to everybody in this room and our entire community that we are once again talking about the value of how we educate illegal immigrants.
I won't have that discussion.
I said.
I just will not have that.
I asked a question, and it matters because these are taxpayer dollars that are going to pay for this.
And then when we're talking about who gets what, and you're talking about what an American citizen is getting and what they're not getting because we're having to put this out in terms of money.
And you have to say, okay, well, where's the money going?
That's a fair question.
I've been in education for 33 years.
I've been doing this job for eight years.
It's the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had in my life.
Oh.
Absolutely.
Really?
But when we're looking at a $29 million deficit, I don't think it's a ridiculous conversation at all.
I think it's completely relevant.
This is taxpayer money that you're using, and I think it's a relevant question to ask where the money's going, what's happening to it,
How it's being expended. Who's it being expended on? I think that's a fair question.
To paint it as if it's not is disingenuous.
To quantify it as illegal makes it illegal to talk about illegal immigrants. That is against
the law. We cannot. Are they legal or are they not? We cannot identify them that way and decide
how to spend money on them. That's against the law. Is that correct? That is. Yes, I agree with
you you do not get a choice on whether or not you provide an education i understand that i'm saying
can we figure out the cost because it's not nothing we can't treat public education as if
it's free it's not it's not free it's paid for by someone the taxpayers the ones who are being taxed
out of their homes by property taxes.
Those are the people that I'm talking about.
Those are the people that I'm concerned about.
I am concerned about the children.
And if you knew anything about what happens
when a child is illegally trafficked across the border,
you would have the same concern about subsidizing it.
All right, any more questions, board?
Mr. President, I just...
Ms. Cuzela?
I guess I want to...
I think the context of why the question's being asked is so that we can learn from,
you know, we can't fix what we've already done, right?
We're taking a net $4 million hit on the general fund.
But would there have been a way to estimate forward thinking given what was happening
at the border and then the changes?
So I honor that and I think that's valid to respectfully consider to everyone
what something that's coming up next would be the
Vouchers hasn't really hit us this year
May not really next year
But is anyone trying to quantify that so that we can be ready for that?
Is there a way to look at that so that we don't take these unexpected hits and that that's why I'm asking these questions
I think it's a responsible
question if we can have a respectful dialogue. Does that make sense for why we're doing this?
I mean, I would believe the only way we would be able to have that information is once
the program starts, if the state would choose to share that with people.
How big the next distribution, right? Or the kids that have gone,
if they were to share like these kids have transferred out or whatnot,
not they haven't shared that yet right so my motivation I'll speak for myself
is to ensure that we are ready as much as we can we can't always forecast
everything perfectly but that we acknowledge big changes things like the
border things like vouchers so that we can be prepared and I understand I think
most people are motivated that way this didn't work out so well in my mind thank
Thank you.
Ms. Redmond, can I just?
Mr. Hussain.
Ms. I have a little bit memory.
I remember the conversation a couple years ago, two years ago or so, a little bit differently.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I felt like you were asking that question because you wanted to
see if we could get money reimbursed from the state.
Ms. Did.
Ms. Am I remembering it correctly?
Because it puts the, you know, when you have the whole context of the conversation, it
kind of makes it the comments tonight not as applicable i specifically said if we had an idea
of a number we were going into legislative session you can go and take that number and then tell your
legislators hey this is what it's costing us and you need to reimburse us you need to reimburse us
for the cost so i appreciate that you know i think we we all took an oath to make sure that we do all
of our part to advocate for public education and that's part of it is advocating for public funds
so i appreciate that you are trying to get as much money reimbursed to our district beyond that
port bend isd is anticipating a 7.8 million dollar loss they just published this last week due to esas
so this is another reason why i asked the question okay if we didn't anticipate this i think what
What else are we not anticipating?
Dr. Grigorski, is there a reason?
How do they have that?
Is there a way for us to get that data as well, or are they just hiring PASA?
I couldn't answer that question.
I don't know that figure.
I haven't read that data.
I haven't talked to anyone with Fort Bend.
I have no idea where they can help with that number.
Board, are there any more questions about the actual budget report in the line item on the agenda?
I'll entertain a motion.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
I move the board approve the February 2026 budget amendments as presented.
Second.
Is there a second?
Second.
All right.
The board is motioned and second to discuss and consider board approval of the February 20,
to approve February 2026 budget amendments.
You may now vote on the screen.
Motion passes 7-0.
8.8 Consider Board approval for the design of the Opportunity Awareness Center.
We'll now move on to item 8.8.
Thank you, Mr. President.
So this is about the design of the new OAC.
I really appreciate it.
I know it's late, but this is a really important agenda item in my mind.
I think there's three things here moving at the same time and that's why there's
so much well why I have so many questions number one we're changing a
delivery model of how we're delivering OAC time if you will for certain
students and that was explained and now we have a virtual option of doing that
And it was suggested that that would likely be well has to be for the one-time offenders to keep it
Some oversimplify this I'm using my layman words here
We are saying I
Believe we're saying that Miller is requiring more space. The program is busting at the seams
So so hence I'm hearing we need a new space. So we're proposing a new building
10 million 10 million dollar new building to be used to be financed by capital funds of which we
have a 17 million dollar balance right now and three there's a different staffing model that's
going to be used so we're we're if i'm hearing correctly we're going to use roughly half the
staff at the oac and the rest of the staff they're not losing their jobs they're going to be moved in
different places in the district and for perhaps we're trying to achieve some
sort of cost savings and I don't really see that here and I might have missed a
part because if we're achieving a cost savings then it should be a payroll
change where is the savings coming from and what is what was really triggering
and driving this change, if you will.
Would you help me with that?
So the change is us looking at the budget over the past two years
with direction from our school board to find a way to be more efficient
and get a balanced budget, which I support.
I'm trying to get there too.
So we've looked at all of our programs, and we've looked at costs,
and we've looked at where our expenditures are,
and then we look at programs for which we believe we can establish a different
model to do things more efficient and this was one of the ones our teams
identified together looking at that we thought we could do this program more
efficient we're roughly spending right now about four million dollars of staff
over there is what I've been told we believe the new model will probably be
about half of that so that's where your cost savings is and then over time but
It'll be in staff.
Okay, yeah, I realize that, but the staff isn't being let go.
They're moving.
So a big picture payroll-wise, it's the same.
No, staff would move into vacant positions somewhere else.
So when you fill a vacant position with someone who's currently on staff,
you don't have to hire someone to replace them from the outside.
You're not adding that dollar back in.
Correct, but we don't incur a savings, though.
Certainly we do.
Because if if if a teacher is sitting over at one of our high schools, let's say Katie High School teaching whatever subject and they retire.
OK. That's whatever 70 or seventy five thousand dollar teaching position.
OK. I don't rehire for that. I repurpose a staff member.
So that might be somebody from another building going over to fill that.
So I just saved at 75,000 because I have two teachers one sitting here at the OAC one's at Katy High School
One leaves retires this one fills that spot. I don't backfill this so that was two positions down to one
There's okay. So your backfill is your savings that you're not back filling so it's not immediate it will eventually
I guess get us there
Once you start backfill once you start filling full-time empty teacher positions and other spots you're saying yes
Yes, and we will do that this spring when it through like an excess type process.
Okay.
So it is, sounds more the motivation is we're trying to find some savings, cost savings, which I respect and I understand.
yet I'm trying to figure for me I want to I want to eliminate all exhaust all options before I
touch a student and and their success and their needs and staff perhaps who are very happy to be
at the OAC but student first and I'm concerned still about the welfare of the one-time offender
and the kid who really does need, the 40% who've got some special issues,
the violent kid or what have you, the kid who's addicted.
So specifically, I wanted to ask, for the one-time offenders,
which I think I heard 60% of the kids perhaps, maybe more,
when word gets around that if they, whatever, smoke or drink alcohol,
the one-time offense that gets them into the OAC that now they have half of their
day could could be unsupervised online time at home how are we going to manage
that because that could that could mushroom easily as word gets around how
are we going to manage that because I see that mushrooming the numbers seems
It seems common sense to me.
I'm a little confused by the question.
Can you help me understand that better?
So if most, I think it's fair to say, and we did have a teacher, I think she said it.
I don't want to put words in her mouth.
But if there is a softer punishment, and softer usually means I can stay home, sleep in, be online, smoke at home because I'm unsupervised.
then why wouldn't they offend again and why wouldn't more kids just offend and and and do
that one time deal and then we've got a whole lot more kiddos first-time offenders to deal with
or or maybe ends up being a serious offense does that make sense i mean mr cross that if i'll jump
in here i mean on the surface i don't disagree with what you're saying i would say just as my
experience I think most kids want to be at school with their friends and
interact and if they're in activities so I think about some some of those kiddos
that over the years that made that you know mistake where say they drank
alcohol at school or or an event or something and usually they were pre
devastated that they weren't going to be at school and yes they didn't you know
many of them and their parents did not want them to go the OAC because I'll just
be honest they'd be like I don't want him over there with those kids and it
was always difficult as a principal in the sense that the kid had been
outstanding kid you know great grades great citizen of your school but as
teenagers will sometimes do do something you know goofy and so having that
is an option in the sense that they could do their classes I think some
parents would take it and some won't because some will be like no my kids
gonna go suffer he or she made this mistake and they're gonna go sit in a
room and tough it out too bad and some will go no I'd rather my kid be home and
let them do their thing and you know to what number that's gonna be that's a
That's a hard one to predict right now.
I think some will take advantage of it, some won't.
I don't think, I think sometimes we think,
just we've done that in the school business before.
Oh, what if we do this?
All the kids are going to do X, Y, or Z.
And usually it doesn't work out that way
because what you find out is most kids,
you know, could there be some?
Absolutely.
I would never tell you, oh, no kids are going to do that.
But I think as a whole,
I don't think you'd see a giant influx.
and I'm not a, I don't predict the future,
but I just base that on 20 years of being here
and working with those kiddos and going,
I think that they don't,
and I'm not disparaging our own youngsters here.
I've worked with them for 30 years.
I love kids, but I don't think they think like that typically.
They're not usually, their brains aren't going,
you know what, if I, next year, if I get in trouble,
I don't, you know, they're usually day-to-day, and, of course, I announced this to all the kids tonight, so, of course, they're not watching, so I don't have to worry about it, but I guess it is recorded, so don't watch the recording.
I say, you know, I say that lightheartedly, but I don't think that that, I don't think we'd see some significant increase because of that.
I mean if and
Those kids who want to be out getting in trouble. Let's say we have habitual kids that end up at the OAC
What and correct me if I'm wrong, dr. Gorski, but I think those are kids that we have trouble getting to come to the OAC
Anyway, they're skipping school regularly and they adding on to their time and there's consequences for that
but they they tend to want to go so
So whether they were, you know, either way, that's going to be a struggle to get some of those kids to show up,
whether it's online, and some of them wouldn't do online anyway.
Some of them would.
And so I just would, my two cents on that is that I don't know that we'd see a significant increase in those behaviors
or those kinds of referrals.
I think the opportunity to have for parents to have that choice because as a
parent and parents don't always know you may let your kids stay home and he go
never mind and if I understand it correctly that could change right like
parent few weeks in says my kid is not getting anything done never mind ship
them over there I think we can do that if I understand it correctly if there's
room I mean we don't know that right well and I you know I think we would
plant we could have provisional plans for that you know like where give you
example at the high schools right when we when we start to overfill what do we
do we bring a portable over right I mean not ideal but although teachers
sometimes like portables because they get to control their own air but but but
it's but it's a portable classroom it's a you know it's an opportunity and put
put some folks in there and so I think they're there are opportunities it's
just a matter of you know making sure that it is the right model I mean I
absolutely think we have a right to ask those questions and make sure that it's
we feel like it's a it's a good model for the kids because they are kids too
they deserve a quality education and to be taken care of I agree with every bit
of that yeah so uh thank you uh yeah i want i do want to clear up also from from the meeting last
week i think dr gregorski you had said that i either didn't believe in kids or i thought poorly
of the kids that are in the oac and i want to make sure that's very clear that uh it's exactly
opposite and that i'm concerned about the welfare of any kid over there just to be clear um so so we
We may disagree on this whole online bit, but there is a cost that we're talking about.
So $10 million, we're going to plop a new building near Rhodes Stadium.
And where I'd like to know before I even make a decision on that is how our current properties are being used.
So that's why I'd asked about the Jeanne Coleman building and the utilization of the building.
and I did see description of what goes on in that building it sounded to me
like most of the staff is still there even the life skills classrooms are
still there for the okay so they're not so there's shouldn't there be some more
empty spaces and the Jeannie Coleman building likewise with the merchants way
building the merchants way building we just bought a huge three-story office
building and I looked up the square feet of that 42,000 square foot building
we're using a third of that I guess for the first floor we've built that out but
we have two full floors that are empty we spent double I think what we promised
the voters on the bond to build out that floor and building.
And I think most of that was due to a chiller or an HVAC deal
to be able to service the whole building.
So I'd really like to know, why couldn't we use one of those floors
instead of building a brand new OAC building for $10 million?
Mr. President, may I please say something?
Ms. Champagne?
I remember when I asked a question. I know and I'm gonna I would like to just give some input. Dr. Gorgorski. Okay, but that's
He can answer it in a second, but I would just like to get out a little input to this that I know
When RAINS had OAC in it, you know, they were combined people people were not happy with that
They didn't want the OAC kids with their with the RAINS kids
And so that got resolved by separating them out.
Now, I don't know what Dr. Gregorski is going to say about this,
but I would like to move that the approval of the design of the Opportunity Awareness Center is,
I would make a motion for that, please.
We're still discussing.
That's okay.
I've made a motion.
I second.
Thank you.
We can continue discussion.
The motion has been made.
Seconded.
So you're just going to call?
Oh, OK.
Well, I see how y'all operate.
It actually is parliamentary procedure
to make the motion, have the second,
and then start the discussion, not just pull it and discuss
it.
So it really is proper to have it that way.
I was thinking at the last action item
that we should have done it that way.
So this is actually parliamentary correct.
OK.
Now it is.
Could you answer the question, Dr. Gerberski?
If you're proposing to substitute and not build the building
and just move the program to the second floor of Merchant's Way,
that's not something we analyzed or discussed or thought would be appropriate.
What I put forward to this board is a plan that I think is efficient,
meets the needs of our students and community.
It ends up with a million-dollar savings for years to come
and that's about the best way I can answer that is that's the plan we put
together for the board's consideration the board wants to modify that change
that delete it do something else that's certainly the board's opportunity to do
so well yeah I don't I don't feel responsible in an oversight position
here I don't rubber stamp things on this board I do a lot of work to evaluate
numbers costs square footage what we've already spent and without asking two
empty floors in a building we already own I feel very irresponsible for not
knowing that cost compared to the ten million dollar new building and that's I
think a very reasonable respectable responsible question to ask I wish
I wish others were considering that as well.
I actually had the same question concerning the square footage of what OAC is, what the new OAC building would be.
What does that square footage footprint look like?
And then what is the square footage that we have at the Merchant's Way on either floor?
And I recognize that there's a little bit of discrepancy here because you have some very severe special needs adults, 18 to 22, on one floor.
And so that could present challenges when you have some disciplinary behavioral issue challenged children, we'll say, on another floor.
And that may present a problem.
But nevertheless, do we consider that when we're looking at the cost?
I have the same question.
What's the square footage at Merchant's Way?
What's the square footage at OAC?
And does it make sense or not?
I mean, if we're supposed to discuss it and we're supposed to flesh it out, then I think we should.
Do you have, I guess nobody has a square footage answer?
I move to close the debate, please.
I move to close the debate.
Mr. Redman.
Ms. Nehme.
Thank you.
Call to question.
Did you, do you have a different, do you have an answer on the square footage, Dr. Grigorski?
Mr. Behrling, if I remember correctly, the entire building is about 130,000 square feet, so divide that by three.
Does that give us a ballpark?
Yes, sir.
It's it's 42,000 per square foot and the new OAC building is projected at almost 14,000 square feet
So did were you able to get any feedback dr.
Gorg or ski from the teachers for the plan that y'all were gonna be or that was gonna be
Introduced to them. I know
President Redmond suggested maybe we could get some feedback on that
I don't have any feedback okay well I understand we're gonna vote pretty soon
here but I just need to say that I think there's a definite need for Miller and
expanding that I totally get that I respect that I think our community is
behind that and wants that but it's funny to me that we are not where we
talked we discussed last week about rejecting the Waller appraisal district
desire and request for a new building because they hadn't done due diligence.
And I just don't see due diligence here. I just don't think it's wise to approve
a $10 million new building when we don't have a plan in place and we don't have feedback
from our teachers. I just think they're pivotal. They make the program successful.
So I just wanted a moment just to inform the public why I am a no vote on this.
Mr. President.
I find it interesting that there are questions about a plan and feedback and going too fast on something OAC that the district has given a lot of input into and given us a lot of information about.
When several of us brought those exact points up when the transgender policy was brought and forced through in the same night.
and we asked for time a plan and stakeholder feedback on topic or often
it was completely you're not the president I'm asking it was completely
is that off topic ignore does that have anything to do with the OAC ocracy it's
oh it's a stick okay mr. president I just want to I have to respond to that I
was on the policy committee we worked on that in committee ms. Fox and you weren't
on the policy committee there was a lot of work done you had no plan and no stakeholder feedback
that is incorrect that is wrong so the the policy was developed outside of this meeting you see how
long this meeting is to work efficiently that's how that's how every house government congress
works they work in committee they develop policy and they bring it to the board the voters the
other legislators a finished product to then work and discuss at the board it wasn't that's what we
did though this is more transparent it has nothing to do with this are we we received our we received
the plans our district has consistently rolled out new programs and adjustments and continued to be
successful we can look at rains we can look at the growth in miller we can look at the steam center
We can look at the ways that all our CTE programs are rolled out the way we've continued to support GTE programs are fine arts and
To say that are there some uncertainties about what this model will look like? Yes
does our district and people in this room of a track record of being successful in Ford thinking and
Trendsetting yes
Do they want what's best for kids? Absolutely. Do they want what's best for our staff? Yes, and so do we consistently?
consistently follow financial protocols for stewardship and going out to bid and following those things? Yes. People may disagree with that, but that is consistently through audits and any kind of organization continues to paint that picture for us.
and so to say that there is not a plan is not painting the full picture to say
it can the plan change are there ways that it can improve or get better yes
absolutely everything we do we've talked about that tonight is that all those
things can be better but it's a kind of paint a picture that the district's
trying to pull one over on the taxpayers of the board is inaccurate and the
have the ability to move forward and what our legislature did was they put a law in place
because they wanted to see more virtual DAP placement right and so we we have the ability
to do that now we have the ability to save money we have the ability to do that Mr. Redmond I am I
I'm sorry I disagree with you um I I last week Dr. Gregorsey said just trust me and I don't feel
that level of trust because the first time I shook his hand he said to me I
don't need this job I can retire tomorrow
So I do not have the level of trust that you are saying.
I move to end of the debate, please.
And I think it's.
I move to end of the debate.
I need a second.
You can't just talk while I'm talking.
Yes, I can.
No.
Yes, I can.
So I think it's not fair of you to say that I should just trust.
No.
This is $10 million of taxpayer dollars.
And if I had that trust restored, I would have no problem.
But that has not been restored.
Mr. Redman, Mr. President Redman, I have another question.
the question which means that all conversation has to stop and a vote has to happen right now okay
i have a question and i've already been recognized i've already been recognized the call to question
was not recognized i have been recognized so i get to ask my question especially quickly my question
is my concern is when we're talking about following out these plans and we're talking
about the cte i obviously have already made my i've already made what i feel very apparent this
evening i agree with miller i agree with our cte i agree with all of that my concern is what what
this plan looks like because with our cdl program i have a major concern with that because these
kids are not hireable so when we did this cdl program when we said hey great you're going to
to go be your you're going to go be a trucker we're going to get your CDL license the follow
through behind that was well not so fast because you have to be 21 in order to get hired to drive
a truck so now we've told kids at the age of 18 and we put in their heads hey don't worry about
it you can work as an entrepreneur and you can have a job as soon as you graduate high school
not so fast no you can't I have a problem with that when we're looking at plans that we get
get presented, and then we don't see what the long-term effects are when we're talking about
these things with OAC, with CTE, with that. That's why these discussions are important. I don't think
that the district is trying to pull one over on anyone. I think that we just have to have further
discussion. And if you didn't have stakeholder input from the teachers, like we've discussed,
then I don't know how you continue to move forward with that. We just said that we don't have the
the teacher input call I call the question I second all right we'll now
proceed to vote or you'll vote on the keypad kind of me point eight motion
passes four to three we'll now move on to item nine point one discuss and
9.1 Discuss and consider Board adoption of a Resolution Authorizing the Acquisition of Land and improvements for Waller County Appraisal District.
consider board adoption of a resolution authorizing acquisition of land and
improvements for Waller County appraisal districts there any motions mr.
president mr. campaign I I move that the Board of Trustees adopts resolution
authorizing the acquisition of land improvements for Waller County appraisal
district mr. she went to say adopts or denies oh we adopted we discussed it
we're going to deny it disapprove was the word that we'd use yes we have a
motion are you're moving to disapprove move that the Board of Trustees
that's not move that the Board of Trustees disapproves a resolution
authorizing the acquisition of land and improvements for Waller County Appraisal
District is that what you want to miss champagne a second it's been moved and
seconded is moved and seconded that the Board of Trustees disapproves a
resolution authorizing the acquisition of land and improvement for Waller
County Appraisal District. We'll now proceed to vote under keypad. The motion
passes 7-0. We will now move on to item 9.2, discussing consider a formal
9.2 Discuss and consider a formal reconsideration request of the library book, Cat Kid Comic Club.
reconsideration request of the library book Cat Kid Comic. Mr. President? Ms.
Champagne? I move that the following book review of the library book Cat Kid Comic
Club board of trustees retains instructional resource for continued use
second art is moved and seconded that the board of trustees retains the
library book cat kid comic well now is there any discussion board well now
proceed to vote board members please vote on your keypad on screen do your
okay that motion passes 7 to 0 will now move to item 9.3 discuss and consider a
9.3 Discuss and consider a formal reconsideration request of the library book, Fake News Phenomenon.
formal reconsideration request of the library book fake news phenomenon I'll
now entertain a motion for this item mr. president miss Fox review of the
library book fake news phenomenon the Board of Trustees relocate the
instructional resource to junior high and high school we have a motion is
there a second a second any discussion yes mr. president this is all I'm in
favor of removing this completely off of any KDISD campus for a couple of reasons
I'm using the criteria.
So first, we have something here under selection criteria that the district has defined.
Develop a balanced collection presenting multiple viewpoints related to controversial issues to foster critical thinking.
And I believe there are not balanced viewpoints in this book.
there's political I think over-representation of Hillary Clinton
and how unfair the 2016 election was compared to Trump who was her opponent
it's not a balanced presentation of the election and also the Pizzagate being
the opening example in this book to me is incredible and that is controversial
to some that it is in fact true and not fake so I think it's very inappropriate
even for I don't care junior high high school any any kid I think it needs to
be removed for those reasons just to be clear in case no one has ever heard that
word which there are people Pizzagate was considered a term referring to the
the Comet Pizza Shop, which this book shows that there was a pedophilia ring running out of the
restaurant. With the Epstein files being released, there are many who do believe that that has been
proven true. But it could be fair that that's controversial. This is not appropriate to have
in any nonfiction book, any fiction book for that matter as well. But again, it's also biased
politically there's photos I was like okay how could you quantify whether it
was unbiased or not there's many photos of Michelle Obama Hillary Clinton
President Obama and I think I only saw one tiny picture of Trump so visually
it's biased informationally it's biased it's making a premise that there was the
fake news affected the outcome of the election so I just don't think that
that's really appropriate I think we can teach kids about fake news differently
and more responsibly so for that reason I say remove it completely mr. president
um just for clarification purposes make sure I understand this I don't think
each book has to be balanced I think we have to offer materials like if our
libraries were only filled with one point of view yes that would be a
problem if a kid can go into a library and get another book that has a
different point of view then I think we've met the standard for that it is
the way I understand it that it's not we're not allowed to have books that
have a certain viewpoint because we get into that then that's good old-fashioned
viewpoint discrimination and you know as a board that's been made clear we're not
allowed to just get rid of books that we disagree with so I feel like that yes I
mean it it's been probably four or five weeks ago that I read it but it
definitely has a side but I would say that as long as the kid can go get find
another book that you know approaches it in a different way then we have met the
standard it is my belief in the Pizzagate thing yeah I mean that's a
a mature kind of theme for sure if you know anything about it.
But again, if you look back at PICO, it's not a pervasively vulgar book.
It's not of a prurient nature.
I think that's a word that the state uses.
And so I just don't think it meets a standard for removal.
It's just that's my two cents.
Mr. President, my motivation is I do not want a child, anyone, looking at Pizzagate on the
internet to figure out what the heck that means.
That is definitely period interest and not.
I would disagree if you, and I'll be honest, until probably a year ago, I didn't know what
period meant.
And I had to look it up.
And so I don't think, like, and I hate to say this in a public venue when people watch it, but prairie means to, like, sexually arouse.
You would read Pizzagate and become sexually aroused?
There are pictures on the Internet of what this is referring to.
Yes.
Well, I understand.
But, I mean, if you're going to, if we're going to get into that, like where a kid may go on the Internet based off of any book, then we've set a whole new standard.
It's very abusive to children, Pizzagate.
It is.
I mean, it's very enlightening.
I'm glad no kids know about it now because we've said it 14 times tonight.
well and just kind of like with you know the with the Epstein stuff I mean it's
everywhere and it's ugly and awful and you know but it doesn't mean like we
should never nobody should ever mention anything about Epstein and so I'm just
saying that that there's a standard that's been set and I don't think that
book meets a standard for removal and that's that was just I'd leave it at
that would a middle ground be high school instead of junior I don't believe
so because I think the the way the book is written it's meant for an elementary
kid this poor young junior high four through eighth grade is what they so
it's not for a high schooler a high school is not gonna be interested
visually and I don't think so it's not a mature maturely written at that level so
so I just don't even think it belongs there either for that reason.
It would have been one way to make sure kids would never read it.
What's that?
By putting it in high school because they're not going to choose that book.
Okay, but, I mean, technically speaking, though, it's intended for a younger child.
Well, in the previous, the book that I had a copy of had been checked out once from the library in seven years.
Yeah, I forget it.
Like 2017, nine years.
But it's in front of me now I know and we know it's there and let's take care of it
That's to me being a leader
Getting rid of it. Mr. President. It's part of curating the library collection, right that removing a book
We are curating our collection to make it the best material for our students
Mr. President champagne
so it's been a little while since my kids have been in high school and
even before that since they checked out a book.
So I'll go with you with that.
Anyway, but isn't it true, and correct me if I'm wrong,
that when a child checks out a book, the parent can, I guess at the beginning of the year or something,
fills out something and says, I want to opt in to receive a notification of every book my kid gets.
It's automatic, I believe.
It's automatic now.
So that's why I don't know.
so it wasn't like that one Brenna was there but anyway so they check out the
book the parent should before the child even gets home right should get a
notification say oh and then they could go read the reviews of that book and go
okay I don't want my kid to have that book right I just want to make sure
we're still doing it I believe also they would have the ability to log on and say
the kid cannot check out this book the other discussion board all right we'll
now proceed to vote board members please record your vote on the screen via your
keypad this is to relocate into the junior high all right and the motion
passes four to three we'll move on to section 10 information items board
10. Information Items
committee updates Finance Committee met and we've discussed what those things
were for the resolutions for the bond board received those documents academic committee
did not meet this past month right that's january all right uh i'm 10.2 recap aboard
miss amy yes i'm sorry do we have any idea of is the academic achievement committee looking at
I know when we talked about resizing last week are they looking at resizing in other areas other
than teachers I've just gotten a lot of feedback from teachers this week and considering y'all are
concerned about teacher achievement when we're resizing teachers or removing changing where
they're teaching that that affects our students quite a bit because they're the closest so are
Are we, is the Academic Achievement Committee looking at other areas that we can create some significant changes other than just our teachers?
I don't believe the Academic Committee would be making that decision.
No, no, no, I'm not asking them to make a decision.
I said, are they looking at opportunities and areas that we can create savings other than just our teachers?
I don't think the Academic is making savings.
academic committee part of the what we do we talk about the academic success of
students we don't talk about teachers and where they go or how many teachers
that's an HR the conversations I've had with administration have been that it is
not just we're not just focusing on one particular employee group of teachers
it's all across the board but just in the teacher category across the board
across the board every department so that includes para that includes admin
building is that correct I mean that as our as our funds go down they're not
dedicated towards specific employee groups there are there's turnover
it's my understanding there is turnover in almost every department at some point
each year okay well dr. Bursch key do you have a comment on that I'm not sure what
what the question is.
Is it still that, is the Academic Performance Committee
looking at school finances?
No, that's not what my question was.
I was confused.
Yeah, my question was, are we looking,
how are we going about, I'm just hearing a lot
from teachers being reassigned,
or elementary specials like fine arts, like music,
being cut from two teachers to one,
And then those teachers being put on a reserve for another to find another position which I appreciate
But that's concerning to them
So I'm just saying I have you have you looked at other areas other than our classroom teachers and our special teachers?
that we can create savings in meaning are there other positions y'all are willing to
reassign
So while we're on the item of board committee updates
dates. The closest I can give you to an answer on that is the board finance committee received
an extremely detailed report in one of our meetings for which I went through everything
that we were examining. Mr. Redman actually brought it up in the meeting and asked me to
speak to that. I think it was in the last committee meeting for which we had that discussion,
and we've covered that extensively. I could recommend back to the committee if they want
to get together and talk about things they certainly can't but we don't have an item for
discussion tonight about staffing staffing changes program changes that's that's not the item
to be discussed tonight i think plan does come up soon it doesn't
uh one more thing board uh mr graham i'm gonna ask you to share about um the sb11 resolution
Yeah, so trustees, you'll notice a thing that was on our work study meeting that did not
make it to our regular board meeting tonight.
Last week we had item 7.16, discuss and consider a resolution supporting the free exercise
of religion in KDISD schools.
That item did not make it on this agenda for no reason other than oversight.
It was a staff error, probably my error.
that that item appeared to have support from the entire board last time we will be bringing that
forth at our next board meeting which will be in March so that'll be after the March 1 deadline
but the proposed action and everything is out there and I apologize that it did not make it
on this so the current plan would be we would take action on that at the work-study wanted
wanted to share that are there any consequences to us for not for missing
the March 1st deadline I'm not aware of it okay I have a request um good we have
the total number of enrolled students for legacy Academy to date since we have
opened up for enrollment given to the board as of this afternoon is 55 55
five okay thank you all right then item eleven point one the next I'm sorry are
11. Future Meetings
you taking work so I just wanted to ask are we hiring substitutes right now that
needs to be a follow-up question tell me later and then I'd like to know what the
two floors two and three of the merchants way building are being used
for right now thank you mr. president champagne add to at 10.2 can we find out
about when the breakfast week is and if we could get invited to that thank you
nice you've got the information request has been we already shared about 55 for
for the current enrollment for virtual legacy,
the substitute hiring,
floor student three emergence sway,
and then breakfast week.
Got those?
Got to get all that.
All right, the next work study will be on March,
on Monday, March 23rd,
and our regular board,
the next regular board meeting
will be on Monday, March 30th.
12. Closed Meeting
The board will now convene and close meeting
as authorized under section 551.001
of the Texas government code for the following purposes.
Texas government code 551.0821, 551.074.
It is necessary for everyone to please clear the room as the board will convene in closed meeting in this room.
13. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
The board will now reconvene in open meeting.
Today is Monday, February 23, 2026, and the time is 1029 p.m.
The board heard a level 3 FNG grievance 25-030 pursuant to Katy Independent School District policy FNG legal and FNG local regarding parents' student grievances in closed meeting.
In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, any action regarding this matter must be taken in open meeting.
Do I have a motion on the level 3 FNG grievance?
Mr. President?
Mr. President, I move that the Board take no action on tonight's grievance, but also instruct administration to review the Level 2 response, considering the recent court ruling, and take appropriate action thereon.
A motion and a second.
The Board will now proceed to vote on the screen.
Please use your keypad.
And the motion passes 7-0. There being no further business before the board,
this meeting is adjourned and the time is 1030.
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.