News

KAPS in the News

Read about KAPS' emotional support kitten, Mistii, as published in the Wimberley View!

Thank you to everyone who came out to the Open House and Board Election on Thursday evening! We were excited to see more than 60 people who attended to take part in the festivities. This year will be the last year that only employees and parents/guardians of KAPS students will be allowed to vote in school board elections. Starting next year, enrolled students will also be able to participate in electing our school board members! As we welcome our new and returning board members, we give a heartfelt thank you to departing board member, Julie Gifford, who has served KAPS diligently and remains a passionate supporter of our school. We offer a sincere congratulations to our eight newly elected board members! Six of our newly elected board members are returning members: Melissa Ball, Jordan Elliott, Patrick Hall, Paul Michels, Jazzlynn Derrick, and Amy Majors. We are also welcoming two new board members: Sarah Fischer and Claudia Gasponi. The board looks forward to continuing it's work serving KAPS and we invite you all to attend and participate in our bi-monthly meetings, as well as our various topic focused board committees: governance, development, academic excellence, communications, and finance committees.

KAPS Board of Trustees Election is Thursday, September 29, 2022. Who Can Vote Trustees are elected by parents and legal guardians of enrolled KAPS students and employees of KAPS, and all are encouraged to participate in voting! How to Vote Votes can be cast in-person at the Open House at KAPS on 9/29 or remotely via a proxy voting form. Click here for the proxy form. Form must be turned in to the front desk or a signed pdf can be emailed to board@kapschool.org . Deadline for Voting Proxy votes must be received by 5:30 pm Thursday, 9/29/22.

The Katherine Anne Porter School will hold an election for 8 seats on the Board of Trustees at the KAPS Open House on Thursday, September 29, 2022, at 5:30 pm. Trustees are elected by parents and legal guardians of enrolled KAPS students and employees of KAPS, and all are encouraged to participate in voting on the next KAPS Board of Trustees! Candidates will be announced at the Board meeting on Monday, September 26th. Votes can be cast in-person at the Open House on 9/29 or remotely via a proxy voting form which will be made available after candidates are announced. All are encouraged to attend the Open House to hear candidates speak about why they wish to serve KAPS. The Board Governance Committee encourages members of the community to get involved in supporting KAPS by joining the Board of Trustees. Nominations for Trustees are now being accepted now until Monday, September 26th at 12:00 pm. Nominations can be made by the individual wishing to run for a seat on the Board by completing the nomination form at this link: https://forms.gle/kLbfNaab8sKDkpi96

The Board of Directors of the Katherine Anne Porter School on Monday, August 15, named Dr. Subhas Mathew the lone finalist to become Superintendent of the Wimberley charter school. After interviewing the top candidates, a quorum of the Board proposed and approved Dr. Mathew as the lone finalist at an August 15 public meeting. Under Texas law, a 21-day wait period follows the naming of a lone finalist, then a school superintendent can be appointed and begin employment. He will begin an interim superintendent role on August 29. Following Texas' required 21-day waiting period for superintendent appointments, Dr. Mathew will begin his employment officially as Katherine Anne Porter School Superintendent with a three-year contract, effective September 15, 2022. An innovative academic leader focused on student success, Dr. Mathew seeks to build “genuine relationships with students, parents and educators, and to provide teaching and learning through collaboration and teamwork. Developing systems, processes and procedures for student success is the goal,” he says “utilizing the skills and experience gained from more than two decades of multifaceted leadership responsibilities, capped with a deep commitment to the education of all children under my tutelage.” Dr. Mathew received his Ph.D. in Education Leadership from the University of North Texas. His career roles include Principal at Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy in Dallas, Texas, and Assistant Principal at Faith Family Academy in Oak Cliff, Texas. Dr. Mathew was the founding Principal at Newman International Academy in Cedar Hill, Texas.

Here is the legal opinion from our attorney on a board member serving in a volunteer capacity. In my legal opinion, this volunteer board member is a person with "a legitimate educational interest" under FERPA, permitting the board member to access personally identifiable information in education records. For the applicable regulation, see here: https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/node/548/#0.1_se34.1.99_131 In the present situation, Ms. Bravo is not serving in the same capacity as a typical school volunteer who has no other connection to or meaningful responsibility for the School. Here, Ms. Bravo’s role is that of a KAPS board member meaning that, at minimum, (a) under state law she has the fiduciary obligations of duty, care, and loyalty to KAPS that typically volunteers do not have, and (b) she is "a school official" under FERPA. The U.S. Department of Education advises that, generally, a school official “has a legitimate education interest if the official needs to review an education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibility.” It stands to reason that Ms. Bravo will need access to personally identifiable information in student records in order to fulfill her responsibilities as the volunteer Interim Business Operations Manager.

Presented by KAPS Board President, Cynthia Millonzi I wanted to take this opportunity, before we get into the Board meeting, to address our community since the format for board meeting and open forum do not allow for two-way interaction between all of us. As many of you are aware this past week, we had several Special Board meetings once we knew that our Superintendent Select had withdrawn from our selection process. I hope to address some of your questions with this statement. Since the board meeting at the end of January 2022 the Katherine Anne Porter School (KAPS) has definitely been in a position that has required significant effort to keep KAPS a viable and necessary educational option for our community. With that, the Board of Directors has had to dig deep into Finances, Operations, Administration, and Enrollment to assess, revise, and re-vision KAPS. Rest assured the Board has put in extensive hours assessing all aspects of operations of KAPS. The subjects I will address are Superintendent, enrollment, staffing, and social media. Let’s start with the Superintendent. As many of you are aware the Superintendent that was employed when this current board assumed responsibility resigned. The board then started the hiring process for a new Superintendent which included interviewing and selecting an Interim Superintendent. The board received many applicants for the Superintendent position and a selection committee conducted a series of interviews with those applicants to narrow the candidate field to 3. There was a final round of interviews, during which the board selected, by majority vote, to move Nadine Pabst from Interim Superintendent to Superintendent, effective August 1, 2022. We announced our selectee for Superintendent as required by law, which entailed a 21-day notice to allow for public comment prior to the Superintendency becoming effective. As you may be aware, teachers and Superintendents may apply for several positions during their job search and that was no different for our Superintendent Select. We know we had a viable candidate because she received multiple job offers and one, in particular, that was worth her further consideration. Even though we did our best to keep our Superintendent Select, she eventually made the personal decision to accept the other position. What does that mean for KAPS and the Board? We start the process again, which is exactly what we are doing and have been doing for the last two weeks. We had many good candidates during our previous selection process, and we have reached out to those candidates, and we have posted the position vacancy to our website. In fact, we were conducting interviews prior to this statement. Rest assured the board is taking all actions to fill this vacancy. In the meantime, you have a dedicated Board taking the required actions as the trustees of the Katherine Anne Porter School to continue to move forward despite any perceived setbacks. The Board has been asked if the Superintendent had the full support of the Board and the answer is Yes. Although our individual votes may have varied, the majority vote determines the direction and support o f the entire Board, and we will continue to fully support any duly selected Superintendent. On to Enrollment. Increasing enrollment is still our number one challenge. KAPS is a public charter school, and our primary funding is based on enrollment. Last year our numbers were down to the 60’s. That is not a number that can sustain the operations of the school. We need to have enrollment at double that. 120-150 is our goal for a healthy and financially stable school. If we don’t reach that goal, the viability for KAPS is limited. Right now, our projected enrollment is 81 for the start of school on Aug 17. We are actively recruiting, we have banners strategically located in the surrounding areas, we attend events and have our promotional materials in various locations, we have done a mail campaign, we are on social media, and we are hosting several open houses and we have one scheduled for tomorrow from 9-3 where prospective students and parents can come to tour our facility. In fact, this year we have opened enrollment to 8 th grade, and that has helped with our numbers. Enrollment is a challenge, and we continue to refine our strategies for outreach. You ask, “have all the changes impacted enrollment?” and the answer is Yes. There is no way to sugarcoat this. Covid, administrative and staff changes, board decisions, financial concerns, etc. all have played a role and there is no magic fix to everything at once …but that doesn’t mean we don’t try, and it doesn’t mean we will all agree. It means there is always work to do, and I assure you this board is doing the work, even when it is hard and even in the face of scrutiny. Regarding Staffing. Yes, staffing levels have decreased. Why? Numbers, plain and simple. Staffing is directly correlated to enrollment, enrollment to funding, and funding to staffing. It’s not because teachers aren’t loved or that we don’t care because, believe me, we do. It’s not easy cutting a program, class, or teacher but sometimes it is necessary. In addition, in light of uncertainty about the factors addressed above, some beloved teachers have made a personal choice to leave KAPS. Our goal as a board is to rebuild, provide a solid foundation for growth, and bring students and teachers to KAPS. Finally, Social Media. Social Media, specifically Facebook, is a wonderful way to connect and share. It also a place for misinformation and attempts to disparage or hurt others. KAPS and members of the Board will not use social media in a negative way, nor will they respond to negative attacks or attempts to undermine the sometimes-difficult work or decisions of the Board. In Closing. Although we can not address your questions in this format, we encourage you to email board@kapschool.org to send us your comments, compliments, and concerns. We have posted a section at the bottom of the homepage of the KAPS website with a question/answer section to the board. You will find that under the “contact us” section. We may not reply individually, but we can address questions/concerns in a format similar to this public statement. The members of the KAPS Board of Directors thank you for your continued support as we continue to work to keep KAPS an educational option for our community. While we can not guarantee any outcome for KAPS, what we can do is assure you that our board is made up of people who believe that KAPS is needed in our community, who care deeply about the future of KAPS, who work tirelessly and wholeheartedly to do what is best for students, and whose own lives have been monumentally impacted by KAPS.