The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Thursday during lunch to discuss a 13-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 12 p.m. by Board President Lance Broadhurst, and the Invocation was given by Adrian Solis.
During the Public Forum, the 2022-2023 Littlefield Lady Cats’ varsity basketball team was honored during the meeting for finishing district play as undefeated District Champions with a mark of 12- 0. Also senior, Madison McNeese, was honored for reaching 1,100 points for her LHS Basketball Career.
“We have something we would like to give to a very special person on our team,” Head Coach Teddy Duncan said. “She has been rocking and rolling with me since she was in junior high and she has been big for us each year that she has been on varsity, which has been since she was a freshman. After our game on Monday against Kermit, Madison reached 1,100 points for her high school career.”
There was nobody present to comment the Annual Academic Performance Hearing.
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved as read.
Assistant Superintendent Mitch McNeese presented the Annual Student Performance Report to the Board.
“It’s about a 42-page document, so I’m going to summarize it for you,” McNeese said. “It breaks our data down from third grade all the way up to our juniors. On all grade levels when we are compared to the region and state; the state average for approaches, which they consider passing, was 74%, the Regional average was 74% and Littlefield ISD is sitting at 73%. So, we’re sitting right around average with all of our scores in every subject from third grade up to our juniors.”
He added, “Looking at that, we don not want to be average, average is not where we need to be. We are going to continue to push forward to get above the state and regional levels. We’re working with our principals to get programs in here, we’re working with our staff to get them trained. We will get that number above average, but right now that is where we sit.”
Asst. Supt McNeese also stated that our best subject across the board was social studies, followed by ELA and our two lowest subjects that were tied, both 3-percent below the state average, which were science and math, but we will get those scores up.
The motion was made by Johnny Castillo and seconded by Pat Demel to approve the Student Performance Report as presented. The motion carried.
The Board discussed two versions of the 2023-2024 School Calendar, presented by Superintendent Mike Read.
“We’re still acting under the authority to create a calendar based upon minutes,” Supt. Read said. “75,600 minutes is what we have to build, that is what our students have to go through, throughout a year. We’ve created two drafts. Draft 1 has school starting on Aug. 14th, and as you go through September and November the two days shaded with maroon, Sept, 25 and the 6th of Nov. those are two PD days. Those are days where our teachers come up to campus and work and have professional development set up by the principals. We have 0 students on campus on those days.”
He added, “We have the week off for Thanksgiving in Nov. and then on draft one in Dec. we go to school until noon on Wed. Dec 13th, which is an early release day and then being out until Jan. 3rd. Jan. 4th will be a teacher work day, Jan. 5th is a personal development day for teachers and then our kids start back up on Jan. 8th. In year’s past we had focus Friday’s, with this calendar, we’ve added about five-seven extra days in, in the event something happens during the school year, such as inclement weather. With this calendar we’ve built in 4.5 extra days. Graduation would be on May 17th. Draft two is the same thing with the only different being at Christmas, where we get out the Friday the 15th and then we basically have two weeks off. I made Jan. 1st a school holiday, so our teachers would come back on Jan 2nd, we have a personal development day on Wednesday and kids start back on Thursday, Jan 4th.
Supt. Read stated that they are fixing to send these drafts to the campus principals and get feedback from teachers. They will also put the calendar drafts on the school website, so that they can get feed back from parents.
There was no action necessary. Supt. Read gave an update on ESSER II and ESSER III and discussed return to in- person and Continuity of Service.
“Every six months we have to review our safe return to in-person and continuity of service,” Supt. Read said. “Basically, when we started this and COVID reared is ugly head. It’s basically what are we doing to maintain safety and we told you we were going to install bottle fillers, optional wearing of masks, targeted cleaning as available. One thing that we’ve done is we’ve used Germ Blast. They’ve been very good to come in here in and clean when we have an uptick in our COVID cases. They’ve been beneficial and we’ve been able to use ESSER money to pay for those services.”
He added, “The number of positive cases has gone way down. We’re continuing to do the same things for safe return with ESSER II and ESSER III that we stated we would do at the beginning of this. ESSER II funding will end Sept. 30, 2023, and ESSER III funding will end the Sept. 30, 2024. Those two money avenues are fixing to coming to an end and I applaud Bev and Bryan for keeping up with all of that ESSER money. It was been helpful to LISD, because some of the projects we’ve done, if we didn’t have ESSER money, we wouldn’t have been able to do them.”
The motion to approve the ESSER update was made by Gary Birkelback and seconded by Will Williams. The motion carried. CFO Bryan Gregory gave an update on the Facilities Maintenance Priorities Plan.
“We’re in good shape out at the new softball field; obviously we’re behind and some of that is due to supply and material and bad weather and other issues we’ve fought along the way,” Gregory said. “If you get out there and walk on the field, you can see there are some minor turf issues, such as lines not being exactly where they need to be and some wrinkles in the turf. That is to be expected given the fact that they rolled that stuff up and relocated it over here. Paragon will take care of that and it won’t be an issue. The front fence will be finished on Tuesday. There are also some minor fence issues around the outside perimeter that they will also take care of.”
He added, “ We had a lot of trouble with getting the block laid for the back wall and the dugout, but that seems to be caught up and in decent shape right now. The front looks better than it did, but there is still some work to do. There is an area between the baseball and softball fields where they need to move some dirt around and we’re in great shape on electrical. We relocated the old scoreboard and repainted it and put new letters on it. We got the backstop pads in, we’ll have to deal with some grass issues at some point. The bleachers look beautiful, it’s a better layout then what we have at the baseball field. Overall, the field is ready to play on, everything is functional and looks good. I’m anticipating final completion to be done by the end of next week.”
Gregory also stated that Surrett Metal is going to build a cover over the baseball bleachers and the softball bleachers. As soon as the baseball part is done, they will move on to the softball part.
“On the softball field, when it is all said and done, we will pay $2,050,000 out of fund balance,” Supt. Read said. “We purchased five new buses, four through a grant, which is going to pay $295,000, and we were $210,000 out of pocket. Then you add the new 14 passenger bus that we just got delivered on Thursday; so in total, we are out of pocket $309,000 for five new buses. We will take the four oldest buses off of our stock and Destroy them and send them to Texas School Clean Act and once we do that, they will issue us our money for the grant.”
He added, “We put new fencing around the current Ag Farm, which was $16,600, we purchases two new playgrounds for the primary and elementary, and out of all of the things we’ve done, I’m proud for those kids. We put brand new heating and air conditioning units on the Primary and Wildcat Gym, this is where we were able to use ESSER money in the tune of $664,430 and then we put new safety and security equipment throughout the district. We were able to tap in and use the ESSER money on that as well and it’s close to 1 million dollars. We’ve done quite a bit of stuff, a lot of the things that we’ve done needed to be done.”
Supt. Read stated that at their audit in August 2022 they were at $9.5 million fund balance. When you take all of this together it’s right at $2,550,000. That brings our fund balance down to $6,948,400. You’re supposed to have three months in reserve, and at this point they have 5-6 months in reserve in the fund balance.
The Motion to approve the facilities maintenance priorities plan was made by Hervey Valdez Jr. and seconded by Solis. The motion carried.
Bev Boldes presented the Financial and Investment Review and Report to the Board.
The motion to approve the report was made by Williams and seconded by Birkelback. The motion carried.
Pursuant to Government Code Section 551.071, the Board went into Executive Session at 12:44 p.m. to discuss Personnel matters. They returned to regular session at 1:23 p.m.
Certified Personnel
The motion was made by Valdez and seconded by Birkelbach to approve the extension contracts of Assistant Superintendent Mitch McNeese, Chief Financial and Operations Officer Bryan Gregory, Business Manger Bev Boldes, PEIMS Coordinator Rachel Moreno, Principals – Staci Sumners, Tom Whistler and Amber Hays, Assistant Principals – Monica Acevedo and Brent Green, LCCSA Director Brette Southard, Band Director, Bonnie Anderson and Athletic Director Bo Bryant. The motion carried.
A Resignation was presented on Adam Solis.
At-Will Personnel: Meagan Land was approved as a SPED Aide in Primary.
Supt. Read gave the Board upcoming Board training information and with their being no further business to discuss President Broadhust declared the meeting was adjourned at 1:25 p.m.