School gives town new center

• By C.J. FUTCH
• Advocate Ascension section editor
• Published: Oct 29, 2009

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SORRENTO — For decades, Mayor Blake LeBlanc has seen Ascension Parish school buses taking Sorrento residents out of town to go to school in St. Amant.

But on Oct. 20, the bus delivered its passengers to Sorrento, bringing dignitaries to the groundbreaking of what will soon be Sorrento Primary School, the newest of the system’s construction projects.

Education has always been important to the community of Sorrento, LeBlanc said. Sorrento already has River Parishes Community College and Louisiana Technical College.

As dump trucks and bulldozers hummed in the background, LeBlanc and the others prepared to fling the ceremonial shovelfuls of dirt for the school due to open in early 2011.

It will be much more than a school to the people here, he said. The school signifies a return of part of this community’s identity.

According to “The History of Sorrento,” a book written by former Sorrento Mayor Brenda Melancon, Sorrento’s last public school opened in 1906.

It educated 35 students, with only 12 desks, and was closed some time after the 1923 school year. The children then were bused to St. Amant to attend classes. The building remained in use until the late 1930s as a segregated school for black children, after which students were sent to Darrow.

Since then, there has been no public school in operation in the community.

When Sorrento Primary opens, the migration will reverse, taking some students from St. Amant Primary and rerouting them to the new school, Superintendent Donald Songy said.

The ceremony itself was a bit of a homecoming. “I grew up about where that clump of trees is over there,” Parish President Tommy Martinez said, pointing to the far end of the property.

Songy said he grew up “down the highway about five miles.”

Land for the kindergarten through fifth-grade school was donated by the developers of the Orange Grove subdivision on La. 20 and represents a big step forward for Sorrento, Songy added.

“Building a school makes the culture go forward,” he said. “It’s almost a solemn occasion.