[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:07] Noting that a quorum is present, I hear by call this work study, meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katie Independent School District Order. Today is Monday, September 14th, 2026, and the time is 5.03 p.m. Dr. Gregorci, we verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to notice for this meeting. Mr. Raven, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act for our meeting tonight.
[0:30] All right.
[0:31] The move will start off our meeting tonight with the Pledge of Allegiance.
[0:34] And KDI ST Police Officer Lister will lead us in our Pudges of Allegiance tonight.
[0:45] Our Pledge of Allegiance is to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic
[0:50] for which it stands, one nation, under God, and invisible, the liberty and justice are
[0:57] all.
[0:59] Honor with the Texas flag.
[1:01] Our Pledge of Allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one individual.
[1:07] is.
[1:09] Thank you. Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening?
[1:14] No, we do not. We will move on to our public comments portion of our board meeting.
[1:20] At this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance
[1:24] with the KDI-ST board policy BED local. As defined by board policy, speakers who signed up by 2 p.m.
[1:30] on Mondays, September 14th, 2026 provided their first and last name, mailing address,
[1:35] and list the number of specific agenda items they intend to address.
[1:39] Designate whether they reside in KDISD and if they have children in KDISD schools will be allowed to address the board.
[1:45] Speakers that fail to sign up in advance with the required information will not be called to speak.
[1:49] At the outset of public comment about 5 p.m. speakers that properly signed up in advance will be called forward individually
[1:55] and allowed to address the board on posted agenda topics only.
[2:00] Speakers who signed up to speak on a posted agenda item will be allowed three minutes to speak
[2:04] And if a speaker is not finished speaking at the end of their three minutes, the audio will turn off.
[2:09] The 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 record.
[2:20] If a speaker is not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels as stated in board policy, the presiding officers says it needs to advise the speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate policy.
[2:31] Finally, pursuant to Texas government code section 551.074 and 551.0821, the board will not
[2:39] permit the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a student, and will not
[2:44] discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal
[2:48] of a public officer or employee, or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee.
[2:54] Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must do so through the appropriate
[2:57] local grievance policies, FNG local, DGBA local, CKE local, or GF local.
[3:04] Our speakers will be called forward in the order that they signed up to speak.
[3:11] Tonight we have one speaker, is Omar Pena?
[3:14] Mr. Pena.
[3:22] Good afternoon, good evening.
[3:25] Name's Omar Pena.
[3:26] I have two kids that go to KDIST.
[3:28] I live in Cross Creek Ranch.
[3:31] My kids go to Stanley Elementary.
[3:33] My wife teaches there as well.
[3:34] Well, I'm also a city councilman in the City of Folstria District 3, which primarily a lot of residents in the KDI State and the Folstria area live.
[3:45] And the one of the things I wanted to bring up today was the M&O and the new tax rate you guys are about to get voting on soon.
[3:56] And I see you guys have no change on year over year so far.
[4:00] I'm not sure where this is going to go, but one of the concerns I have is I have
[4:05] We've dealt with this in the City of Folst, where cell towers going up, and that creates revenue for you guys.
[4:11] So I wanted to make sure that you know you guys have a cell tower that might be going up at one of your high schools
[4:17] and I wanted to make sure to let you know that in the City of Folst, there's quite a bit of strong opposition to this.
[4:24] So if you guys are counting on this revenue for you guys to have the cell tower there, I would like to inform you
[4:31] that there's strong opposition to this.
[4:34] And if you would like to create a different side of this,
[4:38] we have public hearing tomorrow and potential vote tomorrow.
[4:41] So if you would like to send one of your board members
[4:44] or anybody else that would like to address this,
[4:47] I would not want to affect the revenue
[4:50] that you guys might be voting on soon.
[4:51] So with that, I just want to give you guys a heads up
[4:54] on what's coming down the pipe tomorrow.
[4:56] All right, well, thank you so much for your time.
[4:58] Thank you very much.
[5:00] And this concludes the open form portion of our meeting.
[5:03] The board will now convene in close meeting as authorized under section 551.001 of the
[5:08] Texas government code for the following purposes.
[5:10] Texas government code 551.071 551.076 and 551.129.
[5:28] The board will now reconvene in open meeting today is Monday, September 14th, 2026 and the
[5:33] time is 7.13 pm.
[5:34] On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everybody to this evening's work study, meeting each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Wednesday September 9th, 2026.
[5:45] The board will receive information recommendations from staff and administration and the superintendent on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
[5:52] Board members will be able to ask questions receiving answers and should be prepared to take action.
[5:56] The board is just reconvened from closed meeting in accordance with chapter 551 of the Texas government code and any action arising from discussions and closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
[6:06] We will not be taking any action this evening and we will be moving on to section six discussion items.
[6:13] Our first item tonight is to discuss and consider board approval of the district performance objectives and our presenter is Miss Natalie Martinez, our executive director of school improvement.
[6:21] Good evening, President Redmond, Dr. Gregorski, members of the board.
[6:28] Each year the board is asked to review and approve the district performance objectives
[6:32] that guide the district improvement planning process.
[6:35] The district planning process begins with central office reviewing district data and resources.
[6:40] We then get stakeholder input during a kick meeting where community members engage in a process
[6:46] to give us feedback on four key areas which include processes and programs, demographics, student
[6:52] learning and perceptions.
[6:54] Departments review this feedback alongside their part of the needs assessment to determine
[6:59] performance objectives that fall under each district goal.
[7:03] The performance objectives are all aligned to the nine strategic goals and are created
[7:08] through three different processes.
[7:11] Six of the 28 proposed district performance objectives are from legal required statutes.
[7:16] 14 are yearly actions, steps from the strategic design process, and
[7:21] an eight are created from the needs assessment process.
[7:24] You received a copy of the proposed district performance objectives, and
[7:28] at this time, I will answer any questions.
[7:32] Any questions, Ford?
[7:37] I can I just ask you a question, I'm paying.
[7:40] This is Martinez.
[7:40] I really just want to commend you and your staff for all the work that you do.
[7:45] And just because you know I've looked at some of the numbers and the ratings on that and we've gone up and actually you know all of our campuses should be commended but I know it's under your leadership and Dr. Casky's and I just really appreciate you all.
[8:03] Thank you.
[8:03] Yeah.
[8:04] Thanks.
[8:07] I like them all.
[8:09] That's good.
[8:11] Well then we will now move on to 6.2 discussing consider Board approval of the campus performance
[8:16] objectives.
[8:17] Perfect.
[8:18] So each year the board is required to review and approve the performance objectives that guide
[8:22] each individual campus improvement planning process.
[8:26] The performance objectives are aligned to the district strategic goals and drive their
[8:30] work throughout the year as well.
[8:32] At this time I'd answer any questions on the campus improvement plans.
[8:37] Any questions, Board?
[8:42] I would just say this document is an immense amount of work put together by our campuses and the people in this room to look at how not only do we have goals for each individual, for our district, but double-clicking down into every campus and the way we apply those is that it's not just one big, like, let's throw it dart against the wall.
[9:07] But the precision and analysis that goes into creating these is so
[9:12] encouraging as a board member to know the detail of what we're aiming at for
[9:19] improving outcomes for kids and how everything goes into that.
[9:24] More than just the academic side, but
[9:27] the way we take care of our buildings and safety and our staff and all those things.
[9:33] I mean, it's 179-page document broken down across all our campuses, so what happens?
[9:38] And so, we don't have a lot of questions because we have been going through, we did our ISO
[9:45] training in the month of August where we spent an entire day drilling through why these numbers
[9:51] matter and why they're important and it's great to see how everybody takes those and continues
[9:57] to apply those.
[9:58] It's crazy to think.
[9:59] We would use that information.
[10:00] So, thank you very much.
[10:01] Board any other questions, Mr. President?
[10:04] I was going to say the same thing, like as a former campus principal.
[10:10] What I love about this is the goals are always like we're trying to get kids, you know,
[10:16] given the best education possible, help them be as successful as possible.
[10:20] But each campus, as you look at each group and how they're trying to do that, and each campus
[10:28] but also has a different path of getting there
[10:31] because they have different needs.
[10:32] And it's fun to kind of line, say, I drill down.
[10:36] Oh, and all, you know, 80 campuses or whatever.
[10:39] But as I look through and I'm looking at different campuses
[10:44] and kind of, well, I wonder what they're doing
[10:47] different here versus this camp.
[10:49] And it was just interesting to see, like, you go,
[10:53] oh, so the hats, one of their challenges.
[10:55] Okay, that's interesting.
[10:56] So it's nice, it's what Mr. Redmond was saying, you know, that each group recognizes, you know, as they work with the district like each campus is sitting there going, yeah, this is really where the path we need to go versus somebody else may have a different path that we're all trying to get there.
[11:16] So again, kudos to all our campus folks who put a lot of work into this and the district team as well.
[11:22] Thank you.
[11:23] Ms. Martin, is it you like going first today?
[11:28] Mr. President, what is the name of it?
[11:29] No.
[11:31] Mr. Taylor, I'll come to you in a second.
[11:33] I just wanted to say, having sat on campus advisory teams for the past five or six years,
[11:39] that there is a high level of fidelity to how schools are tracking their performance,
[11:44] and their commitment to ensuring these student outcomes are happening.
[11:47] So, they're actually living this document.
[11:49] It's not just a really pretty document and will written.
[11:53] So, I'm seeing it actually in action.
[11:54] Thank you.
[11:55] Thank you.
[11:55] In I asked that question and board, let's you know, we love having our finance scene normally updated as first, but moving forward, we are making a concerted effort to take all of our academic focused agenda items and put those at the beginning so that we can address that while we're fresh.
[12:15] And so just to point that out, I didn't share that with y'all, and I know Mr. Smith will not be upset about that, but I didn't notice that.
[12:22] So I put it in there.
[12:23] So thank you.
[12:25] Mr. Shipley, and kind of saying, I think if I'm in the public listening to this,
[12:29] and you hear about campus improvement plans, like this is going to be this very robust
[12:33] conversation in echoing what's been set up here, I had the opportunity to sit in on the
[12:38] Academic Performance Committee, and the level of granularity, as has been said,
[12:42] that the focus on each individual campus, and it's not a one-size-fits-all,
[12:46] every campus is different.
[12:54] It's a very impressive document, but I don't have a lot of questions as I know
[12:59] the amount of work is being done on the background. So thank you.
[13:00] Thank you.
[13:02] Mr. President.
[13:03] I was sitting here thinking the same thing. There's so much work being done by every
[13:10] campus, 80 of them, and for us to be like, check the box, take so much for your presentation
[13:17] And so I appreciate what Mr. Redmond said, 179 pages of step by step by step goals for improvement and also on a campus advisory team way, way before way back there.
[13:31] It was, it was a lot of work and a lot of focus on what will be the goal.
[13:38] What's the, it needs to be a stretch, but you know, not too much that, you know, teachers run out the door.
[13:44] So, I appreciate this very much, and the recent KDISD continues to be the leader in everything, is because this is purpose-driven and students benefit.
[13:58] Thank you, thank you.
[14:01] Mr. Reddent, just one more time.
[14:02] I'm sorry, I said thank you to Mrs. Martinez and Dr. Cassie, but I can't forget our precious Dr. Bell back there, so anyway.
[14:10] I didn't want to leave you at because you are so instrumental, but everybody is, and I know I'm going to leave people out, but, you know, I apologize for that, but you're here in the audience, and you're very important to pause.
[14:24] Any other questions or comments board?
[14:27] Thank you very much.
[14:28] Okay.
[14:28] We now move on to item 6.3, discussing considered board approval of the July 2026 financial reports, and our presenter is Mr. Jamie Heinz, our assistant superintendents finance.
[14:47] Good evening, President Redmond, trustees, Dr. Gagorski.
[14:51] You have before you our financial statements, our construction report, tax report, as well
[14:57] as the summary of our check registers, all of these.
[15:00] Thanks for July. Our financial statements include revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance for all of our budgeted funds, as well as an analysis of the expenditures by function and object. Our tax report provides information on our taxes levied. Our collection is to date and our balance is yet to be collected. And then the construction report has a summary of our district capital projects. This is the final time that you will see any financial reports for the 2026 fiscal year.
[15:27] And the reason is, at the end of the fiscal year, you've already approved our final
[15:37] amended budget.
[15:39] Throughout after the fiscal years over, our accounting team will spend time through
[15:45] October, finalizing the fiscal year and booking our year end entries.
[15:52] After that, in November, the outside auditors will come in and audit our fiscal year, and then once they've gone through that and approved that, then our accounting team, I want to say thank you to Mrs. Brandy Heron and her team for this, but then they'll build out your final report for the year, which is our annual comprehensive financial report.
[16:19] And then we'll come back in January for your approval on that.
[16:23] And you'll see all the final numbers for the 2526 fiscal year at that time.
[16:29] And again, we won't be back next month with financial reports.
[16:34] Since this is the end of the fiscal year, this is through 11 months.
[16:38] There's not a lot to go over other than we're through 91.6% of the fiscal year.
[16:44] And our understanding is still significant.
[16:47] Understanding through that, our August is our biggest month for expenditures in terms of payroll.
[16:54] We had to lump some payment and TIA payments, so but there's plenty of cushion there in the expenditures to handle that, in the expenditure budget to handle that.
[17:01] And so things are in good shape, and everything's in alignment, and there are no functional, none of our functions are overspent at this point.
[17:10] I'd be glad to answer any questions at this point.
[17:13] Any questions aboard?
[17:14] the board. No
[17:18] questions? Thank you. Well, now move on to item 6.24. Discuss and consider board adoption of the 2026-2027 maintenance and operations tax rate and the 2026-2027 debt service tax rate.
[17:31] Our presenter is Mr. Christmas or Chief Financial Officer.
[17:34] All right, well, good evening, President Rebman and Secretary Gorsky and Board.
[17:41] Section of the tax code, section 26 requires you to adopt an annual tax rate.
[17:47] There are two rates that we have, maintenance and operations, which pays for the maintenance
[17:53] and operations and the salaries, et cetera, of the school district of 72 and 71 cents, 72,
[18:01] $8.271 or less than $1 per $100 valuation which will provide funding for the district's maintenance and operations.
[18:10] That tax rate is made up of $61.69 that is the compressed rate set by the Texas Education Agency.
[18:17] It includes the 11 pennies that we have on top of that which is 8 golden pennies and 3 copper pennies for again the total of $72.71.
[18:28] on. It also has an interest in sinking tax rate being recommended a 39 cents to pay for
[18:35] the district's principal and interest on the sponsor. There is an order that you have
[18:40] and it says be it ordain and resolve that the Board of Trustees of Katie and the Pinnest
[18:44] School District had on this day, the 21st of September, 2026, that's next Monday. We the
[18:50] Board of Trustees of the Katie and the Pinnest School District knew here by Levy and said
[18:53] at a tax rate on $100 valuation for the school district
[18:57] for the tax year, 2026, of $1 and $11.71
[19:03] to be assessed and collected by newly specified
[19:06] assessor and collector as follows,
[19:08] 0.72714, purpose of maintenance and operations
[19:12] at 0.39 for the purpose of payment and principle
[19:16] on interest, principle and interest on debts.
[19:20] So that's taxes are to be assessed and collected
[19:21] about tax officials designated by the district.
[19:25] This tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance
[19:27] and operations than last year's rate.
[19:30] And it would be the schools,
[19:31] the administration's recommendation
[19:33] that you approve those two rates
[19:35] as presented in the order before you.
[19:39] Thank you.
[19:40] Any questions, Board?
[19:43] Just for the sake of those of us
[19:45] who do not have a finance background
[19:47] and we know school finance is very challenging.
[19:50] To be clear, we are not raising our tax rate
[19:55] from last year, it's remaining flat.
[19:56] It's remaining flat, yes, ma'am.
[19:58] Can you just explain to the kindergartener how I know it may look like when homeowners
[20:05] such as myself, we pay our taxes that it looks like somehow we're paying a little bit more,
[20:10] but we're being told the rate was flat.
[20:13] Can you explain that a little bit?
[20:15] When the appraisal district appraises a person's home, if that value goes up, even if it's the same tax rate
[20:21] that the district is using, they may pay more in taxes.
[20:28] Who benefits from that?
[20:29] The state of Texas benefits from that because of the state, the appraisal district send
[20:34] that information to the state.
[20:35] And essentially if we raise more money locally through taxes, we lose state funding.
[20:41] The state legislature does try to offset that through home state exemptions, increases
[20:46] or compressing the tax rate.
[20:50] But there's not a ballot, it's not on the ballot to go to the voters to increase the homestead exemption this year.
[20:56] And our values by the local appraisals districts did not rise enough to compress our rate down to offset the rise.
[21:05] But basically, when we pay more, the state pays less and vice versa.
[21:10] And that's nothing that we have control over.
[21:12] We have no control over that, I'm sorry.
[21:14] Thank you.
[21:16] Mr. Shipley, and one, thank you, and one question on the tax rate will raise more money, more taxes from maintenance and operations and last year.
[21:23] That's based on the increased raise level value, you just said their, their price level values are flat.
[21:27] The price level value is by, by and large or flat, I think they're up 1.5%.
[21:32] They're down in a couple of counties, they're up in, actually, they're down in one county, they're up in two counties, which is about 1.5% increase in value.
[21:41] which is, as the same tax rate will generate more tax.
[21:45] Which is what that statement's based off of.
[21:46] Yes.
[21:47] Those kind of, okay.
[21:47] Thank you.
[21:48] Yes.
[21:49] This far?
[21:50] The President, I'm going to harp the same thing.
[21:53] Giant bold letters at the bottom of this resolution, says the resolution.
[21:58] Yes, that says, this tax rate will raise more taxes because that's the State's
[22:06] language, is that correct?
[22:07] Yes, ma'am.
[22:08] But the State does not say, but your district doesn't benefit from that.
[22:11] The schools don't benefit from that.
[22:14] Teachers and kids don't get any of it.
[22:17] The excess that's raised, the school district gets the same,
[22:22] that it's always gotten from the state, that the raise more taxes goes to the state to put in a piggy bank that they use for
[22:32] G-O-F, whatever they want.
[22:35] It's not put in a education piggy bank to come back to us, is that correct?
[22:40] That is 100 percent correct.
[22:43] And that's why it's always been, and since the day I moved here, I was like, I don't
[22:47] understand how there are so many houses coming, but we don't have more money because,
[22:53] for every dollar extra that's raised, the state keeps that dollar.
[22:57] That's correct.
[22:58] That's what makes me so angry on this language here that most people won't see.
[23:03] But when they go to a ballot box and try to approve a bond election, it still says,
[23:09] This is going to raise your taxes, this is going to raise your taxes, when we've
[23:12] told people all through the process that exactly how much we're trying to get, and
[23:19] what we're going to get from that, this state makes it so confusing, I think, with
[23:24] their language.
[23:25] Thank you.
[23:27] Luckily for you all tonight, and one more night, as all I get to rant and rave from here,
[23:32] how mad I am about the state of Texas.
[23:34] I'm going to have to do it from that side of the podium from now on.
[23:38] If it's on the agenda, you'll have three minutes.
[23:42] And then your microphone will turn on.
[23:49] But at least I might not bore you to tears the way you accused Mr. Smith of earlier.
[23:55] That's not what she said.
[23:56] I'm teasing.
[23:57] Mr. Smith, I'm teasing.
[23:59] Thank you, Mr. Smith.
[24:00] We'll now move on to item 6.5, discussing considered Board approval of claims administration
[24:05] for unemployment compensation by TASB Risk Management Fund for Plain Year 2026-2027.
[24:12] And our presenter will be Mr. Langston on the next Director of Risk Management.
[24:16] Good evening, President Redmond, Dr. Gorsky and Board of Trustees.
[24:21] The district shall comply with provisions of the Texas Unemployment Act.
[24:25] The district is permitted by law to enter into joint group with other political subdivisions
[24:31] to share the cost of benefits that are attributable to the services provided in the employee of a group of account numbers.
[24:38] Katie honesty has provided the services through an inter-local agreement with Tazby Risk Management Fund.
[24:44] The fixed contribution for plan year 2526 was $296,073 with the renewal set as $296,773 for plan year 2026 27.
[25:00] It is recommended the Board of Trustees approves claim administration for unemployment compensation by task-be-risk management fund for
[25:08] playing your 26-27.
[25:13] Any questions, Board?
[25:19] Mr. Shipley?
[25:19] Thank you.
[25:20] My only question for you is that that number has trended down over the last three or four years, and it's holding study to, why is it trended down?
[25:28] It seems like everything's going on.
[25:31] It's trending down because we've seen over the last few years of a little bit more stability in a marketplace in terms of
[25:38] claims across the state.
[25:40] So TASB is able to underwrite it a little bit more favorably
[25:44] thanks to districts.
[25:45] Good.
[25:46] Thank you.
[25:51] All right, no more questions.
[25:52] Thank you.
[25:53] Thank you all.
[25:54] We'll now move on to item 6.6 discussing considered board approval
[25:59] for the superintendents to prepare sign and submit a waiver
[26:01] application to the state commissioner of education
[26:04] for elementary school campuses that exceeds the allowable class
[26:07] size of 22 to 1.
[26:08] In addition to campuses that could potentially exceed the ratio due to increase enrollment during the 2026, 2027 school year.
[26:16] Our presenter is Mr. Brian Schuss, our chief human resources officer.
[26:20] And President Remembrance, members of the board, Dr. Gagorski.
[26:23] This is something we bring to the board every September.
[26:25] This is for our class as waiver.
[26:27] So any classroom and pre-conregating through fourth grade that is over the 22 to one mandated student to teacher ratio.
[26:34] we're required to get a waiver through TA-4 and then we're required to ask Board approval for that.
[26:39] Typically, what you would have this evening is those exact number of waivers that we would be asking approval for at this time by campus.
[26:47] We don't have that for you this evening, we're going to have that for you next Monday.
[26:51] The reason is, we're still in the middle of our enrollment balancing process, and that's a process that we go through every year,
[26:56] and I've provided the board some information with a little more detail on that.
[27:00] The process starts shortly after the school year starts, but it doesn't wrap up until after Labor Day.
[27:05] Well, the reason is because we could get an influx of kiddos after Labor Day, and we want to be sure we account for them in this enrollment balancing process with Labor Day being so late, and the board meeting only being a week after Labor Day, there just wasn't sufficient time to wrap that up.
[27:19] So we are finishing that this week, we will have that data, that specific number of waivers
[27:24] to the board by the end of the week, and we'll present that next Monday.
[27:29] So I apologize.
[27:30] We don't have that that's never happened before since I've been here, but just the timing
[27:33] was such this year.
[27:34] I mean, Labor Day, I think it was actually as late as it possibly could be this year.
[27:38] And so hopefully, it doesn't happen again in the future for a while, but we'll give
[27:42] it to you Monday.
[27:43] And that's all it got.
[27:45] Any questions, Board?
[27:46] Mr. President.
[27:47] So Mr. Schuss, we don't have the data, but we've seen it year after year after year.
[27:53] And when people also see this as an agenda item, as a look what they're doing, they're filling our classes too much.
[28:00] This typically is minimal, it's 23 students instead of 22, and some, or it could be 24.
[28:09] But in these are kindergarten through fourth grade, the state requirement is 22 students to every teacher and no more.
[28:17] But if a teacher has 23, she's like, just leave it.
[28:22] I'm good, don't separate all these out and don't get a new teacher for them.
[28:26] And their instruction would be more disruptive than to leave 23, things like that.
[28:32] So you will show us next week and it will be a handful of classes sprinkled across the district,
[28:38] possibly with maybe two hands of happening.
[28:44] Is that what you're expecting for this year as well?
[28:46] Absolutely. It's very minimal.
[28:48] Absolutely, and I present with the information that the board got, there were the previous
[28:52] three years of what we did request for waivers in those previous meetings, and I think
[28:57] there were around 50 classrooms out of 1700 total sections. So, in most of those every
[29:05] year being over by one student. So, and you're exactly right, Mrs. Fox, a lot of times we
[29:11] We may dare in this balancing process, let's say we have a principle that has a third grade and three sections are at 24 to 1 and they would qualify for an additional teacher.
[29:20] Sometimes the principal will say, hey no, we've got a good thing going and I don't want to break up those classes and they do have the autonomy to make that decision, so a lot of times that is the reason.
[29:28] Yes.
[29:29] And parents won't like it.
[29:30] Don't move my kids from our favorite teacher and the teachers don't like it.
[29:35] So this is a, the waiver is like, let us continue to do a really good job with boys and
[29:40] girls and everybody's good with it.
[29:42] Absolutely, and like you said, it's an extremely small percentage.
[29:45] Thank you so much.
[29:46] Thank you, mayor.
[29:47] Mr. President.
[29:48] Okay.
[29:49] Yes, I noticed, thank you for the information from the previous years.
[29:54] but I've been going to my campuses and at the elementary levels what
[30:00] What a lot of principals are telling me is that it's so hard to make those predictions, you know? And you try, you know, you base it on last year, year before, whatever, and you go, oh, I'm going to have five kindergarten classes based on the trend. But then this year, hmm, I have five, but really maybe only needed four, but how could you know? And by the way, since Labor Day so late, also means they've been in school for a month now. And, you know, I've had a child
[30:29] before that was you know had to move classes because of excess students and you're right Mrs. Fox parents don't like that
[30:38] I didn't like it at the time she's fine she's 27 now she did fine but I'm just saying I know that the parents don't
[30:46] like it the teachers don't like it and I I really feel for the the principals of the school because they're trying
[30:52] their best to predict what they need and probably what I think is going to happen especially as some of the schools
[30:59] that I've seen is if they have, let's say, one too many kids and another classroom, a few
[31:05] too many in first grade, they probably take a teacher that they kind of maybe don't
[31:11] need in another grade and put them there so that the teacher, unfortunately, might have
[31:16] to change classrooms but probably not schools necessarily at the time.
[31:21] So I appreciate that seems like a very difficult puzzle that has to be puzzled together every
[31:28] a year by all the different campuses and by yourself, by you yourself.
[31:32] So I know that that's a challenging thing to do.
[31:40] Any other questions, Board?
[31:43] Thank you very much.
[31:44] Thank you.
[31:45] We'll now move on to item 6.7, discussing, considered the Board approval of amendment 1 to the winning
[31:50] turner contracting company contract related to the renovation to the support services complex.
[31:56] And our presenter is Ms. Lisa Kasman, our executive director of facilities planning and
[32:00] construction.
[32:02] Good evening, President Redmond, Board and Dr. Grigorski.
[32:05] I only have one item this evening.
[32:06] It is to consider the approval of Amendment 1 to the Whiting Turner contracting
[32:10] company related to the renovations that the support services complex.
[32:15] This amendment will provide funding for long-lead mechanical and electrical items,
[32:19] as well as a commencement of demolition of mechanical and electrical and be incorporated
[32:23] into the final GMP.
[32:28] Any questions, Board?
[32:34] So, this is just the project that's already been approved, and this is just letting us know how much of this portion of the project is.
[32:38] Correct, back in April 25, we approved the contractor, we're going to the design process.
[32:43] We've identified at this time that we need to order these items and get this started so you could be done by August of 2027.
[32:51] All right, no questions from the board, then, thank you very much.
[32:54] Thank you.
[32:55] Board, you'll see in Section 7, our consent items on the board, are there any of those that anybody would like to pull to discuss?
[33:02] All right.
[33:07] Well, the board has received the donated items list. Mr. Secretary, I do not think we had any
[33:12] request for information, you know?
[33:16] All right. There will be a regular board meeting on Monday, September 21, 2026.
[33:22] The board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under Section 551.001 of the Texas
[33:26] Government Code for the following purposes. Mr. Redmond.
[33:30] Oh, our grade in it did not show up tonight, so we can go ahead and adjourn the meeting.
[33:34] All right, well then, I will move on to section 12.
[33:37] There being no further business before in the board,
[33:38] this meeting is adjourned, the time is 7.41 p.m.