Expanding Boundaries of Central School System

by Woody Jenkins

CENTRAL — Perhaps the most beautiful part of East Baton Rouge Parish is just north of Central — the communities of Pride, Chaneyville, and Baywood.

In a way, this vast area — larger than Central — is not unlike Central of long ago.  Its population is just over 5,000 and it is still the country.  The potential for this area is unbelievable.

But the northeast part of the parish faces one problem that is an absolute barrier to future progress and development — poor public schools.

The school facilities themselves are actually quite good, and the students of Pride, Chaneyville, and Baywood could certainly get a good education if the people there controlled the schools.

But this area remains part of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System — isolated, cut off from the rest of the EBR school district.

To make matters worse, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system has persisted in recent years in using Northeast High as a dumping ground.  They have sent in problem students from other parts of the parish and regularly bus in students from distant points.

The vast majority of the white community has left the Northeast schools.

So Northeast sits there — with Zachary, the No. 1 school system in Louisiana, just to its west and Central, the No. 2 school system in Louisiana, just to its south.

When the Central Community School System was being organized, delegations were sent to the Northeast area, asking if they wanted to join with the Central system.  But some of the political leaders in Northeast said not no but hell no, we don’t want to be part of Central.  They also said they would try to stop the creation of the Central school system if they were included.

There’s some revisionist history going around that Central didn’t want the northeast area included in the Central school district, but that simply is not true.  It was the other way around.

Now things are different.  The benefits of Northeast being part of the Central school system are obvious.  But the people of Pride, Chaneyville, and Baywood have to make the first move.  Central schools are going along fine, and they can make just fine as they are, but Northeast is not doing fine.

The political situation is radically different today than it was six years ago.

When the Central school system was created, it took a constitutional amendment.  That meant a two-thirds’ vote of the House and Senate and then a public referendum that had to pass statewide, parishwide, and in Central.

Today, Pride, Chaneyville, and Baywood could be annexed to the Central school system by a simple act of the legislature.  It would only take the support of the area’s two legislators — Sen. Bodi White and Rep. Valarie Hodges, a majority vote of both houses, and the signature of the governor.

But we don’t think that will happen unless three things come together:

1) The people of Northeast must request it.

2) The plan must be acceptable to the people of Central.

3) The Central School Board must want to do it.

The East Baton Rouge School Board probably couldn’t stop it politically, because ultimately they don’t have a say in the matter.  It is decided by the legislature.

In the next issue, we’ll address the pros and cons of expanding the Central school system.