TLDR VERSION:

The members of the Lafayette Parish School Board should vote against concurrent proposals to move Lafayette High School’s health or performing arts academy to Comeaux High School and to divide the high school gifted program between Lafayette High and Comeaux. There is no sound educational policy that supports moving these programs or justifies the significant consequences to Lafayette High’s national standing or students’ access quality educational programs. Instead of dismantling the very popular schools of choice and gifted programs at Acadiana’s flagship school the school board should responsibly redraw attendance boundaries to even out the student body populations in area high schools.

THE FULL LETTER:

The members of the Lafayette Parish School Board should vote against concurrent proposals to move Lafayette High School’s health or performing arts academy to Comeaux High School and to divide the high school gifted program between Lafayette High and Comeaux.

There is simply no sound educational reason to rezone through moving academies or splitting the gifted program. If enacted, these proposals will cause immeasurable damage to the quality of secondary education in Lafayette Parish and to Lafayette High’s standing with colleges and universities nationwide without providing any benefit to students who do not qualify for these programs.

The school board’s proposed policy fails to appreciate the way that the academies and gifted program at Lafayette High work in concert to make Lafayette High the only high school in the parish that received an A grade from the Louisiana Department of Education. To use a math analogy, if the gifted program and the academies are each worth 4 points towards quality education, the proposed move by the school board reflects an overly simplistic 4 + 4 = 8 theory but fails to appreciate that in this case it’s more accurate to say that 4 x 4 = 16. The idea that you can move the academies without losing any intrinsic value is misguided. These proposals by the school board are far less likely to lead to higher quality education across the parish and far more likely to result in the unilateral dismantling of everything that is working at Lafayette High. The proposals also run counter to the concerted effort at the elementary and middle school level to provide quality instruction in the arts in conjunction with top notch core courses to gifted students. Those efforts seem to recognize the ways that arts and academics go hand in hand as critical aspects of gifted students’ education. These new proposals by the school board ignore the mutually reinforcing and enriching relationship between them.

Additionally, there are not enough teachers who are qualified to teach in the gifted program to provide the same range of courses currently offered to gifted students at Lafayette High if gifted teachers were split between the two locations. This means that the quality of course offerings would be significantly diminished and the reputation of the program would suffer in consequence, robbing the brightest students across Lafayette Parish the opportunity to participate in a top-notch educational program without providing any additional benefits to students who do not qualify for these programs. The gifted program is currently widely well known to and well regarded by colleges and universities across the nation, and, if split, will render gifted students across the parish less competitive applicants for top schools.

Especially in light of the massive shortfalls in the State budget, the money that would be expended to move the programs between schools would be better spent investing in improving the quality of education offered to students who do not qualify for these programs. Lafayette High School’s educational offerings that make it the flagship school of Acadiana should not be dismantled but should instead serve as a model for other high schools in the parish.

Though the school board is set to vote on these proposals on May 4th, many crucial issues remain unaddressed and many crucial questions remained unanswered. How much will it cost to move the programs? How much do they expect to save in future years? How are they going to deal with impediments to adequately staffing two gifted programs simultaneously? Have they seriously thought through the effects that these changes will have on students? Are the cost savings (if any) worth the negative effects that these changes will have?

If the school board is serious about fulfilling its mission and vision to “provide excellence in education for all students” and to “develop…productive citizens prepared to compete in a global community,” it will abandon these proposals that are sure to wreak havoc on our school systems’ capacity to do just that.  

If the school board believes that Lafayette High is over-crowded, then it should rezone by redrawing the district lines (as it is already in the process of doing to accommodate the transfer of students to Southside High).

If the school board is really serious about providing a superb education to students closer to their homes, then it should take the money that would have been spent dismantling the programs at Lafayette High and use it to build up the educational programs at underperforming schools for students who do not qualify for gifted or other school of choice programs.

Dozens of students, teachers, parents, and community leaders have already shown up at school board meetings to protest these changes. Online petitions​ against moving the performing arts academy and health academy to Comeaux have cumulatively garnered over 1300 signatures. We join with those voices and others in calling upon the school board to fulfill the duties of their elected office and do the difficult and dicey work of responsibly redrawing attendance boundaries instead of shifting around academies. These proposals to take apart one of the bright spots and sources of pride in our school system are a short-sighted and misguided end run around that difficult process, for which the students of Lafayette Parish will pay the biggest price.