Blaine Dauzat retiring as Avoyelles public schools superintendent

The past six years has seen a lot of challenges and changes -- most positive -- for the Avoyelles Parish School District. As of March 31, selection of a new superintendent will be added to that list.

Superintendent Blaine Dauzat turned in his letter of resignation to School Board members at their March 2 meeting, announcing he will be retiring on June 30 after 30 years as an educator. His last day in the office will be March 31.

So if someone tells you the next day that Dauzat is no longer the superintendent, it won't be an April Fool's joke. He will be on paid leave until his retirement date.

Assistant Superintendent Thelma Prater will serve as interim superintendent until the board hires a permanent chief administrator for the public school system. Prater will have the distinction of being the parish's first African American superintendent of schools. She will be the second woman to lead the public school system on an interim basis. Dr. Paula Childress served as interim between the administrations of Ronald Mayeux and Dwayne Lemoine.

'TIME TO RETIRE'

"After 30 years, I believe it is time to retire and do something else," Dauzat said.

He is not sure what that "something else" is, but at only 51 he knows it won't be sitting in a recliner and watching TV all day. He is sure that it will not be another superintendency.

Dauzat said he has enjoyed his years at the helm of the school district, and believes he leaves office with the district better than it was when he took the job.

"The thing I am most proud of is our accountability," Dauzat said. "Our school performance ranking among school districts jumped 20 spots in four years. We are the No. 1 district in growth over that period, and that happened with us paying out teachers a pauper's wage."

He said the schools are safer and more orderly in addition to student test scores improving in most schools.

"It all starts with a good relationship with the kids," Dauzat said. "I stress that in my opening of school assemblies. We have built that in this school system. The trust we have in the community is exponentially better than it was six years ago."

CHALLENGES AND CHANGES

It has been an active six years with many challenges and changes.

The most historic change was the end of a federal desegregation suit.

The district was declared unitary in May 2015 and put under a three-year monitoring period which expired in 2018, ending federal involvement in the operation of the public schools and ending a lawsuit that was first filed in 1967 and revived in 1987. That "intervention" led to a 1988 court-ordered consolidation that closed serveral schools and took the high school grades from others.

“This is a humongous weight lifted off this school system,” Dauzat said when the consent decree declaring the district to be unitary was signed in 2015.

In 2019-20 the district adopted the four-day school week, which was expected to help recruit and retain certified teachers. That school year was cut short by the COVID pandemic, with campuses closed for the last two months.

This school year opened with the state still under strict anti-COVID measures, but Dauzat said he is extremely proud of how the district and, most of all, district teachers, administrators and support personnel have handled the challenges.

"I will put this district's response to the pandemic up against any other district's in the nation," Dauzat said. "This challenge showed just how good our people are. I am surrounded by awesome people. Our teachers have shined during this time."

Dauzat said highlights of the APSD pandemic response include the food box distributions and the creation of a "virtual option" for students whose parents did not feel comfortable sending them to school during the height of the infection in the parish.

Another change is a complete turnover on the School Board. The "senior" member of the board is Chris LaCour, who was the only new member elected in the fall of 2015. In 2019, seven new board members were seated with only LaCour and Van Kojis returning. Kojis resigned for health reasons and Jill Guidry was elected to serve in that Bunkie-area district.

Dauzat said he considers a highlight of his time as superintendent being able to go into the schools and meet with students and employees.

"I like talking with the kids," he said. "I'm basically a kid at heart myself."

If there is a "lowlight" in the past six years, it was the almost immediate battle to prevent the creation of a third charter school in the parish.

Dauzat said Red River Charter Academy's efforts to gain approval to open what will become a grade 6-12 high school "was a thorn in my side from the very beginning."

RRCA was eventually granted permission to open as a grade 6-8 middle school in 2019-20 and added a 9th grade section this school year. It will add a 10th grade in 2021-22.

AVOYELLES NATIVE 

Dauzat was born and raised in Avoyelles Parish, between Marksville and Moncla. He is a 1987 graduate of Marksville High and a 1991 graduate of LSU.

  "I graduated in a summer commencement in August and started was teaching and coaching a few weeks later at St. Joseph High School in Plaucheville," Dauzat said. He was at the parochial school for two years.

  His career took him to Winn Parish, where he taught for several years and served as principal of Atlanta High for four years. He then went to Caldwell Parish where he was principal of Caldwell Junior High for eight years.

   It was in Caldwell Parish that Dauzat was introduced to the four-day school week -- a concept the Avoyelles School Board adopted two years ago.

   Dauzat returned home to lead LaSAS, the district's agricultural sciences charter high school, for 2 1/2 years before being selected from a field of six candidates to become superintendent in February 2015.

   He and wife Kristy Gauthier Dauzat have one daughter, 9-year-old Haley.