001While BCB school board meetings of procedure, an individual speaker appears at a school board meeting to speak on agenda item must register prior to the meeting and will be allotted three minutes to speak on the agenda item prior to the schoolboard discussion on set agenda item. We'll now call to order the Jeff Davis Parish School Board agenda meeting. Uh, Miss Heavy. Roll call, please. Okay. Mr. Arseno here. Mr. Borglong. Mr. Brook House here. Mr. Dobson here. Mr. Doy here. Mr. Fry. Miss Jones. Miss Paula Lashern here. Miss Summer Lashern. Mr. Patterson here. Mr. Petri here. Mr. Trhan here. Mr. Walker here. You do have a quorum, sir. and they have I have had no request for um public request to speak. Thank you public comments. We will now uh Miss Paula will give the invitation
002and Phil will give the pledge of allegiance. Jesus, thank you for the opportunity to serve you by serving our community. Give us wisdom and understanding as we make decisions that affect our schools, our students, and the staff. bless the meeting tonight and bless each family as we celebrate the week of your resurrection in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. As uh just a quick reminder, as Miss Debbie said, we have no uh request for public comments. So, I will be skipping that portion tonight and the agenda just to give everybody a heads up. Might be something new for y'all. Uh I need a motion
003and a second to approve the schoolboard minutes of the regular meeting on March 20th, 2025. Motion. Got a motion by Mr. Walker, a second by Mr. Paul Tron. Uh any board discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose. Eyes have it. I need a motion, a second to vote to change the order of topics to be addressed and to add. I got a motion by Mr. Walker, a second by Paul Janet Jones. Miss Janet. Uh, any board discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose. Eyes have it. We also want to recognize we have Mr. Kevin Berkin, our Betsy member here today in the audience. Uh, would you like to come address the board, sir? just be really brief because I know uh churches tonight. Joe, um I gave you out the I know that
004you had seen that the nation's report card um just five years ago we were number 49 in the nation. This year uh when this came out, it comes out every two years were 32nd. Our fourth graders for the second cycle in a row um are the leading growth in the nation. Uh which was exciting. um just this week. What's not on there that whenever you um make the determination for demographics that Louisiana is second in the nation in on this nation's report card. So exciting stuff. Congratulations to all of the team here in Jeff Davis Parish. Although the teachers um just great work continue to try to move up the ladder. Um, Louisiana right now, and Dr. Brumley would say that anytime he goes to speak, and I've been with him at a few places,
005um, Louisiana is the talk of the nation when it comes to education right now. So, it's exciting. It's a fun time to be in education. One of the things that we're looking at this year, um, board is with regards to truency and chronic absenteeism. um the Chief Justice Weamer of the Louisiana State Supreme Court is really pushing a and getting involved in this part of the education just um you know for instance Jeb Davis Parish the numbers that I have 25% are chronic absentee so how can we teach them if they're not at school so we're looking at those things we're going to there's going to be a little summit this summer on that um so try to do some the things to try to to bring u kids to school and why are they
006absent and all those things. So, we're looking at that quite a bit as well. Um, but just wanted to come by and and congratulate all of you and all of the team and uh Superintendent Hall and all of the his team and all of the teachers here for great job and uh one month and we'll be done with another year. Can't really believe it. But any that's all I have. Yes, sir. Well, first off, I want to thank you for coming. Appreciate what you do. Uh, and I have a question. I don't know if you can answer it or not, but u been hearing a lot of rumins about our governor talking about large sums of money being allocated to private schools. Is there any truth to that? So, they probably are talking about the
007Gator program. So, the GA program it it um uh the governor's in the governor's budget he allocated suggested still has to go through the legislature 92 million. Now, keep in mind that the existing kids that were on the voucher program, about 45 million of that 92 was paying for them already. So, it's basically an additional 50 million that he is suggesting to the legislature to fund um the log gator program for kids to go to a private school. Yes. So, now whether or not the legislature does it, we're going to find out here in the next month. Um but right now as of now uh in a closed uh the applications closed on the 15th there was 35,000 applicants. Um, and at the current um amount of money, if they did the 92 million, that
008would serve about 11,000 kids, which would be about 6,000 more than what is already being served through the voucher program. The that's going away. those kids go into this new logator program as the first up. If they apply, they're going to get it. And then the other 30 1,000 that have applied are based on um being able to qualify u first in and qualifying. I just really don't understand. Uh I don't understand really how the p the private sector works, but I was under the impression that they pay tuition and they have to pay to go to school and uh and I know those kids pay taxes as well, but I I just I didn't know where the public schools would come out. So if um if so far in my district Lake Charles dascese,
009Lafayette dascese so far they have said that they would participate in the logator program. So but they would also have to there would be a nationally um recognized testing that they would have to do which would align to the public school and public charters. Um, so would be if they take those dollars, but right now what the ones I've talked to said that they would they would accept the kid. Thank you. Any more on the homeschool? Are they going to provide the funds to the parents? Um, that probably that's not going to this is going to the alligator program is going to go for private school. It's not going to be if the program progresses as originally intended third year after then it's going to be for everyone. Right now it's 250% first year uh
010poverty level. Next year it's 400% of poverty level and then after that it was supposed to be opened up to everyone. Whether that happens it's anyone's guess right now. We there's a meeting on um joint legislative committee on budget's going to be meeting on Wednesday. I just spoke with Dr. Brumley on the way here. Um and they have to vote to allow the the people who were hired on to administer the program. They have to vote on the contract. So it's still um that's a hurdle that needs to be crossed. If if they don't vote for that contract, then the program is basically dead. The funds that they're talking about here for log gators, uh, are they taking any of that away from the public schools? So, keep in mind that all of the kids
011who qualify for that program are already in the public school system, which is already in the MFP portion of that. So a portion of what would be going to a private school is already being paid through the MFP. So it's not as big a section. I think it's in the the neighborhood of seven or $8,000 that would be going per child to a private school. But keep in mind that the base MFP is just a shade over $4,000 um across the board. Then you start making adjustments for sped or for all those different types of situations. Mr. the MFP will not be affected. The MFP um it was part of actually my committee and it is the um Bessie's has to submit the MFP to the legislature by March 15th. We did that. What we
012did with the MFP was the base staying the same, but we've added put into the MFP like we did last year, but they took it out was $30 million for um for high dosage tutoring, $17.5 million for differentiated compensation, which mean those hard to get teachers or the teachers that you want to um pay a bonus to would come out of that. plus $2 million for I'm drawing a blank, but um so that is all within the MFP. It was sent over to the legislature. Legislature has an up or down on that. Uh if it's down, then it comes back to us and we change it and go back or it reverts back to the previous year, uh which would be the third time that that would happen. So, we're trying not to let that
013happen. Any other questions? All right. We we appreciate you coming by as you always do. Thank you. Mr. Big is virtual now. We like to let the record affect that Mr. Bordon is virtual right now. Huh? You don't get We'll now start with the board committee reports arson finance. Okay. Grant permission accept the following donations. Elton High School Punishers LEMC Rugaroo Chapter $500. Funds to assist with baseball equipment and travel expenses. Jennings Elementary School, Sparks Law Firm, LLC, $1,000. Funds to be used for library needs. Jennings High School, FCCLA, State Convention Expenses. Lines Market, $100. Mills Record, $100. The bank, $250. Hobos Delhi $100 Charles K. Fontno, $100. Langley Williams Company, $200. Fred and Ruth Ziggler Foundation, $1,000. Lake Arthur Elementary School, Fasteners Cinjun Network, I'm sorry, Faster Cinjun Network, $500. Funds to be used
014by teachers in special education department. Lake Arthur High School, Don Goce, $1,000 funds to be used for powerlifting team expenses. Welch High School, Pat Desert, $100 funds to be used for end of the year awards program. Kate Kelly, $135 funds to be used for good behavior rewards. Kate Kelly, $320 funds to be used for student awards. Welch High School van boosters $360 funds to be used for feeding students for LEMA camp. Welch van boosters $3,178 funds to be used for ban end of the year trip. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Arsenal, second by Ultron. I personally need to recuse from this. Any board discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose. Permission to weld through a mot to purchase security cameras at a cost of $32,81 from Silven System special assistance. I got
015a motion by Mr. Phil, a second by David Owens. Any board discussion? All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Lori Duhan, technology supervisors, requesting permission to enter into contract negotiations with school insights. I got a motion by Mr. Arsenal, second by Mr. Dobson. Any board discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose. I have permission to Lake Arthur High School to accept the quote from Aiana Glass in the amount of $14,298 for the replacement on 11 doors. across the high school and junior high buildings. These bars are compatible. I got a motion by Miss Arson, a second by Miss Ganet Jones. Any board discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose. And um just to let everybody know on Tuesday, Miss Christian gave us a review on the third quarter budget actual comparisons on
016the general funds and all special re revenue funds. information long and that will conclude my report. Thank you, sir. Insurance, Mr. Blake Petri, no report. Buildings and ground committee, David Oasis, no report. Policy, Mr. Russell Walker, no report. Transportation committee, Greg Bordon, no report. 16th second section, Charles Burkass. Miss, no report. Ward two, Miss Pauloj. Um not really a report, more of an update that uh ward two members took a tour of the stadium and got update and everything seems to be progressing well. I believe they're going to pour the slab for the new parking sometime in the next week. Um if you drive by, you'll see stuff going up. Uh and uh also we did get confirmation that this construction will not affect graduation. That's good. Thank you. That's it. End of report. I
017appreciate that. Um, obviously legislation leaves on Greg Cornelon. No report. Long range planning. Paul Tron, no report. Food service committee summer. Uh, Miss Summer did reach out to me today uh to let us know that she did talk to Miss Tina and she's trying to schedule another day for us to go watch a truck of cold food delivery. If anybody's going to be interested in that, I think she's going to send out a date to everybody. She's also asked Miss Tina about her top five things that maybe needs to re be repaired or replaced and to get a a price and everything for us to start looking at that. So, um, that was her report for the food service committee. All righty. That's We'll go now to the sales tax report by Miss Amber Miller.
018Hello. How are y'all doing? Good. How are you doing? Um, okay. So, for this for March 25, we collected $993,000 and some change, which is 39,000 over the same fund last year. Year to date, we're just over 8.5 million, which is $25,000 less than year to date last year. Just to remind y'all, um they reduced some of the um taxable items, especially with a um equipment and things like that. So, that's where we're seeing some of our um hits. We are getting vendors comp um not taken out right now, but Mr. Romero has a bill that's going to come up next Tuesday um to reinstate it. So that's also going to decrease our stuff, but it's also something that everybody was getting before. So that's not something I would ever fight against is I mean
019it's fair. But um we also have two other bills that we're watching. I sent out a um email to all the jurisdictions last this week to let y'all know we had to do a fiscal note. And um one of the things they're trying to get rid of for the locals is they want to exempt food for purchase, food for home consumption purchases. So that's your grocery stores and um bakeries, everything like that. It would be about a million dollar fiscal note just for the school board annually less than what we're getting now. And that's just an estimate. That's it could probably be more. So we don't want them to do that. Um, another one they're trying to do is pharmaceuticals, which they were trying to do during um the reform in November and it didn't
020pass. Well, in January, they made us change all of our returns to account for that, but didn't put any teeth into it to make people actually report it because they were hoping to get the numbers so they can say, "Hey, this is not going to be that much of a loss or anything." Well, it's only been two months. We don't have any numbers because nobody actually used those lines with our returns that we had to change and they are trying to exempt it again and there's no way we can get a number for that fiscal note to give an actual good amount. So um we're watching those. Um Tuesday is our first day at the um legislature that we're actually going to have sales tax bills up there. Um I'm not able to make it
021but our legislative team from LATA will be there. Um, and if they add any others during the week, that was just the one day I couldn't go, but we will have people there watching and helping. So, do y'all have any questions? Thank y'all. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Now, on to new business. Uh, grant permission to sales tax collector Amber Miller to attend the 2025 SCA conference. I got a motion by Paul. Oh, by David Owens. Second. Second by Blake Petri. Any board discussion? All in favor say I. I. All oppose. I have it. Declare the following uh child nutrition program items from war at surplus and send to the next available. I got a motion by Bill Arsenal. A second by Blake Petri. Any board discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose.
022I have got a couple uhformational items here. Condolences are extended to the family of Alice Roy, central office bookkeeper, retired in 1997 with 17 years of service. Also, uh the May school board meeting will be moved to May 6, 2025 and the agenda meeting to May 8th, 2025 due to graduation schedules. We'll go ahead and let y'all read the uh all the other stuff that you can read later on tonight and we will move down to Mr. falls comments. Um, I don't have any comments. Just wishing everybody happy Easter. I'm sending out a message to all of our all of our employees at the meeting. I've been working on it. Messages don't come easy to me. Like when I I give to groups, it takes me a long time. I check every word and then
023I have our English supervisor proof it. So, she just sent it back to me as proof. I'm sending a message to all of our almost 900 staff members just you know reminding them uh how much they're appreciated and to enjoy the break. So I'll send that out soon to get through the meeting and I don't have anything else. Can we entertain a motion? I got a motion by Paul Char second by Mr. Dobson. Any board discussion? All in favor? All oppose? Is that better? Take a walk. Might go watch some more. Just got a second.