Ascension Begins Search for School Sites
By STEVEN WARD
Ascension begins search for school sites
GONZALES The Ascension Parish School Board officially is looking for three sites to build three primary schools.
The directive came out of the Ascension Parish School Boards Growth Impact Committee meeting Tuesday night a directive that gives the go-ahead to Chenevert Architects of Baton Rouge to find land for the schools.
The board hired Chenevert Architects in December to find the sites.
Troy Gautreau, a Gonzales-area School Board member and chairman of the Growth Impact Committee, gave other board members a map showing locations of the parishs primary schools along with possible locations for the three new schools.
The school system already has land for two of the five schools the system promised to build with money raised by revenue from a property tax extension and a new property tax voters approved on Oct 15 for that purpose.
School system land for one new school is in Gonzales off Worthy Road and for another new school is on Parker Road in the Hobart- Galvez area.
Gautreau said the third school needs to alleviate overcrowding in the Dutchtown and Duplessis areas.
Gautreau and other members of the committee said Chenevert needs to look for land in the Swamp Road area, in the Bluff Road area near Interstate 10 as well as the vicinity of Bluff Road and La. 74.
The fourth school will be built to serve the Lake and Galvez areas while the fifth new school could be placed in either St. Amant or Sorrento.
Norman J. Chenevert, who attended the committee meeting, said he and staff would start the process of locating school sites at once.
Chenevert said his plan is to narrow the search to two or three sites for each school, grade the sites, give the board the pros and cons of each and then give the board a recommendation.
Chenevert said the entire search and recommendation process for each school site takes about 180 days.
In other School Board business, members recognized the 2005-06 Students of the Year.
A fifth-grader, and eighth-grader and a high school senior from each school was picked to represent that school. Then one representative from each of those three grades was picked to represent the parish at regional competition.
The fifth-grade winner is Duplessis Primary School student Jordan Clegg.
The eighth-grade winner is Teresa Siqueiros from Galvez Middle School and the 12th-grade winner is Matthew Day from St. Amant High School.
The students put together portfolios that showcased their leadership, academics, community service, awards and communication skills. Each student also turned in a writing sample and took part in a personal interview.