Monroe City School Board places Superintendent Brent Vidrine on administrative leave
MONROE, La. (KNOE) - UPDATE: The Monroe City School Board has placed Superintendent Brent Vidrine on paid administrative leave effective immediately following today’s (Oct. 24) MCSB’s special meeting. He will be on leave for three months.
Following the executive session, board member Betty Ward Cooper requested an item be added to the agenda to vote for an interim superintendent. However, the motion failed. For now, there is no interim superintendent.
The following is a statement from Monroe City School Board President Bill Wilson:
“On October 6 2023, the school board retained Workplace Investigations of the South LC to conduct a fair, impartial, and objective investigation with respect to various activities of Superintendent Brent Vidrine. The investigators began the investigation immediately upon their retention and interviewed various persons and reviewed numerous documents. Today, the school board received a preliminary report from our investigators in executive session. That preliminary report raised serious concerns. As a result of those concerns, the school board voted unanimously. The vote was seven to zero to place Superintendent Vidrine on paid administrative leave. The investigators have informed the school board that their investigation is not complete, and they stressed that they had made no final conclusions concerning the facts. The placement of Superintendent Vidrine on administrative leave is nothing more than the school board’s attempt to provide his investigators with the widest latitude possible to complete their investigation and report their findings without any possible suggestion that Superintendent Vidrine in any way hampered or influenced the investigation. When the investigation is complete, if warranted by the facts, the school board will take prompt remedial action. Until that time, the board requests that the public and press refrain from speculating about the facts. Thank you very much.”
This is a developing story. Below is an earlier version of the story.
MONROE, La. (KNOE) - On Sept. 12, the Monroe City School board held an executive session that lasted almost two hours. This came after last week’s statement from school board president Bill Willson about the suspected financial misconduct of an employee.
RELATED STORY: “Monroe City school employee under investigation”
Board member Brandon Johnson called a motion to ask for the suspension of superintendent Brent Vidrine for 30 days with pay to the meeting’s next agenda.
The motion did not pass.
We will continue to update this story as it unfolds.
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