81st Texas Legislative Session   

In 2008, Katy ISD submitted to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), resolutions for the TASB Delegate Assembly to support or oppose during the 81st Texas Legislative Session. Katy ISD believes that the issues addressed in these resolutions have a direct impact on students, teachers and parents in our community.

1. Give control of the school calendar back to local districts. (Preferably rescind 25.0811, or at a minimum, reinstitute the waiver process.)
   
2. Increase the funding formula compensating school districts for providing pupil transportation commensurate with costs to also include transporting students to magnet schools.
   
3. Reduce field testing and increased balance in the state testing calendar to reduce lost instructional time for students and staff.
   
4. Fund the actual cost of any required programs and services imposed by current laws, rules, and regulations and opposes the imposition of any new unfunded or under-funded mandates.
   
5. Support planning and preparation periods to be used for individual or team planning.
   
6. Ammend the physical fitness assessment requirement to exclude high school students who are not currently enrolled in physical education or a sport.
   
7. Provide funding to employ teachers at least one extra day for mandated training above and beyond training to improve student achievement.
   
8. Include student absences for making college visits and participating in Olympic-caliber events as exceptions for which ADA funding is provided.
   
9. Include in current statute a way to classify graffiti defined as a state jail felony to be based on a monetary value, a size restriction, or on the content of the writing.
   
10. Revise the disciplinary options for students who have committed and/or have been convicted of serious Title V felonies.
    
11. Eliminate the five percent per year goal to reduce districts' energy consumption or adding a waiver for districts who have documentation of efforts implemented prior this statute.
    
12. Provide districts flexibility when it is not possible to use school buses and there are not contracted buses with seat belts available.
    
13. Revise the statute to encourage, rather than require, students to wear seat belts on buses or adding language that districts are not liable if students refuse to comply.
    
14. Reduce the paperwork imposed on school districts, by TEA, in regard to testing accommodations for students with disabilities.
    
15. Establish the first Friday of September as the PEIMS snapshot date for school accountability purposes.
    
16. Make letters of reference submitted during the application process confidential and not subject to disclosure, even by the person about whom written.
    
17. Make the observance of special recognition dates optional rather than mandatory.