With strong support from my family, constituents and colleagues I am thrilled to announce my candidacy for re-election to the Natchitoches Parish School Board, District 4.
In past few years, the Natchitoches Parish School Board has seen remarkable growth and progress. Never in the history of our school district have we experienced such progress. Some of these accomplishments include ranking first in the State of Louisiana on its rate of academic improvement, named in the National Education Scorecard as the only district in Louisiana growing both reading and math scores on the national assessment, leads the state with growth in science and math proficiency rates, and our proficiency rates exceed state averages. Natchitoches is 1 out of only 9 districts nationwide recognized by the Harvard-Stanford Education Recovery Scorecard for post-Covid reading success.
The Natchitoches Parish School Board has also moved from a state ranking of 43 to 16 out of the 70 State school districts. These are just a few of the many accomplishments our district has achieved in the last few years.
When I ran for office, I ran on a platform for children/students first, hiring the best superintendent, transparency, public trust, financial management and fully implementing a dual enrollment system to allow students graduating from a Natchitoches Parish high school to obtain a college associate’s degree at the same time. I am proud to say that we have achieved those goals, however there is still more work to be done. Our budget is constantly strained, and tough decisions have been made in the last two years affecting our entire Parish. Funding will continue to be an issue for the NPSB and having experienced Board Members that cooperate for the good of our students is critical.
I sincerely appreciate your support for the past eight years. Thank you for putting your trust in me to make the right decisions for the children of our school district.
I humbly ask you to continue your support of my candidacy for Natchitoches Parish School Board, District 4. For questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at 318-554-9454 or email me at Billy.Benefield@npsb.la