Kay Padgett Byrd-Bossier Parish School Board District 12

Q. What made you decide to run for BPSB?

A. I’ve been in the school business all my grown life. I’ve either been teaching children,
teaching adults, or teaching teachers. And I’m very proud of being a south Bossier resident
and Bossier parish resident. My parents were community leaders and believed in service to
the community and this was a way that I thought I the best job I would be qualified to do.

Q. Why do you think you’re qualified to serve on the BPSB?

A. Well qualifications are a funny thing. You have to be 18 and live in the district. I think I
know my way around the system very well. I’ve been on a school board before in Arizona, a
private school for learning disabled disabled children. The board was a private board and we
were elected by the community. And I served on that for 8 years. I started another board, the
National Dyslexia Board in Arizona because they didn’t have one out there. I serve on two
boards right now, one is a non-profit in Dallas for training teachers, ALTA (Academic
Language Therapy Association). I have just recently stepped down from being the Southern
Regional representative for the International Dyslexia Association. They required
cooperation, they required an understanding of committees, how you get things done. How
you work as a team in a team process.

Q. Recently, the BPSB considered a tax increase to cushion against cuts in state funding.
Do you support a tax increase, cutting spending, or a combination of the two to help
cushion against state funding cuts?
A. We’re going to have to be very careful with spending our money. I don’t mind thinking
about bond issues, but that’s not going to help what you’re talking about. Bur rolling
forward millage probably shouldn’t have been done at this time. People are hurting. There’s
too much unemployment going on. But it is going to have to happen. It is going to be
something that we have to look at in a future board. One of the good things though is that as
our parish grows, and it is growing we will get more tax money which will help fill those
coffers, it’ll be better. I’m not that conservative when it comes to spending money. I think in
order to stay competitive with all the districts that are getting lease money, and we’re not,
that we do have to keep our teacher salaries up there. And I think we’re going to have to
supplement what the state, we don’t get a lot of federal money anyway, it’s just never been
that big of a percentage. But they are cutting back at the state level, and if Louisiana loses
jobs just like every place else around the country, the tax money will decline. So, do I
support, yes, I support being fiscally responsible, you’re going to have to look for areas. And
I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m hearing that we are very top heavy when it comes to
supervisors, and I understand that sometimes these are jobs that are required by the state, that
you fill these positions, I think those are the kind of things that need to be looked at. And if
you don’t need the position, you should not have it. You shouldn’t force it to be on our
parish.
Q. What is your position on the BPSB’s recently announced added positions of
Graduation Coaches, Behavior Coaches, Response for Intervention Coaches?
A. Those are all federally funded jobs. As long as the federal government pays for it that’s
fine. I think your money is better spent on training your teachers. Like I train teachers how
to teach children how to think and to read and to become independent thinkers, life-long
learners. Coaches are fine, and those kind in particular. I think that’s a new area, almost that
track we go down sometimes, that track called “self-esteem” for children and to me the best
way to help anybody feel better about themselves is to be successful in the school. I think
that was somebody’s theoretical ideas that trickled down from failing school districts like
across the river. And I don’t think they’re going to be exceptional programs at all.

Q. What do you believe is the role of a School Board member?

A. You are a team member, one of twelve whose responsibility is to vet and hire and fire the
Superintendent. And it is important in that if you find the right person, who is qualified to do
his job, they give him a lot of rope to either perform well or hang himself. But our job is to
find that person who can lead a school district. The other thing is to create policies and
procedures and then to test the waters to see if they are effective.

Q. What would you do to make the BPSS transfer policy more equitable?
A. I wasn’t aware that it was an inequitable policy. Transferring from school to school, I’d
have to study the policy because I can’t tell you what I think about it because I don’t know
anything about it.

Q. What are your plans to increase openness and transparency in the operations of the
BPSB?
A. You know I’ve heard that that’s something they’ve worked on really hard in the past two
years, and that they’ve streamlined the way that things are reported and then pass that
information out so there is more transparency. It’s ridiculous to get caught with your hand in
the cookie jar, and I understand people went to jail, but I think that you’ve got to have a
checks and balances systems. And when I had my own company I never signed a check.
That was not my responsibility. My responsibility was to make sure the budget was done in
such a way that we could afford to pay the bills. I think you have to have a very careful
policy about your accounting procedures and that’s open for the public to see and anyone can
question it and get a reasonable answer in a reasonable period of time.

Q. What are the biggest challenges facing the BPSS?

A. That’s an easy one, I think it’s rapid growth. We’re going to see a need for new schools,
a need for new programs, a new flux of all kinds of children, not just English speaking
children, but where there are jobs, people come from all over the world. I think we’re going
to have to see a lot of English as second language programs coming up, in the hopes of
teaching English, not in the hope of keeping them in their Spanish, or whatever their
language, Russian or whatever it may be. I see us becoming a much better school system and
see us as leading. And I think that’s always a challenge because you’re trying to be
innovative and creative and not just follow everyone else. Growth is going to bring more
challenges than we’ve experienced in a long time.

Q. If elected, what will be your top priority?

A. Just making sure that all children have a voice in this system. I think they do a good job
of that right now. This is one of the districts that I’ve studied where the special ed system is a
good system. I’m always going to be an advocate for dyslexia and so that’s one place where
I want to make sure that we’ve got well-trained teachers. I’m all for volunteers and getting
parents more involved, but my problem is when you put parents in classrooms to do jobs that
need specialists, you cannot do that because those kids need help and those kids miss out.
For those kids that are truly struggling they need technology, they need very creative people
who have been trained, and they need specific programs that are designed to help them. I
want to also see Bossier shine in the area of technology.

Q. Are there areas in the BPSS which you believe could be better served by privatization?
A. I have a hard time with privatization because you’re using public funds. Maybe school
lunches and transportation. Transporting children is actually a private business anyway, we
pay a contract for, at least I believe we do. I think we’d be better off with having some
company handle that and take it out of our plate all together. But, lunches do need to be
improved big time. In some school systems you see Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, nasty stuff. Fatty
food has become more of the norm. We need to have good dieticians and good planning and
use the money available from federal funds to do that. We cannot teach a child who’s
hungry, because they look at that lunch and they just don’t eat.

Q. What specific measures can be instituted to provide greater protection for BP school
children?
A. I think that the only school I’ve visited has been my sister’s school, Charlotte Mitchell,
they go through a metal detector. If you have a drug problem you should use a drug dog, and
that way, you’re not really taking rights away from the children. I like the use of the SRO
officers, those work really well. The Bossier Sheriff’s Office works really well with our
student population in programs. I have heard that there is some bullying going on and the
teacher should be able to yank that child out of the class and take them to the SRO.

Q. What specific issues would you like to see with regard to the BPSS budget?
A. That’s an area that I honestly hate to comment on because I’ve not seen it. I know that
90% of the budget is already penned for teacher’s salaries. And 10% of it is what the Board
deals with And honestly, I just have to see. I know we’re going to be tight budgeted for a
while. I hope to be on the Insurance Committee or something like that because that’s one of
the places where they decide how much money to spend every year or every two years.

Q. What is your political party affiliation?

A. I’m a Republican and have been ever since George Bush.

Q. What are your areas of agreement and disagreement with your political party?
A. Gosh do we even have a platform? Vouchers are always one thing that the Republicans
have always liked and they like charter schools. I’ve worked in charter schools. If your
public school system isn’t doing well.

Q. What is the primary source of funding for your campaign?

A. I’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had a big contribution from Mr. Brown, businesses,
different real estates. I will end up spending about $1,000 of my own money, but I haven’t
paid all the bills yet.

Q. Would your current job allow you the time to attend SB meetings?
A. Yes, you know being in real estate you can schedule it around your life.

Q. What is the extent of your knowledge of the LA Open Meetings Law and the LA Public
Records Act?
A. I do know that you can, through the Public Records Act, you can go and research
anything that has to do with money, you can look it up. Anything that’s considered a public
meeting, which means any two public officials meeting at one time is considered a public
meeting. Louisiana Open Meetings Law came about, if I’m not mistaken, as a result of some
pretty shady deals being made in the back rooms with cigar smoke. I am aware that these
laws exist, and I’m glad for it. Actually I’m a little surprised that they do as much business
as they do at the School Board behind closed doors. I believe there needs to be more
committee meetings, and I’m not talking about School Board members being on these
committees, I’m talking about experts being on these committees that help us make
decisions. That’s the only way I’ve ever done business with any kind of board before, is to
have people who want to be a part of the board but not members of the board and don’t take
on the liability of being a board member. I think we need to have a real triangle of people
who work together, the Police Jury, the City Council, and the School Board. We’re spending
our people’s tax money, and sometimes I think we spend things independently that we could
be doing together that we wouldn’t haven’t to pay for something three different times.