Breaux: High school’s problems exaggerated

Published 9:13 am Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Bogalusa City Schools Superintendent Willie “Toni” Breaux is fed up with all those who have nothing positive to say about the school system.

During Thursday’s school board meeting, board member Calvin Hymel went off about what he considered lax discipline at the high school, among other subjects. He then stormed out of the meeting and left the board without a quorum.

“If we can‘t do something about discipline, then we don’t even need to be here,” Hymel said during the meeting. “The kids are running the schools.”

Breaux did not attend the board meeting because of illness. But Monday afternoon, she had plenty to say about Hymel’s tirade.

“Things at the high school are not as bad as people project them to be,” Breaux said. “People listen to complaints from everybody. I go to the school every week and look around.”

Breaux said discipline would be beefed up. A disciplinary meeting was held Monday afternoon.

“The disciplinary committee is drawing up a plan and this plan must have zero tolerance until we can get things where they need to be,” Breaux said.

Breaux acknowledged some teachers may be unhappy at their jobs.

“Some teachers are walking out for reasons I can’t disclose right now,” Breaux said. “But a majority of high school teachers are happy.”

She said the entire system should work together for a better school district.

“The biggest enemy of Bogalusa City Schools is ourselves,” Breaux said. “That’s the one thing that bothers more than anything. A lot of bad information gets out there through our employees.

“We have a chain of command to fix problems, but those steps are not being followed. Anybody can call anybody and there is no investigation, and people take it for a fact.”

Breaux did not know Monday afternoon if there would be a special called meeting to make up for Thursday’s meeting, or if the board would wait to meet again at the regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 22.