LGISD Employees to Get 3% Raise
The La Grange school board held its monthly meeting Monday. Here’s some highlights
from the meeting: Salary Increases All employees who were employed by LGISD during the 2021-22 school year will receive a 3% increase off of their paygrade midpoint. Substitute pay will increase by $5 per day. New Hires and Resignations The board approved a one year probationary contracts for Stephanie Galvez – elementary bilingual teacher and Maddison Stafford - elementary music teacher. Other personnel hired were Ellee Sodolak, Paris Broussard, and Breanna Gonzalez – Little Leps afterschool care counselors, and Tammy Kubos – transportation supervisor.
Melissa Walla – high school receptionist has resigned.
Tax Rate Adopted The board adopted a tax rate of $1.0171, which is an 11.33% ($0.1299) decrease in the tax rate from last year’s rate. The tax rate is comprised of $0.8546 maintenance and operations, and $0.1625 interest and sinking for the 2022-23 school year. This proposed tax rate was published in The Fayette County Record on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Comment From The Public Amanda Morrison addressed the board during the comments from the public on non-agenda/non-personnel
items time at Monday night’s meeting. She voiced opinion about how she thought the district could reduce transportation cost by consolidating the Freshmen/JV teams with the Varsity teams when traveling to out of town games. She gave an example of the LGISD softball team taking two buses to games last year – one for JV and one for Varsity. She felt that one bus could have transported both teams and all equipment necessary for the games. She said that not only would that save on fuel cost, but it would also save on the cost of the additional driver as well as the wear and tear on the buses. An added bonus would be increased team comradery as upper classmen would bond more with the lower classmen.
Administrative Reports Superintendent Andy McHazlett reported that the current enrollment is 1,871 which is up from the same time last year, and the ADA (average daily attendance) for the district is 1,794, which calculates to 97.9%. TheADA is a major factor in determining the amount of funding the school receives.
Dr. Marc Fitzpatrick was asked to speak about the scoreboard and some possible updates that can be added. He told the board that the new scoreboard has the capability of video. He also added that there are private individuals who are willing to pay to have the additional equipment installed. Fitzpatrick told the board that there will be a presentation at next month’s meeting to give more details and a timeline. Assistant Superintendent Stacy Eilers told the board that the Little Leps after school program currently has 57 students enrolled. That is an increase from the 20 that it started with. She also gave a brief report on teacher in-service and the campus open houses held before the start of the school year. Director of Operations and School Safety Sharon Muzny reported that the number of bus riders is up considerably. There are currently 1,001 students signed up to ride the bus as compared to 800+ last year. There are a total of 15 routes driven daily. School safety is a priority. Weekly door checks are documented, however doors are being checked daily.
Student Handbook Update A new addition to the student handbook is a change for the lunch criteria for juniors and seniors. If juniors and seniors meet all the criteria, they will be allowed to have a one hour lunch time. The criteria includes attendance, grades, and passing of end of course testing. There has also been a change to the consequences for refusing to take the drug test. Another change is with the policy about earrings. Ear piercings are allowed for all students (not just girls anymore), but must not be excessive, distracting, or dangerous. Student Code of Conduct – Discipline Management Plan The LGISD student code of conduct and discipline management plan has been updated for the 2022-23 school year. The ISS escalation of consequences wording was changed. It now states “When a student continues to misbehave and is assigned to ISS for multiple offenses, the placement duration may increase.” It previously stated “will increase.” Vaping on campus and vape on person or in vehicle or on campus is now part of the student code of conduct – discipline management plan.
• Vaping on campus will result in a 30 day placement in DAEP; 20 day review of placement with the completion of a vape education course within the first 10 days of the placement.
• Vape in vehicle or on cam- pus or on student will result in SAC placement, student must complete the vape course prior to release from SAC.
Vape and vape oil have been added to list of Level III behaviors.
Roof Repair The high school/middle school cafeteria roof was brought to the board for discussion in 2021 and 2022. The discussion included two bid processes that resulted in no action by the board. As per board recommendation, the roof has since been patched and/or repairs attempted. Some of these patches are repatches. The problem has not been resolved. The roof still leaks and has resulted multiple man hours replacing ceiling tiles and cleaning up after the leaks. These repairs would be paid for with ESSER funds. The board authorized the administration to advertise to receive bids to replace the roof.