New school board begins new term

Seven opening items saw a new board sworn in, leadership re-elected and many recognized at the Acadia Parish School Board meeting Monday night.

Board members Douglas LaCombe, Delo Hebert, John Suire, David Lalande, Gene Daigle, James Higginbotham and Milton Simar were sworn in by attorney Robert Hammond Monday night. Board Member Israel Syria was absent from Monday’s meeting. Afterward, the board re-elected LaCombe as president and Higginbotham as vice president.

The show then turned to schools, the children of Acadia Parish and those charged with their well-being on a daily basis as an FFA Club and two teachers were acknowledged for earning grants as well as the PCAL (Property Casualty Alliance of Louisiana) Bus Driver and Principals of the Year were recognized.

Arleen Fruge, an Acadia Parish public school bus driver, was recognized as a 2014-15 PCAL Bus Driver. She was nominated by her principal, Lee Ward Bellard of Church Point High School, for exhibiting the attributes of leadership, attitude, perseverance, student and parent relationships and technical skill.

According to Ward, Fruge is one of the only bus drivers that has never vocalized displeasure when change came the bus drivers’ way and, he boasted how she has never had to bring a student from her route to the office.

She was presented a certificate and personalized jacket from PCAL and a plaque from the Acadia Parish School Board by Dora Johnson at the meeting.

The board also applauded its Principal of the Year at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Named the parish’s Principals of the Year were Irma Trosclair, South Crowley Elementary School; Cheri Baggett, Church Point Middle School; and John Prudhomme, Rayne High School. All three principals humbly and graciously accepted the honor and were quick to acknowledge and applaud their faculties and staffs.

“I feel that the role of principal is an important one that has many, many different components,” said Trosclair. “One, of course, is to be the educational leader, but equally as important is to offer support to the people who do the important work (teachers).”

Baggett added that she was bringing home her award to her school as she sees the award as a School of the Year recognition, not Principal of the Year.

Prudhomme echoed his predecessors comments, applauding the work of the teachers at Rayne High and even recognizing the students at Rayne High.

The board also recognized the Church Point High FFA Club which recently was the recipient of a $5,000 Lowes Toolbox for Education grant.

“The Lowes Toolbox for Education Grant is open to all schools, from elementary to middle school to high school, they award over $5 million every year,” said Lyle Guidry, one of the club’s advisers.

The grant amounts range from $2,000 to $5,000.

In its outlined budget and grant application, the group explained that it will be building a deck around one of the old oak trees in the front of the campus’ grounds.

Guidry added that the project, and those similar, give the students involved a chance to do something for the school.

“[The students] take pride in that,” he said

Also receiving grants were two teachers at Mire Elementary. They each received the Society Petroleum Engineers Science Grant Award ($350). The teachers, third grade and seventh/eighth grade, are using the funds to better prepare the students in the field of science. In fact, one of the grants have gone to the purchase of a robot for the robotics club. The teachers demonstrated the robots’ “dance” as one of the many things the robots can be programmed to do.