The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Monday, Oct. 23rd at 7 p.m. in the Board Room of the Jerry BlakelyAdministration Building to discuss an 18-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Board President Pat Demel and the invocation was given by Gary Birkelbach.
There was nobody present to speak during public forum and the minutes from the Sept. 18th meeting were approved by general consent.
Campus Principals were in attendance to give an update on each of their respective campuses.
Primary Principal Staci Sumners stated that Primary enrollment for this month was at 318 total students, including, 97 Pre-K students, 60 kindergartners, 70 first graders and 91 second graders.
“Attendance up until this point, we are at 97.07% for the year so far,” Sumners said. On Monday, Oct. 30th we’re having our Fall Festival at Primary; we’re going back-and-forth between pieing somebody in the face or kissing a pig. I’m not sure what the committee has decided yet. Picture day is Nov. 7th and then Nov. 6th through the 9th we will have the Book Fair at Primary.”
She added, “UIL is on Nov. 15th and we have five teams going and we will have every single event represented by Primary. We’re still in the process of circle testing, but I am super excited about our I Station Tests in reading and Math. We went through and calculated what our data looked like from Oct. 2022 compared to Oct. 2023. Our level three, four and five kids in reading last year overall (Kinder, first and second all together), were at 58% of our kids on level, this year we’re sitting at 70% of our kids on level. In math last year, our level three, four and five kids, we only had 20% of the kids on grade level, this year we’re sitting at 53% of our kids on grade level. We’re still struggling with math, but are working hard to close that gap.”
Elementary principal Tom Whistler stated that their enrollment was at 228 students, including, 78 third graders, 67 fourth graders and 83 fifth graders.
“We took kids to Rotary club on Thursday from first six weeks,” Whistler said. “We had music programs going on Friday in conjunction with Red RibbonWeek and Halloween. UIL is Nov. 15th at Muleshoe and it will start at 12 p.m. We’re still doing our food bags and food boxes on Fridays.”
Junior High Principal Monica Acevedo said that their enrollment is at 290 students, including, 101 sixth graders, 87 seventh graders and 102 eighth graders.
“We finished up volleyball in Shallowater this week and our junior high football teams took on Idalou on Thursday,” she said. “Basketball starts for the girls Nov. 6th and the boys start on Nov. 9th. Band and Cheerleaders performed at a drug free pep rally on Wednesday for Elementary. Honor Band auditions will be at Hale Center on Nov. 16th.”
She added, “Our Student Council participated in the community pumpkin trail last Saturday and they have been going over to Primary and doing art activities with the little ones, and they have enjoyed that a lot. The next project they are looking at working on is maybe creating some reading buddies for primary and elementary students who are struggling. We have OneAct Play on Nov. 8th in Denver City, we will be working on UIL writing on Nov. 14th, and our UILMeet is scheduled for Nov. 29th. Our students have raised money to be able to pie a teacher on Nov. 27th. The teachers getting pied will be Edgemon, Greener, Enriquez and myself.”
High School PrincipalAmber Hays stated that their enrollment was at 364 students, including, 86 freshmen, 99 sophomores, 92 juniors and 87 seniors.
“This is a busy, busy four weeks until Thanksgiving,” Hays said. “We had our blackout pep rally on Friday and it was also Senior Night at the football game where we honored our football, cheer, band and sports med seniors. Band marched on Sat. in Odessa at the Area Contest, for a chance to go to State. FFA has a busy four weeks; they’re starting to compete in their leadership teams Nov. 1st through the 13th and they’re also going to a National FFA convention, which is a very big opportunity for our kids.”
She added, “We will have our Veteran’s Day program on Nov. 9th, since we will be out of school on Nov. 11th, and we’re in the process of trying to get the Army Jazz Band. Open House is on Nov. 30th and our theater department is also putting on a fall show that night.
Brette Southard stated that they have about 188 kids served in the Littlefield district for special education.
“Our Junior High and High School self contained classes are going to Frenship for a Field Day with all of the area schools,” he said.
Coach Jarrod Thomas gave an update on the Cross Country team, who completed their season on Monday at the Regional Cross Country Meet at Mae Simmons Park in Lubbock.
Athletic Director Bo Bryant gave an update on athletics, stating, “Our volleyball team wrapped up their regular season this week at Shallowater. We will play Bushland on Monday at Dimmitt at 7:30 p.m. Our Football team is 6-2 overall, 2-1 in district, we had a tough one last Friday in Abernathy. We didn’t play our best, didn’t play like we wanted to, but we’ve had a good week of practice. We finish with Roosevelt next week on Thursday, due to the referee shortage. The JV will play at 5 p.m. on Tuesday and Junior High will be at Roosevelt on Tuesday.”
He added, “Girl’s basketball got started last week and their first scrimmage will be on Halloween Night at Anton and the boys got started this week, with their first game scheduled for Nov. 14th at Roosevelt. Coach McKinnon has said that we won’t play a varsity game until we’re done with football play-offs due to having multiple varsity players still in football.”
Superintendent Mike Read gave the superintendent report, stating, “The new high school is beginning to take shape. Teinert and company have been hard at it this month. The construction meetings have been productive and all parties involved are satisfied with the progress we’re making. We’re still on target for a completion date of Dec. 2024 or Jan. 2025.”
He added, “Our legislatures inAustin are back for a third special session. The Senate pushed a bill to the House with the voucher bill ready to go; it is called the Educational Savings Account. Basically, you’re going to get $8,000 for each student who decides to enroll in private school. Embeded in the Senate Bill is a $10,000 raise for all classroom teachers and then a boost for public ed in the basic allotment. Governor Abbott has said that this boost to education will only happen when the voucher bill is passed. The House has responded with their own bill that includes the voucher, but the only catch is that the students who receive the money from the state (the $8,000), will be held to the same standard that the kids in public ed are held to regarding the STAAR Test. Abbott has already opposed this bill, again, political gains continue in Austin at the expense of our kids and our teachers.”
Item five on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve a waiver for a modified schedule for State Assessment Testing Days.
“By approving this waiver, it will allow high school to be on a modified schedule during our STAAR testing days in the spring,” Supt. Read said. “The last two years, Mrs. Hays has set it up and it has worked quite well; the kids who are testing are the only ones at the school house and the rest of the students usually come to school after lunch. It has worked well, and gives our kids the best setting to take that test.”
The motion was made by Will Williams and seconded by Hervey Valdez to approve the waiver for a modified schedule for State Assessment Testing Days. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to approve District and Campus Improvement Plans for the 2023-2024 school year.
“When you look at our STAAR scores we are above average in the State and Regional averages on approaches, which is passing, but we trail the region and the state in meets and masters, which is grade level and above grade level. We want to raise those averages 5-7%, and if we can do that we will be above the region and state averages.”
He added, “The next goal is a safe and healthy school goal. We’re going to be continuing to offer programs that inform kids about the dangers of vaping, alcohol, tobacco, fentanyl. We’ve already started some of those programs and at the end of the year we’ll be able to tell if that has helped because vaping has become a huge issue. The other goal is that we need to take care of our attendance. Sickness is starting to hit, and I know we’ve mentioned that Mr. Walker and Mrs. Montes are helping us to get the attention of the parents of these kids, but we haven’t filed on enough people to have any data to look at.”
He continued, “The next goal is a parent engagement and communication goal. I love what Staci has been doing at the Primary, I go to all these functions she has down there, getting food trucks, parents in the building and reading with the kids, I love it. By continuing to do that, I feel we’ll see an improvement in parents being active in our school events. The last goal is a safety and security. We wrote this before this was in place, but our Raptor system is up and running and we started putting the nox boxes up today. Those are the boxes with the key to the building, so if Fire, EMS or police need entry to the building they can get into that box and have access to the building.”
The motion was made by Lance Broadhurst and seconded by Birkelbach to approve the District and Campus Improvement Plans for the 2023-2024 school year. The motion carried.
Item seven was to deliberate and take possible action to approve the SHAC requirements for the 2023-2024 school year.
Asst. Supt. McNeese went over the SHAC requirements.
The motion was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Johnny Castillo to approve the SHAC (Student Health and Counseling) requirements for the 2023-2024 school year as presented by Assistant Superintendent Mitch McNeese. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to approve ESL valuation.
“Last year, we had 104 students who took the TELPAS test, which tests our ESL students in listening, reading, writing and speaking. Out of those 104 students, we had about 78 that we had data from from the previous year to compare to. We had 42 out of the 78 students that showed significant growth and 19 that showed minimal growth, percentage wise, we had 78% show growth on the TELPAS test. On the district-wide STAAR test, we had 75% of those students pass that test. We showed a 10% growth over last year’s scores.”
The motion was made by Valdez and seconded by Williams to approve the English as a Second Language Evaluation as presented by Asst. Supt. McNeese. The motion carried.
Next on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve TIPS (The Interlocal Purchasing System) Resolution.
“The last time we renewed this resolution was about five or six years ago,” Supt. Read said. “We’re just asking to update it. What this means, is that we use a competitive procurement process to award contracts to vendors through the TIPS process for bids that represent that best value to Littlefield ISD.”
The motion was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Broadhurst to approve The Interlocal Purchasing Resolution as presented. The motion carried.
Item 10 on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Buy Board Resolution.
“I’m asking that you approve the Buy Board Resolution, which allows LISD several benefits through efficiencies and potential savings to be realized by our district,” Supt. Read said.
The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Sal Acevedo to approve Buy Board Resolution as presented. The motion carried.
There was no action necessary for trust property disposition.
Bryan Gregory went over the Facilities Maintenance Priorities Plan.
“They have poured areas A and B with concrete, the whole area that is going to have concrete is divided into four sectors, A and B being the north most part, C and D being the south most part. A and B is poured and they’re going up with steel. They have a crane that is about 10,000 feet tall, which they are bringing all that steel in overhead. As Mr. Read said they are on time with the high school they’re a little bit behind with the junior high, but they will be able to catch that up.
He added, “We heard something encouraging at the construction meeting last week, the Superintendent at the work site, Russ Moore, said he plans to have the high school ready by Thanksgiving of next year. There isn’t much out of the ordinary going on except for the flood event that we had at the Gym.”
No action was necessary. Item 13 on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Head Start Agreement.
“Each year we sign an agreement with Head Start that binds the agreement with LISD and Head Start,” Supt Read said. “By approving this agreement tonight we will enter into a contract for the 2023-2024 school year.”
The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Acevedo to approve the Head Start Agreement. The motion carried.
Item 14 was deliberation and take possible action to approve Budget Amendment. No action was necessary.
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to approve the financial and Investment Review and Report.
Bev Boldes gave the reports. The motion was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Williams to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report as presented. The motion carried.
Pursuant of Texas Government Code Section 551.074 the Board went into executive session at 8:04 p.m. and they returned to regular session at 8:18 p.m.
There was no action taken on certified personnel.
A resignation was presented on Adrianna Martinez and Tammy Edgemon.
There was no Board training information to be presented.
With there being no further business to be discussed, President Demel declared the meeting adjourned at 8:19 p.m.