A new charter school could be coming to Opelousas. Here's what we know.

The St. Landry Parish School Board could soon consider a proposal that would construct two career-focused charter school academies in the Opelousas area beginning as soon as 2024.

Officials with Helix Community Schools, which currently operates an aviation academy and a science and technology campus in downtown Baton Rouge, told an academic committee Tuesday that the two proposals involving the Opelousas schools would be financed by private investors and require no funding by the St. Landry School District.

Preston Castille, a Baton Rouge attorney, Southern University Law School professor and president of the Helix Community school system, told the committee the proposed Opelousas charter schools would help fulfill an educational need in the community.

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Castille, who graduated from high school in St. Landry, said one of the projected charter campuses in Opelousas would focus on artificial intelligence and healthcare fields. The other campus located nearby would emphasize occupations in the agriculture and energy development, Castille said.

Eventually the schools could become K-12 campuses, Castille said.

The Opelousas charter schools would operate as Type 1 campuses, which means they would provide education with monitoring and oversight by the district.

If approved by board members, the Helix-managed charter campuses would add a fourth charter school in St. Landry.

In 2021, St. Landry Charter School located in Opelousas, had its Type 2 charter application approved by the Board of Secondary and Elementary Education. St. Landry Charter operates as a state-affiliated charter school.

During the same year, Ecole Saint-Landry School in Sunset was approved by state officials as a Type 1 charter, while J.S. Clark Leadership Academy in Opelousas is a Type 2 charter school whose educational program was approved by BESE.

Board member Hazel Sias said during a Wednesday interview that it’s important for the St. Landry public school district to approve charter schools that are connected with the parish school system.

Enrollments for Type 1 charter schools are funded by the state Minimum Foundation Program funding formula, which provides revenue for each student enrolled in a district-operated school.

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Where will the schools be located?

Castille did not provide the committee with specific details about where the schools would be located providing they receive authorization by the board.

Investors, Castille said, have already examined potential sites near Opelousas for campuses that would either begin as kindergarten through fifth grade or kindergarten through eighth grade.

Castille said the investment group that would provide funding for the schools might lose negotiating leverage for purchasing the possible locations if he revealed which sites are being considered for the new schools.

How will the school be funded and built?

Castille told the committee that Helix Community Schools decided to move forward with a plan to locate charter schools in Opelousas after property owners failed to pass two tax proposals in 2018 and another earlier this year that would have built new schools in the city and other areas of the parish.

“We want to start building (charter) schools (in Opelousas) because we see a tremendous need here and tackle that first. Our goal is to start (in Opelousas) and then come back to St. Landry and help stop the outward migration away from this parish and Opelousas,” Castille said.

Board member Randy Wagley asked Castille if constructing two new charter schools would attract teachers away from district schools already experiencing teacher shortages.

Castille said he expected the charter schools to create the opposite effect.

“Our plan is to attract the best, and I think there is enough of a talent pool here to do that. Teachers are already leaving (St. Landry) because they see better opportunities elsewhere. If you want them to return, then you need to give them a reason. I would think you would want to steal teachers from other parishes. After all they have been stealing teachers from us,” Castille said.

Castille said students from other parts of St. Landry would be eligible to attend the Opelousas charter schools. However, Castille said he wants the schools to focus on Opelousas students.

Castille said Helix Schools have traditionally offered enrollments for students that he identified as the most challenging to educate.

What do we know about Helix Community?

University of Louisiana at Lafayette education Professor Tony Daspit, who has been hired by the district as an evaluator, told the committee the Helix Community charter proposals were innovative, especially for students who are considered disadvantaged.

Daspite described the Helix officials as “experienced operators for schools that are not state supported.” Daspit said he found their educational platforms cohesive for both schools.

The Helix plan for St. Landry also raised some concerns that Daspit addressed in the written evaluation provided to board members and later obtained by the Daily World.

Daspit challenged the Helix plan for enrolling an estimated 1,350 students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade during the first two years of operation for each school as perhaps too ambitious.

Scaling down the projected enrollments to kindergarten-through-fifth-grade models for about 900 students in each of the two St. Landry academies might seem to be more practical a model, Daspit wrote.

Sias indicated during the committee meeting that she favors addressing the problems the district has in junior high school.

The elementary schools, Sias said, seem to successfully handle kindergarten through fifth grade students. The problem areas in the district, Sias said, occur at campuses where sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders attend.

Board member Milton Ambres said it might be more feasible to slow the growth of the school by starting with lower elementary students and then moving into middle, junior high and high school configurations.

Castille and Daspit noted that the schools will be built to accommodate as many as 3,900 students in K-12, something that Daspit said would be a large-scale educational enterprise.

St. Landry Parish President Jessie Bellard, who was present at the committee meeting, told Castille the parish airport is available with space if Helix wants to start an aviation program similar to the one the school has developed at the Baton Rouge airport.

This article originally appeared on Opelousas Daily World: New charter school could be coming to Opelousas: What we know