The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in Regular Session on Monday, March 9th, in the Board Room of Jerry Blakely Administration Building.
The meeting was called to order at 6:52 p.m. by Board President Reese Rogers, and the invocation was given by Will Williams.
Athletic Director Bo Bryant started the Administrative Reports with an update on athletics.
“Basketball ended both their seasons in the bi-district round. The girls lost a heart-breaker to Bushland, who ended up losing in the Regional Finals,” Coach Bryant said. “The girl’s had several players earn All-District selections, including Amoni Jefferson, Co-Offensive MVP; Zalise Davis, Newcomer of the Year; 1st team All-District, Madison Williams and Honorable Mention went to Cobi Saldana and Nia Cleveland. On the boy’s side, Jayden Barrio and Sammy Saenz earned first-team All-District and earning Honorable Mention were Nate Castaneda, Elijah Rodriguez and Andrew Davis.”
He added, “Softball is sitting at 7-8 overall, 1-1 in district play [prior to March 10th game]. Baseball hosted the Lamb County Classic last weekend. We had 14 teams; its hosted between us, Springlake-Earth and Olton at all three sites. We had a good turnout. We also had a lot of people help out with out track meet last week. Both varsity and JV teams finished as the runner-ups at our track meet. April 7th and 8th will be the High School district track meet and Golf’s 1st round of district will be March 23rd and the second round of district will be March 30th. Tennis will have their district competition in Lubbock on April 2nd.”
High School Principal Brent Green talked about the high school campus, stating that they have 349 students enrolled; 87 freshman, 101 sophomores, 74 juniors and 87 seniors.
“Construction trades took two fields trips to PanTex Plywood and Lumber. They got to tour the plant and see what the job opportunities look like across the hardwood industry, as well as what jobs are on site at PanTex,” Principal Green said. “Mr. Vargas’ class has lots of projects going on. Auto Mechanics continues to impress. Mr. Rendon has three vehicles in there with the engines completely torn out and all the parts in the back of pick-ups, and they were going through and rebuilding every bit of that stuff and putting it back together. They’ve redone the suspension on one vehicle, those kids are getting some really good hands-on life experiences.”
He added, “Ag-Mechanics went down to Austin this past weekend and came home with some blue ribbons. We took three projects, two got blue ribbons and two students placed second in their division with their work table project. The homesite team went to Jacksboro and placed seventh the land team placed fourth. In band, we have had 22 students qualify for the State Solo and Ensemble contest. We’ve also had lots of students showing animals from Ft. Worth to San Angelo to San Antonio and we have some kids going to Houston. Mrs. Ozbirn’s PCT classes continue their Clinicals each week at LHC. They continue to work on skills they’ve already learned and they learn new stuff every time they go. Jenna does a great job with that.”
Junior High Principal Jena Montgomery talked about her campus, saying, “We have 78 sixth graders, 82 seventh graders and 95 eighth graders, for a total of 255 kids. We’ve gained two kids since the last meeting.”
“ We just finished up benchmarks to get us ready for STAAR Testing, and now our teachers are using that to do targeted tutorials with kids,” Montgomery said. “We’ve got a lot of kids coming in during lunch, a lot of kids staying after school, and we’re about to start some more Saturday’s with them. Our teachers are super dedicated to making sure these kids are not only ready to take the STAAR Test, but to pass it also. We had 100--percent of our students who were supposed to take TELPAS last week, but we won’t have any results on that until late April to mid May.”
She added, “This month, something we’re doing as a group is it is Women’s History month, so Mrs. Jobe’s inclusion class took women in history and decorated the pages, and they’re being hung up throughout the building so kids, can see the influential women in history.”
Elementary Principal Jerry Russell stated that they have 237 kids enrolled at that campus.
“Math teachers went to training on Wednesday and our Math and Reading teachers went to tour a school on Thursday so that they can see some things over there,” Russell said. “Parent teacher conferences are going to be the Monday after Spring Break. March 26th is the fifth grade science benchmark, and then the first STAAR test for Reading is on April 9th.”
Primary Principal Staci Sumners stated that they are sitting at 331 for enrollment.
“ We’re working super hard still on our aggressive monitoring,” Sumners said. “There are lots of great discussions going on, lots of changes in lesson plans that I’m starting to see teachers make on their own. Conversations are different now and there are just lots of great discussions on what academics look like in class and how they’re making changes in their RTI. We had our Dr. Seus Family Night last Monday, and we had about 150 families come through.”
She added, “On the Friday after Spring Break, our GT kids are going to go on a Field Trip to Lubbock to the Science Spectrum for Flight of the Butterflies. They’re going to actually get to walk through the habitat where the butterflies are all flying around. We have an incentive in place on our campus called Bubblegum Math. It is our fact families; it is a big initiative that we’re doing with our kinder, first and second graders, and first and second grade are getting very competitive. All of first grade has learned all of their fact families through five, and second grade has learned all of their fact families up to seven’s. Kinder got a little bit of a late start, but they’re working really hard on their 0’s and 1’s. We just did Istation testing last week. In February, we had 79-percent of our kids in tier one and tier two and in March we’re not at 82-percent of our kids in tier one and tier two. When you look at reading, in Feb. we were at 77percent of our kids in tier one and tier two and now in March, we’re at 84-percent of our kids are either in tier one or tier two. I’m very pleased that what we’re doing with our RTI is working with our kids.”
Brette Southard, stated, “At the end of February, our students with disabilities count was at 222 in Littlefield. Co-Op wide, we have another 157 kids, so total we have 379 kids with IEP’s. We’re in the process of fixing a corrective action plan. We’re just trying to get the goals and objectives that TEA wants. There are a couple of things planned for April; April 8th the Service Center is have a Job Olympics, where the kids will go and do some vocational things. On April 15th, they will have their special needs prom, which the kids always seem to really enjoy.”
He added, “I can’t say enough about my teachers and paraprofessionals, they’re doing a great job.”
There was nobody present for Public Forum and the minutes of the previous meeting were approved by general consent.
Item five on the agenda was to deliberate and possible action to approve the 2026-2027 School Calendar.
Superintendent Mitch McNeese, stated, “When we looked at it, we made the decision to go with option two, which has school starting August 19th. I know we were looking at potentially starting on Aug. 12th, with all the trips Ag has to take and two-a-days, there were just a lot of conflicts. So, we moved it to option two. Also looking at the minutes, we have to have 75,600 instructional minutes, and we have built in 83,115 minutes. That is about 10 extra instructional days built in that we don’t have to have. That covers bad weather days, plus we were concerned about giving up those five instructional days, well we built them in here.”
The motion was made by Sal Acevedo and seconded by Williams to approve the 2026-2027 School Calendar. The motion carried.
Bryan Gregory discussed the facilities Maintenance Priorities Plan.
“It feels like things have slowed down, but not really,” Gregory said. “High School still has some small issues to take care of; we have some power issues in our metal shop and a dust extraction issue in the wood shop, which will eventually get resolved. It doesn’t keep us from doing what we need to do, but it’s just not quite right. At the junior high, there are still some things that need to be take care of. We’re still on track to move in for next school year, but there are a lot of little things to take care of between now and the end of summer.”
He added, “The sound system at the stadium is installed, we’re going to be hiding the wires in the next few weeks, we just had to get it hooked up before our track meet last week. Teinert helped us out with our water line break in the restrooms at the stadium. At the Carpet Gym, we had to remove all of the striping and re-paint. Apparently the first time, they used some bad primer, and it chipped all over the place. So they came in and stripped it all off and re-did it with good stuff. The Junior High video board has been refurbished. The grounds are looking good, we’re doing the best we can trying to get weeds sprayed and get pre-emergent down when the wind is not blowing.”
No action was necessary.
Item nine on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve TEKS Certification for 20262027 School Year.
Supt. McNeese, stated, “According to Texas Education Code 31.041 local education agencies are required to certify annually with the State Board of Education and Commissioners that students have access to instructional materials covering all Texas essential knowledge and skills. We are certified and cover all of those things.”
The motion was made by Johnny Castillo and seconded by Williams to approve TEKS Certification for 2026-2027 School Year. The motion carried.
Supt. McNeese stated that there were no budget amendments to present at this time.
The next item on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Financial and Investment Review and Report.
Supt. McNeese briefly went over the Financial and Investment Review and Report, stating, that everything was in good shape.
The motion was made by Acevedo and seconded by Castillo to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report. The motion carried.
Pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074 the Boardwent into executive session at 7:22 p.m. to discuss personnel. The Board returned to regular session at 8:36 p.m.
The next order of business was to deliberate and take possible action to approve LIFT.
The motion was made by Acevedo and seconded by Williams to approve LIFT. The motion carried.
The next item on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve Senate Bill 11.
The motion was made by Acevedo and seconded by Castillo to approve Senate Bill 11. The motion carried.
Item 12 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 The motion was made by Castillo and seconded by Acevedo to approve contracts for Probationary Contract Certified Staff members as recommended by Supt. McNeese, Principals, Athletic Director, and LCSSA Director. The motion carried.
Resignations were given on: Nathan Hobbs, Stephanie Fletcher, Divad Mata, and Maria Gonzalez.
The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Castillo to approve Contracts for Term Contract Certified Staff members as recommended by Supt. McNeese, Principals, Athletic Director, and LCSSA Director. The motion carried.
A resignation was given on: Irma Castilleja. b) At-Will Personnel: The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Acevedo to present letters of reasonable assurance of employment to all At-Will Service/ Support Personnel as recommended by Supt. McNeese and Principals. The motion carried.
Resignations were given on: Ann Ray and America Bowman. c) Compensation: The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Acevedo to approve each employee on a lattered salary schedule, except those who are topped out on the schedule, to receive an increase in compensation. The motion carried.
Supt. McNeese informed the Board of training opportunities. With there being no further business to discuss, Board President Rogers declared the meeting adjourned at 8:38 p.m.