At a regular meeting on Thursday, July 17th, members of the Livingston Parish School Board came together to discuss several projects created to inspire future student opportunities. After the opening pledge, led by several local students, the Livingston Parish School Board briefly discussed and confirmed the minutes from the school board meeting from June 19th.
The board then opened the floor to Live Oak High School Assistant Principle Rosalind Dalberg, stepping in for Principal Gary Jones, who discussed the bright potential within the proposed cooperative endeavor agreement “Game Day Nutrition” program forwarded by the Live Oak Marketplace. District 2 representative Robert Seals Jr. noted the cooperative endeavor to be an “exciting educational concept” while Dalberg further explained how this “unique, hands on opportunity” for the students will not only benefit the current school community but also the future students who will one day grow and join said community.
The Game Day Nutrition program encourages student creativity and develops leadership skills by simulating a fully operational business run on Live Oak High School campus. Students in the Pro-Start program will be able to put their culinary, woodworking, metalworking, designing, and management skills to use in a real-world setting of managing and operating a local business through this endeavor. As Dalberg made sure to note, this student-lead business will primarily be a “student learning lab” meant to “provide our students with real world experience in business operations and customer service and entrepreneurship.”
Safeguards are to be put in place for the Game Day Nutrition Program to ensure student safety and responsibility. The business will not be open during instructional hours to either students or instructors, school nutrition guidelines and USDA Smart Snack guidelines will also be followed in all culinary and meal prepping aspects, and any employees working alongside students will undergo background checks. District 7 representative Katelyn Cockerham made note that “we have something similar to this at Walker” High school, of which she still “write[s] about to this day” as a positive program that helps with marketing skills.
After a brief discussion, the board voted to approve the Game Day Nutrition Program in Live Oak Marketplace and the motion was carried through unanimously. However, this approval does inspire the question: Will the Game Day Nutrition program compete with any local businesses? Only time will tell.
In other matters, the board continued the meeting with a discussion on the ratified bids from Tuesday, July 15, 2025 concerning re-turfing Walker High School’s Baseball and Softball fields. According to Don Simpson of Simpson Sports Engineering LLC, the “estimate of the project [was] 2.5 million dollars,” of which the bids came in at “2.384 million dollars.” After reviewing the bids and the schematic prints for the re-turfing of the fields, the board unanimously voted to ratify the bids received for the Walker High field upgrade plan.
Afterwards, Jody Purvis, the school board Superintendent, called to attention a list he compiled detailing several performance based contracts of promotion. With the passing of this contract’s list, the mentioned Elementary school designees will graduate to the status of Elementary school Assistant Principles. The school board unanimously approved the motion and it was passed with special congratulations given from the board to all listed for their accomplishments. The lists of graduates are as follows:
Designees Graduated to Assistant Principals
Designees Graduated to Substitute Positions
Purvis went on to state that the legislative bills dealing with education that have already been signed in from the 2025 season will be joined by more as soon as their appointed consultant sends the school board the updated policies that go along with these signed bills. Additionally, the school board made mention that it will be requesting a policy committee from the public community to review these new policies in the future.
Important Events & Dates:
Before the meeting was adjourned, Purvis was also happy to announce to both students and parents that “the majority of our fleet [of buses] will be air conditioned and ready to roll on that first day” back to school, which is a win not only for the students but also for the bus drivers.
