The recent drop in enrollment in Jefferson Parish public schools and the resulting loss of funding are forcing school board officials to ask themselves hard questions.
Those losses are also forcing them to get creative in how they provide services to their students.
"We need to make sure that we're being as efficient as we possibly can," Dr. James Gray, superintendent of the Jefferson Parish School District, told WWL's Newell Normand.
Dr. Gray says the drop in enrollment is giving the board a chance to revisit an efficiency plan it created in 2018. School board president Ralph Brandt agrees. Brandt told Normand that this is a chance for the district to right-size itself by consolidating schools, reducing the district's teacher shortage and moving students to newer facilities.
"You look at the age of our facilities, and you look at an aging infrastructure," Brandt said. "Sixty-plus years is the average, and we can modernize that and basically give the kids a better chance at 21st-Century education that we'll have the dollars and we'll have the personnel to do."
"Our vision is to see brand new schools throughout our district in the next 10 to 15 years," Dr. Gray added. "It really is a different feel for teachers and students when they go into a facility that is modern. We have several schools in our district that are beautiful facilities, but we also have some very aging facilities. You look at 80 percent of our buildings are between 41 and 100 years old."
So why is the enrollment falling?
"The decrease in birth rates that are occurring. The people that are leaving the state for better job opportunities for other areas," Dr. Gray said, adding that some students have left the district for opportunities outside of public education.
Dr. Gray and Brandt pointed to Louisiana's outmigration problem as possibly the biggest cause for the loss of students over the last 40 years. Brandt says it's a problem other school districts in the state are facing, too.
"Our population is not keeping up with national trends," Brandt said. "That's why when we do reapportionment, we keep losing congressional seats."
However, Brandt notes school districts in other states are having similar enrollment problems.
"We're not unique," Brandt said. "This is a nationwide trend."
The board will hold three town hall meetings tomorrow (Saturday, March 11) to discuss the district's future. They'll take place from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Emmett Gilbert School of Excellence in Westwego, Washington Elementary in Kenner, and at T-H Harris Middle school in Metairie.
