Cancienne shakes things up in Iberville

• By GREG GARLAND
• Advocate Westside bureau
• Published: Nov 30, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Ed Cancienne swept into Iberville Parish a little over a year ago with a reputation as an aggressive school reformer and a 100-day plan in hand to begin turning around the parish’s struggling public school system.

So far, the hard-charging, 57-year-old Iberville Parish school superintendent hasn’t disappointed those looking to shake things up.

“He is aggressive, but he’s got a vision, and he’s got a plan, and those were some of the things that were lacking in the past,” said Hank Grace, executive director of the Iberville Parish Chamber of Commerce. “We’re pleased with how the school system has progressed so far.”

Grace concedes that Cancienne’s push this year for a 31-mill property tax to fund teacher pay raises and an array of school improvements divided the chamber’s board of directors.

But, he said, a majority of the board members ultimately voted to endorse the measure. Voters approved the School Board’s proposal by a vote of 3,790 to 3,202 in a low-turnout election held March 8.

The election results mean the  school system stands to collect $23.3 million in property taxes this year — a 65 percent increase from the $14.1 million it collected last year, according to figures from the Iberville Parish Assessor’s Office.

The school system’s overall budget for this year is about $45 million, the system’s finance director reported, an amount that includes sales-tax revenue, state funds and grant money.

Cancienne said that winning passage of the tax issue was essential to carry out his plans for improving the system, which has about 4,200 students.

The additional revenue allowed him to raise teacher pay scales to among the state’s highest and to start new programs such as the two special academies on the parish’s east and west sides.

He said the pay increases were needed to attract and hire certified teachers.

“In North Iberville High School, they didn’t have a certified math teacher. Not one,” Cancienne said.  “Everybody was a temporary assignment teacher.”

Cancienne said his other chief priority was offering parents and children a choice in the schools that students would attend. That’s where the academy programs come in, he said.

“The academies would not exist without this tax,” Cancienne said.