INDReporter

Verm SB backs off on Bayard

by Walter Pierce

The Vermilion Parish School Board has rescinded its July vote to endorse the incumbent in the Board of Elementary & Secondary Education District 7 election in October.

The Vermilion Parish School Board has rescinded its July vote to endorse the incumbent in the Board of Elementary & Secondary Education District 7 election in October. Last month, following a presentation before the board by Dale Bayard of Sulpher, who represents southwest Louisiana including Lafayette on BESE, the board voted to endorse Bayard. Then a board member, according to Abbeville's Meriodonal newspaper, learned that Vermilion Parish native Holly Boffy was planning to run.

On Thursday night, Boffy made a presentation before the board. Although the board voted to take back its earlier endorsement of Bayard, whom some including this newspaper view as a shill for the creationist agenda of the Louisiana Family Forum, the board also decided that making endorsements isn't in its best interest. "The board just thought it was best not to endorse to any political candidate as a group; do what you want individually," says District F board member Charles Campbell.

Now retired from the Lafayette Parish School System, the 33-year-old Boffy recently signed on as the director of professional development and university programs with the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana. She was named the 2010 Louisiana Teacher of the Year as a teacher in the Gifted Program at Paul Breaux Middle School in Lafayette. Boffy recently made waves within state teacher unions when she called for an end to the tenure system.