– The St. Martin Parish School Board voted at its meeting this past Wednesday to approve two matters it had put off at its July meeting.
The Finance Committee recommended approving a contract with Lafayette General Health System for athletic trainers in the school system after approving most of the contract in July while setting aside provisions concerning the amount of money for the stipend paid to the trainers, and the cost of a sponsorship payment from LGH, at the request of board chairman Mark Hebert.
The contract calls for maintaining the current $10,000 annual stipend for each of the three athletic trainers instead of moving to the proposed percentage stipend. It also removes the proposed summer compensation provisions because of a revised agreement term ending May 31, 2027.
The contract provides a sports medicine sponsorship agreement to include an annual sponsorship payment from Ochsner Lafayette General of $15,000. It also implements playoff compensation of 5 percent for football and 2.5 percent for all other sports with an active athletic trainer license, with the cost shared equally between OLG and the school system. No Commercial Driver’s License is required of trainers. OLG will waive a proposed $5,000 annual management fee for supervision and administration of the athletic trainer program.
Measures
“I just want to compliment the guys at Ochsner’s and MTS (MTS Physical Therapy & Wellness),” Hebert said. “Thank y’all for working with us. There was a lot of back and forth and y’all did a great job.
The committee also recommended authorizing the Louisiana State Mineral and Energy Board and the Office of Mineral Resources to accept nominations, advertise for bids, accept and award bids and execute any resulting oil, gas and mineral lease covering 16th section lands on behalf of the school board.
Greg Riedl, a landman representing Highlander Oil and Gas, said there are three separate 16th section lands in the parish, all of which are owned in conjunction with either Iberia Parish or Assumption Parish.
Sixteenth section lands are publicly owned parcels originally reserved by the U.S. government in each township to generate funding for public education. The state holds the title to these lands as a trustee for the benefit of local school children and public education.
The school board had a couple of questions at its July meeting that it wanted answered before approving the resolutions, including whether the deal included carbon capture remediation.
“I think someone had a question if this was a carbon capture project, and the answer is absolutely no,” Riedl said. “This is a conventional oil and gas project. To give you a little background, Highland has drilled two ultra-deep 30,000-foot wells in the basin in the vicinity of where the school board property is located. Relative to the second well, they drilled the well, and it’s in a position of being completed and then ultimately producing the oil. The well took about one year to drill.
“To kind of fast forward a little bit as to why we’re asking to have this acreage nominated for public bid for leases, these three 16th section lands are located outside of the unit that was just recently drilled, and these would be hopefully involved in the next three or four wells that they plan to drill, assuming the success of the well that they just drilled. One is located to the east of the unit, one is located to the west and one of the 16th sections is located a little bit to the south.”
In answer to a question from the board, Riedl said the properties are located just north of West Lake Verret.
The state boards can reject offers that do not meet their specifications, and the school board also can put limitations on the bids that the state boards would require bidders to meet.
The state has a minimum 12.5 percent revenue share for the school board to receive on the property, but the school board could set a different minimum in its bid requirements if it chooses to do so.
The finance committee voted to recommend both measures, which were later approved by the school board.
Other agenda items recommended by the committee and then passed by the board were an annual $29,055.60 contribution to the St. Martin Economic Development Agency; approval of a Section 16 lease renewal for Daniel and Cynthia Rawls; and adoption of salary schedules for 2026-27 that keep the schedules the same as 2025-26.
Hebert led a discussion of eliminating positions in the administration.
Consent Agenda
The consent agenda passed by the board included approving Memorandum of Understanding between Parks Community Support Services and the school system for the Life Skills Training Program, a drug education program for students in grades 4-8.
The program is held once a week for 10 weeks during P.E. period.
The consent agenda also included a renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for outside behavioral health agencies and an MOU for medically necessary behavioral health services by The Healing House, the latter of which provides free grief support groups to students on campus.
The consent agenda also included a resolution supporting Prime Time Head Start’s application to provide Head Start services in the parish.
In Other Business
The board recognized students who participated in the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program, where students from each of the three high schools in the parish participated in job shadowing at various hospitals and other medical facilities over the summer.
Tabitha Doré was honored as the board’s Southern Scripts Employee of the Month. Doré is the Title 1 secretary and McKinney-Vento homeless liaison.
