By Kimberly Hopson
L’Observateur

RESERVE – St. John the Baptist Parish School Board members quickly laid the groundwork to begin work on Lake Pontchartrain Elementary’s temporary campus during their meeting Thursday evening.
“Again, I think our most pressing need right now is to get the temporary site up at Lake Pontchartrain Elementary. The board is already authorized to go out for bid on a temporary site. Now we just have to select an architect,” said Superintendent Kevin George.
George introduced four options to begin the process of selecting an architect to design the campus: the School Board could start with a brand new request for proposals that would take about 60 days, opt to include the temporary campus with the larger disaster management contract or conduct what the superintendent called a “mini RFP,” through which the board would solicit requests for qualifications from architects as they normally would, only the process time frame would be condensed to about 30 days.
The board members also had the option to just select an architect haphazardly.
George explained that he favored option three, since the first two would take too long, and the fourth option would lessen the chance that FEMA would fund the work. The board members jumped behind this decision, and after some confusion, agreed to narrow down the proposals they received to three. They agreed to study the top three proposals during their upcoming retreat, and make a selection at the following meeting.
Board member Keith Jones commented that he hoped the superintendent would plan to create a selection committee for the disaster management contract when they were ready to choose, because “I don’t think we can call any one of our committee members anymore because of past practices.”
Also Thursday, Elton Oubre, the director of child welfare and attendance, brought somewhat negative news with the district’s school attendance numbers. Oubre said he was pleased with attendance on the first two days of school but was already looking for missing students by the third and fourth day. According to the numbers comparing this year’s first days to the first four days of last school year, he said “there is some indication that the voucher is hurting us at this time.”
Oubre said the district is short approximately 380 to 390 children from last year. The estimate matches the number of children on the voucher list of whom the district is aware, though there could be as many as 60 more added to the list since then. Oubre said he expects an influx of students will report to school after Labor Day.
Board member Russ Wise asked how many unexcused absences a child was allowed to have and still be promoted to the next grade. Wise went on to ask if maybe the Labor Day break tradition was doing more harm than good.
“I don’t know if anybody can explain it, but how many unexcused absences can a child have and still be promoted? How many days evaporate with unexcused absences by the time Labor Day weekend rolls around? Seems to me like the kids almost would be halfway to not being promoted simply by not showing up,” he said.
Oubre explained that district officials had tried in the past to make area parents understand that “Labor Day is not a magic number,” but with no success. Elementary school students are only allowed 11 absences without affecting grade promotion. High school students are allowed five per semester.
“As you know, Mr. Wise, the old practice way back in the days when I was growing up was school did not start until Labor Day. The parents are extending their summer vacation until after Labor Day. We have made an honest effort to try to explain to parents that day one is important because every day you miss after day one counts toward an absence,” said Oubre.
On a lighter note, the superintendent also introduced the new assistant superintendent, Quentina Timoll. Timoll has 12 years of experience with the state department of education.