Inside Report for April 22, 2008
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The fledgling Central Community School system is pondering how to absorb more than 2,000 new students in the next four years.
The first step, school officials have decided, is to open a new school.
Their long-term strategy is less clear.
The School Board recently voted to let Superintendent Michael Faulk sign a lease agreement for the Starkey Academy facility on Joor Road, at an annual cost of nearly $200,000.
The private school, which is closing after this school year, will become Central Intermediate School, housing fourth and fifth grades.
Faulk has said the new school alone won’t be enough to absorb the estimated 500 to 600 new students the district expects each year for the next four years.
A steering committee for facilities planning soon will recommend some long-term steps the School Board should take.
Once the committee makes its recommendations, the School Board will have two decisions: what to adopt and how to pay for it.
The district’s first hope for a financial boost is in the courtroom.
A victory for the Central system in one or both of its legal battles with the East Baton Rouge school system — from which it broke away — would go a long way toward easing the district’s growing pains.
One of the suits involves $3.6 million in disputed taxes collected from property owners in Central last year.
In the other lawsuit, Central claims the parish School Board owes it $20 million in tax revenue and property it says should have been transferred along with Central schools and students. Most of the money would go toward a new Central middle school.
Central has appealed lower court rulings in both cases to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal, and hearings are set April 30.
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