Board President Dana Dugas, right, and Superintendent Carey Laviolette listen to a reading of a proclamation of Retired Teachers Day during Wednesday’s Iberia Parish School Board meeting.

The Iberia Parish School Board unanimously approved today as Retired Teachers Day in Iberia Parish, with a longtime advocate for retired teachers reading the proclamation.

Jimmy Broussard, a former teacher who retired in 2001 and has taught parenting classes and worked with social workers to assess whether children are eligible for special services, read the proclamation during Wednesday’s meeting.

“The proclamation came from the governor and what I did was make copies and dropped them off to local government,” Broussard said. “The school board is taking the proclamation and converting it slightly to read as their own.”

The proclamation acknowledges the training retired teachers have provided adults throughout the state, the valuable services rendered in their communities and the responsibility retired teachers undertook in their professions.

Broussard said the proclamation date was timely after the recent push from teachers statewide to be paid more.

“I think it’s pretty timely,” he said. “I was looking at the increases in salary, and we have a thing among retired teachers — we need to watch out for this more. Sometimes retired teachers tend to look back and say we’re done with that.

“We’re all teachers; teaching never stops and if we can’t keep the younger ones healthy and keep their benefits drawn we end up with some problems.”

In other business, the board voted to sell two unused properties to the highest bidder as well. The site of the former Lee Street Elementary and the site of the former Jeanerette Primary School were voted to be sold to Dynasty Enterprises of Louisiana and Jerome Fitch Construction, respectively.

The former Lee Street sold for $48,000 and the former Jeanerette Primary sold for $29,100. No bids came in for the former Canal Street Elementary School property, which was also up for sale by the board.