By T. Scott Boatright
RUSTON, La. — The Lincoln Parish School Board elected officers to lead off Tuesday’s meeting for the month of January, but some contention about the elections was shown before they ever got started.
As Parish Superintendent Ricky Durrett was turning the meeting over to LPSB legal counsel Lewis Jones to conduct the elections, District 2 Representative David Ferguson stood up and requested for the elections to be tabled until next month’s meeting, citing the fact that absent from the meeting were two of the Board’s Black members, Lynda Henderson and Otha Anders, were not present.
“Before we even bring it up, I’d like to make a motion to table these elections. At this time, it’s not feasible to vote because two members are missing,” Ferguson said, referencing Henderson’s and Anders’ absences. “The racism in this is so rampant, we might need to think about it before we make the motion to accept anybody. I think we should wait a month, so all this tension that’s been created can settle down to where we can make it normal and create a decision.”
The Board officers over the past two years have been Gregg Phillips, who is White, as president and Dr. Danielle Williams, who is Black, as vice president.
Ferguson made an official motion to table the meeting, with Williams seconding that action.
The vote to table the motion failed 8-2, with all the members besides Ferguson and Williams, including District 11 representative George Mack, who is also Black, voting nay.
Lewis then explained the voting process that would be used before moving on to nominations for president. Phillips was nominated first by Danny Hancock with the absent Henderson also being nominated.
The votes for Phillips were considered first, and when he captured an 8-2 majority (with Ferguson and Williams voted nay), Jones then declared Phillips officially reelected as president.
Then the election moved to nominations for vice president, with Donna Doss being nominated first. When Williams was nominated next, she declined to be considered for reelection.
With no other nominations made, the Board then voted to close the nominations.
“I am honored that the board has chosen to allow me to serve as its President,” Phillips said after the meeting. “We have a lot of work ahead of us this next year, and I believe that together we will accomplish a lot of good for the students and educators of Lincoln Parish. I would say that I am grateful for Dr. Williams’ service for the past two years, and I know Donna will also do a great job as Vice President for the board.”
When Lewis asked if there were any public comments to be made at that point, Ruston’s Bill Smith, a frequent meeting attendee, spoke up.
“We told you way back when about the tension being around this table,” Smith said. “And it’s not getting any better, not getting any better at all. You know, there was a time that a handshake would take care of everything. If we’ve had one race as the president, the other race would be the vice president.
“That’s just been a common thing — an agreement that’s been made through the year, and coming here tonight and to see what I’ve just witnessed, I never thought I could have lived this long to see this.”
After officially closing nominations, all 10 Board members voted in favor of Doss, making her the new Vice President.
”I am honored that this board has the confidence to select me to serve in this position,” Doss said afterward. “This is a great school system, and I will continue to be fair and do what is best for all children in our system.”
Following the meeting’s conclusion, Williams said she had no second thoughts about declining her nomination to return as Vice President.
“I’ve looked at other school systems and most of the time (Board officers) change every year,” Williams said. “There are 12 different school districts, and all of us have unique needs for the children in our districts. The goal is I want us to move to a point where we change Presidents and Vice Presidents every year. You need different perspectives at the table and different leadership styles. So my goal would be to see us change officers every year.”
During his Superintendent’s Report, Durrett expressed confidence in the direction Lincoln Parish schools are headed.
“I’m proud of our school system,” Durrett said. “I’ve been to a lot of meetings with businesses who are looking to come to Ruston and every meeting I’ve been to, the school system is a shining point for encouraging them to be here and move here.
“So, I think we’re positioned in a great spot as far as our school system in Lincoln Parish to attract businesses and prepare students to leave our schools heading to college or the workforce.”
With Doss replacing Williams at the officers’ table, joining Durrett and Phillips, the LPSB continued with its agenda, starting with accepting a bid for school food service generators to be located at Cypress Springs, Glen View, Ruston Jr. High, Ruston High, Simsboro and Choudrant High to be able to save foodstuffs in the event of a lengthy electrical blackout.
Durrett said they would like to have generators at each school, but because of finances they tried to spread the generators out while also taking advantage of the biggest storage areas at the decided upon schools to save as much as possible.
“We’d like to have one at every school but with the FEMA money we had, we can only do six schools,” Durrett said. “We didn’t have enough storage space at I.A. Lewis, so that’s why we chose Ruston Jr. High as a location.”
The Board also approved guidelines for distribution of differentiated compensations stipends for the Fiscal School Year 2025-26.
During the 2025 state legislative session, Lincoln Parish received an allocation of $181,802 to pay stipends to eligible teachers, with those payments to be made on Feb. 26.
The LPSB also approved a paying agent resolution for Ruston School District No. 1 to fulfill a request from Origin Bank to change ownership of General Obligation School Refunding Bonds Series 2015 and 2016 from that Bank to Argent Financial, which owns the other such bonds.
Also approved was adding two additional in-school health clinics at Dubach School and Ruston Jr. High that can provide healthcare to students there at no out-of-pocket cost.
The Board also approved policy revisions suggested during the 2025 state legislative session as well as tweaking notification of School Board meetings, purchasing, emergency crisis management, recruiting, dismissal of employees, employee conduct, annual leave and behavioral health support for students.
