Lafourche board considering Chackbay grade school move

Residents of Chackbay are alarmed by the future relocation of the town’s elementary school after Lafourche Parish School Board entered a $505,000 purchasing agreement with the Weldon family for the St. James Plantation property on La. Highway 20. 

No deal has been made; LPSB simply has the right to sign for the property within the 150-day allotment. 

“This gives us the right to review the land and get people in there to take a look at it,” Superintendent Jo Ann Matthews said. “It is not signing on the dotted line that we are purchasing it, but we have the right to offer.”

Although there is no deal yet, parents are concerned about traffic safety if the school relocates.

Tony Palmer lives across the street from the current school and says the area stays busy.

“It is for truckers hauling dirt back and forth from the river,” he said. “Grinding season is absolutely horrible. It is from the wee hours of the morning until the wee hours of the night.”

Palmer expressed concern for his wife, who drops the couple’s son at school at 6:30 a.m.

“On a foggy day, a cane truck can easily plow into somebody and hurt him or her,” he explained. “If you create conges-tion at that one section, there will be more of a chance of that happening. I just don’t think it is the right move.”

Palmer and other parents believe the school board left them out of the discussion.

“A lot of (parents) get their information from the rumor mill,” said Dana Landry, whose child attends the elementary school. “They don’t know what is going on. You call the school board you get one answer and call (Dr. Gregg Stall) you get another answer. A lot of times when I call, I hear, ‘I don’t know.’”

Stall, who represents District 6, advised the community attend committee meetings to provide input.

“I did get a lot of input on this,” he said of the school move. “I have solicited information about the schools and what people would like to do from the community.”

Palmer expressed frustration with the decision, saying he’d been told a little over a month ago at an open house that a move was not likely in the near future.

 “When I read that they were voting for $500,000 worth of property, I thought they were looking at it and no decisions were going to be made anytime soon,” Palmer said.

But Stall said future growth projections require action.

“It is all about subdivision growth. We have a few subdivisions that have popped up. They expect more growth in the area,” he said. 

The biggest growth is expected near Sixth Ward Middle School.

“If we built on that site, we would have to look into expanding into wetlands,” said Evan Plaisance, site administration manager. “We had a discussion with the school board and surveyor. It was deemed that we would have to mitigate too much property for future growth.”

Plaisance said only a small parcel is available and a new school would take up 95 percent of it. “That’s not counting the area we need for drainage, parking and parent drop-off,” he added.

Palmer suggested the parish move its maintenance barn to make room for a school.

However, Plaisance said even moving the barn could still cause congestion.

“When you talk about building a facility that is around 55,000 to 60,000 square feet and only one way to get in and out of both schools, that is when it gets choked down a lot,” he said.

Other options – seeking property from Laurel Valley Plantation or adding a second story to an existing building – proved either not possible or too costly.

“We reviewed it with our architectural staff and it will double what is in our budget,” Plaisance said of building upward onto an existing school. “It costs more to go up because of life-safety issues.” 

Stall said acquiring land for the school is the next step in the process while studies continue to be done.

— michael@rushing-media.com

Chackbay Elementary School could move to property on La. Highway 20. The Lafourche School Board has entered a purchasing agreement with the Weldon family for the land.

MICHAEL HOTARD | THE TIMES