Irvin J. "Black" Landry Sr.
April 28, 2009Curt John Ordoyne
April 30, 2009
The Terrebonne Parish School Board declined to amend its superintendent selection policy at last Tuesday’s meeting.
Board member L.P. Bordelon wrote a proposal he claimed was more efficient then the old policy, yet more transparent to the public than the current policy.
The board did away with its extensive superintendent selection process for a more lenient state law immediately before choosing Philip Martin as school chief on Jan. 20.
The following week, at a Jan. 28 meeting between Martin and the board’s executive committee – composed of board president Hayes Badeaux, vice president Gregory Harding and Roger Dale Dehart – the incoming superintendent’s contract was finalized, which was not in accordance with the state’s open meetings laws.
Bordelon insisted last week’s motion was not a reaction to the way Martin was elected, but guidance for the future.
“This is not by any means a criticism of anything that has happened in the past,” he said. “This is looking ahead and being proactive.”
Bordelon’s proposal called for the board’s executive committee to approve a salary range before advertising the top school job, conduct background and resume checks on applicants, make all meetings open to the public and select the top three to five candidates to be interviewed by the full board.
Dehart objected to only interviewing a handful of candidates.
“Anybody can write a good resume, but before I make the most important decision I make on this board, I want to see and talk to everybody face-to-face,” he said.
With Martin three months into a four-year contract, other board members thought it was too soon to discuss changing the selection policy.
“We just elected a superintendent. I don’t think it’s so important that right now we formulate a policy for the next superintendent,” said board member Clark Bonvillian.
Bordelon countered that the board should not wait until a new school chief is needed to put a better policy in place.
“You don’t build levees after the hurricane,” he retorted. “You build levees before the hurricane.”
The proposed policy change was vetoed by a 6-3 vote. Voting for the proposal were Bordelon, Richard Jackson and Donald Duplantis. Voting no were DeHart, Bonvillain, Badeaux, Harding, Roosevelt Thomas and Rickie Pitre.
In other news, the board unanimously passed a resolution urging legislators to reinstate the exemption of all state tax on school lunches sold to students and staff.
In January, state Department of Revenue officials reported that all schools were required to collect 4 percent state sales tax on lunches sold since the mid-1980s. The agency also said schools could be asked to pay back taxes for the past three years.
Suspended exemptions on 3 percent of the state sales tax will expire July 1, meaning schools would have to begin charging an additional 1 percent sales tax on lunches sold.
Like virtually all school systems, Terrebonne Parish has never collected the tax.
“We understand that there are at least two bills that will be filed to repeal this tax on school lunches,” Martin said. “We’ll support any effort to correct this matter.”
