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CENTERVILLE — As a new classroom year got underway last week, the St. Mary Parish School Board on Thursday recognized staffers who hold new positions.
Superintendent Dr. Buffy Fegenbush got a new job, too.
Fegenbush is now the School Board’s representative to the parish’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program Committee. The alternate is board President Alaina Black.
From 2016 until this year, employers seeking a property tax exemption for a new or expanding enterprise were required to get approval from local governments affected by the temporary loss of tax revenue.
New Gov. Jeff Landry instituted new rules for the exemption program, creating committees composed of representatives of local governments in each parish. The governor will be able to override the decision made by the parish committees.
Also Thursday, board members were introduced by Human Resource Director Kristina Estay to people in new staff positions:
—Janet Francois, dean of students at Wyandotte Elementary. Francois started work in St. Mary as a paraprofessional, then earned her education degree. She has served as a teacher, librarian at SEL coach at M.E. Norman, Patterson Junior High and W.P. Foster.
—Monique Estay, dean of students at W.P. Foster. Certified in health and physical education and special education. Estay is also an Air Force veteran.
—Ashley Clark, second instruction supervisor and parish athletic director. Clark has served as teacher, coach, athletic director, interim principal and principal at West St. Mary High in 22 years at the school.
—Almetria Pierce Stansbury, coordinator of second special services. Another paraprofessional who earned teacher certification, she’s a longtime resource teacher with a background in special education. She earned her leadership degree and became assistant principal at Patterson Junior High.
—Jill Tamporello, McKinney Vento liaison. Tamporello began her teaching career at Morgan City Junior High and then Berwick Junior High. She completed her training to be a school counselor and served in that post at both schools.
—Suzette Charpentier, West St. Mary High principal. Charpentier served in the National Guard before becoming a teacher. She taught fourth grade and PE in St. Mary before becoming West St. Mary’s assistant principal.
—John Campbell, assistant principal at West St. Mary High. A former corrections officer in the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, Campbell has worked as a teacher, coach, assistant principal, principal, transportation and sports official. He has worked in both middle and high schools.
—Charles Foulcard, assistant principal at Patterson Junior High. Foulcard began teaching at the elementary level. After earning his master’s in education leadership, he became an assistant principal at Bayou Vista Elementary and Hattie Watts Elementary and principal at Hernandez Elementary.
—Helena Salmon, assistant principal at Hattie Watts Elementary. Salmon started her career in education as a middle school social studies teacher. She taught in Terrebonne and St. Martin and was an assistant principal in Assumption. In St. Mary she has served as a department head and member of the curriculum development and leadership teams.
The School Board also applauded teachers for their standing in the Value Added Model 4 program. Known as VAM4, the program uses a variety of measures to gauge teacher performance.
The teachers include Amy Gilliam, Franklin Junior High; May Klein, Wyandotte Elementary; Rachel Aucoin, Berwick Elementary; and Michele Colley, B.E. Boudreaux Middle.
Also Thursday, Fegenbush told board members that the opening of school Aug. 7 went smoothly.
“It was truly uplifting to see everything go so perfectly,” Fegenbush said.
To meet the demands of the continuing federal desegregation case, the school system launched a systemwide re-enrollment before the start of classes. Fegenbush told the board that all but 240 of the more than 7,200 public school students have been re-enrolled. The remaining students have been provisionally enrolled while the system works with the families to ensure the students are attending school in their attendance zones.

Click on the link below to download a .pdf version of the agenda.

Jeffrey James Bertrand Sr., 66, a native of Morgan City and resident of Bayou Vista, died Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024.
He is survived by his wife, Karin Theriot Bertrand; three sons, Jeffrey Bertrand Jr., James Bertrand and Kade Theriot; two daughters, Kalyn Macaluso and Kelsi Theriot; mother, Doris Bertrand; five grandchildren; and two brothers and two sisters.
He was preceded in death by his father, a brother and sister.
Services were Saturday at Hargrave Funeral Home. Private graveside services will be held at a later date.

Recently, the Vatican formally accepted the case for sainthood for Charlene Richard, just a week before the 65th anniversary of her death on Aug. 11, 1959. For thousands of people a formal declaration isn’t necessary. They know that Charlene, is certainly “the little Cajun saint.”
The movement for her canonization has taken years to reach this point and will likely drag on for years to come, The Diocese of Lafayette closed its investigation in January and delivered a thousand or more stories and interviews about her life to the authorities in Rome.
 Those documents tell a story known across the globe. Miraculous cures have been attributed to her and thousands of people flock each year to her grave in the little town of Richard, midway between Eunice and Church Point.
Charlene’s family thought she only had a persistent case of the flu when they took her to the hospital. Instead, it was leukemia, in a very advanced stage.           
The Rev. Joseph Brennan was a newly ordained priest when he was called to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette to tell the 12-year-old girl that she was going to die. He said in a little memoir self -published in 2009 that he had no preparation for such a thing, but that she made it possible.
“I can remember that as I made my way up to the fourth floor, I asked the Lord, ‘Please tell me how to tell a girl of twelve that she has only two weeks to live.’ When I entered the room and gave her my name, I can still hear her saying, ‘My name is Charlene.’
“The Lord answered my prayer as I heard myself saying, ‘Charlene, you are a sick little girl.’ She said, ‘I know that, Father.’ Then I said, ‘In a couple of weeks a beautiful lady is going to come and take you home.’ Looking at me with those brown Cajun eyes, she said, ‘When that lady comes, I will tell her that Father Brennan said hello.’”           
Sister Theresita Crowley, who accompanied Father Brennan on his rounds remembered that Charlene “suffered a great deal.”
“It’s the nature of the disease,” Sister Theresita said. “The pain is awful, but I remember her as a cheerful patient. She never complained.” Charlene was especially fearful of painful bone marrow tests that involved inserting a long needle into the breast bone, but she bore them with “remarkable courage,” the sister remembered.
When Father Brennan saw how much Charlene was suffering, he talked to her about the concept of offering her pain and suffering as a prayer for the benefit of others. After that he visited her every day and talked about a particular person he felt might benefit from her prayers. Charlene would then offer that day’s pain and discomfort as a prayer in the name of that person.
Father Brennan prayed with her and gave her last rites and marveled at the way that she handled her illness. He thought she was a very special little girl, and so now do a lot of other people.
“I thought that night that no one would believe the story of the journey of faith that happened in Room 411,” Father Brennan wrote. “I was wrong about that. Ten thousand people now visit her grave site each year.”
Father Brennan published accounts by people who believe that Charlene has miraculously cured loved ones of cancer and other diseases, but not all of the intercessions attributed to her have dealt with physical issues. Through her intercession, “a lot of people got jobs; their marriages were saved, they had things put back together in their lives. Those are the kind of intercessions that don’t show up on x-rays,” he says.
Is she a saint? “My purpose is not to declare her a saint,” Father Brennan said. “That’s for others to do. But I will say that she was a special little girl who has remained for more than 50 years in my heart and in my life.”
Her cause will now be studied by theologians who make up what is known as the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. They will study her life and decide whether to recommend canonization to the pope, who then will decide whether Charlene is a “little Cajun saint” in the eyes of the Church as well as in the hearts of those who pray to her.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.