The Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District met Monday, June 17 at the Education Support Complex, 6301 S. Stadium Lane in Katy, for a work-study meeting, hearing a report on the need for attendance boundary modifications for the 2025-2026 school year, and discussing an updated discipline management plan for the coming 2024-2025 school year. Board members also discussed a possible “retention bonus” for classroom teachers for inclusion in the 2024-2025 district compensation plan.

Ted Vierling, chief operations officer of Katy ISD, along with Kris Pool, who is the chief data analyst for PASA (Population and Survey Analysts), presented enrollment projections which demonstrated rapid growth in elementary students in the northwest quadrant of the district. The area under study for elementary school attendance boundary modifications is currently served by Robertson Elementary, Youngblood Elementary and Faldyn Elementary and will soon have two new schools yet to be named. Robertson Elementary opened in 2022 while both Faldyn Elementary and Youngblood Elementary opened in 2023. All three schools – each of which was built to accommodate 1030 students – are projected to be well over their enrollment capacity by 2027 – Roberts at 202%, Faldyn at 148%, and Youngblood at 234%.

Elementary school 47, located in Elyson, will draw its students entirely from the area now served by Youngblood Elementary, while elementary school 48, in the south Sunterra area, will pull students from Faldyn Elementary. Each of these new schools will have a larger capacity at 1230 students. Vierling said that, due to continued rapid growth projected for the area, that another attendance boundary modification would probably be needed in another two to three years.

Families that could be impacted by the proposed attendance boundary modifications, as well as the general public, will be informed of opportunities to provide input, which will include an electronic survey, email, written correspondence, and by telephone, Vierling said. The results of the survey will be presented at the September 2024 board meeting, and final approval of the proposed attendance boundary modifications is expected at the October 2024 board meeting.

The board also discussed changes to the Discipline Management Plan and Student Code of Conduct for the 2024-2025 school year. Presenter Sherri Ashorn, KISD SHARS & Discipline Administrator, said that the biggest piece of the plan was the new guidelines for telecommunications devices which include mobile phones, smart watches and similar devices, along with ear buds and other accessories. For elementary schools, devices are to be turned off and not visible, while at secondary campuses the devices are not to be in use in classrooms during instructional periods. The proposed plan also includes a consideration for implementing an on-campus consequence for first-time users of tobacco-based e-cigarettes on campus. Ashorn said a high volume of students had been referred to DAP for these offenses but that DAP seats needed to be reserved for more violent offenders.

Brian Schuss, chief human resources officer, presented the proposed compensation plan for the 2024-2025 school year. In addition to the previously approved three per cent midpoint raises for all KISD staff, the plan includes a new starting salary for teachers at $64,130 and new pay grades for food service personnel, who will have a starting salary of $14.25 per hour. Schuss also presented a plan which would provide a one-time lump sum payment for classroom teachers based on benchmark years of service. The proposed plan, which originated from the board’s teacher retention committee, would provide a lump sum payment of varying levels for teachers with five, ten, fifteen, twenty or twenty-five years of service on the teacher hiring scale, recognizing their entire service in education (inside or outside Katy ISD).

The two models presented by Schuss would recognize either $50.00 per year of service or $100.00 per year of service and would affect about 1100 of the district’s approximately 7000 classroom teachers this year. The first option would cost the district about $770,000 and the second option would be about $1.5 million in expense. Board members debated the amounts and benchmarks of the model. Trustees Dawn Champagne and Rebecca Fox did not see the need for the five-year benchmark, stating that five years did not constitute longevity and that an amount of $250.00 was not an amount significant enough to affect retention. Vice President Amy Thieme said that she wished the district could do more but that the district, which is in a deficit, did not have the money. Fox asked for more input from teachers, requesting that a survey be conducted before a decision is made; Superintendent Ken Gregorski asked that the approval of the compensation plan not be held up and that a placeholder could be approved for the plan while the specifics were being developed.

During the public comment period before the board went into closed session, Lisa Lister-Browne, who has previously addressed the board on several occasions during the past year, was the lone speaker. Lister-Browne had signed up to speak on the budget agenda item; however, at 45 seconds into her remarks, she was stopped by board president Perez who said that she was off topic and who instructed that her microphone be turned off. Board member Rebecca Fox asked that Lister-Browne be allowed to finish her remarks, but Perez declined. Lister-Browne continued to speak, and Perez called for security to remove her, saying that she was disrupting the meeting. As security officers approached, Lister-Browne left the podium without further incident.

The next meeting of the board of trustees is June 24.