The Allen Parish School Board voted unanimously Monday to approve a three-year employment contract with incoming Superintendent Brad Soileau.

Soileau was appointed to the superintendent’s position last month after a series of divisive board meetings to name the district’s next superintendent.

Under the contract, Soileau’s yearly salary will be $105,000.

“I am excited and very happy with the contract,” Soileau said after the meeting. “We went through it fairly easy and negotiated fairly easy. Hopefully, I will have more contracts after the three years.”

Soileau said the three-year contract will give him time to make improvements and changes in the district.

“I think we have to focus on academics and our test scores,” he said. “It is very important that we grow our school performance scores.”

Allen Parish schools are currently ranked as a B in school performance scores.

Literacy will play a big role in improving performance scores and getting students to perform better on grade level, he said.

“We have a lot of students that are on grade level now with the work that we have done, but we have to continue,” he said.

Soileau said he would also like to focus on the whole school and each child’s experience.

“School is more than just school,” he said. “It’s sports. It’s building relationships. It’s learning a lot of things, so I want to focus on the whole experience of all our students.”

With three days of the new school year completed, Soileau is looking forward to a successful school year.

“The first days have been great, ” he said. “We had a great back to school administrative meeting and our new teacher orientations went great.”

Soileau visited Kinder schools on Monday and will be visiting other schools throughout the parish.

“I want to see all of our schools and talk to all of our teachers,” he said.

He also held the first in a series of community meetings Monday at Elizabeth High School. A second meeting is set for 6 p.m. today, Aug. 15, at Oakdale High School auditorium for all Oakdale schools.

Additional meetings will be held Thursday, Aug. 17 at Fairview High School; Monday, Aug. 21 at Oberlin High School gym for all Oberlin schools; Tuesday, Aug. 22 at Kinder High School gym for all Kinder schools and Thursday, Aug. 24 for Reeves High School.