A near-capacity crowd of around 100 people filled the community room at Legacy Stadium on March 18, attending the school board candidate forum sponsored by the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce. The function at 1830 Katyland Drive in Katy drew supporters for all candidates, with most attendees about evenly divided in support for incumbent board president Victor Perez and his opponent, retired Katy ISD educator James Cross, who are both running for Position 1.

Position 2 incumbent Lance Redmon also had strong support in the audience, but his challengers – KISD teacher Tammy Reed and write-in candidate Khris Fields -- had supporters present as well.

The panel discussion was facilitated by Robert Long, division director of Board Development Services for the Texas Association of School Boards and Jason Burdine, a former trustee at Fort Bend ISD who served from 2014 to 2020. After Burdine established context for each question, based on best practices, Long queried each candidate in turn on topics ranging from to ensuring support for student growth and achievement while maintaining sound fiscal practices, to states’ rights versus local control, to the actions that each has taken over the past five years to benefit KISD students, to improvement in student and staff safety. Candidates did not receive the questions in advance.

Each candidate gave an opening overview as well as a two-minute summary explaining the reasons that they were the best choice for the position:

Position 1:

· Perez (incumbent): A four-year board member who describes himself as a champion for conservative community values who wants to stop a liberal takeover of the board and district,” calling his opponent “a Katy insider” and alleging that two candidates on the dais were supported by a radical PAC and called one a “Democratic socialist.” Perez is a former energy CFO who believes he is equipped to handle the district’s $1.4 billion budget and who wants to focus on teacher retention, fully funding SPED and career-technical education, reducing class sizes and enhancing the lump sum payment program for teachers.

· Cross: A lifetime educator and KEYS mentor with multiple honors who has 30 years of experience in staff and campus management. Since retiring from KISD, Cross has spent the last two years working for a nonpartisan public school advocacy group focused on securing funding for public schools. Cross said that as a so-called “Katy insider,” he helped the district grow and to receive national recognition.

Position 2:

· Redmon (incumbent): Board member since 2019 who as a local business owner has experience with budgets, human resources issues, policy and strategy; the former pastor has attained Master Trustee status through the Texas Association of School Boards and has advocated for the district at the state level.

· Reed: An award-winning Katy ISD fine arts teacher with 26 years of education experience, Reed wants to give teachers a voice on the board and to eliminate unnecessary expenditures in order to fund resources in the classroom. She wants to improve teacher retention, to provide every student with the tools needed for success, achieve full transparency between the school board and the community all to allow district librarians to follow state guidelines for literature choices.

· Fields: Has invested 5500 leadership hours in helping 170 mentees of his foundation to win national awards; believes in setting up the next generation for success through access; has received over 30 awards from various levels of government.


The forum was live streamlined and may be viewed in its entirety on the chamber’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/katychamber/videos. Two hours after the event concluded, the video had received over 1700 views.

The school board election is on May 3, with early voting taking place from April 22 to 29. To see a list of polling places, go to www.katyisd.org/cms/lib/TX50010808/Centricity/domain/4308/documents/election_25/Katy_ISD_Polling_Locations_2025.pdf.