IDEA Public Schools’ plans to build a $25 million school in north Baton Rouge are being held up in the Department of Public Works’ Development Review Committee, with Metro Council member Chauna Banks requesting to defer action on the project for another few weeks.
The charter school system has an agreement in principle to purchase a 15-acre tract at Howell Place, next to University Prep Academy, for an undisclosed price. Once open, the proposed IDEA Plank Road Academy & College Prep would merge with University Prep to educate up to 1,250 students.
But before the DPW committee’s July 17 meeting, Banks, who represents the district where the school would be located, deferred the item because she hasn’t met with school officials and says they never informed her of their plans.
“I’ve never talked to them and never heard from them, so I don’t know their plans,” Banks tells Daily Report. “Howell Place is an area where I really want to know what’s going on so I’m able to make sure that other people who might be interested in this are aware of who their potential neighbors would be.”
Since Banks deferred the item nearly two weeks ago, IDEA Public Schools officials have reached out to her, and they were all supposed to meet this afternoon. However, after Banks’ mother died over the weekend, she says she pushed the meeting back to next Monday.
Ahead of their scheduled meeting, Banks has several concerns she hopes school leaders can address; namely, how the school would spur other development in north Baton Rouge.
“If we’re going to have a new school, where would they be drawing from? We haven’t had any new housing there in the past 50 years,” Banks says, noting that, in the time since the school was proposed, a deal to build a new 300-unit apartment complex fell through. “I know everybody wants to hurry up and get their money, but they need to think about the community. We want to have a good balance of homes, recreation, education and other infrastructure. It’s not being a good neighbor when you propose a project but haven’t talked to the leadership to make sure there’s not a head-bumping problem.”
Despite the holdup, Sarah Turner of New Schools for Baton Rouge, who’s been intimately involved with the project, says she hopes the school ultimately receives the committee’s approval.
“IDEA Plank Road Academy & College Prep will not only provide job growth at a critical time for our local economy,” Turner says in an emailed statement, “but it will offer students and families a new, 75,000-square-foot school facility complete with science and media labs, a full-service kitchen, basketball gym, and football and soccer field.”
Following Banks’ deferral, DPW’s Development Review Committee “denied” the request for approval, which is generally standard procedure for any item that has been deferred, says city-parish spokesman Mark Armstrong. This is done because the committee doesn’t review items slated for deferral, and without a complete review, they can’t make a recommendation.
The item is now set to appear on the committee’s Aug. 17 agenda.
