ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / January 8, 2000

RESERVE – The St. John School Board voted Thursday to become partnerswith New Wine Christian Fellowship and establish a LEAP Learning Center.

The center will be staffed with trained volunteers to tutor students in taking the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program test given to fourth- and eighth-graders every year as part of the statewide mandate for school accountability.

The LEAP Learning Center will be located at the New Wine Christian Fellowship at 1929 W. Airline Highway in LaPlace. Tutoring sessions willbe held every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon starting Jan. 15 and endingMarch 11. There will be no cost to the school board or the taxpayer.The School Board, in a brief and productive meeting, passed the resolution unanimously, 8-0. Members Richard DeLong, Dowie Gendron and GeraldKeller were absent.

In another cooperative effort, the School Board also voted to let the St.

John Public Library use public school buses to transport students and their parents every Tuesday night to the new library in Edgard to participate in a reading program called “Primetime.” The reading program goes fromJanuary to February 2000.

“This program will benefit all participants,” said Superintendent Chris Donaldson. “This will help in our continued efforts to improve the readingability of our students and involve parents in the educational process.”The St. John Library will pay the bus drivers, and there will be no cost tothe board.

The board voted unanimously, 8-0, on the resolution.

In another matter, Safe and Drug-Free Schools Supervisor Elton Oubre asked the board to OK a proposal to provide an In-School Suspension Center for students on the west bank.

Oubre said that because of the distance and time parents have a hard time getting their suspended children over to the Re-Direction Center in Garyville. As a result, he said, the west bank has a high-incidence ofsuspended students who are not being tutored.

The state has mandated that all suspended students be put in alternative schools to continue their education.

Oubre said this is important because, “A lot of these students have to take the LEAP test, and if they aren’t in school they can’t really prepare.”The School Board unanimously voted to start an In-School Suspension Center on the west bank.

Oubre said the center will start at West St. John High School on atemporary basis. After trailers have been moved in, the permanent centerwill be located at West St. John Elementary School. Funding for the In-School Suspension Center will come from the general fund.

The St. John School System will also have state-of-the-art internet andnetwork services this year. Felix Boughton, director of businessoperations, told the board their were nine bids and he recommended the board accept the contracts of Reserve Telecommunications and Unisys Corp. for Internet services and hardware.Reserve Telecommunications offered up a bid of zero dollars to provide internet access and services to the school system. Unisys Corp.’s bid of$78,994 for server hardware and $29,650 for network hardware were the lowest bids.

Boughton informed the board that the federal government would pay 80 percent of the total Unisys bid of $108,644, and the School Board would be responsible for the remaining 20 percent.

The board accepted the bids unanimously.

Also, Donaldson told the board Sheriff Wayne Jones will be providing two more resource officers at the Glade School and at West St. John HighSchool despite the fact a federal grant to pay for the additional personnel had not been accepted yet. The School Board approved $10,000 to help thesheriff pay for the officers, and Jones has agreed to put up the rest of the money.

“I’m not sure if the grant will go through,” said Donaldson, “but the sheriff has been very helpful in picking up the cost for the extra officers.”

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