By CALEB FREY

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – The runoff for the St. John School Board seat in district 11 proved to be not nearly the nail-biter the September primary was as incumbent Clarence Triche defeated former School Board Member John Crose on Tuesday.

Triche (D) received 60 percent of the vote with 681, while Crose (R) only took in 40 percent of the votes with 460.

It will be Triche’s sixth term on the board and he plans to continue his strong relationship with the St. John School system.

&#8220I’m going to continue to make my visits to the schools, look for problems and report anything I find to the administration,” Triche said. &#8220I talk to the teachers, the principals, the cooks and they talk to me. They know I was one of them.”

Triche is also continuing his Silver and Gold Card incentive program for students who make the honor roll. He started the program 19 years ago that rewards students who achieve high marks in their classes with discount cards good at various local retailers.

With a bigger budget than ever before, Triche said the outlook for St. John schools is promising, considering they can now afford to pay their teachers a living wage.

&#8220We’re in the top five in teacher pay,” Triche said. &#8220That’s very important because it also allows us to recruit new teachers with new techniques.”

One area Triche would like to see improve are standardized test scores, which have improved throughout the parish in recent years, but can still get better he said.

&#8220I would like our schools to be in the 51 percentile,” Triche said. &#8220It’s going to be difficult. Some kids home lives are not what they need to be and it all starts at home.”