The first Bogalusa School Board meeting since Lisa Tanner took over as the system superintendent was riddled with positivity all around. Members of the board expressed their enthusiasm at Monday’s meeting, as did various department heads and Tanner herself.

“We’ve been working very hard since April,” Tanner said. “I want to thank everybody for welcoming me with open arms.

“I think it’s going great. I think we have a positive vibe going on. And I think the children are aware that change is in the air.”

The new superintendent said that in her former job as principal of Franklinton High School, she had been working with a company that provided sports medicine free of charge. Tanner said that same company has agreed to do the same for Bogalusa.

LCMC Health is a Louisiana-based, not-for-profit healthcare that currently manages award-winning hospitals, including Children’s Hospital in New Orleans.

Tanner said the company would provide a presence and any needed equipment, such as whirlpools.

Board vice president Paul Kates thanked Tanner.

“I know we are going to be under good leadership,” he said. “But what do we need? We need to show her dedication and support.”

With only president Curtis Creel absent, the board unanimously approved the May financial statements, revised job descriptions (which Tanner is reportedly reworking), discarding system-wide fixed assets, sending Bogalusa High School cheerleaders to UCA Cheer Camp in Hattiesburg, Miss., in July, and millage rates for 2017.

Deloris Walker, supervisor of finance and business, said the system would have to call for a special election in November, but the millage rates would not rise.

“They’re just renewals,” she said.

“We need to support the millages,” Walter Morgan said, from the audience.