A gate at New Iberia Senior High. School safety was the topic of Wednesday’s Iberia Parish School Board meeting.

The Iberia Parish School Board put off voting to approve the purchase of a comprehensive security assessments from a company after some pushback from a local resident and school board members. 

The agenda item would have approved $40,000 for Fidelis Global Group to train 400 employees on how to handle crisis situations, train staff members to become trainers for furthering training and to review and update the school district’s crisis plan. 

“A high priority for our district is to keep our students and staff safe,” Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Joseph said. “With that I am asking your approval in allowing us to get in this contract with Fidelis so we can look at our layers of security.”

There was some immediate pushback after the explanation by retired teacher Judy Delahoussaye, who said it was “ridiculous” that the board was considering paying $40,000 for the assessment. 

Delahoussaye asked the board why the current assessment that the school board used was insufficient.

“It makes no sense to spend $40,000 when we have a lack of metal detectors, door bar equipment, dogs that check our schools, how is this assessment going to be any different from what we already have,” she asked during the public comment section. 

Delahoussaye also added that local and state police should be added to dealing with crisis situations.

“Being a retired teacher, I’ve gone through training, how you close the door. How can they do anything so much fabulously different that y’all can say to us as the constituents that we are going to spend $40,000 dollars to get a better evaluation?”

Iberia Parish School Board member Robbie LeBlanc said that his main point of contention was that the administration had not done request for proposals for the program. 

“For that kind of money, RFPs should have been done,” LeBlanc said. “Unless it’s a state contract, that’s just (how it’s) always been. How do you know there’s somebody else that can give us the same quality of service? We don’t know.”

After the conversation, Superintendent of Schools Carey Laviolette said she would withdrew the agenda item until more research could be done on the issue. 

“In the event of an emergency, if we had not practiced and don’t have some people in a building who know what to do, then it will be chaos,” Laviolette said. “The more prepared we are, the more lives potentially we will save”

Laviolette also answered Delahoussaye’s question by saying the current crisis plans are 10 years old, and added that crisis situations have gotten more complicated during that time frame. 

“The need for updating plans, no one can deny the need for that,” she said. “However, I take full responsibility for the research that was done and I’m going to pull that item. 

“I do want you to know we are going to continue searching because safety and security is of a high priority. We’re going to pull the item and do more research, and we will be back.”