Snyder ISD board discusses Lone Star Governance plan

The Snyder ISD school board heard an update on the district’s participation in the Lone Star Governance program at its meeting Thursday evening.
Lone Star Governance is an initiative through the Texas Education Agency to train school board members and administrators with the goal of improving student performance.
Laurie Elliott, a Lone Star Governance coach and monitor, teleconferenced with the school board during the presentation, led by Snyder Superintendent Dr. Eddie Bland. With input from other Snyder ISD personnel, Bland spoke about recent changes the district has made to their goals for the program.
Following the presentation, Elliott gave positive feedback on the changes.
“I’m loving what I’m hearing, to be honest with you,” she said. “The board is asking some very good questions. What I’m also hearing is just best practices. Everything’s in place to make it happen. Everything’s in place.”
No one spoke during a public hearing on an amendment to the school district’s tax agreement with Coyote Wind LLC. Trustees subsequently unanimously approved the amendment.
The board elected to table review of the 2018-2019 financial audit and review it during the January meeting.
Chief Financial Officer Morgan Preston updated the board on the district’s Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST) rating for 2017-2018.
“There’s 15 indicators. We ranked highest score on all but one,” Preston said. “One indicator we missed for the ’17-’18 year was ‘On the external independent auditor report, we were free of material witnesses,’ and the answer was ‘No.’ So out of 100 possible points, we got 90. A ‘superior’ rating, the highest you can get.”
The school board also learned about a plan to take a group of students to the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., in 2021, if details can be worked out, as well as the scheduled upcoming purchase of $70,000 worth of library books in January.
The board met in closed executive session for approximately 45 minutes to discuss personnel matters, and took no action after returning to open session.