On Thursday, August 8, the Northshore Charter School Board met in the school’s cafeteria to fill vacant seats and present their new operating budget for 2024-2025.
Two out of four board nominees were in attendance, and the three-person board voted unanimously to add Charlotte Johnson, Ashley McMillan, Wes Roberston, and Trent Temples to their ranks. Board member Roosevelt Ludd commended the new members for volunteering their time and welcomed the much-needed help.

The board also presented its new budget for 2024-2025 and fielded questions from audience members. The $6.4 million budget reflects an increase in the school’s monthly rent to the City of Bogalusa from $1500 to $6500, including back pay since rental negotiations began a year ago. The abbreviated budget is available on the school’s website.

Absent from the budget were any expenses related to the construction of a new school, although the topic was discussed at the meeting and at least one audience member asked where the money for this project would come from. The Board stated that they are in the process of moving the school south, outside of city limits and just north of the Parish border, in order to be self-sufficient and to avoid any rental fees.

After a heated negotiation between the city and charter school that lasted nearly a year, NCS decided to pay the new rental amount and back pay, and to move the school before their contract with the city expires.

Ludd said, “I think it’s a raw deal, let the mayor come over here and put everybody out.”

Dee Dee McCullough, Principal and NCS CEO said, “We did what we had to do to send 440 kids to school.”

In a press release on his Facebook page the next morning, Truong stated, “Everyone is aware that the City is raising the rent but many don’t know why. When I first took office, we discovered that the charter school was only paying $1,500/month but the city was paying $3,500 in insurance. That means that the City was putting out over $24,000 a year to help operate the school.”

Truong also included a document breaking down the salary of NCS Principal and CEO Dee Dee McCullough, which totaled over $200,000 when retirement and insurance benefits were included. He stated that this was “far more” than he is paid, but did not include a breakdown of his own salary and benefits package for comparison. Truong did not respond to an inquiry about the nature of the insurance payment that he mentioned in his post.

The 2024-2025 NCS budget has $149,000 annotated for property insurance and another $32,550 for workers’ compensation.
Audience members and the board expressed mutual frustration toward the unorganized and inefficient school system in the area, where Parish Schools, Bogalusa City Schools, Private Schools, and the Northshore Charter School operate under different sets of rules.

Ludd stated, “The issue needs to be brought up with political leaders, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see how much money is being wasted.”