Back to school 2020

By a 9-1 vote, the Evangeline Parish School Board approved revisions to the 2020-2021 school calendar. With the revisions, the school year will now begin on August 24, 2020, and end on June 3, 2021.
Voting against the proposal was board member Wanda Skinner. Board members Arthur Savoy, Nancy Hamlin, and Ellis Guillory were absent.
Before the vote was taken, Superintendent Darwan Lazard explained the process of coming up with the revised calendar.
Superintendent Lazard said Sandy Vidrine with the school board office had put together four options for the calendar. Two of the options had school starting in August, and the other two had school starting on the day after Labor Day. In three of the options, the holidays were the same as they have always been, whereas, one of the options had an altered amount of holidays.
The four options were brought before a 15-member panel of educational and medical professionals. “The group unanimously agreed on sending two calendars to all of the employees,” said the superintendent.
One of the calendars sent to the employees for a vote, Calendar A, had school beginning August 24 with all of the holidays. The other calendar, Calendar B, had school beginning on the Tuesday after Labor Day and all of the holidays. Under that proposal, school would end on June 16.
Superintendent Lazard reported to the board 70.38% of the employees voted to approve Calendar A. As a result, “our recommendation, as we’ve always done, is to recommend what the employees voted on and what the employees recommend,” said the superintendent.
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Lazard stated the school district is working with First Student to come up with ways to not overload the school buses once school starts.
One of the ways is to no longer offer bus rides to day cares. There will also no longer be shuttle buses bringing students from one campus to another before or after school.
“That will be discontined,” Superintendent Lazard said. “When the students leave their campus, they will go directly to their homes. There will be no more switching buses.”
Superintendent Lazard also introduced Helena Francois as interim principal of Basile High School.
“I’m very excited for this position,” Francois told the board, “and I want you to know we’re going to work hard at Basile High School to keep it a good school.”
In other business, the board discussed an insurance quote for computer devices and approved a cooperative endeavor agreement to support and administer Louisiana Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development.