BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
The battle between Opelousas High and the Louisiana High School Athletic Association is continuing as school officials and the St. Landry Parish administrators are contesting a recent LHSAA ruling which mandates that OHS now compete athletically as a select program.
At issue currently is the Opelousas High biomedical curriculum which LHSAA officials apparently consider to be a magnet academy or open enrollment school which has caused the organization to place the school among teams competing in select classification, according to principal Greg Campbell.
The Contentious Matters
Since February Opelousas High and LHSAA have engaged in confrontations which include vacating the football program of a 2023 state championship, reimbursing the organization with proceeds earned from state title competition and placing head football coach Jimmy Zachery Jr. on probation for one year.
OHS subsequently met with LHSAA officials after the ruling, but the appeal by the school was denied following a hearing. OHS additionally threatened to take the LHSAA into arbitration in order to restate the championship, but that has not happened.
On March 31 Zachery filed a lawsuit against the LHSAA which asked a state court to grant a temporary injunction that prevents the organization from stripping the 2023 championship away from OHS, a decision Zachery alleges has also damaged his reputation as a football coach.
Board Action On Monday
Campbell was present Monday afternoon when school board members voted unanimously to clarify during a meeting later this week with LHSAA Executive Committee officials, the name and purpose of the OHS Biomedical program.
“The name (Biomedical Academy) is causing issues. As a result Opelousas High has been placed among the (LHSAA) select schools. The principal (Campbell) at Opelousas High is asking us to make an appeal (of the select designation),” said parish school superintendent Milton Batiste III.
Action taken by the Board includes convincing LHSAA officials that OHS has never been classified as a private school, laboratory school, charter school, application-based school or tuition-based school.
The Position of The District
School Board legal advisor Courtney Joiner explained to board members that LHSAA officials have probably misinterpreted that the name Medical Academy indicates that Opelousas High has a parishwide open enrollment plan, something that might normally cause the organization to consider the school as a candidate for select designation.
“That’s not the case at all. Opelousas High is not a school of parishwide enrollment,” Joiner told board members.
Biomedical Background
A federal court order which helped settle a lawsuit between the School District and the U.S. Department of Justice in 2010, mandated that St. Landry administrators create a Magnet Academy of Biological Sciences located at Opelousas High.
Batiste said on Monday that federal officials felt at that time that offering a biomedical curriculum at Opelousas High might further help desegregate the student population at the school.
Several paragraphs of the final agreement signed by District and federal officials refer to an Opelousas High biomedical program, although some of the wording in the document also refers to a Magnet Academy of Biomedical Sciences at Opelousas High.
Clarifying The Issue
Campbell said during an interview that he and District officials intend to eliminate the name Biomedical Academy.
“Bio-Med is a program that is offered (at OHS). All of the 151 students who are athletes are zoned for Opelousas High except for one student. There are no busloads of students who are coming in from all over the place,” Campbell said.
Campbell added that there are 51 athletes in the OHS biomedical program and as school principal, he is responsible for any matters that concern the program situated on the former Opelousas Developmental School campus.
