Residents plead to save school

The school principal, a former board president and several parents cited the school’s outstanding record, its ties to the community and its lack of discrimination in urging members of the St. Martin School Board to not order the closure of Catahoula Elementary during a public hearing Monday evening.
The board gave members of the public an opportunity to comment on the desegregation lawsuit that the parish has been dealing with since the mid-1960s and a proposal to close the grades preK-8 school after the current school session.
Annette D. Baudoin, who has spent 27 of her 30-year career at the school, including the past 12 years as principal, said the school has never turned away any student. “The school is like a giant family,” she said. “The doors should not be closed just because of the makeup of the community.”
And Alice Tate, whose children attend the school, insisted that the “residents have done nothing to maintain a predominantly white community. We just want what’s best for our children.” She suggested the board consider expanding the school attendance zone in an effort to bring in more students.
Jackie Theriot, a former board president who represented the Catahoula area for a number of years, argued that “neither the DOJ nor the NAACP has any specific complaints or incidents of wrongdoing.”
He suggested that the school district is under no obligation to remedy demographic inequalities.
He also warned that “If you shut down this school, parents are going to send their kids to private or parochial schools, or home school them. They’re not going to send them to St. Martinville.”
Theriot also raised the possibility that Catahoula and other rural voters would likely not be very supportive of a major bond election the board has scheduled in April, seeking authority to borrow $64.5 million for school improvements.
Russel Foti, a retired educator and former Catahoula principal who now represents the area on the school board, said he had contacted St. Martin Parish native Jeff Landry, newly elected Louisiana attorney general, for assistance. Foti said Landry has suggested the board not take any steps to close the school until he takes office and has an opportunity to look at the issues.
“It’s never been a case of black and white with our students,” Foti insisted. “It’s just a matter of where we live. We want to fight this thing in court.”