The Littlefield Independent School District Board of Trustees met in regular session on Monday, April 13th in the board room of the Jerry Blakely Administration Building.
The meeting was called to order by Board President Reese Rogers and the invocation was given by Garry Ozbirn. There was nobody present for public forum and the minutes of the previous meeting were approved by general consent.
Superintendent Mitch McNeese gave the Superintendent Report, stating, “Johnny Castillo and Hervey Valdez, on behalf of Littlefield ISD and personally I’ve known you guys for a very long time and I just want to say thank you on behalf of everyone that works for the school district and all of the kids that go to school here, thank you for all that you do. I know it is not an easy job, and, you volunteer to do it, and I know that opens up your time, yourself, your phone to all kinds of complaints, phone calls and anything else you can imagine. I just want to thank you for all of the time that you have spent with us making decisions and making all of the calls to make this school the best that we possibly can. I wish you all of the best in everything that you do.”
Supt. McNeese talked about enrollment, saying, High school is sitting at 346, junior high is at 257, elementary is at 238, and Primary is sitting at 330, for a total of 1,171.
“We’ve dropped about three kids since last month,” Supt. McNeese said. “Principal Green is working really hard with truancy, last week he had five kids per day that he was running through the court system for truancy. We’re trying to clean that up and get that under control, but attendance has been an issue, and our biggest issues are in the secondary buildings. Some of the job openings we have are a first grade teacher and an aide job; at elementary we have a special ed teacher opening and a social studies teacher opening. At junior high we have a sixth grade social studies job, and at high school we have a world history opening, Spanish opening and both Ag Mech and Ag Science openings. We’re getting a lot of applicants, so that is a good sign that we’re going to be able to get the positions filled. There is also going to be an assistant principals job at the primary that will be opening up.”
He added, “We have a lot of award ceremonies, senior skip days, and lots of other events coming up over the next few weeks.”
Supt. McNeese talked about the TIA program that they’re going to be implementing.
“The program is intended to reward, retain and recruit teachers,” Supt. McNeese said. “It gives an opportunity for teachers to earn designations. There are three designations and they will be adding a fourth one. The designations are Recognized, if you’re recognized, teachers can add almost $8,000 to their paychecks; if you’re exemplary, you can add up to $15,000; and Masters level can be up to $28,000 added to your paycheck. We’re one of the last ones to get into this, and we’re going to get to decide where these set points are, where they nee to be on observations and test scores. We’re going to come up with a great plan for how this works.”
He added, “If teachers are able to get one of these designations, they will get that allotment for five years. Teachers can increase their designation before their five years is up, which will restart their five years with the new designation. In August, we will have to get board approval, which will put us in year one.”
Item five on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Student Accident Insurance.
“We do this every year, it’s a supplemental insurance and it covers all of our extra curricular activities and the kids. It is supplemental unless that kids doesn’t have insurance, then it becomes the primary insurance,” Supt. McNeese said. It has actually gone down each year for the last few years. This year the premium is down to $35,510, from $36,820.”
A motion was made by Will Williams and seconded by seconded Hervey Valdez to approve Student Accident Insurance. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Staff Development Minutes Waiver for the 2026-2027 School Year.
“Those are our staff development days that we do,” Supt. McNeese explained. “That covers the minutes, TEA allows us to have those days. Next year, they will be Sept. 28th, Nov. 2nd, Jan. 4th and Feb. 12th.”
A motion was made by Ozbirn and seconded by Johnny Castillo to approve the Staff Development Minutes Waiver for the 2026--2027 school year. The motion carried.
The next item on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve a Director of the Lamb County Appraisal District for the 2026-2027 term.
“I talked to Loisa Kloiber and I recommend James Sokora to be ours,” Supt. McNeese stated. “Kloiber said that a lot of these guys have either retired or passed away, so it’s getting harder to replace these guys. James Sokora will be ours, and I recommend that we approve him for the 26-27 school year.”
A motion was made by Williams and seconded by Castillo to approve the Director of the Lamb County Appraisal District for the 2627 term. The motion carried.
Item eight on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve 2026 District Vulnerability Assessment.
“This report comes out once every four years and it is new,” Supt. McNeese said. “With all of the school shootings that have been occurring around the world, TEA comes in and checks all of our doors, monitors, our procedures, anything and everything they cold check involved with our school security, it is very thorough. Asst. Supt. Amber Hays led the charge on that and TEA had no findings district wide, so I’m very proud of that, and every thing Asst. Supt. Hays did to take care of that.”
The motion was made by Ozbirn and seconded by Valdez to approve 2026 District Vulnerability Assessment. The motion carried.
Bryan Gregory discussed the facilities maintenance priorities plan, saying, “We have a lot of little projects going on,” Mr. Gregory said. “The junior high continues to progress. Teinert still has a handful of things that they need to take care of for us. The rest of the grass around the junior high should be planted soon, the guy is waiting for the ground temp to come up just a bit, so when that seed gets put in the ground it can just take off.”
No action was necessary. There were no budget amendments to approve at this time.
Item 11 on the agenda was deliberation and possible action to approve Financial and Investment Review and Report.
Mr. Gregory gave the Financial and Investment Review and Report.
The motion was made by Castillo and seconded by Valdez to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report. The motion carried.
The next order of business was a report on Board Member Training Hours.
“As Board President, I am required to announce the names of each board member who has completed the required continuing education training. The following members have completed cyber security training, board safety training, team of eight training and iso training: Reese Rogers, Garry Ozbirn, Sal Acevedo, Shawna Hastings, Johnny Castillo, Hervey Valdez and Will Williams. Ozbirn and Hastings have completed all first- year board member training’s. All board members at least have combined nine hours of continuing education credits that meet the annual requirements recommended by law.”
No action was necessary. Item 13 on the agenda was personnel Matters Including the Appointment, Employment, Evaluation, Reassignment, Duties, Discipline, Dismissal and/or Compensation of Individual District Empolyees: a) Certified Personnel Resignations were given on: Tyler Classen, Sheridan Franks, Sue Bennink, and Garyn Gonzales. b) At-Will Personnel: Resignations were given on: Nina Woods and Sadie Wygant-Palmer.
Supt. McNeese informed the Board of training opportunities.
With there being no further business to discuss, Board President Rogers declared the meeting adjourned at 7:39 p.m.