Tangipahoa officials visiting Alexandria

• By DAVID J. MITCHELL
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Mar 6, 2008 - Page: 5B

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Twitter
• Social Media

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

AMITE — A delegation of Tangipahoa Parish school officials will visit Alexandria on  Friday to see a magnet school program that helped Rapides Parish gain unitary status from a federal court in 2006.

School officials  have invited the public to hear magnet school expert David Lerch at 4 p.m. today in the School Board central office, 59656 Puleston Road, Amite.

Tangipahoa School Superintendent Mark Kolwe said Tuesday that the talk and visit are part of the school system’s efforts to move toward having U.S. District Court at New Orleans declare Tangipahoa Parish has fulfilled requirements of its desegregation order, thereby achieving unitary system status.

The district’s longstanding, but dormant desegregation litigation dating from 1965 was revived nearly a year ago after urging by the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons.

The NAACP officials cited unfairness in hiring and school finance that unequally affected black students and teachers.

The central Louisiana school system was represented in the desegregation litigation by the same legal counsel the Tangipahoa School Board recently hired, Charles Patin Jr., of Baton Rouge.

Patin said he suggested Tangipahoa school officials visit the Rapides schools and hear from Lerch, who helped design the Rapides magnet schools and get federal grants.

“Since we’re trying to find out where we’re going here,” Patin said, “I thought it would be good to find out a little information from an expert about what magnets can do.”

Magnet programs are designed to attract student diversity through their academic offerings. Patin said they are a classic method of desegregating inner-city schools.

Tangipahoa Parish school officials last year persuaded Hammond-area voters to support a 3-year, 6-mill property tax for a new magnet program in Hammond schools.

But Kolwe said school officials would need federal grant dollars or additional public support to create the kind of magnet school program now operating in Rapides Parish.

That system has set up magnet schools at the elementary, middle and high school levels. The middle and high schools have specialized focus areas inside regular schools to draw students from across the district, Rapides school officials said. The elementary schools have school-wide magnet programs.

Rapides Superintendent Gary Jones said his system’s officials “certainly don’t mind sharing our ideas” with Tangipahoa officials.