BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – Over 100 teachers were present at a special meeting held by the East Baton Rouge Parish School System Thursday to discuss the ongoing transportation issues taking place in the school system.
“The ugliness that you’re seeing, the people going off, the people being really angry. This the result of years of frustration,” said Paige Colwell, a former art teacher.
Board members decided to move forward with the financial decision to compensate transportation workers and educators with three stipends, one in October of this year, and two in March and May of 2024.
“And we would try to put up three thousand to give you guys in terms of stipends which cost us one point five, but that doesn’t matter,” said East Baton Rouge Parish Board President Dadrius Lanus.
At the meeting, Superintendent Sito Narcisse proposed a three-tier bus route with different school start times.
“My recommendation is to change the school start time from now until the end of the year,” said Narcisse.
Instead, the board agreed on a substitution motion requiring bus drivers to provide updates to the school board twice a day, resonate transfer points for elementary-age children and make Narcisse come up with another plan that won’t affect normal school hours.
“Our issue is not going to be an easily fixed issue, but the question we have to answer is if we are able to make the changes then we can make sure that were covering the majority of the children in the city,” said Narcisse.
The next board meeting is set to be held at 5 p.m. on Sept. 7 at the EBRPSS Central Office board room.
