E. Feliciana group submits charter request

• By JAMES MINTON
• Advocate Baker - Zachary bureau
• Published: Jul 8, 2009 - Page: 4B

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SLAUGHTER — East Feliciana Parish School Superintendent Douglas Beauchamp said a Slaughter citizens’ group submitted an application to operate a charter school shortly before the School Board convened its regular monthly meeting Tuesday.

The board met in the educational building of Slaughter’s First Baptist Church, continuing its practice of holding one meeting per quarter in either Slaughter or Jackson instead of the central office in Clinton.

Beauchamp said the School Board has 30 days to decide whether to accept the application, reject it or accept it with modifications.

Meanwhile, the charter school group will attempt to file a motion in the parish’s long-running, but recently dormant, desegregation lawsuit asking the federal court to deny the change.

Beauchamp said the group believes the motion will have the effect of getting a judge’s ruling on the idea.

Organizers of the proposed Slaughter Community Charter School gave the School Board notice in April of its intent to form the school, but Beauchamp said the document delivered Tuesday is the completed application.

The school, if approved, would be for seventh- through 12th-grade students.

Many Slaughter Elementary students leave the parish system after the sixth grade, rather than transfer to middle schools in Clinton and Jackson.

On another matter, Support Services Supervisor Michaela Wells went over a state report on the district’s performance with its special-education programs.

Wells said the district does better than the state as a whole in many categories, including getting 26.7 percent of its special-education students to obtain high school diplomas and keeping those students in regular classrooms for at least 80 percent of the school day.

The board also accepted a Community Coffee’s donation of 30 laptop computers for Jackson Elementary.

The donation was arranged through the Teach for America program, which will place about 30 teachers in East Feliciana Parish schools this year, Beauchamp said.

In addition, the board acknowledged the call-up of Clinton Elementary teacher Letitia Palmer for a 24-month deployment with the Louisiana National Guard.