Potential staff shake-ups in Killeen schools and federal support dollars were main talking points in a school board meeting Tuesday night.
The Killeen Independent School District Board of Trustees discussed school staffing levels for the next school year and federal Impact Aid funding at a board workshop meeting Tuesday at the Killeen ISD administration building.
Proposed district staff changes for the 2019-20 school year the school board will vote on in a future meeting include a reduction of 42 middle school teachers. Superintendent John Craft said this is due to the return to a seven-period day in middle school, down from eight periods.
Resulting “campus facilitators” of nearly 45 to coordinate special education services and Section 504 services for students will be added across the district, including about 28 at the elementary level.
Facilitators will help with scheduling Section 504 meetings, according to Craft, which currently ties up school principals for an average of an hour-and-a-half each meeting. The campus facilitators will be “specialized, focused staff,” the superintendent described.
“We believe this is going to be a tremendous move and advantage for our leadership to actually work instructional leadership,” Craft said. “It’s a great, tremendous support effort if you look at the special education population.”
KISD staff will not be terminated due to the projected changes, according to Chief Communication Officer Terry Abbott. Abbott said positions will close as employees leave KISD.
In other business Tuesday night, Craft and Board President Corbett Lawler discussed their prolonged effort to safeguard Impact Aid, which reportedly accounts for about one-seventh of KISD’s operating budget.
Congress provides Impact Aid funding to school districts impacted by the presence of additional students due to the federal activity, such as Fort Hood.
Killeen ISD has the largest federally connected impact in the country, according to district officials, and expects to receive more than $46.6 million in Impact Aid in fiscal year 2019.
Last week, Craft, Lawler, Deputy Superintendent Eric Penrod and Chief Financial Officer Megan Bradley held meetings in Washington with congressional offices to discuss ways to ensure the continuation of Impact Aid funding for KISD in future years.
Craft reported to the board Tuesday on those Impact Aid discussions, and was optimistic that lawmakers will work to continue providing aid in spite of a consistently shrinking population of federally connected students.
“If (KISD) is not heavily impacted, then no one else is,” Lawler said. “We are the definition of heavily impacted. We are the example. I think they’ve got us in mind, I think they’ll keep us in mind, I think they’ll come up with a solution.”
