Staff demonstrates proposed St. Landry Parish attendance-zone redraw; board members press for plans to protect North Central and Washington

A staff member demonstrated a draft redraw of attendance zones for St. Landry Parish during a boundary-review session, showing residency-based October 1 counts and proposing that parts of the Eunice (yellow) zone be collapsed into adjacent purple and green zones and reassigned to schools including Glendale and East. The presenter said the red selection contained "39 K to fours" and gave preliminary counts for older grades, explaining the system uses state school codes rather than school names.

Why it matters: board members said the changes could alter feeder patterns, transportation routes and the population of long-standing schools such as North Central and Washington. Several members pushed for alternatives to moving students that would instead focus on retention and investment at schools losing enrollment.

During the presentation, the staff member walked the board through sample assignments on the map and the software's grade-by-grade rollups, saying the tool can parse residency mismatches (students who live in one zone but attend a different school) and produce updated counts. The presenter measured driving and walking distances between sample points — for one pair he cited roughly 3.6 miles of riding and modeled segments near 1 mile — and noted that routing costs may be similar depending on the final configuration.

Board members sought clarity on numeric impacts. Moderator Evan confirmed the example moves discussed on screen — including an estimated shift of about 95 students to Glendale — and asked that staff separate kindergarten and residency-based transfers in the updated figures. The presenter emphasized the distinction between residency and enrollment: "They're in the zone, but they're not going to Washington," he said, to explain why Washington's residency dots do not equal Washington enrollment.

Several board members framed the discussion in the context of longer-term declines in student population. One participant asked, "What are we doing to get back? What are we doing to retain? Maintain?" and urged the board to consider strategies to bring students and teachers back to neighborhood schools rather than simply redrawing lines. Another board member cautioned against creating a "ripple effect," saying changes should not be made that could further weaken North Central's population.

There were no formal motions or votes recorded at the session. The presenter said staff will clean up the map (removing areas with no students), run grade-level and residency-adjusted numbers for the configurations the board discussed, and return revised maps and counts for further review. The board did not take action at the meeting and scheduled no vote before staff provides the updated analyses.