ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / October 13, 1999

RESERVE – Saying he is “very satisfied,” Alfred Donaldson, director of Human Resources for the St. John Parish School Board, presented the 30-day report on the new Kelly Services substitute teachers program at the regular school board meeting Thursday.

At the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year, the board voted to accept a contract with Kelly Temporary Services in which Kelly would supply substitute teachers to the St. John Parish School System. The contractstipulated that the school board could back out of the deal after 30 days.

According to records kept by Donaldson and the comments of all the school principals, Kelly Services will be providing substitute teachers to St. JohnParish for a long time.

Except for some minor glitches, all schools reported that Kelly Services filled 98 percent of the positions needed.

“This is an excellent report,” said Donaldson. “We are very happy with theprogram.”Most of the principals seem to agree. Kelly Services handed outperformance surveys, and the principals were asked to rate the program on a scale of one to five. A majority of the principals rated the program withfives and fours.

“I am very satisfied with Kelly’s services,” wrote principal Teri Noel of John L. Ory Magnet School. “It is nice for the responsibility to be takenfrom me.”Robert Schaff, principal of the Glade School, was succinct in his praise.

“Great program!” he wrote.

The program also saves the school system money. The school board pays aflat yearly fee to Kelly Services, and Kelly pays all salaries and employee benefits to the substitutes. At the beginning of the year, Donaldson saidthis program could save the school board $400,000.

There seems to be only two minor problems with the program. First,several principals complained the Kelly substitutes were a bit tardy reporting to work, but Donaldson said that is just a matter of communications and can easily be solved.

Second, it seems to be difficult to get substitute teachers’ aides. If itweren’t for this problem, the schools would have had a 100 percent fill rate. East St. John and West St. John Elementary had the hardest problemgetting teachers’ aides. Donaldson said they are working on the situation.In other School Board business, the St. John Sheriff’s Office and the SchoolBoard have entered into a contract in which the School Board will purchase a drug-sniffing dog for $4,500.

The Sheriff’s Office will take care of the feeding, lodging and veterinarian bills. The sheriff will also pay the salary of the dog’s handler andtransportation. The School Board will pay the annual $200 fee for yearlyre-certification training of the dog.

Donaldson said the reason for the purchase of the dog is that at the present time all the other K-9 teams in the Sheriff’s Office work at night, and pulling in a dog for a day-time drug search at a school is time- consuming and sometimes not possible.

“Now we will have a dog available to us all the time,” Donaldson said.

“This also shows that we are very pro-active in fighting drugs in our schools.”Donaldson said the dog will arrive in about three months because it was purchased from overseas.

School Board member C.J. Watkins jokingly suggested the dog be named”School Board.”Also, the attendance report was submitted to the board and showed there are 65 fewer students in the school system this year than last year.

Superintendent Chris Donaldson was not present at the meeting because he was attending an education conference in Florida. AssistantSuperintendent of Curriculum and Administration Herbert Smith filled in for the superintendent. Also absent from the meeting were School Boardmembers Felix LeBouef and Matthew Ory.

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