St. Landry Parish School Board reorganizes staff to consolidate costs.

OPELOUSAS, La. (KLFY) -- The St. Landry Parish School Board office is reorganizing staff members and their responsibilities to consolidate parish costs.

Superintendent Milton Batiste II said central office employees will be moved around and given new job titles.

"It's essentially a change of position," Batiste said. "It's a change of position that's going to allow them to be a more assertive, more forward-thinking and just more collaborative in their new roles."

The superintendent said his goal with the reorganization was to provide more hands-on interaction between the school board and schools across the parish.

"My first love is to be in school," Batiste said. "So, my desire is to put us in a space to where we can spend a lot of time in schools impacting principals, helping coach principals, helping support principals, impacting teachers, helping support teachers-ultimately impacting the students."

Batiste said the lifeline of the school system is the school principal and teachers.

"I envision having a central office that's more hands on, in schools and able to support principals," Batiste said.

With the change of their roles and responsibilities comes a change in their salaries. These pay increases are covered by the elimination of the Early Learning Director. Batiste said the employee who previously held that role recently retired.

"We actually consolidated a position to help create these new positions," Batiste said. "Essentially, this new org. chart will cost less than what we originally allocated for the previous chart."

The parish had $113,512 from the Director of Early Learning position to allocate to these new positions. The parish will save $11,098 by using these funds toward the new positions.

These organizational changes were approved at Thursday's school board meeting. The St. Landry Parish School Board office is currently working on transitioning these roles.

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