Breakaway district opponents to hold meeting Tuesday

One Community One School District, “a group of concerned parents and citizens,” will hold a public meeting Tuesday that it hopes will “aid the community … in making an informed decision” about the proposed breakaway public school district in southeast East Baton Rouge Parish. Hannah Wilems, a parent who lives in the proposed district between Interstate 10 and Interstate 12, says group members are opposed to the proposal in its current form. Wilems, a recent transplant from Atlanta, has one child in a neighborhood school and one in a magnet school outside the proposed district, and feels she currently has the best of both worlds. She says many group members are concerned about the costs of the new district and the impact on the EBR system. “They’re talking about creating these neighborhood schools—we already have that,” she says. “I-10 and I-12 don’t make a community.” The meeting will be held at the main parish library, 7711 Goodwood Blvd., at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Supporters of the breakaway district say it will be able to create its own programs for gifted and special-needs students, and argue that the smaller district would have greater buy-in from the community. For a recent Business Report story about the district proposal, click here. The Facebook page for Wilems’ group can be found here; and the Facebook page maintained by the breakaway district supporters is here —David Jacobs