The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Tuesday evening to discuss a 15-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 7:02 p.m. by Board President Lance Broadhurst and the Invocation was given by Gary Birkelbach.
The first item on the agenda was public forum, where Matt Meredith expressed a concern regarding the possibility of getting the Guardian Program in place for Littlefield Schools. He wanted to know the “why” of having the Guardian Program and proving a good foundation justifying the program.
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved as read and Superintendent Mike Read outlined the details of the Esser III plan and informed the board it was submitted to TEA for review. No action was taken on this item.
Item five on the agenda was the milk bid.
“There were no other bids, and although the prices quoted are higher than last year, they remain reasonable,” Supt. Read said. “I recommend the approval of the milk bid submitted by Food King #8.”
Will Williams made a motion to approve the milk bid submitted by Food King #8, and it was seconded by Birkelbach. The motion carried.
“Each year, the Lamb County Appraisal District submits its budget for approval from all of the entities it serves after the LCAD Board has approved it,” Supt. Read explained.
The motion was made by Johnny Castillo and seconded by Adrian Solis to approve the Lamb County Appraisal Budget as presented by Supt. Read. The motion carried.
“We are going to be updating 30 policies with update 117. The major ones are all legal policies. I’m going to go over a few of them, such as facilities and construction. That is one thing that has come up with the ESSER money; is construction an allowable expense. We have not received a definite answer and I think that will continue. On the update, they changed the policy on competitive bidding and procurement requirement. The other one was compensation of benefit leaves and absences. They added a definition of school year that aligns with the termenology TASB contract that they put out. Also, no paid leave benefits offset with conjunction with somebody receiving workers comp benefits. They can’t have both is what it is saying. Update 118 is right around the corner and I’ve been reviewing it and it’s going to be pretty extensive. It will be from the legislative session that just finished and will be in October.”
The motion to approve Policy Update 117 was made by Solis and seconded by Pat Demel. The motion carried.
Assistant Superintendent Mitch McNeese discussed the Student Handbook, Code of Conduct and Employee Handbook, saying, “It’s been a while since we’ve had an employee handbook, but I got the newest TASB model and plugged in all of our information. It’s about 60 pages long with everything an employee might need to know. Mr. Read also gave me 30-35 changes for the next school year and I’ve got those plugged in, so the employee handbook is ready to go and will be on our website starting this school year. It’s up to date and we’ll continue to stay on top of it and keep it updated each year.”
Supt. Read added, “Each campus will have a few hard copies, because there are going to be people coming in saying they would like a copy of it and we’ll have those ready. But, for the most part it will be online.”
The motion to approve the Student Handbook, Code of Conduct and Employee Handbook was made by Solis and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Supt. Read stated that there were no budget amendments at this time, but there would be some coming in August as the Fiscal Year comes to a close.
Bev Boldes presented an update regarding our updated revenue/expenditure sheet for the current year and the 21-22 school year. No action was needed for this item.
Supt. Read went over the Financial Review and Report, reporting that the budget remained on target and presented detailed Financial and Investment information including projections for revenue and expenditures for the remainder of the 20-21 school year.
The motion to approve the Financial and Investment Review and Report was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Supt. Read gave an update on the facilities maintenance priorities plan regarding the visitor’s pressbox renovation, buses and the Bus Barn.
“The visitor’s pressbox is nearing completion; those guys have done a very good job,” Supt. Read said.
Bryan Gregory added, “Building materials are hard to come by in this day and age. Right now we’re waiting on the windows, which are due to come in August 2nd . We have some flooring that is going down, but has not been installed yet because we want to get those windows in first. There is so much dust and dirt still coming in through those old windows, so we are waiting to get those new windows in so that we can get the inside perfectly clean before we lay that flooring. Everything is on target and should be done prior to our first scrimmage on August 13 th .”
Supt. Read talked about the buses, saying, “We have a plan to move some money around, so that we will be able to pay cash for those buses. As far as the bus barn goes, the current facility that we have that houses those buses is 150’x50’, which is about 7,500 sqft. Mark and I went out there and on the south side, I think we could get another extenstion 140’x40’, which is about 5,600 sqft.”
He added, “I really think that is something that we need to look at because we have lots of route buses, suburbans and tractors sitting out in the elements. The wear and tear over time, I think it would be a project we need to look at taking on.”
The motion to approve the facilities maintenance priorities plan was made by Solis and seconded by Demel. The motion carried.
Pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.071 the Board went into executive session to discuss personnel at 7:32 p.m. and returned to regular session at 8:41 p.m.
Regarding Certified Personnel, the motion was made by Williams and seconded by Birkelbach to approve Probationary Contract Certified Staff members Shea Cantu (8th Grade History), Matthew Arce (6th Grade Social Studies), Caroline Dunn (JH SPED Teacher), Maria Delgado (7th Grade History), Kaegan Edwards (2nd Grade), and Joy Vera (1st Grade). The motion carried.
Regarding At-Will Personnell, the motion was made by Solis and seconded by Castillo to approve the hiring of Jessica Longoria as the (Accounts Payable secretary) and Emily Thomas as the (ISS Coordinator) for the High School. The motion carried.
Resignation letters were presented on Maria Ortega, Trevor Edgemon and Chelsey Jones.
Supt. Read presented board training information to the board and the meeting was adjourned at 8:49 p.m.