Terrebonne School Superintendent had big plans to unveil. Gibson residents not interested

Terrebonne School Superintendent Bubba Orgeron visited Gibson Monday night to share his plan for overhauling the school district, which including closing two of the community’s schools.

The community wasn't having it.

Orgeron wanted to explain that it’s part of a master plan he maintains would allow the district to place more certified teachers in front of students, do away with what he considers outdated positions, merge schools with dwindling enrollment to share teachers and resources and give teachers and administrators a pay raise.

Strongly voiced objections began before the schools chief had unveiled his presentation’s second slide.

"They closed down Greenwood [Middle] School, sir," 40-year-old Ryan Bourgeois said, disrupting Orgeron's presentation. "We took that, OK. Now you want to close down Gibson and Bayou Black?" We're equal just like Bayou Black, we're equal just like Mulberry, we're equal just like Caldwell, we're equal."

Bourgeois was joined by his 8-year-old daughter, Emmalie, who attends Gibson Elementary School.

Gibson Elementary has no problems, the community members stridently said. So far as they are concerned, anything else in the Terrebonne school system is Orgeron's problem to solve, without displacing their children and forcing them to be bused a dozen miles from home or more.

Speaking prior to the hearing, Orgeron said that, by moving Gibson and Bayou Black students into Schriever Elementary School, he hopes to spread subjects across multiple teachers, lightening the teachers' workloads, and to optimize the district's resources to affect more student's with less costs.

According to his calculations, the school has 138 students and has been losing enrollment for the past five years: 169 students in 2018-2019; 158 in 2019-2020; 147 in 2020-2021; 134 in 2021-2022; and 138 as of Oct. 1 this year.

One hundred thirty-four members of the community crowded into the elementary school's cafeteria, took to the microphone and took shots at Orgeron and the school board members' salaries. They asked why the merger couldn't occur at their school instead of at Schreiver and said Orgeron made a plan to take their school away from them without first visiting to speak with them.

The Gibson community members said they felt safe with their kids attending their school, and were confident the children were receiving a good education. They didn't want anything to change.

"I don't have to worry about a thing with my child," Stephanie Wriborg, a mother within the community, said. "Why do you have to move them way over there? Because it's your idea."

The distance from Gibson to Schriever is about 12 miles. Parents said they would miss out on family time with their children and voiced concerns about the increased chance of traffic accidents because of their kids being on the road longer.

Community members like Anthony Ruffin, 47, said the community is tight knit, everyone knows one another, and they look out for one another's children. Ruffin's family goes back generations in the area, and many of them were educators.

He said Orgeron was right that the classroom sizes were small and that the school had few teachers. That's just what the community likes about it, he said. They know the teachers, and they trust them with their kids' safety.

"We have a special needs child that we feel safe keeping here," said one parent, Michael Crawford, referring to James Durden, whose head lay on the shoulder of his mother, Lisa Whipple. She ran her hand through the boy’s hair, comforting him as the crowd raised voices in protest to Orgeron’s plan.

Speaking after the two-hour hearing, Crawford said the couple knew James would eventually have to transfer to Evergreen Junior High. It is a concern even though James's older sister, Abigail, assured her mother she would look after him.

Crawford pointed around the room at James's bus driver, his principal and his teacher. Crawford and Whipple know each of them and said they didn't have to worry if James would receive the care and attention he needed.

"We feel safe, at least for a couple years, that we know where he's at," Crawford said. "From the time he gets on the bus, to the time he gets back off the bus, he's safe - everybody knows him."

He nor Whipple wanted to lose that peace of mind, even if their child would soon advance to middle school.

"They love him here. They take care of him, and they work with him the best they can," Whipple said. "He's sweet, he's special, but he's not going to get what he needs if he's around 40 other kids and one teacher."

This article originally appeared on The Courier: Gibson residents oppose Terrebonne superintendent's consolidation plan.