The Lampasas Independent School District Board of Trustees meeting last week offered few action items but did include information on a power outage that canceled classes at Hanna Springs Elementary School.
Also during the meeting, Lampasas Middle School Principal Wes Graham provided an update on campus goals for the 2025-2026 school year.
At 12:06 p.m. Oct. 6, administrators at Hanna Springs Elementary posted an announcement on Facebook that students were evacuated from the building after a fire alarm. LISD Chief Financial Officer Shane Jones told board members last week a failed transformer led to the incident.
Jones commended the city for resolving the issue quickly.
“They really jumped on it fast, and the fire department came immediately,” Jones said. “The smoke from it set off a smoke alarm in one of the vents, so they responded immediately and quickly realized what the real issue was. The city electrical department showed up quick and immediately started work on getting another [transformer] and getting it installed.”
Classes at the campus were canceled Oct. 7 to allow for installation of a new transformer. Students returned on Wednesday.
Superintendent Dr. Chane Rascoe told the Dispatch Record Hanna Springs students will not be required to make up time from the missed school day. He said the district has additional time built into the schedule in the event class time is missed due to events like power outages or inclement weather.
LMS ACADEMIC UPDATE
Graham provided a report to board members of what is happening at LMS in the new term. A key point of his presentation was student success on State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams administered in the spring.
LMS students take nine STAAR tests, including math and reading/language arts each year, social studies in eighth grade, and the Algebra I test for eighth-graders in accelerated math.
Students may receive one of three passing scores: “approaches” grade level, “meets” grade level expectations and “masters” expectations. Those three categories and nine tests create 27 performance indicators the school evaluates.
Graham noted LMS students are performing well in each of those three passing metrics.
“For those designations, when you compare us to Region 12, in 25 out of 27 of those [metrics] at the middle school, we scored better than our region,” the principal said. “When you compare Lampasas Middle School to the state in those nine tests and those three different designations for each of those tests, in 20 out of 27 we were better than the state [averages]. That’s something that I’m really, really, proud of.”
Graham told board members the campus received a “B” rating for its accountability score from the Texas Education Agency, scoring an 84. The campus earned distinctions in reading and language arts, social studies, and for its success in the “closing the gaps” domain.
Graham believes the key to LMS’ success is extra time spent on reading and math during the academic period called “Primetime” twice a week. Students work on enhancing their academic skills with IXL, a personal online learning program. Academic period classes that average the most time on IXL per month receive “Badger coins” for fun snacks or small prizes and earn time outside during their academic period.
“Each year, it is about how you can find margin to help your students continue to learn and increase their performance,” Graham said. “We focused on our academic period to be able to do that. This year, there are already lots of students making gains and doing some skill acquisition during that time.”
Graham also gave an update on how the campus is navigating House Bill 1481, which bans students from using devices such as cell phones during the school day. He said LMS has documented 31 instances of initial warnings for device use and three repeat-offender cases.
The next big event for LMS will be its Veterans Day ceremony Nov. 10 at the Bozarth-Fowler Gymnasium.
ACTION ITEMS
After handling the consent agenda, trustees were tasked with nominating members to the Lampasas Central Appraisal District Board of Directors. Trustees nominated the four current members of the LCAD board who have expressed their interest in serving another term: David Barclay, Marshal Brewer, Phillip Garrett and Chris Harrison.
Board members approved the resignation of Lampasas High School biology and chemistry teacher Ginger Capron, effective Oct. 31.
Lampasas ISD’s next regular school board meeting is set for Nov. 3 at 6 p.m. in the district administration building.
