Spotlight On: Ken Gregorski Superintendent, Katy Independent School District (ISD)
September 2025 — In an interview with Invest:, Ken Gregorski, superintendent of Katy ISD, emphasized the district’s commitment to academic excellence, career readiness, and managing rapid growth while maintaining educational quality. He highlighted Katy ISD’s top rankings, financial stewardship, and innovative programs that prepare students for college and careers. “These elements — academic success, student preparation, and financial stewardship — are central to our goals,” Gregorski said.
What have been the key highlights for Katy ISD in the past year?
Let’s start with our mission: delivering educational excellence and unparalleled learning for over 97,000 students, with nearly 15,000 employees across 80 schools. We’re proud of our Niche ranking as Houston’s top district for five consecutive years, reflecting our academic strength. We outperform state and regional benchmarks, as highlighted in recent Texas STAAR outcomes, though I prefer to emphasize continuous growth and self-improvement over single-point assessments. Nationally, our SAT scores exceed averages, and we lead in National Merit semifinalists and finalists. Financially, Katy ISD earns A-plus ratings from the Texas Education Agency’s Financial Integrity Rating System and has a nine-year Gold Star Award from the comptroller’s office.
As a taxpayer-funded public institution, we make sure all students have access to the resources they need to learn and succeed, while also using those resources responsibly. These elements — academic success, student preparation, and financial stewardship — are central to our goals.
What is the role of public education in attracting businesses and investment to the Greater Houston area, and especially to Katy?
We could point to the state’s 60x30TX program, which aims to ensure 60% of 24- to 35-year-olds have college degrees or certifications by 2030. So, how do we participate and get kids ready for this? I’ll drop that into three buckets: academics, career readiness, and military readiness, aligning with the Texas Education Agency’s CCMR (College, Career, and Military Readiness) component of the TEA’s accountability system. For college-bound students, we prepare them well, with 70% of Katy ISD students attending colleges and universities versus 60% nationally. For the 30% not going to college, and that is higher in some districts, we offer career and technology programs related to our analysis of workforce needs. New programs in our district this school year include a water operations licensing certification in partnership with Inframark, a private company that manages water and infrastructure services across Texas. The program engages students in classroom and field training. Water management is an area that offers starting wages of $45,000. We’ve also launched a CDL (commercial driver’s license) program for high school seniors, and we offer real estate licensing. With 40-plus career clusters, 45% of Katy ISD graduates earn certifications, from automotive to pharmacy and tech. Military enrollment across our campuses is currently around 1%. This past year, we introduced a dedicated spring reception to formally recognize and honor students who choose to serve. While these students have always been acknowledged during our annual graduation ceremonies, the spring event offered a more focused opportunity to celebrate their commitment.
How is Katy aligning its resources to maintain educational quality while meeting the community’s evolving needs?
It’s always going to be a challenge to maintain rigor amid rapid growth. What keeps me up at night is ensuring we uphold our world-class education standards — academics, career and technology programs, and more — without sacrificing quality, despite limited resources and rising needs. These gold-standard programs aren’t cheap; educating students is expensive, particularly in an inflationary era, and focusing only on basics would leave them behind. Our mission emphasizes unparalleled learning experiences, supported by a strategic plan prioritizing personalized learning. As Katy ISD grows larger and more complex, balancing this vision with available funding becomes increasingly difficult. Delivering a world-class education while managing financial constraints is a growing challenge.
How are you attracting great teachers and enticing them to stay in the district?
There is nothing more important in a school than a quality teacher. And second to that is a quality principal. But I’ll take the quality teacher first. They’re the ones in front of our students every day. To do that, we need to ensure we have a pipeline of quality teachers. Recent data suggests the national teacher pipeline has shrunk by about 35% over the last 10 years as fewer young people choose to go into teaching. This is affecting Texas, too. Everyone’s searching for teachers, especially specialists, and it’s getting harder. We also need to be market-competitive, with adequate salaries. The state has allocated funds to boost teacher pay and enhance the Teacher Incentive Allotment, rewarding teachers who show student growth. In Katy, we’ve launched an alternative certification program. This past school year, we trained about 80 individuals who already held bachelor’s degrees, all of whom were placed in Katy ISD classrooms for the fall semester. This is helping to address the teacher shortage. Collaboration with the state’s teacher vacancy task force and colleges is also crucial as demand outpaces supply.
What specific projects or developments is Katy ISD excited about?
Our technology initiatives are near the top of the list. One factor that helps Katy ISD, even though finances are tough, is our community’s support for school bonds. We’ve been blessed to pass bonds, enabling deliverables such as technology, despite the financial landscape. With that, we launched a one-to-one initiative last year, ensuring every kid has the same standardized, customizable Chromebook device for learning. With nearly 45% of students economically disadvantaged, our previous bring-your-own-device program showed gaps. As a result, we outlined a new program, supported by bonds, to put devices in every hand. From third grade up, devices are pre-populated with grade-specific content, which is a huge initiative that improves workforce and college readiness. The passage of Senate Bill 569 this past legislative session, a virtual school bill, has also opened possibilities. We plan to expand virtual and hybrid learning options for Katy ISD’s students, homeschoolers, and even private school students in our community over the next year.
Looking ahead, what are your top priorities for Katy ISD?
A real challenge for Katy ISD, which has been ongoing for years, is keeping up with growth, though that is not unique to us. We’re adding thousands of kids on an annual basis. As an organization grows, quality control becomes harder, which is a concern of mine. How do I manage this district, open new schools, build programs, welcome new families, and ensure every kid receives a world-class education without sacrificing quality as we expand? That’s always on my mind.
Another focus is innovation. Public schools can’t operate as they did 10, 15, or even three years ago because information changes too fast. The skills students need today differ from the skills we needed in my youth. Are we recognizing this challenge in public education? How do we personalize experiences and move beyond traditional methods to meet all kids’ needs? It’s getting harder, but that’s our focus. Our team, which is dedicated to students and families, remains committed to this goal.
What is the importance of partnership and collaboration as you look at the future of public school districts?
We need to look toward the future, and in particular, for public school districts like Katy ISD, we must improve public-private partnerships. How do we collaborate with our community, businesses, and industry to leverage local resources? The best example is our Katy Area Economic Development Council, which secures grant money to collaborate with public schools and colleges, offers paid apprenticeships, internships, and also journeyman opportunities for our kids. We try to do this independently, but this resource boosts our efforts. When public schools, private industry, and communities align on goals, we can meet community demands through increased dialogue.
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