The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Monday, September 15th in the Board Room of the Jerry Blakely Administration Building. To discuss a 10-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Board President Reese Rogers and the invocation was given by Garry Ozbirn.
There was nobody present for public forum and the minutes from the previous meetin were approved by general consent.
Item four on the agenda was Administrative Reports.
Primary Principal Staci Sumners started off the administrative reports, saying that their enrollment as of Monday is sitting at 333 students, with 110 pre-k, 67 kindergarten, 68 first graders, 69 second graders and 19 in self contained.
“We had a Head Start monitoring visit about a couple of week ago and it went really well,” Sumners said. “We had 75 funded Head Start spots and we already had those filled, so they are handing us another eight spots for our over income kids, the kids who don’t really qualify based off of the Head Start guidelines. When I started we had 32 spots, and now we’re up to 75, so I’m really excited for the opportunities we have at Littlefield Primary.”
She added, “We have our first big family night coming up on Sept. 22nd. Our Reading night will be called ‘Wildcats Read Like Champions, score big with books.’ We had a push not long ago that we finished up today [Monday], where our kids could send out links to their family and friends and try and draw them in for donations for reading materials. As of the close of yesterday [ Sunday], we’re already close to $9,500 in donations. We’re still doing some I-station testing, I’m interested to see what our first graders are going to do, because everything is through AI. They read into the computer and AI grades them. As of now, we’re already at 58-percent labled as tier one in math in first grader, second grade is showing 42-percent at tier one in math and 54-percent labeled tier one in reading.”
High School Principal Brent Green gave up update on his campus, stating that their enrollment is 369, with 89 freshmen, 110 sophomores, 78 juniors and 90 seniors.
“It’s really hard to believe that next week is already the end of the first six weeks,” he said. “ Last week, we hosted the district FFA meeting in our commons area and we had over 300 students and sponsors in that thing and it was really a sight to see. We have students going to judging competitons this week, we’ve had a few kids who showed last weekend in Amarillo and some that will be at the South Plains Fair. Ag Mech students have started on projects, Construction trade kids just finished building bird houses and they did a great job with those. Mr. Rendon has done a great job with the Auto Mechanics program; he’s done some stuff these first couple of weeks introducing tools to the kids and going over safety measures.
He added, “Jenna Ozbirn will start clinicals with her PCT students soon, so there is a lot of good stuff going on in our CTE programs. Homecoming is coming up, we had a meeting with our leadership team this morning, but it’s right around the corner. We’ve also been going through last year’s STAAR results from junior high and coming up with goals for each individual student. We’re also getting some unit test data that we can look at and see where the reteaching needs to come in or tuturials. We’ll be tracking that data all year long.”
Junior High Principal Jena Montgomery stated that their enrollment is at 261 students, including 79 sixth graders, 83 seventh graders and 99 eighth graders.
“Our eighth grade A volleyball team and seventh grade B volleyball team have both had some pretty good victories,” Montgomery said. “Football is doing well. Our eighth grade team is doing better on the scoreboard then our seventh grade team, but both teams are working really hard. We had our first class meetings, where we met with the sixth graders, seventh graders and eighth graders. Coach Green was our guest speaker and it went well and has sparked some good conversations with our kids.”
Athletic Director Bo Bryant gave an update on athletics across the district, saying, “JV2 is 10-3 and JV1 is 18-3, so both those groups are having a pretty good year. The varsity is 10-12, heading into their final predistrict match [Tuesday]. Coach Thomas has 10 high school girls, 15 high school boys, 15 junior high girls, and five junior high boys. They’ve been to about four meets already, we hosted one here and had a ton of kids out there. Noah Villanueva won the Dimmitt meet and has placed in the top three at all of the other meets. Coach Thomas is taking the high school kids to run at the State Course in Round Rock this week. When we did those fundraisers in the spring, this is what we intended them for, to be able to do things like this. District is Oct. 6th at Mae Simmons in Lubbock.”
He added, “On the football side, we had our first junior high games last week, seventh grade was a scrimmage and eighth grade won their first game against Abernathy. They scored more points in this first game then they did all of last year, and they said that that Abernathy team was undefeated last year, so that was a good win. Our freshmen team is 2-0 and our JV is 12. We combined them last week to play against Abernathy. The varsity is 30 on the season with wins over Lamesa, Denver City and Abernathy. We’ve had some close games, but our guys have found ways to win. We have Frenship Memorial this week, we go to Brownfield next week and then we close out pre-district with Coahoma here for Homecoming on Oct. 3rd.”
Special Education Director Brette Southard gave an update on his department, saying, “At the end of August, Littlefield has 225 kids in the special education program and our member districts have 155 kids for a total of 380 students.”
Assistant Superintendent, Amber Hays, gave an update on Elementary for Principal Jerry Russell, who was unable to attend the meeting, saying, “Elementary’s enrollment is sitting at 240 students, including 74 third graders, 83 fourth graders, 78 fifth graders and five self contained.”
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to adopt a resolution designating the district’s nonbusiness days for the 2026 calendar year for purposes of the Texas Information Act.
“We’ve revied the calendar and determined which days will be determined as non-business days for the 2026 school year,” Superintendent Mitch McNeese said. “We gave consideration to Thanksgiving and Christmas and the days are Jan. 2nd and 5th, March 19th and 20th, July 2nd, Nov. 25th and 27th, and Dec. 21st, 28th and 29th.”
The motion was made by Sal Acevedo and seconded by Hervey Valdez to adopt the resolution designating the district’s nonbusiness days for the 2026 calendar year for purposes of the Texas Information Act. The motion carried.
Item six on the agenda was to discuss the Facilities Maintenance Priorities Plan.
Bryan Gregory stated, “The press box is about 98percent complete. Eddie and Ernie did a fantastic job, they still have some electrical work to do, they’ve got some IT stuff to do, they’ve got to hang some cameras and routers, but for all intensive purposes, it is done. We’ve got some side rails going in on both the home and visitors stands. We anticipate that to be done in the next two or three weeks. Auto Tech doesn’t even look like the same building. It looks really, really good, the inside and outside is really cleaned up, we put some apoxi paint on the floor and we’ll be able to keep it clean and looking nice and give these kids a really good place to learn. I think Mr. Rendon is going to be really good for our kids, he’s teaching these kids things that kids aren’t learning anymore and it is pretty encouraging.”
He added, “The school is continuing to progress. They’re really, really close on the renovation side; they’ve scheduled a final walkthrough for Sept. 24th, which means that Teinert, Parkhill and us will all walk it together and identify any issues. The new build part of it, they think they’ll be done by middle to late October. The big Cat Head is out getting painted as we speak. It has taken longer than anticipated, but I think the wait will be worth it.”
No action was necessary. The next item on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Financial and Investment Review and Report.
Destiny Chavarria gave the Financial and Investment Review and Report, stating, “We’ve started the new fiscal year and everything went pretty smooth. Everyone has access to their new accounts. Mr. Rendon has a list of things he’s going to want and need for his classroom.”
She added, “The month you’re looking at is August. We never close a month, there are still a lot of journal entries to make. It is all preaudit; that is our next step is to get ready for the audit next month.”
The motion was made by Ozbirn and seconded by Johnny Castillo to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report. The motion carried.
Pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074 the Board went into executive session to discuss personnel at 7:32 p.m. they returned to regular session at 7:53 p.m.
Item eight 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 A motion made by Will Williams and seconded by Ozbirn to approve the contract for certified staff member Nanci Menasco (Primary Interventionist). The motion carried. b) At-Will Personnel No action was necessary. Coach McNeese informed the board of training opportunities.
With there being no further business, Board President Rogers declared the meeting adjourned at 7:54 p.m.