Lafayette School Board balks at settlement offer

• By MARSHA SILLS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Dec 4, 2008 - Page: 1BA - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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LAFAYETTE — In a special meeting Wednesday, the Lafayette Parish School Board voted not to accept a settlement demand made by Jane Richard, a teacher fired in 2006.

The teacher fought the termination in district court claiming that the system didn’t follow procedures set in the state’s teacher tenure law and lost.

Earlier this year, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal agreed with Richard and remanded the proceedings back to the school system. The system’s appeal to the state Supreme Court to hear the matter was denied in October.

The board discussed the demand and litigation in executive session and opened the meeting to the public for the vote on the settlement demand.

After the meeting, Mona Bernard, the system’s director of risk management, said the system would not be able to provide any details about the settlement demand.

“We can’t discuss any dollar amount,” Bernard said.

The board’s regular board meeting followed.

Members accepted a proposed discipline policy for students who ride school buses. The updated policy is consistent with recent changes to the system’s discipline policy for schools. Both policies will take effect in January.

In other business, a bid for a roof replacement of Scott Middle was moved to action Wednesday so that work could begin before the new year. The board accepted the lowest qualified bid of $709,800 from Pellerin & Wallace Inc.

The board ended member Hunter Beasley’s attempts to ensure that elementary school libraries are staffed with full-time clerks Wednesday and voted to accept a clerk redistribution plan that would make it happen.

For the past two months, Beasley has asked the board to address the impact of staffing formulas on library instruction because library clerks in elementary schools were moved to half-time status.

In October, he recommended that the board reconsider the change because librarians’ resources were being spent on clerk duties, rather than instruction. At the time, the issue was tabled because it would require staffing policy revisions. Because of the expense of the change, it was voted down by members, including Mike Hefner, who recommended that the matter be considered during the next budgeting cycle.

Beasley recommended the issue again for discussion at the last regular board meeting and devised a redistribution that would cost no money. It was up for action Wednesday and Hefner pulled it for discussion. Hefner explained that he didn’t have any questions, but pulled it to give Beasley an opportunity to make a formal motion to approve it “given the hard work that Mr. Beasley has put into this. …”