St. John The Baptist Parish School Board is looking at redrawing attendance boundaries to allow the students of Fifth Ward Elementary School in Reserve to be disbursed among the parish's other schools and shut down Fifth Ward.
Fifth Ward Elementary School is just a scant three blocks from Denka Chemical's Performance Elastometer, a sprawling plant that emits chloroprene into the atmosphere. Chloroprene is a chemical used to make the synthetic rubber neoprene. The Environmental Protection Agency says chloroprene is a likely carcinogen and that students at Fifth Ward are at times exposed to chloroprene at hundreds of times above the allowable limit.
The Times-Picayune/Advocate reports some 400 students will be effected by the closure of Fifth Ward. Moving the students to new schools would cost the district as much as $200,000.
Five plans are being considered, but the most popular is one that moves all students and teachers to a single location--Garyville-Mount Airy Math & Science magnet school. The district would operate both schools independently.
Another reason for closing Fifth Ward Elementary is its performance grading, an "F", by the State Board of Education. Though educators at Fifth Ward say they have raised test scores in hopes of turning around Fifth Ward's poor performance, redistributing students across the Parish's other schools would have them attending classes at schools with "C" rating.