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Katy, TX: "Rise in special education population still holds bulk of staffing demand"

April 3, 2025, Community Impact: Katy ISD to hire fewer staff in 2025-26 school year 

As the Katy ISD board of trustees adopt the district’s 2025-26 staffing plan, officials are looking to the 89th Texas Legislature to gain funding for special education support staff.


While the district is experiencing slower enrollment growth than years prior,

concentrated growth in the northwest quadrant and a rise in the special education population still holds the bulk of the staffing demand at KISD, officials said at the March 31 board meeting.


The gist


KISD trustees approved a plan to hire 262 additional staff members for the 2025-26 school year during the meeting.


The request is slightly less from last year’s ask for 306.5 additional staff members due to what Chief Human Resources Officer Brian Schuss called a “low-growth year.” Although he assured trustees staffing standards haven’t changed for KISD despite budget constraints.


“It's a low-growth year, not really a time to be adjusting standards as well as we all understand where we are with budget constraints and school finance currently,” Schuss said at the March 24 meeting.


Schuss said officials have determined the following staffing demands to accommodate about 524 more students next year:


203 campus staff including teachers, administrators and paraprofessionals


59 support staff, including food service, custodial, educational support, diagnosticians and speech language pathologists


District growth


KISD’s student enrollment has grown by over 14,870 students, or 18.6%, in the past five school years—more than any other school district in the Houston area over that time period, demographers said at the November board meeting.


However, officials said the growth wasn't district wide but mostly in the northwest and southwest portions of the district.


Schuss said the district has experienced slower enrollment growth since the 2024-25 school year.


Demographers predict an increase of about 524 students next year, versus a 1,852 enrollment rise between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. Meanwhile, district officials are attempting to balance the demand for the growing special education

population while being mindful of budgetary constraints, Schuss said. Just over 18.5% of students are receiving special education services in the 2024-25 school year, a growing number mirroring a trend from neighboring districts.


Certified teachers and paraprofessionals servicing special education students account for almost 50% of the additional elementary and secondary staff requested for 2025-26, Schuss said.


Additionally, the district will hire less than the estimated 274 positions needed to staff Boundy Elementary School, Cross


Elementary School and Freeman High School in the 2025-26 school year, Schuss said.

“We're requesting less than what it's taking to staff those campuses, which shows that in large part, those campuses are being staffed with existing staff members in the district,” Schuss said.


Boundy and Cross elementaries are set to open this August. Both schools were projects under the November 2023 bond’s Proposition A, which approved the use of $296.84 million to alleviate the capacity challenges on existing campuses on the northwest quadrant of the district.



 
 
 

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