Board to vote on extending school chief’s contract

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The St. Landry Parish School Board is to vote on an 18-month extension of Superintendent Patrick Jenkins’ contract at its May 3 meeting.
After a closed session, the Board’s executive committee voted unanimously to send the contract extension to the full Board. All but two Board members, Roger Young and Albert Hayes Jr., were at the executive committee on Monday.
Candace Gerace, Board president, said extending Jenkins’ contract is to provide continuity and allow him to execute his vision for the school system.
Jenkins also cited continuity as reason to extend his contract to December 2020. Jenkins, an Opelousas native, began work in December 2016.
His pay of $135,000 a year, and monthly allowances of $1,000 for travel and $100 for electronic devices are unchanged, he said.
Jenkins said his contract can only be extended two years beyond the School Board’s term. School Board elections are scheduled in November.
The extension provides continuity in leadership, confidence in the public’s eye, allows changes and the ability to see some growth from the plans that have been implemented academically.
“The first time I actually see a score that is all mine is the time when my contract actually expires,” Jenkins said of state accountability scores.
“So, in order to see what I’m doing they are going to give me a little more time to see if what I’m proposing will actually work,” he said.
Jenkins agreed the school district’s most prominent problem are schools in Opelousas where Ds and Fs are the norm on the state evaluation.
“We had a plan that changed. However, we are going to back to the drawing board. We are going to work with the Board as well as the public so that we can come up with something that everyone can agree on so that can address those schools immediately,” he said.
In March, voters handed the School Board and superintendent an overwhelming defeat of two tax propositions.
A 10-year, 11.3- mill tax to pay for school employee pay raises received 3,718 “Yes” votes and 10,163 “No” votes, according to the state Secretary of State website. Turnout was 23 percent.
A second proposition, a 20-year, 12.1-mill to fund a $99 million capital improvement plan failed by a 3,592 to 10,129 vote.
Both taxes had to pass to go into effect.
Jenkins said he thinks Board members know they will have to close schools, but that is not going to happen in the next school year.
“I think I have some ideas to help facilitate some of those changes,” he said.
“I believe that the only way that we can impact our finances is with people. We are not saying that people will lose their jobs, but we can reduce through attrition the number of personnel as people retire or move out,” he said.
The school system spends about 87 percent of its budget on employee pay and benefits. The average employee pay and benefit percentage of a school system budget in the state is 82, according Tressa Miller, school system finance director.