With the new school year just two weeks away, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system has filled most of its vacant administrative positions, including naming principals for five schools — but at 60-plus schools.
These changes are the latest in a series Superintendent Sito Narcisse has made in his six months in charge of the state’s second largest traditional school district. Narcisse has reorganized the Central Office, added an array of new positions, hired many new faces to the district and raised pay for many administrators.
The latest changes were laid out in a July 16 memo. In that memo, Narcisse named five new school principals and five new assistant principals, but described those moves only as recommendations.
"If all the unvaccinated people were responsible and wore mask indoors, we would not be seeing this surge."
In June, Narcisse announced several new administrators, including new principals for Twin Oaks and Wedgewood elementary schools. But both leaders named for those schools opted not to take the jobs and were replaced weeks later. One of those individuals, Twana Hilton-Pitre, a Central Office administrator being demoted, .
Now, Narcisse is calling for Belaire High and Broadmoor High, which are located less than three miles apart from each other, to swap leaders. So Broadmoor High’s Assistant Principal, Verdie Batiste, is being promoted to principal of Belaire High, while Jones is making a lateral move, leaving the top job at Belaire to become principal at Broadmoor High.
The website for Broadmoor High, however, and .
New East Baton Rouge Parish schools leader Sito Narcisse is continuing to remake and expand the Central Office, recently announcing the hiring…
Board member Dawn Collins, who represents the Belaire area, said Batiste is coming to Belaire and that she plans to meet with her later this week, but Collins said she’s not sure whether Jones will end up shifting to Broadmoor High.
When asked about Jones’ job status, Alex Stubbs, chief of communications, emailed an unambiguous response: “Ms. Angela Jones is the principal of Broadmoor High School.â€
The Broadmoor High job became vacant when Narcisse promoted Stacy Bradford to Central Office to serve as an executive director of school leadership.
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Here are other principal shifts that Narcisse recommended July 16 and look to be on track:
- Louis Moore, principal at Baton Rouge Center for Visual & Performing Arts, promoted from assistant principal at Baton Rouge Magnet High. Candice Hartley, who had been principal at BRCVPA for the past six years, told parents earlier this month she was leaving to take a job out of state.
- Yolanda Burnette-Lankford, principal at Cedarcrest-Southmoor Elementary. Burnette-Lankford . She is replacing Christal Aguillard-Sylvain, who recently left Cedarcrest-Southmoor, which she’d led for the past three years, to become an executive director for school leadership.
- David DeBerry, principal of Claiborne Elementary. He is new to the school system. He is replacing Rochelle Anderson, who was recently promoted to director of professional development.
The websites for and had been updated with information on their new leaders as of Tuesday afternoon, but .
Since starting in January, Narcisse has steadily expanded Central Office, hiring mostly outside, in some cases out of state. His senior cabinet has expanded from 13 to 16 members and features seven new faces, six in newly created positions.
Unlike last year, Louisiana public school leaders are deferring to local school officials on face masks and other safety measures amid the ris…
He’s not done. He he had filled three newly created positions:
- Vickey Silas, deputy chief of policy. She was previously the district’s portfolio manager, overseeing charter schools.
- Christina Anderson, director of equity and diversity. Anderson has spent the past four years . She worked for the school system previously from 1999 to 2007.
- Trey Earle, director of data. He was previously a teacher at Liberty High.
All three started work on July 1.
On Wednesday, Stubbs announced more hires to newly created positions:
- Danielle Staten, District 504 Coordinator. Staten was previously an educational diagnostician working for the district.
- Corie Buras, director of multi-tiered systems of support. Buras was an assistant principal at Southeast Middle.
- Antoinette Pierre, literacy innovation coordinator. Pierre was an instructional specialist for federal Title 1 programs.
- Bridgette Beal, literacy innovation coordinator. Beal was a teacher coach for the district.
