Woodlawn-based group seeks new school district

A group of parents, grandparents and businesspeople from the Woodlawn area in southeast East Baton Rouge Parish are seeking to break away from the parish school system and form their own community school district, says State Senator Bodi White, a Central Republican, who will propose the legislation. School districts are set in the state’s constitution, so any new district must be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature and by voters statewide and in the proposed district. The district would include areas south of Interstate 12 and east of Interstate 10. “They’ve thought about it and tried to figure out if it would work in their area for years,” White says. “The pace has picked up over the past year, and it doesn’t help when you can’t choose a superintendent and can’t get together on important issues. … We went through it on the north end of the parish for years. We just got tired of it a little sooner, I guess.” White helped establish the Central Community School System. He says the southeast East Baton Rouge group is not interested in establishing a new city, as Central did. —David Jacobs