Terrebonne superintendent to present consolidation plan at Bayou Black, Honduras schools
Two Terrebonne Parish schools will hold public hearings this week as the superintendent reveals his plans for an educational overhaul.
Terrebonne Parish Superintendent "Bubba" Orgeron will be visiting Bayou Black Elementary School on Wednesday and Honduras Elementary School on Thursday, both at 5:30 p.m. to show the public his plan. It would see Gibson students pool with Schriever Elementary School, Honduras Elementary School with Village East and Acadian, and Bayou Black would see some students go to Mulberry and some to Schriever Elementary School.
"We have a choice, we can consolidate and build a new building, which we would get no money from FEMA for, at the cost of about $15 million, or is there another option to consolidate these schools?," Orgeron said of the Gibson and Bayou Black consolidation. "Well, Schriever and Caldwell, they both have 14 empty classrooms - they are sitting half-filled."
The consolidation also would help the School for Exceptional Children, which has been "substantially damaged," according to Orgeron, and will need to be torn down. That campus then would be moved to Honduras Elementary School.
Orgeron maintains his master plan would allow the district to place more certified teachers in front of students, do away with what he considers outdated positions, merge schools with dwindling enrollment to share teachers and resources, and give teachers and administrators a pay raise.
Gibson Elementary has lost 31 students in the past five years and currently has 147 students. Honduras lost 57 and currently has 300, and Bayou Black has fluctuated, but remains 10 less than the 2018-2019 school year. It currently has 167 students.
The trend of declining enrollment seen at these three schools cuts across Terrebonne Parish's outer communities as a whole and was part of the discussions surrounding rebuilding Grand Caillou Elementary last year. These communities have faced a gradual exodus for more than a decade, and Hurricane Ida accelerated the trend.
Terrebonne Parish School District lost 2,160 students district-wide in the past five years, a 12.5% decline. According to local data, those who are moving are moving toward the city, or out of the parish entirely.
The dwindling student count has caused teachers to be spread thin across multiple subjects, Orgeron said. Consolidating the schools would allow the teachers to be more focused on their subjects, cutting down on prep time and also giving them other teachers to collaborate with, he said. Also, by merging the students, any resources purchased for the school would benefit more students. The goal, he said, is to get class sizes to the "sweet spot" of 24 students.
"The classroom sizes at these schools are small, particularly at Gibson and Bayou Black, you have one class at each grade level, just one class," Orgeron said. "The problem with that is the teachers have several preps. They have to teach multiple grades and multiple subjects. That can become difficult; whereas, at larger schools they teach one grade, one subject."
According to Orgeron, data suggests a class size of 24 is the optimal number for student learning across the majority of grade levels.
The superintendent visited the Gibson community Nov. 6 and received an unwelcome response. As far as the community was concerned, if his plans included closing their school, they were not interested. He said he hasn't changed his presentation for the next two public hearings, but did collect information from the Gibson hearing.
This article originally appeared on The Courier: Terrebonne superintendent to discuss consolidation plan at two schools
