Publisher: KHOU 11 (Matt Dougherty)
Date Published: July 3, 2026
Relevant To: School residency verification methods; companion to ALPR-based residency verification story
Verification Status: Verified — KHOU Link Blocked, Confirmed via Corroborating Outlets
Notes: KHOU link itself was bot-blocked, but confirmed extensively via corroborating outlets (Yahoo/Survival World syndication of KHOU’s own reporting by Matt Dougherty, Covering Katy News). Katy ISD (Katy, TX) Principal Dr. Rick Hull and a district police officer entered a family’s home and a 15-year-old student’s bedroom during a residency verification visit in late June 2026, while the mother was away and the teen was home alone. Ring doorbell video captured part of the encounter; the teen let the officials in after the principal said she needed to see his bedroom. The mother says she received no advance notice and the visit was conducted without a warrant or her consent. Katy ISD confirmed the visit occurred, said it was part of standard residency verification tied to the family’s Affidavit of Bona Fide Residence, but declined to say whether entering the child’s bedroom without a parent present was standard procedure or a policy violation. The district later told the mother the employees may have followed an “outdated protocol” and apologized; a subsequent district statement said the review “identified an opportunity to further strengthen” its procedures without admitting wrongdoing. Relevant to BPA’s school-tech-privacy project as a companion issue: illustrates how far residency-verification enforcement can go when conducted in-person/manually, which is directly relevant context for evaluating ALPR-based residency verification (see companion NBC Chicago story on a suburban district using license plate readers for the same purpose) as either a more or less privacy-invasive alternative.