The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Monday, Nov. 13th to discuss a 15item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Board President Pat Demel and the invocation was given by Lance Broadhurst.
No one requested to speak during public forum and the minutes from the previous meeting were approved by general consent.
Primary Principal Staci Sumners started off the Administrative reports with an update on her campus. She said they are sitting at 315 students, including 96 prekindergarteners, 59 kindergarteners, 69 first graders and 91 second graders.
“We had the Fall Festical and it was a huge success and a lot of fun,” Sumners said. “We have the Book Fair running right now; we got to open it a few days early and are keeping it open a little bit later. We’ve made close to $4,200 and we get a portion of that back in scholastic dollars that we can use to buy books or other materials for the campus, or we can ask for a check, which won’t be as much as scholastic dollars, but it is still some funding we can get back into the campus.”
She added, “Primary is going to kick-off some cookbook selling; we’ve asked families to send in one of their favorite family recipes and we’re compiling it into a cookbook for our families that they can purchase for $5. We will be selling them from right after Thanksgiving through Christmas. We thought it would be a fun way for us to come together and build some community with it. Our Family Chirstmas Night will be on Monday, Dec. 11th, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. We will have pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. We will also have games, read alouds, ornament making and we’ll end it with a family sing-along. We will also have a Coat distribution going on that night as well.”
Elementary Principal Tom Whistler stated that his campus enrollment is sitting at 224, including 75 third graders, 67 fourth graders and 82 fifth graders.
“Our third, fourth and fifth graders will be singing downtown on Dec. 15th for the parade,” he said. “Third, fourth and fifth grade Benchmarked last week; some of the kids did real well, but we have some work to do. We’ll be working with them from now until the end of April.”
He added, “We had fourth grade parent conferences last week, we have third and fifth grade parent conferences this week.”
Junior High Principal Monica Acevedo explained that their enrollment is sitting at 291 students, including 101 sixth graders, 87 seventh graders and 102 eighth graders.
“When we come back from Thanksgiving break both basketball teams will play against Friona, boys will be away, girls will be home,” she said. “On Dec. 2nd, our band will have All-Region Band try-outs in Shallowater. Our One Act Play performed on Nov. 8th in Denver City and took first place with lots of awards. It was a big deal, we’ve always gotten second, but this year we beat Denver City, so the students were very excited.”
She added, “On Nov. 29th, we will go to UIL in Dimmitt and we have 90 students going. We will have two busses going and two suburbans, so one buss will come back before the end of the day and the other will come back around 5:30. The suburbans will stay for any students who qualify for finals in any of the later events. We will start Benchmarks in December with Reading on Dec. 15th and Math on Dec. 6th. Semesters tests will be Dec. 11th through the 15th. Our babies will be participating in the Christmas singing, Miss. Espi got a group of kids together and is working with them during our eighth period.”
High School Principal Amber Hays stated that they’re sitting at 363 students, including 86 freshman, 98 sophomores, 92 juniors and 87 seniors.
“I would like to recognize our student council for the work that they put in on our Veteran’s Day Program. We had the Army Band come in and there was a lot of coordination in that and the Veteran’s I talked to after were very proud to have been there. It was a great show,” she said. “ We benchmarked in all five EOC’s this week online on the platform that they will be testing for STAAR and that will set up the remaining tuturials interventions for the rest of the year.”
She added, “We had CPR and DPS training for seniors on Thursday, those are required trainings for them. FFA competed today [Monday] in an LVE contest and is also going to be competing in a Tractor Tech contest. We will be doing TSI the week we come back from Thanksgiving and then the next week we will be doing our EOC retesters, which we only have 12 that didn’t past last year. The Christmas Band Concert will be on Dec. 14th, the junior ring ceremony will be on Dec. 18th and then we will wrap up this semester with semester tests on Dec. 18th and 20th.”
Brette Southard gave an update on what going with the Special Education department.
“As of snapshot day, we have 189 kids, last snapshot day we have 164, so as we kind of predicted, the change in the dislexia law has added quite a few more kids and that is just Littlefield,” he explained. “ By comparison, Amherst has 19 kids that we serve, Cotton Center has 18 kids that we serve, Springlake-Earth has 43 kids and Sudan has 72 kids, that is 341 kids that we serve within the Coop.”
Athletic Director Bo Bryant gave an update on Athletics, saying, “Volleyball season is over after falling to Bushland in the Bidistrict round. I’m proud of Coach Edgemon and her staff and the kids, they worked extremely hard. Football has also come to a close, we fell to Canadian in the bi-district round and ended the season 6-5. It’s not how we wanted the season to end, but I’m proud of our guys and all of the coaches in the effort they put in this year.”
He added, “Basketball is getting going; the varsity girls are 2-1 and the JV girls are 3-0. Boys open the season at Roosevelt on Tuesday. After Thanksgiving we’ll get into tournament season, Varsity will be at Roosevelt and JV will be at Denver City the week after Thanksgiving. They will all go to Farwell the folllowing week, except for the 9th grade boys, they will go to the Dimmitt Tournament. We will have our Wildcat Classic after Christmas, Dec. 27th through the 29th with 13 boys teams and 11 girls teams coming. We turned in 364 for Realignment and with all the projections I’ve seen we would stay Division II. One projection I’ve seen was us, Muleshoe, Idalou, Roosevelt and Slaton.”
Supterintendent Mike Read gave the Superintendent’s Report, saying, “Our enrollment is 1,194, Coach Bryant went over what we’re looking at for realignment. Construction on the new high school is moving along nicely and they’re still talking Dec. 2024-Jan. 2025 having that high school ready for kids to go into.”
He added, “Legislators are in Austin for the fourth special session; I believe they’re going to start hammering out Senate Bill I and II and the House has House Bill I and II. I think it will probably end just like third session ended.”
Assistant Superintendent Mitch McNeese went over the Safety and Security Meeting.
“On Nov. 2nd we got together with Sheriff Gary Maddox, and this comes out of House Bill III, where the Sheriff had to meet with all the county schools,” McNeese said. “We met right here in this room and we probably had 30-40 people in here. What it is designed to do is to get everyone on the same page in case of an emergency; we had police and EMS and fire departments from every town. Everyone threw out what their capabilites and safety measures are. Everyone put out their concerns and thoughts and when we meet again in January, we’ll start putting things into place for all of these situations that could arise.”
McNeese also stated that they also had the Littlefield school safety meeting, saying, “Coach Gregory did a great job with that presentation, all of our Nox boxes are in place. DPS, Fire Dept. EMS, Sheriff’s Dept. all got their key and the information on how to use it. They also gave us some information on what they would like to have in those boxes, such as pictures of our guardians, map of the school and a key to get in the door.”
No action was necessary. There were no Trust Property Dispositions to deliberate on.
Item seven on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Title III Annual Evaluation.
“Each year we have to review our Title III program,” McNeese said. “If you think back to last month, I gave you guys a lot of information on the ESL program and the bilingual program, breaking down their TELPAS scores and STAAR scores. Little did I know, I was covering this item last month as well. Myra Perkins leads the Migrant program, we have 63 kids in that program and she works hard to make sure those kids are serviced and get what they need. All of our programs in Title III are up to date and well taken care of. I recommend it’s approval.”
The motion was made by Broadhurst and seconded by Will Williams to approve the Title III Annual Evaluation. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Lamb County Shared Services Arrangement Agreement.
“Lamb County Shared Services Arrangement meets annualy to review and approve the agreement. Approval of this agreement by each members district Board is an intrigal part to meet TEA requirements. I recommend that the Board approve this agreement.”
The motion was made by Gary Birkelbach and seconded by Johnny Castillo to approve the Lamb County Shared Services Arrangement Agreement as presented. The motion carried.
Item nine was to deliberate and take possible action to approve West Texas Food Service Cooperative Agreement.
“This Co-Op was established to provide school district’s with access to the lowest possible cost for food items that meet the federal state standards for school. I recommend that we continue our membership and participation in the Co-Op.
The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Hervey Valdez Jr. to approve continued membership and participation in the West Texas Food Service Cooperative as presented. The motion carried.
There was no budget amendments, therefore no action was necessary for Item 10 on the agenda.
Destiny Chavarria went over the Finacial and Investment Review and Report.
The motion was made by Castillo and seconded by Williams to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report as presented. The motion carried.
Bryan Gregory went over the Facilities and Maintenance Priorities Plan.
“The progress on the school is going really well,” Gregory said. “They are getting ready to pour that south slab, which is where the CTE area will be within the month. They are putting in electrical stuff overhead as we speak. Teinert will be working the week of Thanksgiving, so there will be some activity up there. Everything is going really well.”
No action was necessary. There were no personnel matters to discuss, however a resignation letter was presented on Allison Herrin.
There was no new Board Training information to discuss and the meeting was adjourned at 7:33 p.m.