EPSB takes action on bus route law

The Evangeline Parish School Board authorized the superintendent and Laidlaw, who provides bus transportation for students, to perform a study on what it would take to conform to the recently passed Act 654, a law that prohibits children from crossing any street to board a school bus.
This law would increase transportation costs by a large margin and result in even longer bus rides for children, as the buses would basically have twice as long to travel to pick up students on each side of any given street.
However, Superintendent Toni Hamlin said a recent attorney general opinion on the law revealed that there is no deadline to develop a plan to conform to the law. Therefore, Hamlin asked that the board authorize her staff and Laidlaw to perform a study on what conforming to the law would require.
In the meantime, Hamlin said the original author of the law is preparing an amendment to be introduced in January that will, hopefully, clarify that the law is intended for larger highways and not city or rural streets. This will allow the law to perform its intended purpose and not impose unintended hardship on school district’s around the state. On a side note, Hamlin added that this parish’s current bus routes do not have children crossing highways and that is a policy they have always followed.
Hamlin stated that while there aren’t many things that are certain in politics, she believes that the amendment to be introduced in the January 2015, legislative session will correct the language of Act 654 in a way that will allow bus schedules to remain the way they are or with minimal change.
In other business, the board:
•Approved the low quote of $16,338.70 from Office Centre/Teacher’s Pet for the purchase and installation of cubicles at Evangeline Central using parishwide maintenance funds.
•Approved the requisition of $23,796.29 to Renaissance Learning for the purchase of library books for all parish schools. This amount is $3,000 less than originally planned due to the ordering of fewer books.
•Approved a requisition to Classroom Essentials in the amount of $5,240 for the purchase of 200 chairs for Mamou High School using parishwide maintenance funds.