Consolidation Plan

E. Feliciana School Board rejects consolidation plan

By JAMES MINTON
Advocate Baker - Zachary bureau
Published: Jan 6, 2010 - Page: 5B

SLAUGHTER — The East Feliciana Parish School Board turned down a consolidation plan offered by the superintendent Tuesday in response to a request from the majority of the board last month.

Members Leon “Sonny” Franklin, board President J. Curtis Jelks, Tony Rouchon and Matthew Peterson voted to accept Superintendent Douglas Beauchamp’s proposal.

Mitch Harrell, Willie M. Jackson, Richard Terrell, Beth Dawson, Oliver Wingfield, Clay Barksdale and Michael Bradford voted against the idea.

Board member Henry C. Howell was absent.

A year ago, a majority voted to table a plan that Beauchamp presented in several meetings around the parish, often before hostile crowds.

The earlier plan called for consolidating Clinton and Jackson high schools on the Jackson campus and consolidating the communities’ middle schools at Clinton High School.

Beauchamp’s new proposal — which was to consolidate the high schools in Clinton and the middle schools in Jackson, along with a ninth-grade academy — was couched in terms of an overall school-improvement plan.

Jackson, however, said the “school reform initiatives” in the document are steps administrators should have implemented years ago.

Rouchon responded that Beauchamp’s initiatives are being pushed in the school system.

Bradford, the most vocal opponent of consolidation, said the only difference between the two plans is that the new one “brings the high school from Jackson to Clinton, instead of from Clinton to Jackson.”

Responding to requests from Bradford last month, Beauchamp reported that organizers of a proposed charter school for seventh through 12th grades in Slaughter will have a meeting with U.S. District Judge James Brady on Jan. 14 to discuss how the proposed school would affect the parish’s long-standing desegregation order.

Beauchamp said the state Education Department has not responded to a request for information on how a charter school would affect the parish’s state finances.

Beauchamp also told Bradford he is not advocating trying to persuade voters to increase taxes to weather the board’s financial crisis.