On Monday, July 28, the Pampa Independent School District Board of Trustees held their monthly meeting, beginning with the consent agenda which included the consideration and action to approve the following: the June 23rd board minutes, the monthly and quarterly financial reports, the contracted services with Region XVI Service Center, the resolution to recognize Gray County 4-H organization as eligible for extracurricular status under 19 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 76.1, the adjunct faculty agreement with Gray County Extension Office, a resolution to recognize Hutchinson County 4-H organization as eligible for extracurricular status under 19 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 76.1, adjunct faculty agreement with Hutchinson County Extension Office, the 2025-2026 appraisal calendar and appraisers, the sale of delinquent tax property, the renewal of property and casualty insurance, Spanish Credit by examination, the purchase of IXL instructional software for intervention and enrichment, the LASO grants for Strong Foundation Implementation Pathway-Great Minds and Carnegie Learning and Instructional Leadership Pathway-Region XVI, the TASB Policy Update 125, the revisions to policy FM(LOCAL) for student activities, the revisions to FD(LOCAL) for admissions, the revisions to policy DEC(LOCAL) for compensation and benefits-leaves and absences, to adopt policy EFB(LOCAL) for instructional resources-library materials, the revisions to policy EIC(LOCAL) for academic achievement-class ranking, to renew Carbon Black Endpoint Protection, and the Gray County Hazard Mitigation Plan; all were approved.
Next on the agenda was the Gifted and Talented program update presented by Marissa Lee
“For the last school year, we tested 139 students for the Gifted and Talented services and we were able to identify 44. The reason that number jumped up so much is because the state plan in 2021, we were supposed to do community referrals and Pampa ISD had not done them, only teacher referrals. That along with teacher awareness of gifted and talented students, it has gone up even more.”
“We have caught up with what the state’s demographic is, so we’re modeling it pretty well.”
“This year we had some pretty cool things go on. We had the junior high students give two showcase events-one in the fall and one in the spring, and we are going to redo that this year and add elementary in that as well. They were also on the front page of the Pampa newspaper, so that was really neat. They went on two field trips-they went to West Texas A&M University’s Agriculture Day and they got to take a private tour of News Channel 10 and the Art Association. I think when WT does their Ag Day again, we’re going to go back because it was really great and the students loved it. In elementary, we took a total of six off-campus trips and three on-campus trips as well. They got to have some really neat experience. The 5th graders got to design a brand and a business model, which is why we went to West Texas A&M University. Fourth grade went to the White Deer Land Museum to do a Red River War project and an ancient civilization project as well. This summer at GT Camp, Wilson graciously hosted us and we had 36 students do block challenges for three days and they had a super great time.”
“We are going to update the handbook, and part of those updates is we are going to do a personnel update and update the rules and responsibilities. We’re going to add tech apps as part of our GT curriculum for the junior high and we’re going to update the job of a GT advisor. Next year we are going to focus on getting training completed for the high school and administrators as well as counselors.”
Next was the Safety and Security Report with no new or updated information pertinent to the general public.
Next was the consideration and action to approve the 2025-2026 Pampa ISD Employee Handbook, Parent/Student Handbook, and Student Code of Conduct.
The changes made to the Employee Handbook included ADA accommodation requests and mental health training.
For the Student Handbook, changes made included library materials where parents can ask to review the library materials their kids have checked out and request certain books that they don’t want their child to check out. In the attendance exemptions, mental health was added that had not been included in the past, as well as attending a religious course. A student can miss one to five hours a week and have an exemption on their attendance. Another new change is parental consent for a student to join clubs, as well as consent about religious and moral training.
Changes made to the Student Code of Conduct include two more prohibited items: firearm silencer/suppressor and pocket knives. The possession of communication devices was also added to general violations unless a student needs their device for medical reasons, etc. The misuse of artificial intelligence has also been added as academic dishonesty or engagement in prohibited conduct such as bullying, etc.
All three were reviewed and approved by the Board.
Next items wre to consider and approve revisions to the CH(LOCAL) Purchasing and Acquisition policy and the CV(LOCAL) Facilities Construction policy; both were approved.
Next was to approve the Maximum Price Amendment, AIA Form A133-2019 Exhibit A to the Construction Manager Agreement with Page & Associates Contractors, Inc., for the PHS and Wilson Reroof project, which was approved.
Next was the facilities update presented by Troy McClendon.
“From a general maintenance and custodial side, we’re just trying to get everything ready for the 2025-2026 school year. The roofing projects are really giving us a tight window to try to get that done. Our custodians are trying to get in there and get our floors waxed, but every time it rains, more tiles and insulation comes in through there. All of those HVAC units had to be disconnected during this process, all of the compressors for the freezers in the kitchens had to be disconnected, and now we’re trying to bring all that back online and make sure everything gets back up and running. Our plan is we need to have all those rooms ready to turn over to the teachers by August 4. Their in-service starts on the 11th, but it really starts before that because that only gives them a week.”
“As far as roofing updates: the good news for our elementary schools, the tar kettles and all the roofing equipment will be gone before the kids return.”
“They’re all in good shape and we’ll be done with roofing before kids get there. They weren’t scheduled to be finished until sometime in September, so we were able to make up some ground this summer and get caught up on that thank goodness.”
“For the junior high, my main priority was before school starts, all the common areas were completed. We can’t shut down the kitchen for two weeks while kids are here or the cafeteria area. So now Mr. Petit gets to shuffle around classrooms pretty much for the entire fall until it’s done. We’re looking closer to Thanksgiving now and that’s if everything goes well.”
“We bought 10 HVAC units for the high school, but then we knew this roof was coming on and it was going to save us a lot of time and money if we could roll this into the roofing project. So the roofers are the ones buying the curb adaptors and renting the crane and they’re going to be the ones putting these on. I did not want to wait until November before we got this done because the Commons is hot, McNeely is hot, and they’re popular areas. Our hope is to have all ten of those units on before volleyball games begin.”
“Roofing will begin at Wilson Elementary right after Labor Day. A couple of years ago, they were already roofing the gym and that entire hall of Bright Beginnings and that happened during the hail storm, and it didn’t complete until after the storm so it was knocked total out. So the rest of the building will be roofed and that should be completed by November.”
“We have a beautiful new parking lot at Austin Elementary. All of that concrete work is now complete, and all that is left is a little detail work to caulk all the expansion joints and paint all the striping, fire lanes and curb stops. For each section of that parking they poured, they did do soil tests to make sure that all of our compaction was still good and it wasn’t too wet for anything.”
“The track at the high school got pushed back quite a bit, but everything is complete and all they have left is the striping.”
“Currently we are doing the foundation work, digging that pit on the east/west rectangle. They have dug this down four feet. They’ve dug out all of that dirt down to four feet and they bring in a desirable base and compact it as they go. Every six inches that they’re coming back up, they’re doing soil testing to make sure everything is compacted as it should be. They’ll do that until they’ve built it back up to that four feet. They are almost to that point now once that rectangle is built back up to four feet of having that base, then Tom’s crew will come in, start pouring the footers and piers and doing all of the underground utilities and getting that base ready to go. While he is doing that, the soil crew will move over to the next portion and repeat that process. This will carry us through to the end of October, and at that point steel will start going up through December.”
Next was to consider and appoint board members to serve on Pampa ISD Committees.
The Board then went into an Executive Session with no further items on the agenda to discuss or approve.
