Allen Parish Superintendent holds third community meeting tonight

Allen Parish, La. (KPLC) - Allen Parish schools have kicked off the new academic school year and are already settling into the swing of things. As a result, the Allen Parish Superintendent-Elect, Brad Soileau, is holding a series of meetings to become more involved with the various communities and hear feedback from those in the area.

Two out of the six meetings have already been held with the next meeting taking place on August 17, at Fairview High School at 6:00 p.m.

Soileau says he hopes these meetings will allow him to meet with members of the community and talk about their vision for Allen Parish by having the meetings at different schools.

“When I go to the schools I’m going to talk a lot about their specific school,” said Soileau.” I want to talk about the school data for the ACT scores, our literacy scores, and LEAP scores...A lot of times they (parents) give the best ideas, our community, our teachers, you have to listen to everyone and I think that’s something that I wanna continue to do is take ideas from everyone in the various communities.”

The first meeting was held at Elizabeth High School on Monday, August 14 and the second was at the Oakdale High Auditorium on Tuesday.

He says that each meeting starts off with topics that he discusses at every school as well as some that pertain to the individual schools and communities. They range from test scores to concerns about the school itself.

Soileau says that one of his main goals is to have transparency with the community, “Everyone wants to be appreciated, everyone wants to take part and the reality is we can’t do this alone. I mean kids are educated at school, but they have to go back into the home, and the parents have to support everything from the teachers to the principal and it’s a community effort.”

One of the common concerns that is usually brought up is security and safety.

He says they have cameras and single entry points for their schools but the next goal is to have at least one resource officer in every town.

“In Allen Parish, just like everywhere else, we’re continuing to grow. I’m very excited because hopefully we will be adding some resource officers soon and try to have more resource officers in our district,” said Soileau. “I think the community will get behind it because at the end of the day, there is no price we wouldn’t pay for our kids and it’s just as simple as that. We have to take care of...and protect our kids.”

Soileau says that these meetings are all about the students, “If our decisions are based around that, we’re going to be okay.”

The four remaining community meetings are as follows:

• Tuesday, Aug. 17 at the Oakdale High Auditorium.
• Monday, Aug. 21 at the Oberlin High gym.
• Tuesday, Aug. 22 at the Kinder High gym.
• Thursday, Aug. 24 at Reeves High School.

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