By David Vitrano

L’Observateur

RESERVE – Heidi Trosclair, who for the past couple of years has served as the coordinator of media and communications for the St. John the Baptist Parish Public Schools, was approved to be the new coordinator of curriculum/assessment/instruction (secondary) by the parish School Board at Thursday’s meeting.

Trosclair will be replacing Kathy McWaters, who is set to retire Nov. 30. The position Trosclair will be occupying, however, has been reclassified as a coordinator position, which has a lower pay scale than the previous supervisory position.

Until McWaters’ retirement, Trosclair will be splitting her time between training for her new position and her current duties. According to Superintendent Courtney Millet, district administration has not yet decided whether or not it will fill Trosclair’s current position although she said as of right now it is leaning toward leaving the position vacant.

In other personnel-related matters, Director of Human Resources Leigh Ann Beard introduced a job description for the position of athletic trainer, a move that confused some board members who asked how long the district had employed an athletic trainer.

“We have had an athletic trainer in our district for many years,” replied Millet.

Board President Patrick Sanders said he was “appalled” if there had been no job description for the position up until this point.

“Administration, please review this to find out if there was a job description,” he said.

Lastly, board member Albert Burl III placed an item on the agenda regarding the use of Joe Keller Stadium by some of the parish’s private football teams.

An agreement was reached in 2010 whereby these teams would be allowed to use the field on 10 specified dates. Burl asked the board to approve a motion to allow the teams to use the field for the same number of times in coming years. The actual dates would have to be worked out once the field’s use-schedule is set.

While she did not go so far as to outright oppose the measure, Millet said because of the stadium and track upgrades at the site as well as the extra burden placed on the school system’s maintenance department in such instances, “we are recommending that the high school students should have primary access to this high school field.”

She also noted the field gets plenty of wear and tear because east bank middle schools also use the field.

Board member Russ Wise agreed with the superintendent, saying, “I think we need to protect our investment.”

When a vote was taken, however, he stood alone in that position as the motion passed by a margin of nine to one.