There’s a whole lot of educational experience on display at Sacred Heart School

By Donna Culotta

This is the second part of two teachers at Sacred Heart School with many years of teaching experience.

Dan Soldani

If Carla Moreau has 46 years of teaching experience, Dan Soldani has just a few more at 48.

His total years too could be more but there was a year he took off to work for the lock and dam. He came right back to the classroom because as he said, “I just really enjoy teaching math. And I’ve always had a hankering to teach, I still loved engineering, especially agriculture engineering

“Bruce Juneau was one of my math teachers in high school and I’ve had good math teachers in the past.”

Dan’s teaching career began at Mansura High School where he taught math and science.

From there he went to Moreauville High “until consolidation.” He taught algebra, chemistry, physics, geometry and you might as well say all the high school math.

“Before consolidation,” Dan continued, “The school board asked me to become a traveling teacher. There was a teacher crunch so I went to Simmesport and Bordelonville, a half day each and taught math and science. It was a neat experience and I enjoyed it.”

As a traveling teacher, he didn’t have “a place to call home and no filing cabinet.” He had to bring everything with him.

Traveling only lasted one year because consolidation in the parish schools came along. Dan went back and taught at Moreauville High that had become Avoyelles High.

“The first year of consolidation I would never want to repeat again. There was no room for all the students. They had to bring in temporary classrooms. It was a very trying time.”

He began to reminisce about all his years at Moreauville High. “I walked the halls of Moreauville for 12-years as a student, and 31 as a teacher. The janitors would ask me where everything was stored.”

He knew where the old bell and the mounted mascot bobcat were and took them home for safe keeping.

After things settled down at Avoyelles High he brought them back where today the bell is mounted on the front steps of the school and the bobcat is in a trophy case.

Dan taught some time at LaSAS, another school he enjoyed. “The boys had a welding class in the afternoons and I’d zip into a welders suit and go weld with them.”

Dan comes from a long line of farmers and learning to weld was paramount on the farm. “If we were using a piece of equipment that broke, we had to go to the shop and fix it and get back in the field as fast as possible,” he explained.

“I enjoyed farm life terribly,” he added. “All kinds of experiences came out of being raised on a farm.”

Like his fellow math teacher, Carla Moreau, Dan ended up at Sacred Heart School.

He was leaving church one Sunday and the SHS principal at the time, Sister Sandra, said to him that school was about to start. “I hope you have a great year, I told her. She just answered, you will like it over here.”

She had lost a math teacher and reminded Dan of a conversation they once had. It amounted to something like he would come teach math at SHS once he retired. Being a gentleman and a man of his word he became a fulltime math teacher.

And there he was teaching math again. And has been there for 10 years.

These days it’s more part time but the love of teaching math has never waned.

Outside of the classroom, Dan is a man of the soil and the outdoors with a garden and a shop where he builds with wood and metal.

And of course, there’s the grandchildren, always the grandchildren.