What are they going to say that hasn't already been discussed behind closed doors? It's not as if they actually debate anyone who bothers to sign up on the agenda and present substantive but differing views on district issues? At best, they'll get a one-minute warning to wrap up their spiel and sit back down.

Let's just say that the bond will move to the next step after board approval and obvious foreshadowing of the next bond issues with a new stadium, probably another expansion of the Merrell Castle, etc.

The only thing voters can do now is review the district website, keep an eye on multiple publications with stories on the bond, and check out George Scott's site. Be wary of ANYTHING you get in the mail from PAC's without know who is behind them.....

I do not think that anybody needs to start talking about a new stadium until all the options have been explored.

Here's an idea. The superintendent should call his friends in Spring Branch and CyFair to see if our districts can work out some deal whereby we can share stadiums.

To those that would criticize the bond committee for not asking the right questions or not knowing to ask the right questions, it is the Board who has the responsibility to ask the right questions. At least the committee had the sense to remove Wolfe IB K-8.

We do not need a $60 million stadium like the one they are building in Allen, Texas.

We need the Board to wake up and get their priorities straight.

lee---

i am not sure that the got rid of the idea for the IB program. I seem to remember reading someplace that Mr. Frailey told the committee not to even consider the IB program.

The program itself does not fall under the bond as it does not deal with the buildings or technology. It is curriculum and that comes out of the day to day budget.

As I understand this, yes they are going to work on Wolfe, but they plan to still house the IB program at Wolfe with the regular students. If I am wrong and they will not be doing the IB program, please let me know

Mr. Stanford has stated many times that the Texas Ethics Commission clearly precludes and prevents the school district's Board and employees from advocating passage of the bond. The Board is supposed to declare that there is a referendum, provide all the transparent information that they have, and then step back and let the voters discuss the measure, arrive at their own conclusions and then cast a vote.

I hope that the Board members will follow carefully the TEC's rules.

Here is a link to a good web site regarding the issue: http://gcisdbond2010.com/presentations/BondEthics-Huckabee.pdf

(And yes, I know it includes the KIDS PAC website as an example!)

dimy,

You are right. Helen has tried to point this out to me.

The recommendation from the bond committee only speaks to the structure of the Wolfe school which would be for 500 K-5 students as opposed to the original plan for a school to house 800 K-8 students for Wolfe IB. It would certainly be possible to start with IB in the K-5 building that is in the recommendation.

It is also useful to note that the Board has the authority to put the Wolfe K-8 facility back into the bond. They could also use bond "savings" to build or otherwise add on to the K-5 structure even if this were not included in a bond authorization.

As far as I know the primary years program (PYP) and middle years program (MYP) do not include a real curriculum like the diploma IB program. There will be training costs and other fees associated with these programs as well as costs for additional administration. There is little evidence to show that these programs actually improve education.

I do not have any information to suggest that the Board is reconsidering its decision to approve the implementation of IB. However, at one point this Board approved the design in concept of a Wolfe K-12 facility and I do not think that is going to happen so we know that the board can change its mind.

The IB program is expensive and provides questionable value so I continue to hope that the Board and administration will reconsider this decision.

The Board should include a clause in the bond that pledges to apply bond "savings" to reducing the debt so that we can be spared the expense of pet projects.

A new stadium is coming. It will likely be part of the next referendum, which will be due in about 4 to 5 years.

Again, the next referendum will bring KISD up to 8 high schools. You cannot adequately schedule games for 8 schools in one stadium. It can't be done. You can barely manage it 7 schools, which will have after this year's referendum.

Rhodes can host a maximum of 4 games per week - Thursday evening, Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon. No, you can't hold varsity football games on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings. (And even Thursday night games are stretch. They really cut into sleep and study time for the students.)

With 7 high schools, you will need to schedule 4-5 home games per week games at Rhodes. That fifth game effectively will have to be held at a neutral site, which will have to be rented. (No, Spring Brinch, Cy Fair, and none of the other districts will let us use their facilities for free.)

With 8 schools, you will need to schedule 4-6 home games per week. Now you will need to rent multiple facilities, to host home games - assuming that you can find them.

Hence, the next referendum will request KISD HS #8, and the second stadium. Yes, there are ways to save money on this stadium, such as building on existing KISD property. No, we do not need a colossus like the Berry Center. We need a decent facility, that can hold 8,000 to 10,000 fans. We don't need JerryWorld in Dallas, a.k.a. The Death Star.

It should probably be built on the south side of the interstate, so that it can become the home field for the 4 schools located there. This will help cut down on transportation costs, and will help create competitive balance within the district.

If you look at all the surrounding districts that have 7 or more high schools, they all have multiple stadiums. HISD, CFISD, FBISD all follow this pattern. Conroe ISD has 6 high schools, and it already has 2 stadiums. So no, we are not requesting anything that other districts don't already have.

Face it, folks - that stadium is coming. It just isn't coming yet.

Tim,

I never wrote that Spring Branch and Cy-Fair would let us use their stadiums for free. There would have to be some kind of plan worked out. Please correct me if I missed something in the calculation, but if you have three stadiums between two districts with a total of 16 schools then should be able to play 9 home games per week (one at each of three stadiums on Thursday, Friday and Saturday). Maybe its not feasible or maybe its just never been done, but I wish we could find a better way to economize in the delivery of athletic entertainment since public schools really ought to have academics as their primary focus and let us remember that KatyISD is going to be almost $1.5 billion in debt if this bond passes.

Spending $60 million on a stadium like the one in Allen is ridiculous! That's what it is costing us to build two and a half elementary schools.

I do not know what all the answers are, but we need our leaders to be more creative. Spending tax dollars and going deeper into debt should not be the answer to every problem.

Building on existing KatyISD property will not save money on a stadium. Exploring other ways to get this done other than dropping $60 million on an Allen like stadium just might save us some money so that we can fund future bond projects that will be needed to build and maintain schools.

Bond, Bond and More Bonds ! We need another school bond like we need a hole in the head. Any of you notice that they are already talking about another bond after this one? In the past we have already had four bonds in the last 9 years. One billion dollars in outstanding bond debt right now and they are already talking about two more bond packages. I say us tax payers are hurting already. The KatyISD already has the hights school system tax rate in Texas if not the nation! I don't know about you, but I plan on moving some day and want other people to purchase my property at that time. Two or three years ago Texas approved a school tax rate cap. If you people keep letting KatyISD pass new bonds then they will go to the courts and ask them to give them an exception because the tax payers of this area keep approving more money for them. Do you want to pay more to live in YOUR HOME each year? Do you want to not be able to sell your home for what you can get for it today? If you don't care about how much money you are going to lose when you go to sale your home and you think that building all of these schools so that some builders can make more money by selling new homes then you are nuts. I MYSELF HAVE TO VOTE NO NEW KATYISD BONDS EVER! YES, I MEAN EVER! Lets try to pay down the debt that KatyISD already has. They need to live within their budget just like the rest of us. Go out to the new part of Cinco Ranch at the end of Cinco Ranch Blvd and look at the new elemetry school #37 in the middle of the old rice field. Why do you think that they build a new school with no homes around it? SO THAT THE BUILDER COULD SELL THE HOMES AND MAKE MORE MONEY TO EXPAND THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. I say that if the new home builders need a new school in there area then they should build it and donate it to KatyISD. They could use it as a tax write off.

The stadium in Allen is costing $60 million for a reason. It will seat 18,000 people, and it features multiple decks, video scoreboard, state-of-the-art concession stands, etc. In effect, it is a college-level stadium - perhaps a Division II stadium. It actually looks more elaborate than the Berry Center, from the photos - I didn't think that was possible. (The taxpayers in Allen are certainly getting their money's worth - all $60 million dollars worth. I hope they enjoy it.)

Obviously, we don't need that in Katy. In fact, if the board proposed something like that, it probably wouldn't stand a chance of passing in this community.

Leander ISD recently opened a decent, 10,000-seat stadium, which will host its first game this fall. The cost? $22 million. So no, we don't need to spend an extravagant sum, like $60 million, on a new stadium. Here's the details on the new stadium in Leander:

http://cedarparkcitizen.com/2010/06/25/gameday-gets-closer-at-gupton-sta...

(One interesting not: LISD actually has less high schools than KISD has now. They only have 5 high schools. But they now have 2 stadiums, and we have only 1 - while we are now expanding out to 7 high schools, and eventually 9.)

=========================================

Now, the idea of sharing a stadium with other districts has merit. Unfortunately, most of the districts around us have adequate stadiums. Both CFISD and FBISD already have multiple stadiums, and CFISD has the Berry Center, so they're definitely not going to spend more money on stadiums. And SBISD is contracting, so it is unlikely they will want a new stadium anytime soon.

The only potential option that I see is LCISD. Maybe they will be interested in a stadium-sharing deal, if they eventually expand out to 5 high schools. (They are opening a 4th high school this fall.) One sticking point may be stadium size, however. LCISD builds 4A-size schools, whereas KISD builds large 5A schools. LCISD can get by with a 5,000-7000 capacity for a stadium, but KISD will need 9,000 to 10,000 capacity.

Plus, the two district will need to work out capital costs, revenue and expense sharing, legal liability, and whole host of other issues. I think an agreement like this can be worked out, but it will take tough negotiating, should we go down this route.

Tim,

Thank you for keeping an open mind.

I am very serious in urging KatyISD not to build a extravagant Taj Mahal like stadium. Do not make the mistake of thinking that this is not a danger.

I really was thinking that KatyISD might be able to share existing stadiums with neighboring ISDs, but that may not be practical for many reasons. For example, even though Cy-Fair has two stadiums they have 10 high schools so that schedule would be very tight and probably impossible. I feel that all options should be thoroughly investigated before plunking down a chunk of cash on a new stadium.

If we must build a stadium (and I am not ready to concede that we must), then the $22 million figure is much more reasonable than $60 million, but more research needs to be done.

We should desire a safe football field for kids to play on. We do not need huge press boxes, expensive jumbotrons or other bells and whistles. None of these items are really for the kids anyway.

What we will need, circa 2015:

We will need a decent, 9,000 to 10,000 seat stadium. It may (or may not) require a cinder running track, for track-and-field events; we can keep hosting those events at Rhodes. (Eventually, the track may need to be replaced at Rhodes; if so, it may be cheaper just to put in a new track at the new stadium. Time will tell.)

I would prefer a natural-turf stadium; most of the student athletes and performers would prefer this as well. (Ross Raymond recently published an article, showing that natural turf can be cheaper than artifical, even with irrigation and fertilization.)

It should have adequate concession and restroom capacity for this many guests. I would say 4 concession stands, maybe 5 at the max. Put in enough restrooms, so that people do not need to wait in line at the end of games.

It will need parking for 20 school buses and 2,000-2,500 vehicles.

Our district should be able to build that, for $20 to $25 million, in current dollars. If we wait 5 to 10 years to build this stadium, then inflation will increase that price - again, time will tell.

What we will not need, in the new stadium.

1) Jumbotron. Instead, install a decent scoreboard, that we can put advertising on, to provide extra revenue. We don't need to see close-ups of the quarterback's face, as he calls out the signals.

2) Multiple decks. Yes, it is a pain at Rhodes, when it rains, and everyone needs to pile into their cars and buses. That might be inconvenient, but it will save you millions in construction costs.

3) Start-of-the-art audio systems. This stadium is for football, track, soccer, and band competitions. It is not for rock concerts. We don't need to hear Ke$ha piped over the speakers, in between quarters. For audio entertainment, we have the band and cheerleaders - that's what they are there for.

4) Sky boxes, valet parking, sushi bars, full-service banking - OK, now I am being facetious.

Tim, as far as I am aware, Rhodes Stadium does not have a track. All in district track and field events take place at the competition fields at the schools. That should work for quite a while. The food's better at those fields anyway.

The football playing surface at Rhodes is bordered by concrete, not a running surface. I stand corrected.

I have hauled gear around the sides of that field on numerous occasions. In my mind, I somehow became confused, and thought it was a running surface. It is not. I stand corrected.

However, this does not effect my calculus. No, we should not build a new stadium, just so we can hold track and field events there. If we do add a track surface to that stadium, it will be a bonus.

I don't know how much a track-and-field surface would add to the cost of the new stadium. Honestly, unless someone can come up with an economic or justification for adding a track surface, I vote that we keep it out. We can keep having the track meets at the current locations.

The primary purpose for those stadiums will be football games, which should be obvious. Anything else we decide to hold there - track, soccer, band competitions, commencement ceremonies - will be a bonus.

I am not necessarily pushing for a new stadium. I think it is inevitable, however. Once this district finally expands out to 9 high schools, it will be a necessity. You simply will not be able to schedule all the events you need to.

However, I do want the costs for the stadium to be strictly controlled. You can build a respectable stadium for less than the cost of an elementary school. Look at the case study from Leander ISD that I gave above.

That is the direction that I want to see Rusty, and the rest of the administration, to take. I too do not want to see an elaborate, $60 to $70 million dollar stadium built in this district. Now that is what I want to avoid.

In reality, if the district had put the stadium on this referendum, it would have made up less than 5% of the total bond package - assuming that they would have kept the cost of the stadium at around $20 million. Maybe the district left this out, as part of a political calculation. But it easily could have fit into the current bond referendum, from an economic perspective.

p.s., I have no personal stake in the construction of a stadium. By the time it is constructed, my children will have long since graduated from high school. Nor do I own a real estate or construction company. I have nothing to benefit from the construction of a new stadium - although I am sure I will enjoy watching games there.

It is highly unlikely that any stadium that Katy I.S.D. would build in the reasonable future would require 9-10,000 seating capacity.

The facts as represented by official attendance records of the district simply have not, do not, and will not support a stadium of that capacity as necessary in the near future. Clearly, when more high schools are added to the calculation, another competitive field will be needed for scheduling. It will not need to be that big to handle the actual attendance patterns of this district's internal needs and its pre-district foes.

The debate on the football complex will produce an almost certain result. If a mega-complex of any kind is proposed, it will defeat the entire bond issue unless there is a referendum approach.

Most importantly, this raging debate on the football stadium is a distraction. The public will not vote for a big stadium in November or in many Novembers to come. The real issues in the bond issue will be overall fiscal accountability of proposed construction (or the lack therof), financial sanity and fiscal controls for project prioritization and advancement(or the lack thereof), the correlation of the delivery of secondary curriculum to construction of big box high schools, and the supposed benefits of technological bells and whistles in correlation to demonstrable improvement of student academic performance directly attributable to those investments.

The Houston Chronicle has proved itself incapable of addressing all but the low-hanging fruit issues.

Anonymous blogging aside, the central focus of the actual debate that will influence actual voters will not be played out on these blogging pages.

It will be elsewhere. I am looking forward to that. Despite Helen's earlier assurances that there is no controversy, there will be an abundance of controversy because the District and its lapdogs will not engage in actual debate. The District will not expose its officials or its board members or its superintendent to Lincoln-Douglas type debate where cross examination is possible unless the debate opponent is as carefully selected as its citizens' panel.

The District's communications will have the intellectual substance of a Hallmark card. It will be a combination of touchy-feely with the non-Hallmark additive of scare tactics.

Bring it on.

I found this on the internet while surfing.

http://www.khou.com/news/local/Weighing-in-on-Katys-no-locker-policy-988...

Basically, the principal at WMJH is saying no to lockers. The kids will be carrying their back packs the entire day. The article is dated today and Mr. Forney is out of town to comment.

Is there any one on this board whose kids attend this school

George,

How can the Board best bring fiscal sanity to the process?

We have huge high schools, but wouldn't smaller high schools lead to more M&O costs? It's probably better educationally to have smaller schools, but we won't we totally break the budget?

What about ensuring the construction is costing what the district says it is going to cost? The construction will definitely cost less than what is in the bond. Is this because of a conscientious effort to avoid cost overruns or is there too much padding? This bond committee could not have been expected to know all the right questions to ask. Does the Board know? What questions should they be asking? Is a 6% architect fee reasonable?

What can the Board and Administration do to assure the voters that bond "savings" will not be spent on pet projects?

More schools will equal more overhead. Some overhead is fixed. When you have a high school, you need a principal. Open up 2 schools instead of 1, and you need to pay 2 principals. That's double the cost.

Now, some overhead will be variable. Take assistant principals (APs), by contrast. If you opened up a 5A school, you will typically need 4 APs. But a 3A school may only require 2.

So there is some fixed overhead component that will expand, if you switch to smaller schools. And unlike construction costs, those fixed overhead costs go on forever, long after the bonds are finally paid off.

Now, you could cut costs in other ways, with 4A or 3A programs. Obviously, 3A schools will not offer the same spectrum of curricula as 4A or 5A schools. For example, are you likely to have a program in East Asian languages, in a 3A school? Not likely. You won't need to hire a teacher in Japanese or Mandarin. (Now, are the residents of this district willing to make those types of sacrifices, in order to cut cost?)

So here's the bottom line: will you get any substantial savings in M&O, if you were to switch to 4A or 3A schools? And is this really an option at this point? Can KISD add high schools fast enough, to cope with the influx of students?

Again, this district needs to add capacity for 8,000 to 9,000 additional high school students, over the next decade. If we build schools with 3,000 student capacity, we will need 3 new high schools. If we build to 4A size - 1800 students or less - then we will need 5 to 6 schools, minimum. So this later approach will effectively double your fixed overhead. Can we save enough on variable overhead, to cover that?

From a purely financial standpoint the best thing to do is NOTHING!

Well we need to fix what is broken but beyond that, call it a day.

When the word gets out that all new students will be taught out back in one of the newly remodeled "T" shacks and their lunch period will begin shortly after the morning buses pull out each day, the blazing herd coming to KISD might slow down.

We won't need a stadium and once again, peace will reign in the valley.

Why wasn't this an option? I am beginning to like the prospect quite a bit.

Maybe we don't have to blindly accept growth and can do things to discourage it?

I don't know. I still think they'll come. What your describing is still paradise, compared to other parts of the country.

You probably haven't been to other parts of nation lately - particularly the parts where the economic downturn has hit hardest. In those areas, the quality of life really sucks. And education is taking a beating, because many of the state governments are effectively broke, and have had to cut school funding. I'm presently working in Pennsylvania, so I am seeing this first-hand.

Again, I have good friend from college, who is a superintendant of schools, in a medium-sized district in Ohio. She tried to pass a referendum twice in the past year. This was to pay for O&M, not school construction. Both votes were turned down. My friend had to shut down one school this year, and will likely need to shut down more in the next few years, unless she can eventually convince the voters to pass a referendum. Many of the folks there with school-age kids are leaving because of hte situation - and she reports to me, that one of their favorite destinations is Texas.

So people will probably still want to come here, even if we don't build the schools. Why? Because even if the quality of life in our area turns bad, it will still be better than in the Rust Belt States, Florida, Nevada, California, etc. And even if the quality of education declines in this district, it will still be much better than what they can get, in many other places around the country.

So long as the job picture in Texas is better than in the rest of the country, people are going to come. Again, this state is adding up to a half million residents a year. Even if we take actions to stem that tide, it is not going to shut down completely.