The Bogalusa City Schools board meeting was quick and routine Thursday evening.

The entire meeting took about 20 minutes, no one from the public spoke and all the items on the agenda passed without comment from board members.
However, toward the end of the meeting, Superintendent Toni Breaux offered her resignation well in advance of her final day, June 30, 2017, to give the district time to find a replacement.

Breaux read a letter to the audience and she expressed thankfulness.

“First and foremost, thank you, the board, for allowing my lifelong dream to become a reality. It has truly been an overwhelming challenge I welcomed with open arms,” she read.

Breaux has helmed the district through turbulent financial waters, as the district saw several years of student losses to other districts. By state law, when students leave a district, state funding goes as well. To counter some of that loss, Breaux led a team of teachers and administrators on a door-to-door campaign over the summer in an effort to convince parents to come back to the district.

“I truly feel that I have fought a hard battle and given the system my all,” she read. “However the time is fast approaching when a new superintendent will be faced with the esteemed privilege to move the Bogalusa City School system to an even more in-depth horizon.”

Members of the board roundly praised Breaux for her dedication.

“Thank you for giving us five years of blood sweat and tears,” Paul Kates said. Kates pointed out that Breaux was already retired when she agreed to lead the district, making her work all the more meaningful.

“She could have been doing something else, because she was already retired, so I’d like to thank her for giving us her time,” he said.

The board accepted her resignation.
On an unrelated note, during her comment period, Breaux said she plans to talk with the high school’s leadership about making college and scholarship information more accessible to all students.

She said the school’s guidance counselors had not been doing a good job of making that information available.

“I don’t care if you have an A or an F, but you have a right to have a copy of the scholarships offered,” she said.

She also asked board President Curtis Creel to take a copy of a memorandum of understanding to Northshore Charter School. By state law, charter schools must share the residency information of their students with the municipal districts with whom they compete for students. This agreement will set those terms. Creel agreed to do this.

The board also accepted a JROTC field trip to Georgia, an audit questionnaire, liability insurance, financial statements, revised budgets and financial statements and a forethought policy update.

Karla McGehee gave her personnel report and told the board that substitute training went well.

The district also announced that the Louisiana Association of Educators will hold a public open house Thursday, Oct. 6, at 6 p.m. at the Bogalusa High School library in order to have a roundtable discussion about the future of Louisiana public schools.

More information can be found online at lae.org/communityconversation.

Two members, Brad Williams and Eleanor Duke were absent.

The next board meeting will be Thursday, Oct. 13.