VIDALIA — Tears, cheers and sneers were all present at the Concordia Parish School Board meeting Thursday, as discussion of the recent disbandment of the Vidalia High School Majorettes filled the air with a topic not short on those wanting to speak out.

A motion was to arrange for the superintendent, the principal, the assistant principal and the band director to meet with the parents and sponsors of the majorettes regarding their future for the remainder of this school year.

The majorettes were disbanded before the school year because the new band director hired at VHS wanted to focus on the band only and not the auxiliaries that go along with it.

Majorette sponsor Stacey McGraw said she just wants the students to be treated fairly.

“Knowing that they can perform at other places, but not at their own high school is blatant disregard for our children,” she said. “We want a plan developed so it will never happen again.

Superintendent Loretta Blankenstein said that during a meeting at the beginning of the school year, VHS Principal Rick Brown said he would let the majorettes back into the school as an auxiliary group if the new band director would allow it.

Blankenstein said the new band director wanted to focus solely on music, but that if they could find another CPSB employee to sponsor the majorettes, and have tryouts, they would be allowed back. No CPSB employee took the offer, and Blankenstein said any auxiliary group has to have an employee in the school system to sponsor the group before it is allowed at the school.

“School employees know more about rules and regulations than those who aren’t employed by the school system,” she said.

Board member Raymond Riley said the board’s job is too look out for the betterment of the students, and that something needs to be done about the majorettes.

“For us to sit here and know about this from the beginning of the school year and not change anything is a problem,” he said. “We are here as a board and we want to see the best for our kids, and this includes encouraging extracurricular activites.”

Board member Fred Butcher said the new band director should have looked into the situation more before making a decision.

“We hire an employee to be a label of whatever we hire them to be,” he said. “Coming into a new year in a new situation, he should have assessed the situation more.”

Butcher said something could have been done to avoid this whole situation.

“This could have been worked out,” he said. “I don’t think someone taking a brand new job can walk in and make this many changes.”

Brown was unable to attend the meeting for medical reasons, board president Gary Parnham said.

In other news:

A motion passed to make semester exams count as 20 percent of a student’s final grade for that term.

Academic Director Paul Nelson said the change came about because they switched from three six week periods a semester to two nine week periods a semester.

The placement of security systems in all of the schools in the parish is nearing completion, with only FHS and Ferriday Upper Elementary being next in line.

Citizenship awards for all of the high school in the parish were presented at the meeting.