After the ceremonial ribbon cutting of the South Plaquemines Faculty Housing apartments in Buras, the Plaquemines Parish School Board headed south to the Boothville-Venice Elementary School Campus for
its August meeting. Highlights from the meeting are as follows:

• The School Board announced
the South Plaquemines
High School will have a
soft opening in November and
December, allowing students
to tour the new campus before
classes start there after Christmas.

• The new campus of Phoenix
High School is also scheduled
to be ready for classes by
the beginning of the year.

• Trevor Smith, Director of
Information Technology, presented
to the board the timetable
of IT upgrades throughout
the parish. The goal is to have a
standard set up and streamlined
infrastructure at each campus
by 2016. From projectors to
smart boards, district-wide, the
technology should be the same.
Smith plans on computer equipment
having a 5-year life cycle.
“It’s very exciting,” said Smith.
“It’s not often you get to rebuild
an IT district!”
Technology update timetable:
- 2012 BCHS, SPHS and PHS
- 2013 SPES, BVES and BCMS
- 2014 BCPS
- 2015 New wings of BCPS
and Learning Center

• The school district is going
paperless with employee pay
stubs. Currently, pay stubs are
physically distributed to school
district employees, which requires
paper, envelopes, manhours
and postage during the
summer months. But soon, employees
who all have direct deposit
accounts, will receive pay
stubs electronically. PPSB’s pay
software already has the feature
to go digital, and employees
will be able to access their stubs
with any internet connection.
Employees without computer
access at home will be able to
print stubs from work terminals.

• The parish has to get in
line with new state regulations
regarding teacher evaluations.
Each educator will be evaluated
twice each year. A “formal”
evaluation will be announced
with discussions both before
and after. An “informal” evaluation
will also be conducted with
no notification to the teacher.
“We’ve been talking with teachers
since April so they’re aware
of this,” said Alberta Cousson,
Director of Secondary Education
and Instructional Technology.

• The next scheduled Plaquemines
Parish School Board
meeting is Sept. 10, 6 p.m., at
Belle Chasse Primary School.