New elementary celebrated - Northeast Elementary School replaces 70 year old leaky dilapidated buildings

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Published on 05/24/02

http://www.theadvocate.com/stories/052402/new_neast001.shtml

An era winds down; another begins

New elementary celebrated

By CHARLES LUSSIER

clussier@...

Advocate staff writer

Advocate staff photo by Arthur D. Lauck

In an annaul ritual, Northeast Elementary teacher Sharon Fisher fires a

water gun Thursday at the parting school buses while other teachers wave

goodbye for the summer.

Thursday was the last day of school in East Baton Rouge Parish, but it was

more than that at Northeast Elementary School.

Teachers waved goodbye to the last group of students to attend class in the

leaky dilapidated buildings on the 70-year-old campus.

Less than an hour later, students, parents and other residents of Pride and

Chaneyville crowded a new, replacement Northeast Elementary School built

about 3 miles away on Port Hudson-Pride Road.

" We can now send our children to school without worrying about them getting

allergies or getting sick because it's too wet, " parent and school volunteer

Quebodeaux said.

Debbie Kellogg, a veteran kindergarten teacher, was thrilled to walk the

halls of the new school Thursday afternoon. " Just having a new school is

overwhelming, " she said. " No buckets, no mold on the walls. There are no

shortcomings in this new building. "

The school is the first new one in the parish in 25 years. It has taken two

years to build at a cost of $10.4 million. It has 50 classrooms, covers

100,000 square feet and sits on more than 21 acres. It can hold 900

students.

It is one of four schools being replaced as part of the 1998 1-cent sales

tax plan. The system's schools are an average of 40 years old.

Frances Price, supervisor of public elementary schools in the parish, spent

13 years as the principal at Northeast Elementary. She said she walked down

the pristine halls of the new school, saying " Can you believe this? "

Simple things caught her attention, like a covered loading zone for school

buses.

" They can actually load these children without getting them wet " when it

rains, Price said.

Across the road, one of the other three new schools, a new Northeast High

School, is quickly taking shape. It's slated to open in fall 2003.

" I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, 'Thank you,' because you're

the ones who are responsible for this, " Superintendent Clayton Wilcox told a

crowd gathered on the new elementary school's parquet-floored basketball

court. Among those in attendance were several School Board members and U.S.

District Judge Brady, who oversees the 46-year-old desegregation case

against the school system.

Northeast Principal Nell Dominique told the crowd:

" We have waited patiently and weathered many storms for this new building

and we are here to celebrate. "

School officials are hoping that Northeast area voters will remember what

paid for the new schools when the parish asks voters sometime next year to

renew the sales tax, which is set to expire in 2004.

Connie Browning had many reasons to attend Thursday's ceremony for the new

school -- four generations worth.

Her grandfather enrolled there in the first grade in the mid-1930s, when it

was still called Pride High School and taught students in grades one through

12. It was built by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal era

construction program, on land donated by ancestors of her husband, .

She and her mother, Rosie, attended the school and now her son, Tyler, has

just finished the second grade there. Her mother is a bus driver and she has

cousins who teach there.

" Maw-maw, " as Tyler calls his grandmother, recently told a story about when

she was a student at the old school.

" She put something in the ground ..., " he said.

" A time capsule? " his cousin asked.

" Yes, yes, yes, " Tyler responded. " She better pull it out before it's gone. "

The old Northeast Elementary produced many memories, but leaving it Thursday

produced few regrets.

" I don't like this place, " said Nikki , a second-grader. " When I was

cleaning up, I found three dead cockroaches. "

The school has done well despite its poor facilities. In 1994, while Price

was still principal, the state Department of Education declared it a model,

or Blue Ribbon school.

The performance of its students has continued to improve each of the past

four years under the state's school accountability system. This year only

about a dozen of its 115 fourth-graders failed the LEAP 21 standardized

tests in English and math, a failure rate that bests both the statewide and

parish averages and the rates at most schools in the parish.

Richmond sends two of her children to Northeast Elementary and marvels

at how the teachers have managed to work well despite the conditions.

" The teachers are so great, " she said. " Even if I had a chance to send my

kids to private school for free, I'd still send my children here. "