SLPSB Discusses Charter School
BOBBY ARDOIN
St. Landry Now.com Editor
The St. Landry Parish School District has started discussions about re-acquiring the St. Landry Charter School property and recovering technical equipment now used at the campus, according to Superintendent Milton Batiste III.
Batiste told a School Board Building, Lands and Sites Committee on Wednesday night that he expects negotiations between the state-operated charter school and the District will be ongoing during the next several months.
Charter school officials announced in December that they will close the facility in June after apparently failing to meet the academic standards required by state education department officials.
School Treasurer Chasity Davis-Warren wrote in a social media post on her Facebook Page, that St. Landry Charter is in solid financial shape, but state officials aren’t satisfied with the overall educational progress of the school that opened in 2021.
St. Landry Charter is located at the former site of Southwest Elementary School, which was one of two public schools closed by the District in 2017.
Although the Southwest Elementary classroom facility and 10-acre campus site were still owned by the District following the closing, the building and property was left to deteriorate until it was purchased by the charter school from the school system for $270,0000 in 2022.
Batiste indicated in his Wednesday night presentation that perhaps the charter school would be willing to either donate the Southwest property back to the District or perhaps sell it at a nominal fee.
“Nothing has really been determined yet, but we are going to continue our discussions. The (charter) school has wanted to continue the conversations if we say that (the District) is interested,”Batiste told the Committee.
St. Landry Charter has been educating students at the former Southwest Elementary site since 2022 in grades kindergarten through sixth grade.
The school had already started to advertise registrations for students in kindergarten through eighth grade when St. Landry Charter officials announced the decision by the Board to discontinue operation following the end of the 2025-26 school session.
Board member Hazel Sias told Batiste that she thinks the charter school should be reincluded into the parish school system.
