Vermilion Parish School Board will have to decide if it wants 9 or 8 districts

It may be one of the most significant decisions the Vermilion Parish School Board will have to make in 2022.
The second step was taken to either increase the school board to nine members or vote to keep it at eight members.
The school board went from a 14-member school board to an eight-member school board around 1990.
In 2017, the school board voted to do away with an eight-member board and go to a nine-member school board, which made the vote odd. There would never be another 4-4 tie if it became a nine-member school board.
Mike Hefner, a chief demographer, recommended back in 2018 that the school board wait until the release of the ‘20 census before redrawing the district lines for each school board member. So, that is what the school board did. They waited three years.
At a specially called meeting on Thursday, Hefner gave an early indication of what a nine-member district would look like in Vermilion Parish. With nine districts, the population in each district would have to be 6,715 people.
With eight districts, the population would have to be 7,180 people.
Hefner gave a PowerPoint presentation of the newly proposed nine districts. He informed the board members that this was the first step to redrawing the lines for the board members only. He advised them to study their respective districts, and then in a few weeks, he could make changes by redrawing the lines.
“We can explore a lot of options,” Hefner explained.
The new district, District I, would encompass all of the Maurice area.
There was not much change in the districts around Erath and Delcambre.
Some board members wanted to see what the districts would look like if the board stayed eight members. Hefner explained that he had not created new lines for eight districts because he was hired to create lines for nine districts. But, he did say he could provide new lines, based on the 2020 census, for eight districts.
For eight districts, Hefner told the board members that the lines would shift north in each district because that is where the population growth is occurring.
Stelly’s district would move more into Kaplan and Abbeville, while David Dupuis’ district would also expand into Kaplan.
With eight districts, Board Member Laura LeBeouf, who currently represents the Kaplan area, would lose part of Kaplan, and her district lines would move north towards the North Vermilion area.
Superintendent Tommy Byler told the board members that they can revote in the future and keep it eight members.
The school board has until March to decide on the districts.