Lamar Consolidated ISD trustees accepted a districtwide department process and operational audit from McConnell and Jones at the Dec. 21 regular board meeting.

The report was presented to trustees at a meeting in mid-November and reviewed LCISD’s overall organizational governance, risk management and management controls. Some of the recommendations in the report include updating the district’s 2002 facilities plan and hiring a deputy superintendent. All trustees voted in favor of accepting the audit.

“It’s something that we will be having to deal with for the years to come; it’s going to help us move down the road for the next 10 years,” LCISD board of trustees Secretary Kay Danziger said.

Trustee Melissa Roberts requested the administration contact McConnell and Jones to make the audit public without requesting an open records request for the sake of transparency.

“This audit basically opened our eyes to a lot of things; a lot of the stuff we already knew—we just needed some help to strategically plan for the future,” Roberts said. “I am urging the administration to contact McConnell and Jones so that this book will be available to the public. …There is a lot of information in there and through it, I know that we will start making the necessary changes to better serve our students and our stakeholders.”

Other takeaways from the meeting

The board voted in favor of nominating Danziger to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) board of directors. The TASB board of directors is a nonprofit voluntary education association serving Texas school districts. The board aims to help all 1,030 districts and 4.9 million students across Texas and serve their communities, according to the TASB website.

Trustees approved the new attendance boundary committee for Don Carter Elementary School. LCISD is sending invitations to parents at the schools closest to the new campus that would be relieved from overcrowding to form a committee that will establish the zoning, according to Communications Coordinator Phillip Sulak.

“In Lamar CISD, we involve only the schools that will actually [be] affected by the zoning,” Sulak said.

The three schools that will be affected include Williams and Thomas elementary schools as well as George Ranch High School, Reading Junior High School and Ryon Middle School. Two representatives will be chosen from each elementary and middle school, and three will be chosen from the junior high and the high school.

“We send invitations to the parents at those schools and they can sign up to show their interest,” Sulak said. “Then we work with principals on recommendations, which the board approves.”

The committee will meet for the first time in January.