Surrounded by students, Killeen ISD Superintendent King Davis praised the hard work of an entire community in boosting academic achievement this past year and urged the district to continue the arduous push to even greater success.
Now a year into his role as superintendent, the district’s top administrator addressed Friday an audience of district, community and military leaders, along with a large contingent of invited students.
The State of the District address took place a week after KISD dedicated its newly refurbished central administration building, which also included broad student participation.
After his official remarks, Davis looked to the rear doors of the boardroom as students young and old dressed in various school colors surrounded the perimeter of the space, making clear that it is the students driving the strategic decisions and the reason for celebration.
Ellison High School senior Sasha Lauderdale, a state award winning musical theater student, was emcee for the program.
Chaparral High School Junior ROTC cadets provided the color guard and Harker Heights High School senior Ariele Colona sang the National Anthem.
Fort Hood III Corps Commander Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral brought greetings from the Army, praising the district for its long, unwavering support for students living a mobile lifestyle. Board President Brett Williams introduced Davis following a district-prepared video history of KISD.
Using projected slides for the in-person and livestream audiences to follow along, the superintendent outlined academics, finances, programming and student opportunities.
Celebrating an overall five-point increase for KISD in the state accountability system, Davis spelled out specific results and named four administrators representing the significant growth.
Facing closure or takeover, middle schools performed 16 points higher than the year before in the latest round of testing. All the high schools maintained or improved their ratings, some at the highest A level and 10 elementary schools rose an entire letter grade.
“It’s easy when everything is going well,” said Davis, “when there’s controversy and your back is against the wall that’s what our middle school faced. They rose to the challenge.”
After showing the increases of 10 of 12 middle schools, Davis brought to the front former Manor Middle School Principal Tomas Sias, current Roy J. Smith Middle School Principal Bobbie Reeders and former Rancier Middle School Principal Janelle Muhammad.
He also recognized in the audience, Labecca Thompson, who came out of retirement first to teach and then to take on the principal role at Eastern Hills Middle School last year.
Those administrators, Davis said, were not afraid of the challenging, potentially unpopular work ahead and oversaw tremendous growth at their campuses.
KISD is one of 72 districts in Texas that improved by five or more points, putting it in the top six percent in growth.
“We still have so much work to do,” he said. “If we fail even one child we have to keep pushing and we will continue to push.”
Early childhood math and reading, continued accelerated middle school achievement and preparation for post-secondary success are among the district’s highest academic priorities moving forward, he said.
Moving to finances, the superintendent praised the district’s past and present board members in faithfully stewarding funding through a period of rapid growth, into the challenges of COVID and other demographic changes and loss of millions in federal Impact Aid funding.
KISD maintains the lowest tax rate in the area and the highest starting teacher salaries. It also earned the state’s highest financial accountability rating for the 24th year in a row. “The board has done well by this community keeping taxes low,” he said. The last bond election, in 2018, happened in the midst of trending growth.
Maintaining strong opportunities to propel students to post-secondary success is critical, he said, pointing to Early College High School, STEM Academy and other highly successful programs.
“Children do better when they are a part of something,” he said, sharing that staying eligible to play high school basketball kept him engaged as a student. He went on to point out a variety of top academic students and fine arts and athletic accolades of the past year.
Students from Killeen, Ellison, Chaparral and Harker Heights high schools, Union Grove and Roy J. Smith middle schools, the SPED 18+ program and Haynes and Cavazos elementary schools participated in the event.
Making his point as clear as possible, the students involved in the event proceeded back into the boardroom holding signs that spelled out the superintendent’s message – “We Are KISD.”
To end, the superintendent invited those in attendance to take the time to meet some of the students in the audience who participated in the program.
“This is what it’s all about. We have made progress and we know we have a lot more work to do. We also have to celebrate along the way,” he said.
“I’m so very proud of this school board, this staff, thank you so very much for choosing to do this most important work and most importantly for choosing to do it here.”
Photos: www.killeenisd.org/photos