KATY [April 2, 2018] – The Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved to name its newest elementary school after retired educator Amy Campbell who has dedicated 33 years of her education career to the students at Katy ISD.
“It is such an honor to serve the greater Katy community. I love living in Katy, I loved being a teacher and I am so excited to see what the future holds for all the children that will pass through Campbell Elementary. It is a truly humbling experience and I am delighted to be part of the Katy Legacy,” says Amy Campbell, new Katy ISD namesake. After the decision was announced, Campbell received a standing ovation by the audience in attendance. She is a native of the Texas Panhandle who grew up in the Memorial-Houston area and attended grade school, middle school and high school in Spring Branch ISD, graduating from Westchester High School. Katy ISD welcomed this educator in the fall of 1982 as a Katy High School adaptive behavior teacher, but her classroom was in the original Odessa Kilpatrick School. In 1987, Campbell piloted the LIFE skills (Living in Functional Environments) program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. At the same time, she and a fellow teacher began the Occupational Lab, a place where students completed jobs for local businesses.
Eventually, they persuaded the school district into letting them get their bus driver’s licenses so they could take their students into the community and teach them job related skills in real life, hands-on situations by partnering with local businesses. Today this program exists in every Katy ISD high school and is called the Work Based Learning Program. While at Katy High School, she also helped start a swim program for students with special needs that later became known as the Adaptive Aquatics Program.
In 1995, Campbell moved to Taylor High School to bring the Life Skills and Work-Based Learning programs to that campus. While there, she and a fellow teacher founded the second Texas high school chapter of Best Buddies, a global program dedicated to creating one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with IDD (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities). Today there are over 60 high school chapters in Texas. She remained a sponsor of the program until her retirement in 2015.
Katy ISD is honored to display the name of a living legacy on this new elementary school, which will serve the Cross Creek Ranch and Churchill Farms subdivisions.