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The best thing we can do for our children, their children and their children’s children is work to improve education that will help them make a difference in our state.
Education is at the top of my list that is needed to change things for the better in Louisiana and most importantly in the St. John the Baptist Parish school system.
Why is it so hard to work together for the changes we need in our schools? This past week, we were celebrating the birthday of the greatest man that ever walked on this earth. Jesus taught, Jesus explained, and Jesus trained his disciples to be all they could be. One thing Jesus said, which still stands today, is that we must have Faith.
We can say it and we can want it, but until we make that conscious effort as an individual and working together as a community, nothing will change.
In 1984, St. John the Baptist Parish school employees were on strike; the efforts to make things better had fallen by the wayside one time too many. School employees and board members agreed to a public referendum that would allow town residents to vote on whether the district’s staff members should be allowed to bargain collectively,
according to Alvin M. Perret, president of the school board. That issue had emerged as dominant in the 10-week strike.
The strike in 1984 was crowned as the year’s longest school strike in the nation at that time on October 31,1984. It took some work through the court to have the writ granted on December 12,1986. The work began on the contract with the employees and school board members went through negotiations that have improved the school system. Bottom line, negotiations mean talking things through.
It has come to the attention of citizens in this parish that it has been over six months and the CBA between the school board and employees has not been signed.
As a former president that enjoyed many conversations in the past about how our system can improve, whatever the concerns are, it would be to the best interest of our school system that this matter is taken care of ASAP so we can get back to the plans of the education of our children.
The next Board meeting is scheduled for January 19, 2023 on the West Bank.
Happy New Year! Let’s get to work!

Citizen Jean