The Katy ISD Board of Trustees will take action on several agenda items at the April 23 meeting, including purchasing a new social media threat monitoring service and approving contracts for districtwide upgrades. Here are all the items trustees will take action on at the next meeting:

Social media threats
Trustees spent the most time at the April 16 work study meeting discussing a new social media threat monitoring service that would help identify students that exhibit potential life-threatening situations and other online threats. The service, called Social Sentinel, would cost the district a little over $80,000 with a contract for a period of three years.

Social Sentinel monitors 12 different social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube and uses a library of behavioral threat indicators to match any potential threat to a specific geographic region through geo-location and keyword association, according to district officials.

Representatives from the Katy ISD technology department said the service could ultimately help identify a potential active shooter, a student who is struggling with self-harm issues and other life-threatening situations.

"When a possible active shooter or self-harm post is identified, an alert is sent to predefined users in the district via text and email," representatives from the KISD technology department said at the April 16 meeting. "In addition, a daily report is emailed of all identified threats to a predefined set of users in the district."

Social Sentinel monitors only social media profiles that are available to the public-no private profiles can be accessed or monitored. No Katy ISD data-students, staff or otherwise-is shared with Social Sentinel.

"The only purpose of the service is to alert the district to a possible act of the violence to oneself or to others," representatives said.

KISD Superintendent Lance Hindt said he thinks the service aligns with the district's strategic plan and would help the district address any future situations proactively, instead of reactively.

"Also, when it locates a possible threat to oneself or to somebody else, it can geographically narrow it down within Katy ISD so we can identify maybe a junior high, a high school or elementary school," Hindt said.

Several of the board members expressed concern over the service. Trustee Charles Griffin said he hopes to see metrics on how the service would evaluate the social media sites before trustees commit to a three-year contract.

"I'd like the board at some point to be able to see before we are into the program, what are the standards that we are going to look at," Griffin said.

Districtwide upgrades
Trustees will also consider approving multiple contracts that include districtwide upgrades.

One item includes a $798,000 contract for maintenance and operations center parking improvements, while another item includes a $2.9 million contract for districtwide lighting upgrades.

A third contract trustees may take action on includes $2.3 million for a portable building package that would allow for 32 portable buildings to be relocated across nine campuses.

The Katy ISD Board of Trustees will take action on all of these items at the April 23 meeting, 6:30 p.m. at the Education Support Complex in downtown Katy.