The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Thursday, July 20th to discuss an 18-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Board President Pat Demel, and Lance Broadhurst gave the Invocation.
There was no one present to speak during public comment, and the minutes from the previous meeting were approved as presented.
Vince Vialle was on hand to discuss the next item, which was to consider and deliberate to authorize Specialized Public Finance Incorporated to pursue Bond Sale.
“We’re glad to have Vince Vialle with us; he is going to go over the good news that we’re eligible to go out and get our remaining money for the bond sale,” Superintendent Mike Read said. “At one time we had talked about Yellowhouse Wind, but our values went up $48 million, and we’re very blessed.”
Vialle added, “We approved a referendum $41,530,000, from that we were able to sell the first phase of the bond issue, which was $38,860,000. Our original plan was to wait until Yellowhouse came online to sell the second phase, because the tax base wouldn’t be big enough; so we were looking at 2025 until that was going to be able to occur. Due to the growth in the district on your tax base, we were able to accomplish that remaining second phase and squeeze it in under the .50 cent tax rate limitation.”
The motion was made by Gary Birkelbach and seconded by Broadhurst to authorize Specialized Public Finance Incorporated to pursue Bond Sale. The motion carried.
The next item on the agenda was to consider and deliberate to approve Resolution to House Bill 3 Safety Plan.
“With the passage of House Bill 3 Safety Plan the Texas Legislature allows schools to plan regarding school safety,” Supt. Read said. “LISD already has the School Guardian Plan in place, therefore it is resolved that LISD will allow the guardians to meet the requirements of House Bill 3 at the Legislative Session beginning in August 2023.”
He added, “We have this resolution stating that we’re compliant with House Bill 3. If we did not have the Guardian Program in place, we would be look at School Resource Officers, Police Dept., School Marshall, something of that nature. Every school is going to have something in place when school starts in August.”
The motion to approve the resolution to House Bill 3 Safety Plan was made by Broadhurst and seconded by Hervey Valdez Jr. The motion carried.
Next on the agenda was to approve LISD ESSER III Plan Review.
“By law, we are required to review our safe return to in-person instruction in continuity of service plan every six months,” Supt. Read explained. “We’re finishing up spending the remainder of our ESSER II money, which has to be done by the end of September, and then we have another year to spend the ESSER III money. Overall, we have received about $5.1 to $5.2 million back when this came out, so we’re getting towards the end of the grant period.”
The motion to approve the LISD ESSER III Plan Review was made by Will Williams and seconded by Birkelbach.
The next item on the agenda was to approve the milk bid.
Supt. Read recommended approval of the milk bid that was submitted by Food King #8.
“There were no other bids, and it remained exactly the same as it was a year ago,” he said. “This is a great benefit for all parties who are involved.”
The motion to approve the milk bid was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Item eight on the agenda was discussion of Littlefield ISD’s Preliminary values. Leisa Kloiber was on hand to discuss this item.
The next item on the agenda was to approve the Lamb County Appraisal District Budget.
The motion to approve the Lamb County Appraisal District’s Budget was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Broadhurst. The motion carried.
Item 11 on the agenda was Policy update 121, affecting (LOCAL) policies: CCGB (LOCAL)AD VALOREM TAXES: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CFB (LOCAL)ACCOUNTING: INVENTORIES CKE (LOCAL) SAFETY PROGRAM/ RISK MANAGEMENT: SECURITY PERSONNEL CKEC (LOCAL) SECURITY PERSONNEL: SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS CLB (LOCAL) BUILDINGS, GROUNDS, AND EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT: MAINTENANCE CRF (LOCAL) INSURANCE AND ANNUITIES MANAGEMENT: UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE CVA (LOCAL) FACILITIES CONSTRUCTION: COMPETITIVE BIDDING CVB (LOCAL) FACILITIES CONSTRUCTION: COMPETITIVE SEALED PROPOSALS DEA (LOCAL) COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS: COMPENSATION PLAN FD (LOCAL) ADMISSIONS FF (LOCAL) STUDENT WELFARE: FREEDOM FROM BULLYING.
The motion to approve Policy Update 121 was made by Valdez and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Item 12 was to consider and deliberate to approve Student Handbook, Code of Conduct and Employee Handbook.
“We’re going to be putting all of the handbooks on our website and each campus will have a few hard copies for people who do not have internet,” Supt. Read said.
Rachel added, “The changes were very minor; Bullying is a whole big section by itself, so that parents can see it and it needed to be on our handbook. Along with the student handbook, we also put the Student Code of Conduct, which is created by our principals. We didn’t have very much change, the main change came for our secondary schools, regarding fighting. If students got into a fight, they were spending 15 days minimum in AEP, and they felt that was a lot for something that was probably not that serious. So this year the minimum amount of days for fighting is five days in AEP and the maximum is 15 days; the principal will be able to chose based on the severity of the action.”
The motion to approve the Student Handbook, Code of Conduct and Employee Handbook was made by Williams and seconded by Valdez. The motion carried.
Bev Boldes gave the Financial Investment Review and Report and the motion to approve this report was made by Broadhurst and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Bryan Gregory went over the Facilities Maintenance and Priori- ties Plan update.
“When it is all said and done we are going to be paying Parygon $1,823,000, which is about $18,503 less than what we anticipated we would pay Parygon,” Gregory said. “We had another $257,000 that we spent on things that were not originally part of the process, such as the bleacher covers for the softball and baseball fields, the trees and irrigation to water those trees and the grass around and between the fields.”
He added, “We spent $84,000 on Primary playground equipment and it has been a huge hit. It looks good and the kids love it. We kept the playground equipment at Headstart, but we replaced the surface with a rubberized soft material. The total cost for that project was $36,000; Headstart paid $28,821 and we paid $7,700. We spent $79,296 on Elementary playground equipment and it has been well received, the kids love it.”
Gregory stated, “This year to date, we’ve spent $618,000 on security and safety updates. Though we’ve made great progress with this stuff, there is still a lot to do. We’ve spent $664,000 on HVAC upgrades. 37 new roof top units were replaced at the Primary campus and 11 roof top unites were replaced at Wildcat Gym. We also had some piers underneath the stands at the football stadium that needed to be replaced.”
Pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074 the Board went into Executive Session at 8:19 p.m. to discuss Personnel matters. They returned to regular session at 8:48 p.m.
The motion was made by Valdez and seconded by Broadhurst to open application for the position of Superintendent to Internal Candidates only. The motion carried.
The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Valdez to approve a contract for Probationary Contract Certified Staff member McKenna Wilkins ( PK Teacher) for the 2023-2024 school year as recommended by Supt. Read, and Principals. The motion carried.
Sonya De Paula was approved as an aide in the JH SPED Department.
A resignation letter was presented on Meagan Land.
Board Training information was presented by Supt. Read and with their being no further business to discuss, Board President Demel declared the meeting adjourned at 8:49 p.m.