PROCEEDINGS OF THE SCHOOL BOARD OF THE PARISH OF CONCORDIA, STATE OF LOUISIANA, TAKEN AT A REGULAR MEETING HELD ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2024
The School Board of the Parish of Concordia, State of Louisiana, met in Regular Session at the Vidalia City Hall meeting room in Vidalia, Louisiana, on Thursday, February 8, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. The meeting was called to order by Mrs. Lisette Forman. After prayer and the Pledge, Mrs. Forman declared that the Board was ready for the transaction of business.
Board members present were Mr. Wayne Wilson, Mrs. Dorothy Parker, Mr. Fred Marsalis, Sr., Mr. Derrick Carson, Mrs. Lisette Forman, Mrs. Angela Hayes, Mrs. Vanessa Houck and Mr. Fred Butcher. Mr. Matt Taunton was absent.
In the absence of Marco Gonzalez, Mr. Tom O’Neal gave an update on the ESSER projects. He said the contractor for the HVAC units is in the Vidalia schools this week. Probably by the end of the month they will be in Monterey installing their HVAC units with a projected finish date in April. The windows project is waiting on materials. The windows have been ordered and should be delivered in May. The contractor reports that if the windows are delivered in May, they will be installed by August. In Ferriday, the HVAC unit submittals were sent to the engineer for approval, and they have been returned but were rejected. Now the contractor and the architect are working this week on those submittals. Hopefully, they will be done this month.
Mrs. Forman noted that Mr. Taunton is listening and watching the meeting via zoom.
Superintendent Bachus recognized the Certified School Board Members through LSBA and presented certificates provided by LSBA. Board members recognized for attaining a minimum of 20 continuing learning units during 2023 were Mr. Carson, Mr. Butcher, Mrs. Houck, Mr. Marsalis, Sr., and Mr. Taunton.
Superintendent Bachus then recognized each board member and presented them with a certificate from the Louisiana School Board Association showing how many Continuing Learning Units they had earned for the 2023 calendar year. Those board members included Mr. Carson – 22 CLUs, Mr. Butcher – 22.5 CLUs, Mrs. Forman – 15 CLUs, Mrs. Hayes – 9.5 CLUs, Mrs. Houck – 24.5 CLUs, Mr. Marsalis, Sr. – 39.5 CLUs, Mrs. Parker – 19.5 CLUs, Mr. Taunton – 25.5 CLUs, and Mr. Wilson – 16.5 CLUs.
Superintendent Bachus and Mrs. Hayes recognized the recipients of the Sidney A. Murray, Jr., Citizenship Awards in Grades 3, 4, and 5 and gave each student a gift bag:
Third Grade Fourth Grade Fifth Grade
Concordia Parish Academy Laney C. Farmer Wyatt Warshaw Dondria Wilford
Ferriday Upper Elementary Lyla Bonnette Kaanan Carter Maur’ziyah Bass
Monterey High School Avery Woodruff Ally Cloessner Jonah Jones
Vidalia Upper Elementary Kash Rockstead Arnvellous Arrington Carmen Escamilla Perez
Cody Saucier with SSA Consultants gave a presentation on the system’s recently conducted compensation plan. In comparing the neighboring school districts, Saucier indicated that the results would indicate that the Concordia system is within an acceptable range of the other school districts.
Charles Anderson, principal of Concordia Education Center, presented the school’s Improvement Plan and Introduction to New Pathway.
Najee Herrington, assistant principal of Ferriday Upper Elementary School, gave the Improvement Plan for FUE.
It was moved by Mr. Carson and seconded by Mr. Butcher to add Item I to the agenda to be discussed following the executive session. Item I will be to consider extension for the term of the superintendent’s contract subject to negotiations on performance of the objectives and targets. Mrs. Forman requested a roll call vote:
Mr. Wilson – Yea
Mrs. Parker – Yea
Mr. Marsalis, Sr. – Yea
Mr. Carson - Yea
Mrs. Hayes – Yea
Mrs. Forman - Yea
Mrs. Houck – Yea
Mr. Butcher – Yea
The vote count was 8 yeas, 0 nays, and 1 absent.
It was moved by Mr. Carson and seconded by Mrs. Parker to amend the topic for executive session to the performance of standards of and its performance evaluation for the last contract year.
Mr. Wilson – Yea
Mrs. Parker – Yea
Mr. Marsalis, Sr. – Yea
Mr. Carson - Yea
Mrs. Hayes – Yea
Mrs. Forman - Yea
Mrs. Houck – Yea
Mr. Butcher – Yea
The vote count was 8 yeas, 0 nays, and 1 absent.
The committee reports were presented. Mr. Carson noted that the Building and Grounds Committee did not meet on Monday due to scheduling conflicts.
It was moved by Mr. Butcher, seconded by Mrs. Parker, and unanimously carried to approve the minutes of the Regular Meeting held on January 11, 2024, and the minutes of the Special Meeting held on January 25, 2024.
Mr. Fred Marsalis, Jr., presented the financial report. It was moved by Mrs. Parker, seconded by Mrs. Hayes and unanimously carried to approve invoices in the amount of $6,506,358 for the month of January 2024.
The personnel report was available in the board members’ binders. Mrs. Rhonda Moore presented the report.
Concordia Parish School Board
Personnel Announcements
Regular Board Meeting
February 8, 2024
Leaves:
Telina Book, Teacher, Monterey High School, return from FMLA, effective January 9, 2024.
Roberta Mingee, Teacher, Vidalia Lower Elementary School, return from FMLA, effective January 29, 2024.
Audrey Davis, Teacher, Ferriday High School, FMLA / extended medical leave,
October 31, 2023 through February 29, 2024.
Resignations:
Frankie Thomas, 11 Month Janitor, Vidalia Junior High School, effective February 9, 2024.
Superintendent Bachus gave an update on the central office building situation. She reported that Mrs. Caviness and the Technology Department did visit both sites there were under consideration. Unfortunately, the Texas Street site doesn’t appear to have the electrical capacity to support our needs and requirements. She noted that she has received a tentative contract from the owner of the Highway 84 site. In reference to that site, Superintendent Bachus informed the Board that she had been in discussion with a facilities inspector, but she feared that the inspection would not meet our overall needs. She stated that she did task Mr. O’Neal with finding someone with commercial licenses that could broaden the scope of the building inspection. Also, the plumbing will be inspected by someone other than a building inspector.
In reviewing the personnel compensation evaluation plan as previously presented, Mr. O’Neal indicated that as a system review this would be an enormous undertaking. He suggested that it be deferred to the next fiscal period and that it be reviewed by similar personnel classifications at the time. It was moved by Mr. Carson, seconded by Mr. Butcher and unanimously carried to refer the information presented by Cody Saucier for support personnel compensation evaluation to the Finance Committee for review and that Mr. O’Neal to come up with a plan to bring back to the board before the budgetary deadlines.
Mr. O’Neal presented an E-Rate RFP for district wireless network upgrade/internal connections. Six proposals were submitted, but only two of them met the target for what we were looking for: Business Com, Inc., and Howard, with Howard being the lowest proposal.
Business Com, Inc. $1,487,301
Howard $ 641,624
We’re actually talking about a multi-year program of the Telecommunications and Data Processing Procurement Act with funded levels covering a two-year period. With Howard’s numbers, the first-year cost would be $366,958, and of that figure we would be responsible for $73,000. That $73,000 would be budgeted for school year 2024-25. The second- year cost would be $274,667 and of that figure, our share would be $54,930 and budgeted for the following school year.
O’Neal asked the board to allow the Howard bid to be awarded tonight pending the rate of approval. It was moved by Mrs. Parker, seconded by Mr. Butcher and unanimously carried to approve the proposal from Howard.
Mr. O’Neal then presented the contract from M3A Architecture in Jackson, Ms., for renovations to Ferriday High School. Mr. Carson noted that this project is an interior and exterior redesign and remodeling of Ferriday High School. Mr. Butcher stated that this is the same firm that handled the Monterey gymnasium project with excellent results. It was moved by Mr. Butcher, seconded by Mr. Marsalis and unanimously carried to approve said contract.
Mr. Wilson introduced discussion on a 4-day work week for the school district. Mr. Wilson explained that we sent out surveys this past Monday and the results will be collected next Monday. He asked Superintendent Bachus to go over the next steps. She explained that there is a whole process. There were a lot of questions as to why there was no calendar with the survey. She explained that the survey was a data-collecting tool to find out what is acceptable and what is not. An example is “Would you be okay with shortening your holidays to go to a 4-day work week, or would you prefer to extend the days 35-40 minutes longer?” In addition, Superintendent Bachus will hold town hall meetings at Ferriday, Monterey and Vidalia to discuss the 4-day work week, answer questions and gather information from the communities. Mrs. Paula Fuqua will present the resulting information from the surveys and the town hall meetings at the March 14th regular meeting. Superintendent Bachus said Ms. Nikki McCain, the superintendent of Caldwell Parish, has been a great help with the 4-day work week since they’ve been on this system for approximately 15 years. Ms. McCain suggested that our business department meet with her business department to discuss issues that they dealt with while making this change.
It was moved by Mrs. Parker, seconded by Mrs. Hayes and unanimously carried to enter into executive session to discuss the superintendent’s performance of standards of and its performance evaluation for the last contract year. The time was 7:35 PM.
It was moved by Mr. Marsalis, Sr., seconded by Mrs. Parker and unanimously carried to return to regular session. The time was 8:13 PM.
It was moved by Mr. Carson, seconded by Mr. Marsalis to extend Superintendent Bachus’ contract for an additional three-year term subject to the board’s approval of the superintendent’s performance objectives and performance targets. Mrs. Forman requested a roll call vote:
Mr. Wilson – Yea
Mrs. Parker – Yea
Mr. Marsalis, Sr. – Yea
Mr. Carson - Yea
Mrs. Hayes – Yea
Mrs. Forman - Yea
Mrs. Houck – Yea
Mr. Butcher – Yea
The vote count was 8 yeas, 0 nays, and 1 absent.
There being no further business, it was moved by Mrs. Hayes, seconded by Mrs. Houck and unanimously carried to adjourn at 8:17 PM.