October 15
October 15, 2007
Ruberta LaCoste
October 17, 2007Evergreen Junior High School ninth graders will stay put for now, as three elementary schools in Terrebonne Parish could get new modular classrooms to solve crowding issues.
The idea of transferring the ninth grade students from Evergreen Junior High to H.L. Bourgeois High School has been tossed from committee to committee for more than five years now and the Terrebonne Parish School Board still hasn’t made a decision.
“I don’t think there is a public outcry to move the students from Evergreen to H.L.,” said Building, Food Services and Transportation Committee Chairman Hayes Badeaux.
Earlier this month, the Building, Food Services and Transportation Committee advised the parish school board to purchase three eight-classroom modular buildings to house the ninth grade students at either Evergreen or H.L. Bourgeois.
All three modular classrooms would cost the board a total of $1.16 million. However, the money is not the issue the board has been toying with for years. It’s actually placing younger students in the high school, Badeaux said.
Some board members would rather leave the student population in west Houma the way it is despite the continuously growing population, he said.
As a whole, the board agreed to send the issue back to the committee for further investigation and discussion.
At last Monday’s committee meeting, school board member L.P. Bordelon voiced opposition to transferring more than 350 students from Evergreen to H.L. Bourgeois.
“I feel the students should stay put,” he said.
Committee co-chair Roosevelt Thomas countered Bordelon’s argument, saying the parish should be uniform. “There are ninth grade students at the high school in east Houma, and it should be the same in west Houma.”
“The school district has been trying to uniform the parish for nearly 10 years now and we are still going back and forth with the idea. All the high schools should have ninth graders in them because children learn from their peers, and at the junior high schools the ninth graders have no one to look up to,” he said.
Thomas noted that all three high schools in Lafourche Parish have ninth grade students.
But the disagreement has created a stalemate. The committee tabled the issue last Monday until the November school board meeting.
While there is no law mandating that all high schools must include ninth graders, Badeaux said that moving the ninth grade to H.L. Bourgeois would be a good thing and said the issue will likely arise again.
The go-ahead to buy three eight-classroom modular buildings to house ninth graders on either campus will remain in tact.
The committee’s recommendation will place the modular buildings at Bourg Elementary, Acadian Elementary and East Houma Elementary schools – the three most-crowded schools in Terrebonne Parish.
Badeaux said the pre-kindergarten and kindergartner classes at Acadian and East Houma, and fourth-grade classes at Bourg have struggled most with crowding issues.
“If we add one more student at Bourg the fourth graders will be pushed right out of the door,” Badeaux said after Superintendent Ed Richard’s staff outlined the problem.
Acadian Principal Arthur Joffrion Jr. and East Houma Principal Sylvia Champagne agree that the modular classrooms would be good for the schools because they have many facets portable classrooms don’t offer, such as access to water fountains and restrooms.
“We are cramped for space at Acadian,” Joffrion said. “We had to close a portion of our library to accommodate three additional pre-school classes this year. The addition is much needed and we appreciate all the board’s help.”
At East Houma, portable classrooms are falling apart, according to Badeaux and Champagne. “The portables house our pre-K students right now and they have no bathrooms and no water fountains. My little ones have to come all the way inside of the building to get water or have a bathroom break.”
Mulberry Elementary School in West Houma currently uses a modular classroom similar to the ones that will be purchased if the measure passes.
