Gueydan to get resource officer

Gueydan High School will now be getting a full-time resource officer because of the incident that occurred at Gueydan High last month.

The Vermilion Parish School Board approved the hiring of a resource officer last week after a plea from Gueydan school board member Bill Searle, Gueydan Police Chief Blake Hebert and Gueydan Mayor Bob Hensgens, who were all at the school board meeting.

At the end of February, Tracy Mouton Bourque walked onto the Gueydan campus and into the gymnasium to confront PE teacher Tiffany Broussard. Broussard, in her first year at Gueydan, talked with Mouton who got into a heated discussion over Mouton’s child, which attends Gueydan. Bourque pushed and slapped Broussard in front of a sixth grade class.

Bourque left the school. and despite the police were called to Gueydan High.

Herpin explained to the School Board that when the school year began, he did not think Gueydan was in need a resource officer despite other parish schools getting them this year.

“We did not think anything like this would happen,” Herpin said. “I talked to Mr. Bill and thought by bringing a resource officer in would be negative. ‘Why is Gueydan getting one? Does the school have a drug problem? Is there a lot of problems at that school?’ “We did not want to draw that attention.”

Even after the slapping of the teacher, Herpin thought twice about getting a resource officer until he saw the fear on his teachers and assistant principal’s faces.

“I saw some fear on her (assistant principal’s) face when she asked if I was leaving to go home,” Herpin said. “At that time, I thought we really need a resource officer. When I saw a true fear in her face and when I walked down the hall, and I saw it in my teachers’ faces, I knew we needed one.”

He said he never thought it would happen at Gueydan High. “It did not need to happen in front of sixth graders.”

The Gueydan Police Department will hire a female to be the resource officer, but this person has to get post certified and will not be available until the start of next school year.

Until then, a Vermilion Parish Sheriff Deputy will be on campus for the remaining of the school year.

“I want to touch on some of the positives about a resource officer,” Hebert said. “It will bridge the gap where we have situations where we have children who are afraid to talk with police officers or afraid to come forward because they know something happened. It will make our community, school and town a safer place.”

School Board member Anthony Fontana said it should not fall all on the School Board when it comes to protecting parish schools. He said it was also “a law enforcement problem.”

He would like for Superintendent Randy Schexnider to come up a with plan to where all schools can have a resource officer and not just the high schools.

“Figure out how we are going to do it, and how we are going to pay for it,” Fontana said.