Following the Martin Luther King holiday, students in Evangeline Parish were out of school for an additional three days because of the winter weather. Students at both Basile schools were out Friday, as well, because of low water pressure in the town. These added days off of school created a problem of the district being deficient in the hours of instruction mandated by the state.
Superintendent of Schools Darwan Lazard, during the meeting of the Evangeline Parish School Board Thursday night, presented options to make up the time that was missed. Superintendent Lazard remarked that he will be surveying the principals and teachers “to make the best decision about how we are going to make up the minutes.” He added, “We have some options, and I will present them to the board at the meeting on February 7.”
“We could add some minutes to each class period, or we could look at having school on Ash Wednesday, which is February 14, or we could look at Presidents’ Day, which is on February 19,” he continued. “I will look at our situation and make the best decision possible upon the survey of our employees.”
Superintendent Lazard also addressed another problem of possible days off of school in the future. “I don’t know if we’re going to have another snow day, or if we’re going to have some Spring rains,” he said. “We can’t just fill in for what we are deficient. We’re going to have to maybe put a little cushion even beyond that because we don’t know what the weather is going to be like.”
The meeting on February 7 that the superintendent alluded to will be the only meeting in February after the board voted to adopt the schedule for calender year 2018. According to Superintendent Lazard, this is “because the number of days in between the meeting of the 7th and the 21st is just a small number of business days because we have days off for Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day.”
Maintenance projects around the district were also discussed by the board as it voted to seek a price quote at Pine Prairie High School for its stage lighting and voted to accept low price quotes for projects at Mamou High School, Pine Prairie High School, and Ville Platte High School.
Superintendent Lazard discussed the factors going into the decision about the stage at Pine Prairie. “They host all of our plays for all the schools in the parish,” he said. “We felt like we needed to do that because they don’t just serve the students at Pine Prairie. Plus, of course, they’re the only school that has that type of drama program.”
Other maintenance work on the Pine Prairie campus involves demolishing the current football stadium bleachers. Maintenance and Operations Facilitator Jason Hazelton advised the board, “We are talking about a job that’s going to require equipment that I don’t have. The main frame of the stadium is going to have to be cut up and sectioned off. It’s just a task beyond what my men can do.”
“The press box is going to be taken down because it’s rotten,” he continued. “The only thing good in that press box is the floor. All the walls and everything are well beyond their useful life.”
The lowest bid was from Joey West Construction for $8,500.00.
According to Hazelton, the work in Mamou involves the exit doors on the main building of the high school. “It’s where the stairwell is when you come into the building,” he said. “The door frame is completely rusted through because it rains into the building right there. We’re going to have to remove that frame and redo some masonry work around there to seal it.”
The lowest bid was from Flynn Buiding Specialties, Inc, for $5,580.20.
Flynn Building Specialties, Inc., also submitted the lowest bid of $5,090.35 to replace the Ville Platte School band building’s exit doors. The money for of the projects would come from the parish wide maintenance fund.
In other business, the board voted to change the milage rate from .535 per mile to .545 per mile effective January 1, 2018, based on the federal government rates allowed by the IRS.
The meeting concluded with the board going into executive session to discuss the superintendent’s evaluation.
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TONY MARKS