Katy ISD trustees will meet just once a month for regular meetings after changes to the Board Police were approved Monday night.

Until now, the Katy Independent School District has held a workshop the week before the monthly meeting to go over action items on the agenda before they are approved. Action was taken in the second meeting.

Public comment at the meeting is also being moved from the end of the meeting to the beginning. Board meetings start at 5:30 p.m., and then trustees go immediately into executive session, where the meeting is closed until 6:30 when the open session begins. Under the new policy, public comment will be held at 5:30, before trustees go into executive session.

Additionally, the board gave the superintendent authority to make hires for lower-level positions in pay ranges below principals without board approval.

“The board will be able to consider their feedback as it takes action on items moving forward down the agenda,” Justin Graham, the board’s counsel, explained after the changes were approved.

“I’m trying to merge the ideas of the fact that we are moving to one meeting because of efficiency reasons, along with the changes in public comment that sort of give what I say is the foundational structure for our meetings moving forward, which I do not think is a break in our current practice.”

Graham added he believes combining the two monthly meetings into one will encourage the board to ask more questions at the meeting and “may give the public a little more insight on agenda items.”

Lastly, Graham said legislation approved by the state this year further defines what type of criticism is appropriate during public comment. For example, he said, the public comment must be aimed at the governing body, which means not just a single trustee or a group smaller than a quorum.

Also at the Monday meeting, the board agreed to purchase a 75-acre property from Abe Limited for a future elementary and junior high school combined campus at a $4,050,000 price tag. Trustees also declared 7 acres of land north of Wolfe Elementary as surplus and gave district leaders approval to look at selling the property near Highway 6.

Board members also officially named the district’s ninth high school after the Jordan family.

The meeting kicked off earlier with a report on the district’s “A” rating under the state’s new accountability system.

Allison Matney, executive director of research, assessment and accountability, said Katy ISD was the largest district in the state to earn an “A,” and only about a quarter of districts statewide earned the letter grade.

Still, Matney focused on a district belief stating “our success is not determined by a single, standardized assessment.”

The accountability system went into effect last year, but only districts received letter grades, and this is the first year the grades were issued on the campus level. Matney said every Katy ISD campus earned an “A,” “B,” or “C,” meaning they all met the minimum state standard. She also pointed out that 52 percent of Katy’s campuses received the overall “A” rating. Forty percent received a “B,” and 5 percent earned a “C.”

“Those are incredible statistics and a testimony to the educators in this district that show up every day,” said trustee Susan Gesoff.