Katy ISD reveals budget blind spot: education for undocumented immigrants

KATY, Texas (Covering Katy News) – In a surprising revelation at Monday’s school board meeting, the Katy School District admitted to a significant budget blind spot: the district does not know the cost of educating undocumented students.

During a budget discussion, Trustee Morgan Calhoun asked if the district was aware of the cost of educating undocumented students.

“I don’t know the answer,” Chief Financial Officer Chris Smith said.

The reason the district doesn’t know is that asking students about their immigration status is not allowed, according to Superintendent Ken Gregorski.

Calhoun asked the question after Smith said the district knows the costs of other student demographics, such as the number of free and reduced lunch students, dyslexia students, students with special needs, etc.

Calhoun told Covering Katy she wanted to know if there were numbers that would allow the district to estimate the cost of educating undocumented students so Katy ISD could ask lawmakers to reimburse some of those costs.

“Katy ISD is facing a nearly $8 million shortfall. I want to ensure that our school district has the resources needed to cover the cost of education for every student, regardless of immigration status,” Calhoun said. “To achieve this goal, we need to know the demographics of the student population to obtain appropriate funding from the state. At Monday’s meeting, I asked for a method to estimate those costs while complying with Texas law, which does not allow students to be surveyed. on immigration status.”

Governor Gregg Abbott raised similar concerns during a 2022 visit to Houston, but Abbott wanted the federal government to pay for the education of undocumented students. He said costs for school districts continue to rise as people from more and more countries cross the border illegally.

“The only language barrier initially was Spanish. Now we have people from over 105 different countries around the world,” he told the Texas Tribune. “Who has that level of expertise where we can find teachers who know all this multitude of different languages ​​so that we can educate children and think about how much that would cost?”

Two media reports in Houston have accused Calhoun of wanting the state to track down undocumented immigrants. Calhoun said these reports are incorrect.

“I proposed that we push our legislators to help fund some of the additional costs of educating undocumented children in our district,” Calhoun said.