EPSB Executive Committee proposes cutting 20 paras in parish

The Evangeline Parish School Board’s Executive Committee reached a decision on Wednesday night about where cuts would be made in the district to work towards balancing their budget.
At an executive committee meeting in May it was decided that two bus routes that transport students to James Stephens Montessori School would be combined with bus routes for Ville Platte Elementary. This means that students from JSM will now be riding the same bus as the students that attend VPE, instead of having separate buses drop off students at schools that are approximately a mile and a half away from each other.
During the May meeting, the committee discussed cutting up to 16 paraprofessionals (paras) from the special education classes in the parish because of over-staffing.
The number of paras needed in this area is lower now due to the fact that students with Individualized Education Programs (IEP) has dropped from more than 800 to 666 students.
The board was not pleased with the idea of cutting 16 paras, therefore at the board’s regular meeting on June 1st, it was decided to send this item back to the executive committee.
When the executive committee met again last week, board members re-addressed cutting paras across the parish, but only if some were cut at JSM.
Mike Fontenot said, “It is not fair that all of the cuts are coming from the regular schools and not Montessori. Montessori teachers have half the class size as teachers at the other schools, and twice the teacher.”
The issue that comes with cutting at JSM is that some of their classes are clustered, or filled with students from multiple grades. Without a para in the classrooms that are clustered, the board members were concerned that the teacher would have a hard time teaching different grade levels at the same time.
During the meeting though, Superintendent Toni Hamlin informed the committee that the third and fourth grade classes at JSM are not clustered.
With this information, the executive committee was able to reach a decision, and decided that 16 paras would be cut from the regular schools in the district plus an additional four from the third and fourth grade classes at JSM.
Board member Arthur Savoy said, “I wish that this wasn’t happening because I don’t want to have to cut anyone. I am hoping that we will get more money from the State down the road, so that we can give people their positions back.”
The actions of the executive committee at their June 29th meeting will be brought to the full board at their regularly scheduled meeting on July 6th, and will need to be approved before any cuts are made.