Katy ISD superintendent: ‘If we don’t have our plans in place by July 1, we might be behind’

Katy ISD has not announced definitive plans for the 2020-21 school year, and Superintendent Ken Gregorski provided some insight as to why in a May 29 virtual conversation with Fort Bend County Judge KP George.

“We’re trying to plan for things—we think how we’d have to clean a place or whatever—but then the guidelines are always changing.” Gregorski said. “The frustration point comes in [when] we start making plans [but then new information is published]. For example, today, ... the [World Health Organization] came out with new guidelines on whether to wear masks, but the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] says something different.”

However, the district does need to put a plan into place soon for how it will education students in the fall, Gregorski said. He and his administration will be working on how to operate and provide instruction over the summer.

“We’ve got June and July, and then in August we’ve got to have it in place,” Gregorski said. “If we don’t have our plans in place by July 1, we might be behind the eight ball, especially if it's things we have to do.”

He said there are the three options for how K-12 schooling could like in the fall at KISD: in-person instruction, online instruction, or a hybrid of in-person and online instruction.

Gregorski stressed KISD’s goal is to offer in-person instruction because that is the best way to educate students, but the district is dependent on guidance from the state and other entities, such as the CDC.

For example, taking the temperature of every single student at a campus will take about two hours of instruction time, he said. Under social distancing protocols, school buses would only be able to transport about 18 students, and the district does not have enough routes and drivers to accommodate that limitation.

“If you think it's easy to make a decision and put kids back in instruction, all [the] while following guidelines, it's not so easy,” he said. “Some things are easy. Some things are much more complex.”