East Baton Rouge Schools Superintendent Warren Drake says he has been meeting regularly with supporters of a St. George incorporation effort and is optimistic the school system is making progress in responding to their demands for better public education in the southeast portion of the parish.
In comments following a speech today to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club, Drake said he isn’t worried that St. George supporters will again try to create a separate city in the unincorporated southeast portion of the parish.
An incorporation effort, born primarily out of frustration with the parish school system, narrowly failed two years ago. By law, however, organizers are again eligible to begin a new petition drive.
“I’m not (worried) because I’ve been working with them and we want the same things they want,” he says. “We’re responding to the needs out there.”
Specifically, Drake points to the creation of two new magnet programs at Woodlawn Middle School and Woodlawn High School as recent examples of the system’s response to community demand.
Also, he says, planning will get under way in December for a new school on the 20-acre Jefferson Homes site behind the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana headquarters building. The property was donated to the school system many years ago, and money has been allocated from the school system’s dedicated tax for a new middle school or K-12 magnet school. Drake says the school could become a reality by the 2020 or 2021 school year.
Additionally, the school system is gearing up for the 2018 fall election, when voters will be asked to renew a one-cent sales tax dedicated to the school system. Drake says a recently completed demographic study shows the need for more schools in the southeast quadrant of the parish, so the system will study building new neighborhood schools in that area.
“We’re hopefully going to find some new places we can build some new schools, neighborhood schools,” he says. “We’re going to have a workshop with the board. We’re going to go to the community and have community meetings. We’re going to listen to the people of the parish.”
On a related front, Drake plans to reorganize the system administration to respond to the need to improve student test scores, which were flat in 2017 over 2016. Though Drake attributes the lack of improvement in this year’s test scores largely to last August’s flood and to the civil unrest of last summer, he says that’s no excuse and that the system needs to do better.
To that end, he is not replacing Deputy Superintendent Michelle Clayton, who announced in May she was leaving the system after several years in the No. 2 position. Instead, he will appoint two assistant superintendents, who will focus on curriculum and instruction, assessment and accountability in order to raise student test scores.
“We’ve got to drill down to every student in every school and see what is needed to help them improve,” he says.
—Stephanie Riegel
