Citizen Portal
Sign In

Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!

Katy ISD to submit bilingual exception and ESL waiver covering 22,591 emergent bilingual students; 109 teachers on waiver

Board of Trustees, Katy Independent School District · October 20, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Katy ISD will submit a bilingual exception and ESL waiver for 2025–26 after the district reported serving 22,591 emergent bilingual students and identified 109 teachers who lack ESL certification.

Rosie Pratt, Katy ISD director of ESL and bilingual programs, told the board the district is serving 22,591 emergent bilingual (EB) students as of Oct. 1, 2025, and recommended the superintendent be authorized to submit a bilingual exception and an ESL waiver to the Texas Education Agency for the 2025–26 school year.

Pratt said the district already operates a Spanish bilingual program but that 18 additional languages meet TEA’s threshold of 20 or more EB students in a grade/language cohort; those languages include Arabic, Cantonese, Farsi, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Igbo, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Tamil, Telugu, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese and Yoruba.

Because…

Already have an account? Log in

Subscribe to keep reading

Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.

  • Unlimited articles
  • AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
  • Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
  • Follow topics and more locations
  • 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
30-day money-back on paid plans