Panel picks school district plan

Boundaries upset some parents

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

By Kia Hall Hayes

To applause and boos from parents, a committee charged with drawing boundaries for the new high school near Mandeville approved a recommendation for the district alignment in a split vote.

Nine of the committee's 15 members present agreed that the new school's boundaries should include areas south of Louisiana 36 and east of Abita Springs, and subdivisions south of Lonesome Road including Reserve, Estates of Reserve, Greenleaves, Greenleaves Lakes, Laurelwood, Oak Island, Deerfield and the Hunters Glen.

The approved proposal would mean that 34 percent of the new school's 525-student enrollment would qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

The remaining six members voted for a second proposal, which would have included the area south of Viola Street, west of Louisiana 1088 and east of Louisiana 59 in the new high school's boundary.

That proposal would have resulted in 38 percent of the school's 523 students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Fontainebleau High School currently has 20 percent of its 2,260 students on that program.

The proposal that was approved drew protests from several of the parents packing Fontainebleau High School for the public hearing, many of whom live in the Lonesome Road area, which had not previously been included within the boundaries for the new school.

"We haven't been to these meetings before now because up until these meetings these maps have never included Lonesome Road subdivisions," one Lonesome Road parent complained. Many others questioned the process in general, and called for officials to launch a full redistricting of the St. Tammany Parish school system.

"The process of public input was way too late in the game," Janine Mayfield said. "I just think that if there is such dissent at this time, then maybe this is not the right decision."

The $39 million School, being built along the west side of Louisiana 1088 north of Interstate 12, is on track to be completed in January and open for the 2009-10 school year.

The school will open initially with 9th- and 10th-graders who will transfer from Fontainebleau High School.

The committee, which is comprised of parents, teachers and administrators, has held three meetings to solicit feedback from parents on eight attendance boundary proposals, all of which would split the current Fontainebleau High School district.

All the proposals have drawn complaints from parents whose concerns include distance and travel times, socio-economic equity, gas consumption, and separating their children from friends and classmates.

Some Mandeville parents expressed frustration that their neighborhoods had been redistricted more than others in recent years. "It is unfair to keep moving students away from the ties they have made and the peer groups that support them," one mother said.

"We're currently about two miles from Fontainebleau," said Mark Tipton, who lives in one of the Lonesome Road subdivisions. "A lot of us live where we live and bought those houses because we were close to the school system."

The School Board will consider the proposal and take public input in a special Oct. 16 board meeting . The board will name the school's principal in November. Administrators will determine which Fontainebleau teachers will move to the new school at the end of the year or early next year.

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Kia Hall Hayes can be reached at khayes@timespicayune.com or 985.645.2848.