The Littlefield Independent School District Board ofTnistees met inregular session on Monday evening in the Board Room of the Administration Building to discuss a 13-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. and the invocation was given by Board President Lance Broadhurst. There was no one present for public forum and the minutes ‘loin the previous meeting were approved as read.
Primary PrincipalAmber Hays said that they have 325 student enrolled at Primary.
‘We had 249 students on campus today [Monday], 53 are quarantined, 15 are still remote, which is doctor approved and we have a few we are still trying to track down,” she explained. “On the positive side ofthings, ifyou haven’t visited our Facebook page, you should, because there has been a nightly thankful video out from each class, and they are pretty precious.
Hayes also said that they are working on a live Facebook Christmas program
Principal Tom Whistler stated that at Elementary they are sitting at 279 for enrollment, with 95 third graders, 87 fourth graders and 97 fifth graders, which is down from last month.
‘We have 35 kids quarantined out of our three grades,” Whistler said. ‘We have one kid still left remote learning, and I have spoken with the mom. We also had 12 kids withdraw from schooL”
He added, ‘We did UIL the other day, they said we came in third. We had five first-place individuals, seven second place, 11 third place, five fourth, seven fifth and five sixth place. We had three first place teams and four second place teams.”
Athletic Director Brent Green gave up update on athletics, saying, ‘We’re not immune to the quarantine situation ourselves; we’ve got it up and down athletics. Our girls are in the middle of a two week quarantine. It’s a bad deal for them, but we’re not the only ones fighting this.”
He added, ‘We don’t really have any positive cases on the boy’s side. The game Friday night didn’t end up the way we wanted it to. I’m proud of our kids, proud of the fight they showed over the last month of the season. The one thing that I will take from this season, other than the disappointment that these kids didn’t get to win a gold ball, but these kids are going to be champions in life, because of the way they handle themselves and the way they’ve handled the whole season. We’ve dealt with a lot of adversity, mostly COVID-19, and these kids have been champions about that and have really attacked football with a purpose. I’m really proud of these kids for that; they’re going to be good citizens, good husbands and fathers one day. I had a great group ofkids to work with.”
Coach Green said that junior high basketball was in full swing and that there is a lot of basketball scheduled.
“It’s going to be tricky,” Coach Green said. “Indoors, all ofthat close contact, we have along road ahead of us with basketball and our spring sports and COVID-19, but we’ll navigate it the best we can and come out the other side of it”
High School Principal Mike Read gave their enrollment numbers stating that they have 361 students at high school including 98 freshmen, 78 sophomores, 89 juniors and 96 seniors. There are four students who are remote with a doctors note and then they have three students who have not made any contact. Principal Read said he has started making house calls to welcome them back to schools.
“We had a veterans program on Nov. 11th, we did it remote style and we got about half way done and a girl came into the library and said they couldn’t hear. So, we stopped where we were and started over. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if they heard it the second time either, but they did hear the playing of TAPPS, I was told that. We did it remote and put it on Facebook. Veronica Torres sang the National Anthem and the kids did a good job. I want to thank Kim Moss, she puts that stuff together and is outstanding.”
“The band got division one ratings in Abilene last Saturday. They did a good job at Abilene Wylie. Our band does an outstanding job day-in-and-day-out. We tested seniors SAT’s about two weeks ago. We are trying to press all of these seniors and juniors to take the ACT and the SAT, because it also serves as a measuring stick for us to see how these kids are progressing throughout their high school career. Our kids are performing pretty well on the SAT. I would like to commend out staff on stepping up over the last couple of weeks.”
Principal Read stated that Friday will be a half day, heading into Thanksgiving break.
Junior High Principal Mitch McNeese said that they are sitting at 282 total students, which is down three from last month.
“When I checked Friday, we had 42 kids in quarantine, and had all of their documentation, Principal McNeese said. “We have two kids that are remote by choice with a doctor’s note. We have five other kids we are tracking down and another five that were trying to get a doctor’s note, but were having a hard time getting one.”
He added, “UIL is coming up on Dec 2ad at Muleshoe. Friona went virtual, so they have backed out of UIL, but we’re still going to have it and we have 95 kids participating. I’m very proud of our staff with what is going on and how difficult it has been with kids coming and going and trying to keep track of work and everything else that goes along with it. They’ve been troopers and I’m proud to be their principal and we’re very lucky to have the staff that we have. I’m also very proud of our food service ladies; they’ve been very understaffed for the last couple of weeks and they have made it work. I know in mine and Whistler’s building there is only three ladies there and they’ve gotten it covered and it’s smooth as silk.”
Superintendent Robert Dillard said that there were some regulations from TEA that they have to follow.
“We had a plan, we published it, we will allow meetings with parents, we have an appeal process in place, we will allow students to remain remote if a medical certification is presented verifying a health issue of the student or an individual within the household,” Supt. Dillard said.
Principal McNeese went over the School Health Advisory Committee (SHAC), saying, “Jenna [Ozbim] is doing a great job with the SHAC Committee. We had our Triennial meeting. We had six people show up for that out of 13 people who are on the committee.”
He added, “Jenna said we are planning to have a blood drive this spring and a walk-a-thon. The Health Fair is going to be canceled due to COVID-19. She is doing a great job, everything is being followed to the tee and it is going pretty smooth.”
The motion to approve the Triennial Review and membership was made by Hervey Valdez Jr. and seconded by Will Williams. The motion carried.
Supt. Dillard reviewed some notes that were taken at a past meeting regarding the Strategic Planning Team.
“I did a little bit of research on that for us. On the district improvement committee in the Board Policy, it states what the roles are. It’s advice the Board or its designee, which is typically the superintendent, in establishing and reviewing the district’s educational goals, objectives and major district-wide classroom instructional programs identified by the Board and its designee. The committee should serve exclusively in an advisory role except that the committee should approve development of whatever. They approve it and it still comes up to us on this table in the Board meeting.”
He added, “What it will do is make plans for the future with regard to facilities and what the facility needs will be. Putting together some good ideas and formulating some strategies about retaining our current teachers and students; reaching out and getting input from the constituency to find out what they see, what do they want. They will have to put together some surveys to get feedback. This team would be the good vibe committee, where they release information quarterly, saying this is what our school district is doing. They will make it known that this is a great place to work, live and go to school. Broaden the scope of people who are knowledgeable about the entire story.”
The motion to approve assigning the Roles and Responsibilities for the Strategic Planning Team was made by Johnny Castillo and seconded by Pat Demel. The motion carried.
Principal McNeese went over the Title III Annual Evaluation, saying, “This is based on State test data. We didn’t get any data last spring, so after talking to Supt. Dillard and Coach Richards, we decided to use the 18-19 school data. When we looked at the benchmarks from this fall, with the kids being out six months, they were not good. We decided to use the same data from the 18-19 school year and we’ll compare that to our scores in the spring.”
The motion to approve the Title III Annual Evaluation was made by Gary Birkelbach and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Supt. Dillard went over the Lamb County Shared Services Arrangement Agreement, saying, “On the west end of this building, the Lamb County Shared Services Arrangement Agreement is an organization that provides special education services to every kid in the county that needs special education services. The one thing about having this agreement is that no one school in the county takes it on the chin in special consequences that can cost a lot of money. It is prorated out by our ADA, so who pays the most, we do. More than one time, there has been a discussion between myself and Mr. Richards and even when Kay Franklin was still here. We’ve pushed the numbers around and it is like gambling. If you have a certain number of kids, who require, hearing, vision, ambulatory services. It can get you if you’re out there on your own. Our school is right on the edge of being able to do it, but it is a good feeling to know that we are all in this together and we’re helping each other out. Brette Southard runs it and he is a special education educator first, which makes him very good at what he does. He is really good at his job.”
The motion to approve the Lamb County Shared Services Arrangement Agreement was made by Williams and seconded by Valdez. The motion carried.
Bryan Gregory talked about the West Texas Food Service Cooperative Agreement and the motion to approve staying in that agreement was made by Adrian Solis and seconded by Birkelbach. The motion carried.
Supt. Dillard went over the Financial and Investment Review and Report, saying, “We have a balanced budget and there have been no changes to our budget since the school year began. When we have our audit, with the deferd payments that we had to Paragon and Surrett, that will put us in the red last year $254,000. We budgeted three million in the red. We’re going to get $27,000 taken off of what we pay to PSC because of them going beyond the time.”
The motion to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report was made by Solis and seconded by Castillo. The motion carried.
The Board went into executive session at 7:45 p.m. to discuss Personnel matters. After returning from executive session, the motion to approve the hire of Mike Read as Superintendent and approve the superintendent contract beginning July 1, 2021, was made by Solis and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
The Meeting was adjourned at 9:33 p.m.