By DEREK LOPEZ
The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Tuesday in the Board Room of the Jerry Blakely Administration Building to discuss a 14-item agenda.
Board President Pat Demel called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. and the invocation was given by Superintendent Mike Read.
There was nobody present to comment during public forum and the minutes from the previous meeting were approved as presented.
Primary Principal Staci Sumners kicked off the Administrative report with a report on Primary. She stated that they have a total of 300 students; 80 students in the threeyear old and pre-k program, 62 students in kindergarten, 67 students in first grade and 91 students in second grade.
“We had our Meet the Teacher on August 10th; it was full, we had a full house. We ran from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., 6:45 p.m. We had about 60-65% of our families show up and go through classrooms,” she said. “On August 21st, we’re going to have our third annual community picnic. It’s a fun night with our families to welcome everybody back and get outside of the building, so that we can see our families in a different way and they can see us and our families in a different way.”
She added, “We will be opening back up our Wildcat Pantry. It will be open every other Tuesday and is stocked with snack bags, food boxes, toiletries, clothes, shoes, school supplies. Kingdom Come is a sponsor who came with me from Lubbock and they have really been supporting our campus and are stocking our pantry again for us this year. We will begin all of our I-station testing next week, which is reading and math, followed by our dibbles testing, which is digging a little bit deeper with our reading. The staff and I will figure our who our RTI groups are going to be and begin that by the third week of school.”
She continued, “We have three main goals that we’re going to focus on this year; Our students in Kindergarten through second grade, we’re going to show a 15% increase in students who are at or above grade level. Pre-K has their own goals since they do not do dibbles testing. We’ve also set our attendance goal for each six weeks at 95%; last year we finished at 92%.”
Elementary Principal Tom Whistler was next to give an update on his campus, explaining that they have 231 total students; 81 students in third grade, 66 students in fourth grade and 84 students in fifth grade.
“Our Back to School Night will be next Tuesday, where parents can meet the kids’ teachers and get expectations of what the teachers expect,” he said. “We have a Constitution Day Program coming up on Sept. 15th, that will happen three times that day, one for each grade level. We have one new staff member who started with us this year, Maria Gonzales. We’ll start dibbles testing and reading intervention testing next week, if not the following week. We’re also looking for ways to improve attendance.”
Monica Acevedo gave an update on the Junior High, stating that they have 284 students on campus to start the school year. They have 102 students in sixth grade, 86 students in seventh grade and 96 students in eighth grade.
“We start volleyball on Aug. 28th in Idalou and then we have a tournament in Friona on Aug. 31st and Sept. 2nd,” she said. “Football for Junior High starts Sept. 7th at home against Post. We will start TMSFH testing for our seventh graders on Thursday, and for sixth and eighth grade we are going to use I-Station to monitor them throughout the year.”
She added, “We are starting a new math curriculum this year, that is a sister program to what Primary is doing.”
Amber Hays gave an update on High School starting with enrollment, stating that they have a total of 357 students on campus to begin the year. They have 85 freshmen, 96 sophomores, 88 juniors and 88 seniors.
“We started the week with senior sunrise, which the only rain we’ve seen in I don’t know how long came right in the middle of that, so we moved everything into the gym,” she said. We’ve started with class meetings going over expectations for attendance, academics and behavior. Mr. Walker has given us great support with the court system and let us know that they’re going to be there to help us a little bit more with our truancy problems. We will start bench marking a little later in the semester.”
Brette Southern gave an update on the special education department and Athletic Director Bo Bryant gave an update on athletics.
Bryan Gregory gave an update on the projects going on around the district, saying that all of the projects were in pretty good shape.
“We’re wrapping up the stuff at the softball field, we have not paid Paragon all of the money that we owe them. They still have some drainage issues to finish up and we’re talking about the concrete issue and I think we’ll be able to get that resolved,” Gregory said. “We got our two foot pipe fence installed and we’re going to get that painted and it will help keep people out of the complex.”
He added, The project at the high school is continuing to go good. There are 126 piers that have been poured and they had the footing ready to pour on the north eastern part of the project. As soon as they get that footing poured, they’re going to come back on the 25th and pour the pad for what they’re calling zone A, which is the eastern most side. Once they get that pad poured and cured, they will start bringing steel in and things will start going up. They’re still a little bit behind from that rain we had a month and a half ago, but they’re making progress and will catch up.”
There was no action necessary for Trust Property Disposition.
Item six on the agenda was to Deliberate and take possible action to designate Lisa Kloiber to calculate the No-New Revenue and Voter Approval Tax Rates.
“By law we are required to designate a person to calculate our no-new revenue and voter approval tax rates,” Supt. Read said. “I recommend that we approve Lisa Kloiber as our designee.”
The motion was made by Gary Birkelbach and seconded by Will Williams to designate Lisa Kloiber to calculate the No-New Revenue and Voter Approval Tax Rates as recommended by Supt. Read. The motion carried.
The next item on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve the fuel bid.
“We only received one bid, which came from Centergas Fuels,” Supt Read said.
Gregory added, “We’re glad that they’re there and they want to do business with us. They’ve always been good to us.”
The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Johnny Castillo to approve the fuel bid submitted by Centergas Fuels. The motion carried.
Item eight on the agenda was to deliberate and take possible action to approve the 2023-2024 Budget Preview.
“The proposed 2023-2024 budget continues to be a work in progress and we will continue to fine tune it up until August 31st,” Supt. Read said. “We’re building the budget based on a .67 cent tax rate. If you remember a year ago, we were at .90 cents on the maintenance and operation. We will hold a public hearing on the budget and tax rate and adopt the budget and tax rate at our next meeting on Aug. 31st at noon.”
The motion was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Hervey Valdez to approve the 2023-2024 Budget Preview as presented. The motion carried.
Next, the Board discussed the proposed Tax Rate for the 20232024 School Year.
“I’ll be recommending that we adopt the maximum tax rate allowed by tax compression, which is .6787/100 dollars at the August 31st meeting,” Supt. Read said.
No action was necessary. The Board also discussed Fund Commitment for Optimum Fund Balance.
“Commitment of funds to a specific area does not mean we will spend the money, it is simply a necessity to meet TEA recommended levels of fund balance,” Supt. Read said. “In order to meet the optimum fund