TPSB member: Children First

Dear Editor,

Much is written and advertised about the Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors’ opposition to the Terrebonne Parish School Board increased millage proposal.

The Chamber Board of Directors, without fully polling or taking a random sampling of its membership, has made a decision to oppose the millage increase based on the myth that there is no Plan and what has been presented is vague. The Board of Directors has confused the “call of the election” and what will appear on the ballot (which is limited by statute to 250 words) and the written aggressive Terrebonne Parish School Board Plan as approved by Board action, which clearly states that schools will be renovated, over-populated schools will have additional classrooms, schools will be consolidated and new schools shall be built. It is a Plan for the future with immediate implementations. The second part of the Plan is to provide a competitive wage for employees. The Plan calls for universal pre-kindergarten, lower pupil-teacher ratios and innovative education programs such as “Success is Required.”

The Chamber’s Board of Directors claims that its interest is to protect businesses. What better and greater attraction and protection for business than a properly educated work force and a school system that has a recognized delivery system? At present, the Terrebonne Parish School System is the most underfunded school system in Louisiana. Will businesses looking to relocate not notice this important fact? Will its employees want their children to attend underfunded schools? It is my understanding that a major corporation, that may employ hundreds of workers, is presently looking to relocate to Terrebonne Parish. One of the first things they have already checked is the educational system.

The Board of Directors claims that it protects the interests of the 800 members and their 25,000 employees. Don’t the children of those employees deserve the benefit of a better funded school system? Doesn’t your child deserve the benefits of a fully funded school system?

The millage will provide an immediate “economic engine” to the community. The 2,300 full-time and part-time employees and the 1,600 retired employees spend most of their money in Terrebonne Parish. The “Brick and Mortar” Plan will provide local businesses with an additional boost in revenues.

The Terrebonne Parish School Board has never reneged on its promises to the electorate. Whatever the Board has ever proposed to voters has been fulfilled. The Freshman Center at H.L. Bourgeois High School is almost completed and will open next school year. The Grand Caillou School is a work in progress. In the mid-1980s the Blueprint for Progress, a $21 million “Brick and Mortar” project was passed and implemented. At the end of the project, rather than continue to tax its citizens, the Terrebonne Parish School Board did not renew this issue.

This request for a millage increase has a 10-year sunset for voter approval or disapproval.

My decision to support the millage increase is based on the fact that the millage is needed to sustain a school system that provides on a daily basis for 19,000 public school students and great numbers of non-public students (transportation and special needs services). I also base it on the fact that my three children have received an excellent free education in this system. There is an old saying in educational circles that states, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Never has this saying been truer than now.

I encourage voters to vote their convictions but to remember “Children First.”

L.P. Bordelon III,

District 6, Terrebonne Parish School Board Member,

Chamber of Commerce Member