BATON ROUGE - Tuesday morning, nearly 6,000 East Baton Rouge Parish School District employees gathered in the Southern University Mini Dome for EBR's annual convocation.

There was a parade of teachers, students, and bands who filed into the center to hear motivation from city leaders such as Mayor-President Sid Edwards, School Board President Shasonnie Steward and Superintendent LaMont Cole.

"For me, I thought it went excellent; it was exciting to see all of our teachers here, pumped up and motivated, ready to begin the school year," Cole said.

Cole addressed this year's district theme, "No Turning Back". He proudly pointed to the significant growth at the district during his first two years as superintendent. 

"We've come so far in two years. We've had tremendous academic gains; we've seen investment in our students, we've seen investments in our facilities, we've seen investments in all of our safety mechanisms at all of our schools," Cole said.

Cole also claimed success for last year's realignment plan that gave certain schools new start times. It allows schools to start classes later in the morning. 

"We've seen changes in start times, we've seen changes in school configurations. And all of the investments that we've made have put our school system on a trajectory to be successful and there's no turning back," Cole added.

The superintendent closed on an emotional note by addressing the recent news that he's now the subject of an Attorney General's investigation into his alleged role in ongoing corruption in the city-parish. He calls it one of the most challenging experiences of his life,

"Isaiah 15:17, 'No weapon formed shall prosper,'" Cole said

Cole did not address specifics surrounding the investigation, which appears to center on his time serving on the Baton Rouge Metro Council. 

Students return to the classroom on Friday, Aug. 7.