The new superintendent's contract may not be negotiated until twenty-one days after his being named as the lone finalist.

The current superintendent, Alton Frailey, has a contract that may be viewed on the KISD website.  Go here to read all 19 pages:   http://www.katyisd.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Contract.pdf

No one in their right mind accepts a job/position/et cetera without first viewing the contract for that position, so one can surmise that Dr. Hindt probably knows pretty much what will be in his contract. The law that puts the cart before the horse needs addressing. Dr. Hindt is just following the existing protocol.

Since I, as a Board member in 1995, had the nerve, when former KISD superintendent Leonard Merrell was hired, to draw up a contract and have a working copy on the table in front of every board member before Kelly Frels [the KISD attorney at the time] could put his out there, school boards all over Texas have set up protocols for this procedure so that individual board members cannot upstage them.  Can't blame the TASB and their cohorts for this action, but strong school boards should be writing their own contracts for their superintendent.  Otherwise, the contract obviously favors the wants of the employee instead of the employers. Think about it.  Do you know anyone who gets to write his own contract when he accepts a new position?  Do you know anyone who would even have the nerve to ask to do that?  Do you know anyone who even if he belongs to a labor union which holds his hand through the process, gets to have a contract that is totally favorable to the employee? Do you know anyone who gets a contract that does not have some specific requirements regarding the work to be done and which has built-in penalties of some sort when work is not accomplished?

Since the ONE PERSON the school board controls in a school district is the superintendent, the Board should be setting the standards under which he/she operates, otherwise they are handing their ONE EMPLOYEE an agreement on a silver platter that is worthless for extracting desired results.

But just try to get any of this concept across to any school board member.  The argument is lost on all of them.

Looking at the existing Katy ISD contract, please consider some of these points:

The superintendent receives and gets a five year self perpetuating contract.  He has the opportunity to consent and accept any changes to it or not.

The superintendent "agrees to perform the duties of the Superintendent of Schools for the District [and these duties are in the policy manual and change all the time] with reasonable care, diligence, skill, and expertise and in a thorough, prompt, and efficient manner.  The Superintendent agrees to devote his time, skill, labor, and attention to performing his duties."

Anyone care to define "care, diligence, skill, expertise, prompt, efficient"?  How about determining how anyone  could make sure that he/she "devoted his time, skill, labor and attention to performing his duties"?

We currently have a superintendent that came to us without a superintendent's certificate, without a doctorate, with little or no experience in a school district like Katy (and he spent 9 years trying to make it more like an inner city Cincinnati school district than a suburban upper middle class/middle class school district). He did not even have a permanent superintendent's certificate and evidently couldn't pass the test to get one for an entire year after he got here because that's how long it took him to finally get the certificate!  He had passed a bond referendum, and he had built a rather small stadium.  Those were his qualifications.

As for the agreement to devoting his time, skill, labor, and attention to performing his duties, It is my opinion that he spent way more time getting himself elected to every administrative board on the planet and charging us for leg room on way too many plane rides to go to their meetings.  Those activities did absolutely NOTHING for KISD students and/or their teachers.

The current contract has a "nepotism" clause," and I hope that will remain.  The superintendent's spouse does not need to work in the Katy school district.  That causes problems for all kinds of people including the spouse. Reciprocity agreements exist with other nearby school districts.  Hugh Hayes' wife and Leonard Merrell's wife both worked in the Cy Fair ISD.

The Superintendent is supposed to attend all Board Meetings.  The absence of Mr. Frailey when George Scott was sworn in, was inexcusable.  He should have been there.  He obviously was upset by the results of the election. If he were on vacation, he should have come back for the meeting or not gone in the first place.

There is a clause about the Superintendent not engaging in any consulting activities for a fee, or in any outside employment without the prior consent of the Board.  Hopefully, the Board will not ever give consent for such activities.  To do so lets the superintendent neglect all his other duties.  He doesn't need to be making money on the side. This clause is the result of my catching Michael Keller, the KISD Board president and Hugh Hayes, the superintendent at the time, running a consulting business on the side.  They went to a Board meeting in El Paso ISD to tell them "how to reorganize their administration," and my sister happened to be there!  I made an issue of it because I was trying to get elected to the school board, and I didn't think it was right for them to do that. Besides, the administrative organization of KISD wasn't so great at the time either, and I thought both of them would have spent their time better fixing things in KISD!

Another clause that is important is that during the term of his employment, the superintendent "will reside within the boundaries of the District."  That's in there because Leonard Merrell moved into the Waller ISD long before he retired and was thus initiating taxes on the rest of us that he didn't have to pay.  Taxes were less in Waller ISD than they were in Katy ISD. I am the one who brought public attention to the matter as well.

The Superintendent's contract salary amount that is on the KISD website has not been updated.  I suppose the Board/Administration does not want the public to know that Alton Frailey no longer makes $288,400.00.  He makes $322,171.00.  That's just a $33,771 difference--chump change to these folks. The Board has amended the contract so that it does not state the exact salary of the superintendent except at the beginning of the contract. He now gets automatic increases every year whether the Board votes for them or not. I was under the impression that legally the superintendent had to meet stated goals before a salary increase was allowed.

The salary and the changing of the date of its expiration into perpetuity usually occurs in June or July every year when the public is on vacation and does not notice what the Board is doing.

I am concerned about the statements in the Superintendent's contract that allow for the use by the Superintendent of a computer and a "communication device" (i.e., a cellular phone) for "both business and personal use."  We've all seen the Hillary fiasco with her cellular phones that were used interchangeably and what that has wrought. 

Also, it would seem to me that if his/her phone is used for both, then personal messages and emails and documents and so on should perhaps be subject of Open Records laws.  How would they separate them out?  Let the superintendent just purchase his own cellular phone for his personal use.  Surely with a salary of $322,171.00, he can afford one.

The insurance coverage of the Superintendent should remain the same--he/she gets whatever other KISD employees get.

I am not sure I think the taxpayers should be funding an "annuity benefit," and that is a perk that probably should go away.  After all the superintendent gets fully funded teacher retirement when he retires.  

The superintendent is supposed to work 238 days a year. But he gets off all the other legal holidays and school holidays, so it appears that he works less than 238 days a year. The contract should be clearer about exactly how many days the superintendent works.

The superintendent must undergo a physical examination performed by a licensed physician.  The contract also states that the exam has to be done in the Houston metropolitan area.  Those stipulations exist because I complained about Leonard Merrell going all the way to Dallas for an exam, and the taxpayer's got stuck with a huge transportation cost and a questionable report in my opinion.  Only the Board president gets to see the report, and I believe all Board members should see the report. No sense hiding anything that is paid for by the taxpayers. However, the contract has been amended in the last few years to eliminate parts of this provision, and that is a mistake.  The taxpayers do not need to pay for a superintendent to get a physical examination anywhere but in the Houston area.

The contract suggests that the superintendent be encouraged to engage in activities that lead to professional growth.  That's a bunch of hooey because none of the organizations that the superintendent joins do one thing to enhance the education of students or advance the stature of the school district.  And what is "professional growth" anyway! These are just some more perks that need to be discontinued.  The Board used to authorize dues be paid for membership in TASA and the AASA, and paid for him and his spouse to go to the TASB and NSBA conventions, and that was it. All the other extraneous organizations that the superintendent can find are just boondoggle vacations with all-expense-paid trips to nice places for him/her and sometimes the spouse at taxpayer expense.

These are the organizations that the superintendent currently belongs to, attends meetings at, and charges the taxpayers for (and which are listed in his contract):  The Rotary Club, the Katy Area Economic Development Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Region 4 Education Service Center, the Harris County Department of Education, the Texas School Alliance, the Texas Fast Growth Schools Coalition, the Texas Education Agency Mid-Winter Conference for Superintendents (where they play golf), the Texas Association of School Boards, the National School Boards Association, the Texas Association of School Administrators, the American Association of School Administrators, the Urban Superintendents Association of America, the Texas Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, the American Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, and he has belonged to others that are not listed in the contract nor are they required to be.  The contract does not limit the number of organizations for which the District will pay dues and all-expense paid trips.  The contract then has the audacity to stipulate that "attendance at these meetings shall not interfere with the required duties of the Superintendent within the District"! 

The item regarding "a personal protection benefit" allows the superintendent to have his own personal protection (read KISD police officer) if he or his family is threatened or otherwise appears in danger due to his performance of his professional duties..."  He/she first has to initially seek protection from a law enforcement agency.  This is a pretty iffy concept.  There should be more documentation of a need for this service and for how long if it is requested as just about anyone would like to have their own police officer hanging about.

The section of the contract that deals with "employment performance" has been a joke up to this point in time.  There have even been violations of Board Policy by the Board when they really have not bothered to develop quantifiable goals for the superintendent.

The Board approved goals should be a yearly creation, and they should change to reflect the circumstances of the times in which they are written. In other words they should not be the same every year. They should be goals that are clearly understood.  They should be understandable by anyone and clearly written, and they should be widely distributed in the public sector so the public knows what the superintendent is supposed to be doing. Clearly, something needs to be stated about the Superintendent following the law with regard to the use of Common Core materials.  The current Superintendent, in my opinion, is not following the law in this regard.  The State Legislature said that it was illegal to use Common Core materials. 

The Superintendent's excuse has been that Common Core aligns with the TEKS.  I do not believe that is true.  The TEKS have been changed to Type#1 teaching (for those of you in Rio Linda, that's teaching reading using phonics, teaching the math times tables by rote, and teaching everything else the old fashioned way.) The Superintendent has refused to align the KISD curriculum with the new TEKS and so the STAAR Test is testing things that students have not been taught. It's not the STAAR Test that is at fault, it is the Superintendent's fault that the schools are not teaching things the proper way. 

If the Board cannot think of any goals as we have evidenced recently, then perhaps there is no need to have a superintendent because if he's not required to do anything, who needs him?

The Board should be absolutely definitive about contract requirements from the onset of the new contract as there are what-ifs and wherefores and fail safe clauses that do not allow for much in the way of change after the contract is signed.

The Board does not have to extend a five year perpetual contract that gets re-upped every year.  When Mr. Frailey arrived he said he only wanted a two year contract. The Board should have granted his wish. He nor any other superintendent needs a five year perpetual contract. Sometimes superintendents just turn out to be the wrong one for the District, and when someone needs to leave, their having a five year into perpetuity contract just makes the situation worse than it needs to be.

KISD has had to buy out two superintendents during the years that I have lived here.  When the Board said no more of that, the next time a superintendent needed to leave, it took almost a year to get him to move on. That situation does not need to happen. Also the State has now imposed sanctions on school districts that buy out contracts.

The best way to move along a superintendent that is no longer wanted is to not renew the contract and stop giving raises.  No superintendent can get another job if that happens, so they leave of their own accord as soon as they realize the situation. The current contract has now been set up to keep that situation from happening.  Not smart.

 Foresight is key to drawing up a contract, and the Board should have an attorney that represents the interests of the school district, not that of superintendents in general.

The nineteen items that constitute reasons for dismissal for good cause need to be maintained.  (It would also be nice if anyone looked at the items and pointed out their relevance from time to time.)

The Board needs to remember to provide new Board members with a copy of the superintendent's contract as soon as they are elected.  That's not always been done.

The Board has amended the original Superintendent's contract to say that the superintendent's salary will be increased each year by an amount equal to the average percentage increase given to the District's full time regular classroom teachers in the annual budget, so long as his performance is "at least satisfactory" without further action by the Board. The Board passed this amendment in order to provide a raise without having to vote on it in public, and they circumvent new board members who might not think the superintendent is deserving of a raise.  This amendment needs to be eliminated in the spirit of transparency.

The development of a new contract should be undertaken by the entire existing Board and THEN presented to the new superintendent.  IF they've already led him on about what will be in it, that's a problem of their own making.