New subdivisions keep sprouting up faster than new classrooms, leaving kids in trailers and parents enraged. Should the parish be putting the brakes on residential development until schools can catch up?
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Add your commentThree kids in three different Ascension Parish schools right now. One is in a permanent building that's overcrowded. One is in a trailer. One is in a school where the cafeteria doubles as a gym doubles as an assembly hall. All three schools were supposedly built to handle growth. The growth just never stops. At some point this has to be a moratorium conversation, I don't care how unpopular that is.
Born and raised in Gonzales, went to Ascension Parish schools back when you actually knew every kid in your class. Now my daughter's at a school where her "classroom" is a trailer that floods every time it rains. FLOODS. And the school board is sitting there approving budgets for what exactly? This is embarrassing.
Hot take nobody wants to hear: the parish council approved every single one of those subdivisions. Developers can only build what they're permitted to build. So maybe stop letting the board off the hook by pointing fingers at the private sector.
I actually read the last school board meeting minutes (yes I'm that person) and they DID discuss a bond proposal. Problem is the same homeowners screaming about trailer classrooms voted down the last millage increase. You cannot have it both ways, Ascension Parish. You cannot.
Blame the developers 100%. They come in, throw up 400 houses in a subdivision called something like "Magnolia Pointe Reserve at the Oaks" and then disappear with their profit while the parish scrambles to figure out where to put 600 new kids. There should be impact fees that actually fund school construction, not go into some general slush fund.
That's not accurate at all — Louisiana does NOT have a statewide mandatory school impact fee requirement. Local parishes CAN adopt impact fee ordinances but Ascension has historically kept them low or structured poorly precisely to attract development. That's the whole argument. Please don't spread misinformation as fact on here.
I'll say this — the teachers are not the problem. My kids have had outstanding teachers throughout. The problem is purely administrative and political. These educators are doing heroic work in impossible conditions and deserve way better from the people cutting deals with developers every other week. Direct your anger correctly.
Anybody remember when Galvez had maybe 400 students? My mom taught there for 22 years and she says she doesn't even recognize it anymore. Growth isn't inherently bad but this is just completely unmanaged sprawl and somebody needs to say it out loud at a parish council meeting instead of just on Facebook.
just moved here from Baton Rouge eight months ago and honestly the school situation was the one thing nobody warned me about. we specifically asked our realtor about school capacity and she said "oh Ascension schools are great" which, sure, the academics are fine but great doesnt mean anything when my son is in a class of 31 kids
Counterpoint: slowing development means housing prices go up even more and the people who grew up here can't afford to stay. My nephew is trying to buy his first house and inventory is already brutal. I sympathize with the school problem but there are real tradeoffs here that the "just stop building" crowd isn't acknowledging.
lol putting the brakes on development in louisiana. good luck with that. the people making those zoning decisions are the same people with money in those development projects. not a conspiracy theory, just how it works down here.
Can someone explain to me why every new subdivision gets approved like clockwork but we've been waiting 6 years for the new middle school that was promised when we moved to our neighborhood? Six years. The signage for it is still up on the property. It's a field. A beautiful, empty, unusable field.
Actually the state of Louisiana requires developers to pay school impact fees before any new residential construction can begin, so this whole problem is already solved legally speaking. The money just needs to be collected properly.
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