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If voters approve the May 4 millage increase, Terrebonne Parish School Board Superintendent Philip Martin would like to see seven elementary and middle schools consolidated in new buildings, a new addition to Mulberry Elementary School and a new Southdown Elementary School building.
“The average age of school buildings in Terrebonne Parish is 60 years old,” Martin said at last Tuesday’s school board meeting. “The Bayou Black Elementary School building is 100 years old.”
In addition to increasing the size of the Mulberry Elementary facility by 54,000 square feet and constructing a new building for Southdown Elementary, Martin’s vision for the future of Terrebonne public schools includes consolidating Dularge Middle and Dularge Elementary into one school, merging Lisa Park and West Park Elementary and combining Gibson, Bayou Black Elementary and Greenwood Middle into another. Each new school would have between 370 to 400 students, the superintendent projects.
“We need a new Southdown Elementary building instead of putting money into new windows and a new roof on an old school,” Martin said. “The school is clean and well kept, but that stretch of road is the new main street and that is now our most visible school in Houma. West Park Elementary is land-locked and has no playground.”
All of the proposed upgrades are expected to save the school board, and ultimately the taxpayers, millions of dollars over the years.
“It’s currently in the millions to operate all seven schools (we want to consolidate),” Martin said. “The savings would also be in the millions. Just in utilities, we would be saving $165,000 a year by consolidating the Bayou Black Schools.”
Technology upgrades and teacher raises – Terrebonne Parish is 45th in the state for teacher pay – are also part of the school board’s future plans.
“We have one of the largest school districts in the state, and the average school millage in the state is 40,” Martin said. “We are at 10. The garbage collection mill in the parish is 12. You get what you pay for. I’m stingy. I want my grandkids to have the best education possible. I recently asked the Ascension Parish school board superintendent what their millage is and, when she told me it was 61, I turned and acted like I had a phone call before she could ask me what ours is.”
Should the millage pass, Martin would like to see the addition to Mulberry and the consolidation of the three Bayou Black area schools completed first.
“We know all this will not happen at one time,” he said. “If the millage passes, we will immediately go to the board with the plans, and that will take about six months. I would first like to see about the Mulberry addition. Mulberry is very overcrowded. The Bayou Black schools also need to be consolidated. Two of these schools are very, very, very old.”
“I am getting favorable feedback from the public, and I am very optimistic,” Martin added.
Mulberry Elementary Parent Teacher Club president Geneva Shults weighed in on the overcrowding issues at the school’s building.
“The original building was built to hold 200 students but, with the addition of 18 portable buildings, there are now about 970 students on campus,” Shults said. “Over half of the school’s population is in portable buildings. Superintendent Martin knows the problems and is aware that half the children are not even in the building. Fifth and sixth grades and pre-k and kindergarten are all in out buildings. Since the Connecticut shooting, we are all very concerned about security issues with the younger children in these outbuildings.”
Shults also cited the low number of restroom facilities, next year’s new pre-K class that does not have a classroom and the lack of space to address all students at one time.
“The cafeteria has had to modify how they cook and feed the students,” she said. “They have to start feeding the children at 10:45 a.m. and don’t finish until 1 p.m. For awards ceremonies and band performances, the student body is split into thirds so that parents will be able to attend. When it rains, there is no place for students to have physical education. That’s one of the reasons that it was eliminated this year. There needs to be room for all students.”
According to Terrebonne Parish School Board president Roger Dale DeHart, the rapid growth of his school board district, which includes Bayou Black Elementary and Mulberry Elementary, is the root cause of overcrowding at Mulberry Elementary.
“Most of the new neighborhoods like Terra Cane and even the Houma Highlands Apartments were sugarcane fields when the districts were drawn,” DeHart said. “Now there are so many students at the school, we have traffic problems when parents are dropping kids off and picking them up. It’s chaos. It’s also a safety issue for the community. What if an ambulance or fire truck needed to get back there?”
Like Martin, DeHart sees a bright future for the plans the school board has in mind for the parish’s schools.
“The board members are positive about the suggested list of improvements, and all members of the school board are concerned with the improvements,” he said. “By going to the public with the millage, we hope to bring the parish up to the state average.”
Terrebonne Parish School Board president Roger Dale DeHart stands in front of one of two rows of portable buildings at Mulberry Elementary School. Dehart and Terrebonne Parish School Board Superintendent Philip Martin would like to the 18 portable buildings replaced by a permanent 54,000-square-foot addition to the school.
