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- Morgan Calhoun
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- Erica Brettell
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- Ciciley Taylor
By: Tom Behrens
Reports and Interviews from across the Katy area provide key information on candidates running for Katy ISD school trustee positions.
Morgan Calhoun
Morgan Calhoun has lived in the district for 12 years and is a stay-at-home-mom.
Erica Brettell
Erica Brettell has lived in the district for 8 years and is a stay-at-home mom.
Cicely Taylor
Cicely Taylor has lived in the district for 18 years and is an education administrator.
Each candidate responded to four questions.
Question 1: What will be your top two priorities if elected to the Katy ISD board of trustees?
Morgan Calhoun:
Calhoun responded that she wants to drive a policy that moves Katy ISD back to the basics of education, ensure high academic success for all students, district wide. She wants to remove obstacles in the way teachers deliver the highest quality curriculum to Katy students while ensuring that they are being adequately compensated for the incredible job they have undertaken.
Erica Brettell:
Brettell wants to ensure that every single student in Katy ISD schools have the tools and resources to excel. From classroom instruction to extracurricular activities and non-traditional technical education. Students, along with their parents need support for whichever path they choose. Additionally, continuing Katy’s tradition of academic excellence requires taking care of our teachers and support staff. In addition to better compensation, we need to find ways to lighten and streamline their workload.
Cicely Taylor
If elected to the Katy ISD Board of Trustees, Taylor’s first priority would be centered on the student experience, including academic performance- especially in early literacy and math across all grade levels, and expanding college, career, and military readiness opportunities.
Her second priority would be focused on teacher retention and recruitment, including professional development support for new-to-the-classroom teachers, incentivizing our most accomplished teachers to stay in the classroom, and finding pathways toward increased pay and innovative recruiting pipelines.
Question 2: Why do you want to be on the school board?
Morgan Calhoun
Calhoun has felt a strong calling to step up and take action in an area that needed a leader to do so. She no longer wants to sit on the sidelines, watching things unfold with no ability to impact needed change.
One of her platform ideals is to “hold the line”, a line that is unbreakable for what the Katy community has held to be important and valuable with our children and their education at center of that without compromise.
Erica Brettell:
As a young working mom, Brettell made a promise to her kids that one day she would be a more involved parent. When that opportunity came, she wasted no time and jumped into every available opportunity to help on campus. The more involved her children became, the more involved Brettell became. From that experience, she learned that parents and the district should be working in partnership to make sure our kids’ needs, both academic and developmental, are met. Serving on the School Board is the next step in a years-long commitment towards building that dynamic.
Cicely Taylor
Taylor claims the city of Katy as her community; her children grew up in and thrived in Katy ISD schools. Her children had Katy ISD teachers, counselors, and coaches who truly supported and cared about them. She wants this experience to be the same for ALL students. An excellent education profoundly impacted her life choices as a professional, civic-minded person and parent. She wants to work for the children and families of Katy so they can say the same.
“There are many local and national distractions that take away from the true mission of public schools. We need strong leaders to ensure our Katy ISD schools are spaces where all students have the joyful and rigorous, educational experiences they need to achieve their full potential. I am that leader.”
Question 3: What experiences or life events have prepared you to be a school board member?
Morgan Calhoun
Calhoun shared she was a military wife for many years while raising a child in the middle of deployments and uncertain circumstances. That period in her life brought about grit and the ability to withstand ever-changing circumstances, knowing how to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.
As a mother who has been raising children for almost 11 years, she said she is entrenched in what they are constantly bombarded with. She served her church community for several years, leading her church body to reach out to sex trafficking victims and serve in an area that most would shy away from. It helped mold and train the ability to listen to those who have a different story than she did, see it from a different perspective.
All of these things have been invaluable to her as a woman, mom, and community member because they helped shape her to be a leader. She didn’t always understand at the time what her life circumstances were building in her. She is willing to stand for the service of our children and community.
Erica Brettell
Brettell said she has a combination of experience and perspective that would add value to the Board and district. She currently has four children in Katy ISD, which serves to keep her invested and informed about what happens in our schools. She has been active at both of her children’s campuses, Winborn Elementary and Haskett Junior High, as well as a variety of district committees and initiatives, including a bond committee, naming committee, Leadership Katy, and curriculum reviews. This involvement has produced a granular understanding of our school district and how it operates.
Additionally, she has a background in governance and business, having spent ten years working for a conservative member of the U.S. Senate in healthcare and education policy while getting her M.B.A.
For the last seven years, she helped develop and launch the Lindsay’s Light Dating Violence Prevention Program in honor of her sister, speaking with over 6,000 students, parents, and educators about avoiding abusive relationships. Working in this capacity has given her insight into how to leverage community resources and some of the non-academic needs of Katy students.
Cicely Taylor
Cicely Taylor is a Katy resident of 17 plus years, a mother of 2 Katy ISD graduates, and a lifelong educator – first as a classroom teacher and now as an administrator. Katy is her community, and she wants to be a part of moving the Katy ISD School District from good to great.
She states that her professional and personal experiences have prepared her to be a school board member. My unique experiences and point of view as a parent, teacher, and education systems level leader will bring a perspective that the school board needs.
She shared knowing how it feels as a parent to have a child struggling academically. As a former teacher, she knows the challenges of balancing instruction, curriculum changes, statewide testing, and student behaviors.
As a systems-level educational leader, she said that she knows how to ask difficult questions regarding resource decisions and policies that impact students, staff, and families while balancing guardrails set by the state and ensuring the voice of the community, teachers, and students are involved in decision-making.
Question 4: Is there anything else you’d like the voters to know about you?
Morgan Calhoun
“I want voters to know that I hear you and your voice. I have echoed the things that you have said many times. Right now, in an ever-changing world that seems like it becomes more unstable with each passing event, we need leaders to be able to step up. I want to be the person that you allow to do just that. I have seen the way our community has grown and changed over the last twenty years, and I want to be able to hold fast to the values that are attracting people to flock to us.
“I am looking forward to the opportunities and challenges that face the board of trustees because I have no doubt that we are capable of being a shining light in world of darkness.”
Erica Brettell
“I am a sixth-generation Katy resident and a third-generation product of Katy ISD, which provides a great understanding of and commitment to the history, tradition, and mindset that makes our schools great.”
Cicely Taylor
“Katy ISD should be the choice for all students in our community. Some great things are happening in our schools; however, there are opportunities to be even greater. It would be the most incredible honor for me if I were chosen to serve the community of Katy as a member of the Board of Trustees. Last year I witnessed my son finish his final year as a collegiate football player and receive his MBA. This year on election day, I will attend my daughter’s college graduation, who is also a collegiate athlete. I truly believe part of their success in school and life directly resulted from their Katy ISD experience.”
Election day is Saturday, May 6, 2023. Early voting begins April 24 and runs through May 2. Early voting locations include Leonard Merrell Center, 6301 S. Stadium Lane, Katy; Cinco Ranch High School, 23440 Cinco Ranch Blvd., Katy; James E. Taylor High School, 20700 Kingsland Blvd., Katy; and Seven Lakes High School, 9251 S. Fry Road, Katy.