A recent decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court handed a decisive win to backers of a long-running campaign to create a new, overwhelmingly white Baton Rouge-area school system, further concentrating poverty in the remaining, majority-Black part of the district. 

When finalized, the secession will likely cost East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools 10,000 students and 25% of its $700 million budget, school board member and former board president Dadrius Lanus estimated. 

“This is all rooted in institutional racism,” he said in an interview. “It’s about what white, middle-class people want for their kids.” 

Barring complications, it will be the fifth time in nearly a quarter-century that part of the district has broken off and formed its own school system. Currently, the district — Louisiana’s second-largest — has 40,000 students. Ninety percent are impoverished. 

A complicated tangle of laws governs the creation of new school districts, with the most straightforward path being the formation of a new municipality corresponding to the area seeking to break away. A decade ago, residents of the affluent southeast quadrant of the parish began campaigning to , St. George.

In 2019, 54% of the area’s residents voted to incorporate as a standalone municipality. Baton Rouge leaders sued, and in late April the state’s high court ruled in favor of the new city’s proponents. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry will now appoint St. George’s first mayor and five city council members.

The St. George area is represented by East Baton Rouge School Board member Nathan Rust, who backed the breakaway. Rust could not immediately be reached for comment, but his campaign website includes a statement decrying the condition of local schools.

“Our schools in District 6 are overcrowded and fraught with violence, disruption and an exodus of quality teachers,” it states. “After 20 years of Board Tenure, how is this the best public education offered to our children?” Many parents, it adds, “resort to spending their hard-earned money on private schools because they have no better option.”

In 2109, ����Ӱ�� published a deep dive into a decades-long school integration scheme that shaped the district, the first four secessions and the potential implications of a St. George . Under the terms of a desegregation order — no longer in force — many East Baton Rouge students attend magnet schools that are spread throughout the district. Consequently, many children who live in the most impoverished neighborhoods — many still devastated by recent floods — attend schools in the St. George area. 

According to Lanus, the existing district has 90 days to “annex” the 10 existing schools and two properties where it had planned to build schools within the new city’s boundaries — all of which were purchased or built by parish taxpayers. St. George residents would then have a choice: pay to build their own schools, or attempt to buy existing school facilities and lots from the East Baton Rouge district. As yet unknown is whether the district would be willing to sell and, if not, how many students would be bused into the new city to attend existing district schools. 

The secession would also shift an unknown but significant amount of local tax revenue to the new city, further straining the East Baton Rouge district’s coffers. Lanus estimates the district will lose some $150 million in per-pupil state and federal aid, plus money that is supposed to flow to children in poverty, magnet school students and those receiving special education or gifted-and-talented services.  

“I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from parents saying, ‘What’s going to happen to my kids?’ ” said Lanus. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

Correction: Dadrius Lanus’s term as East Baton Rouge Parish School Board president ended Jan. 11, 2024.

GEO’s class of 2023 — the school’s first graduating class — set a strong baseline that current students are on track to beat: 100% of students graduated in four years, 40% of them finished high school with at least one full year of college credit and an additional 10% finished with a full associate degree. Two sisters illustrate GEO students’ drive and persistence. Quintasia McCray, a 2023 graduate, earned her associate degree and 76 college credits at Baton Rouge Community College by the time she finished high school. Now, her little sister is coming after her. Quinniese Darby, a GEO senior, has 58 college credits — but her goal is to beat Quintasia’s total.

By earning associate degrees in high school, the sisters can expect a median net gain in their lifetime earnings of beyond what they could expect to make with a high school diploma. Combine this with additional credit hours and smart college advising on four-year degree programs, and they have already gone a long way toward earning the bachelor’s degrees that could help them earn almost more than a high school graduate over their lifetimes.

Of GEO’s 455 current students, 50% were enrolled in a community college course in fall 2023, and they paid nothing for their credits. The school uses per-pupil funding to cover all fees — books, transportation, enrollment and more. Though research that early college usually cost an extra $1,000 per pupil per year, GEO, a public charter school, is making this work without additional funds. The college classes replace high school courses, so, for example, students taking English composition at Baton Rouge Community College can skip junior-year English at GEO. That means fewer high school teachers and courses, a key part of the school’s ability to fund community college costs. A , new this year, allows 25 seniors to take all their courses, whether for high school or college credit, at Baton Rouge Community. 

Counselor Katie Grimes, who oversees the dual-enrollment initiative, says the secret to running a successful program for a population that many high schools would struggle to graduate is to set high expectations for students and not let them quit. “What I think adults need to understand about high school kids is that if you set a high standard, they’re always going to meet you there,” she said. “But you have to set it and be firm.” 

Sitting at a table with six seniors, who are all on track to graduate with an associate degree, Grimes noted, “All of these kids in here have come to me several times, either mad or wanting to drop out of a class. I’m just, like, ‘No.’ They come to me with their internal fires, upset, and I just say, ‘No, you can do it.’” 

Grimes walks the line between keeping students from quitting and being realistic about when early college might be too much. When ninth graders arrive, she looks carefully at their academics and behavior to determine whether they should begin college classes right away. But a slow start doesn’t keep them from trying later, at their own pace. To calibrate the experience, she gets to know each student as a person.

Looking directly at Phillip Derozan, a senior, she said, “Phillip and I had a tumultuous relationship at first. We were always fussing. I was threatening to kick him out of the program every week. I threatened it because I felt he just wasn’t there yet. But one day, it clicked. He came to me and said, “OK, Miss Katie, I want to do this. I want to earn my associate degree. What do I need to do?”

Another key ingredient is that students learn to tolerate and bounce back from failure. They are taking challenging, college-level courses, with adult college students. The high schoolers are not guaranteed a passing grade simply because they are young, or they try.  

One by one, all six of the seniors named a college class they had failed. Anyla Fleming is taking college algebra for the third time. “This time, we’re going to do it,” she said. “It’s hard out there. It’s hard. But this time, I’m passing.”   

Akeem Tillman, sitting across from Anyla, plans to take his associate degree to a four-year college to study mechanical engineering. When asked about the difference between college and high school, he said, “It’s more self-paced. You got to be on it. Nobody gonna be sitting there telling you, ‘You got to do this.’ ”  

At the same time, GEO students know they have adults in their corner when they need support. When asked who they go to if they have a problem with a class, students immediately named three or four school staff members, including Grimes.

As education leaders explore new pathways to advanced learning in high school, the partnership between GEO and Baton Rouge Community College could be a model for other schools and communities. Sometimes, what works is obvious: set high standards for students and don’t let them quit, even if they stumble along the way; find a good postsecondary partner; and hire staff who are willing and able to see students for the young adults that they are. 

Imagine observing a 3rd-grade classroom where students are working together to plan and carry out investigations to explain why two magnets stick together or push away from one another. If the investigations are derived from a phenomenon-driven curriculum, you’d likely also see groups of students enthusiastically moving around the room, placing magnets on different surfaces and objects to see what happens, exuding excitement with each result and using an array of literacy skills to make sense of and explain what they’re observing. 

This was exactly what I encountered in Rhondi Kennedy’s third-grade classroom at Central Intermediate School near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as part of my first visit with the Knowledge Matters School Tour and my first chance to see an elementary school implementing phenomenon-driven curriculum across all elementary grades.

Phenomena are observable events that occur in the universe that we use science knowledge to explain or predict. Students experience phenomena in their everyday lives when they see puddles disappear overnight or feel a wall vibrate when music is played loudly. 

Phenomena are also the context for the work of both scientists and engineers and can be used to drive learning experiences for students unlocking their natural curiosities, motivating them to want to make sense of why a phenomena occurs or how it works.

Phenomenon-driven instruction represents a shift in science education that began with The National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences’ 2012 release of Framework for K-12 Science Education which recommended science education be built around three major dimensions: science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and core science ideas. Engaging students in making sense of phenomena supports the nexus of the three dimensions. It is how students construct meaning of science ideas and engage in scientific practices and ways of thinking. 

When we sat down with elementary teachers at Central Intermediate and asked them to share what surprised them the most since implementing a curriculum centered on phenomena, they talked about the confidence students exhibited when sharing science ideas and ways of thinking about science through talk and writing. One teacher noted that “the kids are just getting better at learning how to communicate with each other” and that “they’re getting the confidence to discuss and turn and talk”. 

We witnessed this confidence firsthand during our visit to various classrooms at Central Intermediate and could see how the curriculum provided ample opportunity for students to talk and share what they were thinking with their peers. One teacher noted that the students “are having to do so much more reasoning” and thinking about “Do I agree with this person? Why do I disagree?” Students like learning how the world works and enjoy talking about phenomena. 

Often, the phenomena students investigate in the classroom represent phenomena they have encountered outside the classroom, giving students a wealth of background experiences to bring to their discussions. Many of the students in Mrs. Kennedy’s classroom talked about experiences they had with magnets at home and used those experiences to make sense of what they were seeing in the classroom. 

The ability for students to pull from a wealth of experiences outside the classroom to explain phenomena in the classroom also helps students write with more confidence and ability. Brittany Lavergne, a fourth-grade teacher noted that “before [using the curriculum] we were just trying to get them [students] to have a complete answer, complete idea, a complete sentence. Now we’re getting claims with supporting evidence, with multiple pieces of evidence and student responses that are so much more in depth.”

Dramatic improvement in writing is one of the most oft-mentioned early benefits to implementing phenomenon-driven science curriculum because students write about what they are observing through direct experiences. In fact, they are often eager to write about something they’re curious about or have had experiences with in the past. 

Teachers at Central Intermediate have also seen student writing improve as students transition across grades. Mrs. Lavergne shared that “It just seems like every group we get, they’re better writers. They’re able to express what they’re learning and what they’re thinking. And it’s just an increase from what we had seen the years before.”

The students at Central Intermediate showcased remarkable motivation and confidence in discussing scientific ideas, demonstrating the effectiveness of phenomenon-driven instruction. This approach not only ensures access to quality science education but also acts as a dynamic catalyst for enhancing oral language, vocabulary, and writing skills. The visit to Central Intermediate vividly illustrated the transformative power of phenomenon-driven curriculum, shaping students into well-rounded individuals ready to excel in the scientific community and beyond.

Yet, despite states’ best efforts, data about postsecondary success is alarming. One found that 56% of Americans think earning a four-year degree is not worth the cost. Skepticism about higher education is rising, . So how do policymakers and education leaders prepare students for the future in a time of exceptional academic challenges across all grade levels?

By integrating college classes into high school. This reduces cost and improves outcomes.

This is a moment when America needs to reimagine the K-12 experience, remove barriers to higher ed and achieve K-16 results with K-12 dollars.

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It starts with the college readiness exam. At , the network of public charter schools that I run in Indiana and Louisiana, every high school student — all of whom live in high-poverty areas — takes a college entrance exam for free, starting in ninth grade. If they pass, they’re enrolled in classes immediately at a local college or university, starting in their first year in high school, alongside their traditional 9-12 curriculum. If they don’t pass, we prepare them until they do.

Having all students take college readiness exams, such as the College Board’s , provides each one with an academic roadmap, telling educators the kind of support they need for college preparedness. Then, our K-16 model provides transportation to our partner community and four-year colleges. This exposes students who otherwise might never have even considered getting a higher degree to college classes on real college campuses, with other college-level students.

All this — the cost of exams, registration, tuition, textbooks and transportation — is covered by our network through existing funding, without any added expense to taxpayers.

We deliver K-16 outcomes on K-12 dollars.

Experiencing college provides unquestionable social benefits for high school students, particularly those who come from low-income backgrounds. As college enrollment declines, learning how to navigate higher education while in high school makes it likelier that students will attain a degree, because college classes and campus life aren’t foreign to them. It’s a seamless transition.

There’s a financial benefit to our students as well. Working toward a high school diploma and a degree simultaneously means students will take on no debt while earning college credit, making them more likely to gain a degree while saving them precious dollars in the process.

What are the academic outcomes? This May, GEO Academies will graduate 22 students who will have earned a college degree before they receive their high school diploma. Last year, one of our students, who began taking college classes at age 11, completed his associate degree by age 13 — the youngest in Indiana to do that. He will complete a full bachelor’s degree while in high school, our third student to achieve this goal, by the time he turns 15.

The numbers speak for themselves. The graduation rate at our Gary school, 21st Century Charter School, is 22 points higher than the district average (94.5% versus 72.8%) and even surpasses the state’s overall average of 86.5%. Our college and career readiness rating, as calculated by the Indiana Department of Education, is 50 points higher than the district’s (88.9%, compared with 37.6%) and again beats the state average (68.1%).

Louisiana does not track college and career readiness like Indiana does, but it did report that just 159 of 42,650 graduates in 2019 received associate degrees while in high school. This year, we will have our first graduating class, with 10% of our 60 seniors earning an associate degree.

Integrating college classes into the high school experience for all students is truly a scalable model that is yielding game-changing results for high-poverty children. But the barriers to doing so are clear: It requires policymakers to rethink what it means to go to high school and reimagine higher education as part of an educational continuum for students.

Reinventing the high school experience requires bold thinking.

Fortunately, America has the funding to be innovative. Tens of billions of have gone unspent, and many states and districts — so often risk-averse — can capitalize on this moment as an opportunity to reimagine the high school experience. 

As policymakers search for answers to accelerate learning, they should look to students in schools in Gary, Indianapolis, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Our schools are showing why college has never been more important and are providing the blueprint for integrating college credits into the high school experience.

When schools shut down, parents became full-time educators in addition to full-time caregivers. Shouldering the enormous responsibility for teaching their children showed them that large, bureaucratic systems might not be best at meeting their children’s needs, and they began exploring other options. Now, as the city prepares to enter the next school year, unprecedented numbers of families are acting on this new knowledge by choosing a school that utilizes flexibility and autonomy to be more responsive to individual student needs. Fortunately, there are new school opportunities to meet the desires of families in Baton Rouge.

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The pandemic marks a turning point for the community. For decades, Baton Rouge education depicted a tale of two cities. Wealthy and well-informed families enrolled their children in expensive private or selective magnet schools, while students already facing substantial obstacles were relegated to underperforming ones. At one point, more than 90 percent of students living in the northern part of the parish’s largest school system were zoned to a school rated failing by the state. Now, as schools and families prepare for a new school year in the midst of a global crisis, education in Baton Rouge is at a crossroads, and families are refusing to keep enrolling their children in failing schools or those unresponsive to their needs.

Breaking from the norm to take the road less traveled would not be possible if that road were not already built. Over the past decade, New Schools for Baton Rouge has laid the groundwork for the evolution of this tale of two education systems into a system that works for everyone. Established by community leaders to partner with and develop a set of new, high-quality education options, New Schools for Baton Rouge has launched more than two dozen schools that this fall will enroll approximately 10,000 students. These schools have waitlists and, based on the last round of state assessment results, boast the fastest academic growth for students in the state compared to any other subgroup of schools, including magnet and traditional district-run. During the pandemic, these schools adapted to be responsive to the trauma and limited instruction students experienced the spring prior.

Enrollment trends in Baton Rouge illustrate what happens when a large system is unable to adapt nimbly, as many public charter and private schools can. Data from spring 2021 shows that families are increasingly choosing a school for their children. While enrollment in Baton Rouge public schools remains stable from last year, there is an enormous shift in where students attend public school. Enrollment in district-run, non-magnet schools is down 3 percent since last year and more than 15 percent over the last decade. Enrollment in public charter schools, which are open to any student, is up more than 2½ times over the last decade, with nearly a quarter of all public school students in Baton Rouge now attending a public charter school. As of spring 2021, 45 percent of all Baton Rouge students served by public schools are now exercising some form of choice, via either magnet or charter schools.

New Schools for Baton Rouge partners with schools that reflect our city’s revolution in making our school system one that prioritizes all students equitably. Baton Rouge is proof that parents from every walk of life will enroll their children in high-quality schools when given the opportunity. Three in particular illustrate the new, diverse options available to Baton Rouge families and how those partnerships support students and families through normal and difficult times alike.

• BASIS, an internationally ranked charter school network dedicated to providing a rigorous, world-class education, operates two Baton Rouge campuses. To recover learning loss caused by the pandemic, BASIS schools utilize academic data to shape learning plans based on individual student needs, has hired reading and other academic specialists in order to offer more support to the students who need it most and is utilizing federal emergency dollars to create a math and literacy lab.
• The Emerge School for Autism is designed specifically to meet the needs of students with autism, enabling them to overcome challenges and lead fulfilling lives. As students with autism are particularly sensitive to disruptions to established routines, the pandemic created more acute distress for this particular student population. In response, Emerge developed a summer program for students and parents focused on recovery and stability for students who already face substantial barriers. Its unique partnership with a local hospital also allowed it to remain a constant source of support for families throughout the pandemic.
• GEO Academies launched its first Baton Rouge school in 2015. The school network now runs three campuses, each a beacon of support for underserved students in the community through a small-group instruction model. GEO high school students take free college courses, and many earn an associate’s degree before graduating high school, empowering them with credentials and a financial leg up on college and career pathways.

Baton Rouge families have more options than ever before, but the work is far from over. At New Schools for Baton Rouge, we remain stalwart in our mission to partner with the community and local district to provide families with great school options for their children. As more families pursue schools that meet their needs — especially when, because of the pandemic, these needs are more complex than ever — Baton Rouge comes closer to eliminating its two-tiered system of limited opportunity, transforming education in the community so all students can fulfill their potential and contribute to a thriving city and prosperous state.

Chris Meyer is CEO of New Schools for Baton Rouge

Located on Baton Rouge’s fast-growing south side, Long Farm Village is a mashup of Antebellum and subdivision. At the entrance to the development, a fountain dances. Just beyond, 18-foot columns frame wide porches. Garrets punctuate soaring roofs. The neighbors are much, much closer than on an actual plantation, but so is Starbucks. And the houses, with prices hovering between $500,000 and $700,000, come with amenities like jetted tubs and quartzite countertops.

Across the street sits Woodlawn High School, which bears the curious distinction of being one of only two high schools in East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools that has neither strict entrance requirements nor a failing grade on state report cards. Getting into the either of the city’s A-rated high schools, both magnets, takes a minimum of four consecutive terms of passing grades and mastery on state exams.

For the two-thirds of district students who lack that academic résumé — and who can’t vault other hurdles, such as hand-delivering paperwork during business hours, demonstrating early exposure to Montessori instruction or acing an interview — Woodlawn is the only option that’s not a D or F school.

Woodlawn’s middling C obscures a wide gap in academic outcomes among its 1,200 students, who are tracked into vastly different classrooms. Ten years ago, as the unincorporated area around the school was swelling with developments like Long Farm Village, district leaders positioned Woodlawn to compete with parochial schools, which in Baton Rouge draw one of the highest share of residents in the country.

The district opened several gifted and talented tracks, all with attractive curricular offerings and high entrance requirements. One of the programs boasts average class sizes of 10. Others require a writing sample or audition. The Great Scholars Program asks for an IQ test. Applicants living outside Woodlawn’s attendance zone must cite a “justifiable reason” for wanting to go — and supply their own transportation.

But the intentional schools-within-a-school strategy — which 8 percent of Woodlawn students have access to — wasn’t enough. Now, Long Farm Village and nearby neighborhoods are looking to secede from East Baton Rouge and form a new city, St. George, taking Woodlawn and four other schools — two rated B, one a C and one a D — with them. If the new municipality passes a vote in October, its residents will then petition the Louisiana Legislature to carve out a new school district. Woodlawn would be its crown jewel.

“Our vision,” the pro-breakaway website explains, “is to be the state’s leading school system.”

Achievement gap, meet opportunity divide

With 86,000 residents, St. George would be the fifth-wealthiest city in the state — leaving behind a community where the median household income would be less than $37,000 — and the fourth secession from East Baton Rouge Parish Schools in the past 16 years.

Assuming a new school district has the same boundaries as the new city, it would take an estimated $85 million in state and local tax revenue and 12 percent of the current district’s student body. Estimates vary, but one civic group put the cost to the old district at $765 for every pupil left behind. The new city would be more than 70 percent white and less than 15 percent black.

Up to 6,000 children could be forced to change schools. What would happen to the approximately 446 Woodlawn students — likely the majority of the school’s 690 black students — who live outside the proposed new municipal boundaries remains unknown.

Indeed, St. George’s departure would compound the impact of decades of white flight that have left the district, the state’s second-largest, hypersegregated and almost entirely poor. Of the district’s 42,000 students, 90 percent are children of color and 84 percent live in poverty.

But even as white families have abandoned the district, white Republicans have retained control of the school board. One, 18-year veteran Jill Dyason, ran for and won re-election last fall despite having signed the petition to put the St. George secession on the ballot. Another was re-elected despite facing battery charges after being caught on video assaulting a teenager.

‘Your seat is not safe’

Against this backdrop, last fall saw the improbable election of two young black men to the school board. Both grew up in the struggling neighborhoods they now represent and attended the same impoverished but beloved middle school. Both earned law degrees from the same historically black university but chose to work in education.

Tramelle Howard is 29. Dadrius Lanus is 31. Neither has much use for what Howard describes as the city’s “wait your turn” culture, where running against an incumbent and without a nod from an older politician is a rarity. They campaigned wearing T-shirts that warned, “Your seat is not safe.”

Their election set off a shock wave. In the months since their January inauguration, community members have packed school board meetings, demanding change after decades of de facto, if not de jure, segregation and profound funding inequities. After a protracted power struggle, Howard was recently elected to replace Dyason as board vice president. This gives the new members a say in the agenda, something blacks on the board have historically been denied.

“Representation matters,” said Howard. “Just by being on the board, things look different. It’s not business as usual.”

The two join a relatively new board president, Michael Gaudet, who is a longtime board member of Teach for America South Louisiana and the founder of a successful charter school. Howard and Lanus’s arrival, he said, gives the board new potential.

The stakes are high. In coming months, the board will search for a new superintendent, a process that will shape how the district moves forward — with or without St. George. Just one-third of parish students currently have access to an A or a B school. A once-sleepy charter school sector has increased in size and quality, creating additional pressure for the 42 D and F schools that would remain in the East Baton Rouge district. And the district is still working to address an estimated $75 million to $100 million in damage from record floods that swamped buses, administrative facilities and 17 schools in 2016. Six of the schools required major renovation.

Whether or not the secession takes place — and it’s by no means a guarantee — the task is the same, said Gaudet. “I’m concentrating on what we have and building up the traditional schools,” he said. “I look at it as we are trying to make 25 years of change in five years. In a public system, that’s not the easiest thing to do.”

Because parents in the St. George area want the same thing as families in the neighborhoods where Howard and Lanus grew up, Gaudet said — access to a good school for their child — he believes the goal should be to bring the district’s overall level of quality up. “To a person, everyone is trying to do what they think is best,” he said. “The disagreement is on how to go about achieving that.”

Yolanda Braxton was one of several volunteer parents who interviewed school board candidates last summer as part of the endorsement process for the education advocacy group Stand for Children. She followed Lanus and Howard first on Instagram and then on Facebook, popping up at community events to see whether they were there — her personal litmus test.

Stand ultimately endorsed Howard and Lanus. Braxton admires both men. “I respect the boldness,” she said. “They’re asking questions no one will ask and no one will confront.”

Time, said Howard, has run out. “Schools in north Baton Rouge for 100 years have been getting less,” he said. “I firmly believe the St. George movement is rooted in racism. Look at the boundaries. You go down Florida Boulevard” — the east-west thoroughfare that bisects the city — “and it’s like the Mason-Dixon line. South of Florida, it’s white; north, it’s black.”

Backers of the secession effort did not respond to requests from ����Ӱ�� for comment. Their provides an overview of the plan to follow the creation of a new city with a drive for .

A crumbling school and a galvanized community

Five miles north of Woodlawn sits Howard and Lanus’s alma mater, Istrouma, which offers both a middle school and a high school. The name means “red stick” in a local indigenous language, a reference to the red tree, or baton rouge, that French colonists used to mark the site of the city.

Opened in 1917, Istrouma has been buffeted by virtually every chapter of the district’s history. In 1963, it was the first parish high school to be integrated by court order. Current principal Reginald Douglas’s mother was one of 12 black girls chosen to attend the all-white school, which then had 1,700 students.

By the time the girls were escorted inside, the Justice Department had been in court, demanding that the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board comply with Brown v. Board of Education, for seven years. The case would last for another 40.

After the first 25 years of board resistance, the judge overseeing the case created his own integration plan and ordered the district to implement it. From 1981 to 1996, according to Tulane University’s Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, students were reassigned and schools were closed — including temporary facilities set up for white students seeking to avoid “black” schools. White flight ensued, with 1 in 5 families enrolling their children in private schools — the fourth-highest rate in the nation.

In 1996, the school board pressed to end the most contentious part of the desegregation plan: busing. Instead, like many districts, East Baton Rouge proposed using magnet schools to attract students to integrated buildings. The court agreed but imposed conditions to try to ensure that the district would invest in neglected facilities and provide equitable access to schools.

Among other things, magnets could not duplicate programming. This was to avoid enabling wealthy families to segregate by setting up a second selective-admissions school with high-demand specialties — biomedical sciences, say, or engineering — and withdrawing to it.

In 2001, the judge who had overseen the case for 22 years quit in frustration, citing continued board resistance. Two years later, his successor closed the suit.

The end of the court order that by its very nature had kept the district intact cleared the way for two communities to split from East Baton Rouge. Baker, largely black, is now the second-lowest-performing school district in the state. Zachary, largely white, is now the highest-performing.

In 2007, the Central community broke away, taking a sizable portion of the remaining white students. In accordance with Milliken v. Bradley, a 1974 Supreme Court decision, the new cities had no ongoing obligation to help integrate the old school system.

And then, in 2013, an unincorporated southeast corner of the parish, St. George, began campaigning to leave but failed to garner the votes to put a required amendment to the state constitution on the ballot. Lawmakers said residents would have a better chance if they first incorporated as a municipality.

District breakaways are becoming increasingly common. Since 2000, at least 128 U.S. communities their school districts, according to the think tank EdBuild. Seventy-three attempts were successful and 17 are ongoing. The pace of proposed secessions has accelerated in the past two years.

Most infamously, after Memphis voters in 2010 elected to merge the impoverished central city district with its wealthier countywide counterpart, residents of six suburbs persuaded the Tennessee legislature to eliminate a ban on new districts — and then left to form their own.

At the start of all four Baton Rouge-area breakaway movements, backers complained that they lacked high-quality public school options, notwithstanding the resources the district was already pumping into magnet schools. In response, once freed from the integration decree’s equity provisions, the district sought to further bolster magnet schools in the most vocal communities.

Overall, 30 percent of district students in grades 3-8 passed state reading, math and social studies tests last year — but twice as many students in the 24 magnet schools passed than students in neighborhood schools. Reinforcing that divide, children who start in one of the selective magnet schools receive preference for magnet middle and high schools, leaving few seats for students who don’t start out in one of the advantaged programs.

As a result of this redirection of resources — and nearly 50 years of white flight — Istrouma became almost entirely black. Academic achievement plummeted and enrollment fell as poverty in the surrounding neighborhoods intensified. In 2012, the state took over Istrouma and subsequently closed it.

Alumni campaigned to have the school reopened, a process that galvanized the neighborhood.

“There were a lot of people in the community who wanted the school reopened who had no clout,” explained Douglas. “But a lot of alumni with clout took an interest.” Many older white Istrouma graduates joined the effort. In 2015, the state returned the school to the district, just in time for devastating flooding the following year.

Community uprising notwithstanding, it was clear from the start that Istrouma was not going to get the same kind of attention as schools in other, more affluent, neighborhoods. For example, as a failing traditional high school, Robert E. Lee, was being reborn as Lee Magnet High School on a brand-new $56 million campus next door to the proposed St. George district, Istrouma — which needed $10 million to $15 million in repairs alone — got $24 million in . Lee, now one of the district’s two A-rated high schools, moved into its new campus in 2016 with a cutting-edge biomedical program (a duplication of programming that would not be allowed under the desegregation order). Istrouma reopened in August 2017 as both a middle school and a career-focused magnet high school with a total of 500 students, less than a third its former size.

“I firmly believe the St. George movement is rooted in racism. Look at the boundaries.”
—Tramelle Howard

With only 11 percent of high school students and 26 percent of middle schoolers passing state tests, Istrouma earned a D on Louisiana’s most recent report card and carries an “urgent intervention needed” designation. Ninety-seven percent of students are black and 96 percent are impoverished.

On nearby streets, it looks as if the flood happened yesterday. Pavement is crumbled and lots are overgrown with weeds. Squat and narrow, many houses still bear the spray-painted Xs rescuers used to tag homes that had been searched for survivors. Few have been boarded up, much less rehabbed.

Braxton lived in one. A proud Istrouma graduate and the mother of two more, she also has a 16-year-old son with cerebral palsy who attends the school. She was home with the boy and a dead phone the day of the flood, despairing as she watched the water rise above his wheelchair. Two teenagers from next door came to the rescue just in time.

“I couldn’t carry him,” she said. “I couldn’t even walk through the water.”

Since Istrouma reopened, she’s worked in the cafeteria, where, in addition to keeping order during lunch, she serves as an informal monitor of the school’s culture.

“I talk to every kid, every day,” she said. “The kids, they actually relate. If somebody wants to know something, they come to me, because I hear it all.”

She traces a notable increase in problem behavior in schools and violence on the streets to the summer of 2016, when weeks of community protests were followed by catastrophic flooding. On July 5, Alton Sterling was killed about a mile from Istrouma by two police officers. Two weeks later, three police officers were killed and three wounded in an ambush.

A few days after that, East Baton Rouge schools had just started a new year when a massive storm dumped three times as much rain on Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina. The district closed because of the weather Aug. 12 and didn’t reopen for 25 days.

Istrouma was spared because it sits on high ground, but other district schools were too damaged to reopen. Programs were consolidated in intact buildings, but with an estimated 4,000 teachers displaced — half of them employed in East Baton Rouge — district officials had to scramble to staff them. Adding to the disruption, buses were destroyed even as thousands of newly homeless students needed transportation from temporary shelters to school.

Board president Gaudet credits the current superintendent, Warren Drake, with helping the schools recover from the flood. But he cautioned that the rental housing on the city’s north side isn’t being restored, which has prevented students from returning to the neighborhoods surrounding some of the most challenged schools.

“Enrollment needs to shift more to the southern part of the parish, because that’s where housing will be developed,” he said. “We’re having to make $30 million in cuts this year. Maybe we just can’t run schools with 50 percent enrollment.”

A new board power play

After law school, Howard joined Teach for America, which placed him in a Baton Rouge school where he taught eighth-grade history. The first year went fine, but during the second, the other history teacher was fired, leaving Howard to serve 140 students. Compounding his struggles, as one of very few African-American teachers, he was called on to address a continual stream of behavior issues.

“I literally couldn’t physically return to the school after the first semester,” he recalled. “It was a good decision because it paved the way for the things I fight for now.”

Howard is now the impact manager at , a nonprofit that places AmeriCorps members in district schools to provide everything from attendance monitoring to academic tutoring.

Lanus is an education consultant and former dean of culture at Cristo Rey Baton Rouge Franciscan High School. He got a bachelor’s degree in education and taught his way through law school, then turned right back around after earning his Juris Doctor and started a master’s degree in educational leadership.

No sooner had the two been sworn in in January than it was discovered that board veteran Dyason had signed the petition to put the St. George breakaway on the ballot. Much of her school board district falls within the area that would become the new city.

Dyason defended her signature, saying she thought it was time to settle the secession debate. “I definitely don’t feel that it is a school board issue in any way,” .

The revelation surfaced as Dyason was vying with Lanus to be elected board vice president. Officers typically have more influence on school board actions than their peers, but their influence on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has been outsize.

Historically, the president, vice president and superintendent determine the agenda, presenting the rest of the board with relevant documents at meetings. The result is that members are asked to vote on major issues they’ve not had time to fully consider.

It took 10 deadlocked votes, but in the end a compromise was brokered handing the vice presidency to . Gaudet has vowed to share information with board members much earlier in the process, and Howard and Lanus said they plan to make sure it’s communicated to the newly energized residents who have packed recent board meetings.

“I’m concentrating on what we have and building up the traditional schools. I look at it as we are trying to make 25 years of change in five years. In a public system, that’s not the easiest thing to do.”
—Michael Gaudet

The St. George breakaway campaign, Lanus said, has galvanized many in the neighborhoods that will be left behind. “The community is very engaged now,” he said. “Every board meeting since we’ve been elected has had more than 100 community members present. That never happened before.” The goal now is to keep them focused as they discuss the district’s future.

The secession vote is set for Oct. 12, with only residents of the proposed breakaway area allowed to participate. The outcome is far from certain; Louisiana makes school district secessions harder than most states, and there is no shortage of opposition among the parish’s business and civic leaders.

Campaigns for and against the breakaway have marshaled differing analyses of its possible financial impact. At a minimum, St. George’s creation would mean a loss of 8 percent of the East Baton Rouge district’s budget — already running a $26 million deficit. Compounding the pain: Not only would the old district lose gleaming new facilities, it would still have to pay for things like teacher pensions and retiree health care in the new district.

The Baton Rouge Area Chamber, for one, has estimated that a breakaway would drain $53 million from Baton Rouge city’s coffers — yet leave the new city of St. George with a $9 million deficit. And even as supporters countered that St. George would start with a budget surplus of $10 million to $15 million, businesses and the owners of large properties within the proposed new city limits, including two hospitals and a mall, asked to be annexed into the city of Baton Rouge.

With Drake set to retire in June 2020, whatever the outcome of the October vote, the aftermath is likely to be his successor’s most urgent and controversial task. If St. George creates a school district, the East Baton Rouge board will need to redistrict, and the superintendent and remaining board members will have to decide how to move forward.

In addition to the financial losses, the smaller, poorer district would have to figure out how to pay for benefits for retired school system employees who worked in schools it no longer controls. Officials would also need to address the crumbling infrastructure left behind. And, Gaudet said, there are urgent issues of creating high standards for teachers and principals in neighborhood schools, as well as a system for monitoring progress in underperforming schools. Having weathered recent controversies, he believes, the once-complacent board may be emboldened to begin taking up these difficult matters.

Whether St. George withdraws or not, the question of inequities within the district will remain. A new superintendent will need to sell a plan for addressing the inequality to a board that historically has favored spending more on its elite schools than on its needy ones.

“I think our board has been very tone-deaf to that need,” said Howard. “They don’t like the fact that we are transparent and the community has rallied around us.”

Gaudet agreed that it’s a crucial juncture. The next superintendent must be able to communicate a vision to a populace that has just begun to engage. “This next superintendent selection is probably the biggest thing that will happen on the board in the next five years,” he said. “We definitely need this to be a visionary person.”

Rumors are already swirling in education circles about this or that out-of-town candidate supposedly visiting at the behest of different groups. The chamber has raised the possibility of studying communities such as Indianapolis and Camden, New Jersey, that have had some success raising achievement amid similar challenges.

Lanus, for one, has drawn up a wish list of traits he’d like to see in a new superintendent. Not surprisingly, he’s not interested in continuing the status quo.

“I’d love to see someone who is a nontraditional leader, who hasn’t been inside a system for several years,” he said. “I want somebody who understands what equity is and how to achieve it.”

The work, he reiterated, is the same whether St. George stays or goes. “The best thing we can do is make our schools good enough they don’t see the need for a separate school system.”

Correction: Stand for Children Louisiana endorsed both Tramelle Howard and Dadrius Lanus. Lanus is an education consultant and former dean of culture at Cristo Rey Baton Rouge Franciscan High School.