Questions linger at Terrebonne vo-tech school

Despite the Terrebonne Parish school chief’s chronology – which was prompted by the state Board of Ethics’ decision – concerning possible wrongdoing at the local vocational- technical high school, many school board members still have questions.

“I don’t think it includes every thing,” said board president Clark Bonvillain. “I feel the chronology is very incomplete. I guess Superintendent (Ed) Richard and the school attorneys felt the information was still confidential.”

School Board member Rickie Pitre said he is highly displeased with Richard’s efforts to devise a plan to rectify the wrongdoings that allegedly occurred at the parish vo-tech high school.

“The accountability issues need to be addressed,” Pitre said. “The superintendent should be working on ways to correct the discrepancies. The public wants to know what’s going on and right now we have no answers.”

The board requested the chronology from Richard after the superintendent received a letter marked “confidential” from the ethics board. The letter came six months after the school board reported itself to the ethics board.

Last Tuesday, Pitre offered two motions: one was ruled out of order and the other failed to get a second from the board.

Pitre’s first motion asked the board to authorize Bonvillain to communicate directly with acting state ethics administrator Kathleen Allen.

“The board president should be able to speak with Mrs. Allen about the contents of the letter because he is the board president,” Pitre said.

However, Bonvillain ruled Pitre’s motion to be out of order, stating that it was not on the regular agenda.

“I would have been for Mr. Pitre’s motion to have me contact Mrs. Allen,” Bonvillain said. “But rules are rules and we have to stick the agenda.”

Bonvillain said he is still considering speaking to Allen as an individual board member.

Pitre’s second motion sought to hire outside counsel to review the chronological list of events Richard submitted. The motion died for lack of a second.

“I would have supported this motion as well because everything is not adding up,” Bonvillain said. “I think the board should have its own legal counsel anyway; the parish council has its own attorney separated from the parish government.”

Bonvillain added, “Meetings between the superintendent and his staff with the school attorneys were left out of the chronology. The question that the superintendent did answer still didn’t give us any information as to what is going on at the vo-tech high school.”

The answered question sought to clarify what work the students performed, for whom and at what cost.

“There is no list of documentation maintained on an item by item basis as to what was worked on by the students. The instructor or the person who owns the item typically coordinates this. Issues such as work attempted are also coordinating the part procurements. And, the owner always pays for parts,” Richard responded.

The second query was for a list of school board members or employees who have sought repairs over the past four years.

“The instructors don’t make any list of items of people who have something worked on. Any attempt to construct a list would be based primarily on the instructor’s memory or recollection, which as such could be inaccurate or incomplete,” the superintendent responded.

Bonvillain said there is no doubt that illegal work was performed at the vo-tech; however, there is no documentation of the work performed.

“People have to sign something to give a paper trail as to what goes on out there,” he said. “And if it wasn’t written down then that school is not being run the way it’s supposed to be run.”

“Do you honestly think you can run a facility in that haphazard way without any documentation,” Bonvillain added.

“There has to be a list of work performed somewhere or a collaborative effort between the instructor and the principal,” she said.

Vo-tech Principal Marcel Fournier declined to comment on the alleged discrepancies at the vo-tech high school.