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Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save After years of intermittent talk that led to little action, leaders of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, meeting at an all-day retreat Saturday, broached anew the fraught topic of closing and merging schools in response to years of enrollment declines. Significant movement on the issue, though, is taking a brief back seat to a separate but related issue: updating the school district’s 3-year-old strategic plan . The school board spent most of Saturday doing just that and hopes to be done by January.
Superintendent LaMont Cole, who took leadership of the school district two months ago , said Saturday it was important to “begin the conversation about aligning our facilities to the needs of our city.” But he also said it is hard to make decisions about the future of facilities unless the district’s priorities in academics and in other key areas are clear. Echoing Cole, board member Nathan Rust said that devising a facility master plan can't be done in isolation.
“In so many ways, that is the outcome of so much of the other things we have been talking about,” Rust said. In September, the school system took a key step on school consolidations when it hired Huntsville, Alabama-based LEAN Frog Consulting, at a cost of $88,000, to pool a range of data and crunch the numbers to help school leaders settle on which schools are the best candidates for closing. To frame Saturday’s discussion, Cole brought in a special guest: Baton Rouge native Pamela Whitley.
An electrical engineer, Whitley spent her career with the Federal Aviation Administration . During her tenure with the FAA, Whitley, who has returned to Baton Rouge since retiring, helped lead what became a 25-year effort to upgrade airports and related facilities so they could accommodate modern technology. As part of that effort, some facilities ended up closing.
“The challenge before you is not for the faint of heart, but it must be done," Whitley said. She said that strategic planning was key to the FAA’s work. “The strategic discussion is the beginning of how you put the wheels in motion,” she said.
Whitley urged board members to be creative in facilities decisions by drawing deeply on their academic goals. “Think what you want to look like academically so you can drive the facilities discussion,” she said. The FAA changes required constant work getting buy-in from affected parties and assuaging political concerns.
Consequently, Whitley said she gets PTSD when she hears the word "consolidation.” "Using that word is very problematic because everyone comes in defensive,” she said. “I prefer to use the word 'alignment.
'” Whitley suggested that much of Baton Rouge’s facility alignment work could be woven together with the future renewal of a 1-cent sales tax earmarked for education, which funds most local school construction. That tax is up for renewal in early 2028, but the planning for the renewal starts in the next couple of years. Board member Cliff Lewis said the board will have to reverse years of distrust by residents or it will have difficulty tackling this issue.
“If you don’t trust your spouse, you’re checking the phone bill every month,” he said. Most of Saturday’s retreat was devoted to the district’s strategic plan. Christel Slaughter, CEO of SSA Consultants, served as facilitator.
This summer, SSA managed the tumultuous superintendent search that led to the hiring of Cole, who applied for the job the day before getting it because the search was reopened in late July. “I feel like this is the next chapter in the journey we went on together,” Slaughter said Saturday. Approved in 2021, the 10-page strategic plan is new to Cole, who previously spent 13 years as an administrator for a charter school network in Baton Rouge.
And only three of the nine board members were involved in its creation; the other six have taken office since then. Slaughter conducted a quick poll of board members earlier this week, revealing limited affection for the plan. For instance, when asked if the strategic plan "addresses the changing needs and challenges of the school board during this period," just one board member checked "very well" and two said "moderately well.
" Three offered a tepid “slightly well,” and one answered “not well at all." Two board members did not respond. Rust said he has been eager to rework the plan since joining the board in January 2023.
“One thing that’s been frustrating is it’s been 22 months that we’ve been on the board and this is the first time we have been allowed to have this process,” Rust said. Slaughter repeatedly broke the board into groups. First they reviewed the current strategic plan and reported feedback.
Then they gave grades of A, B and C to a dozen objectives included in Cole’s employment contract, which was signed in August. Cole urged board members to hold more retreats, even late in the strategic planning process. “We want to get it right, and we want to help our city,” Cole said.
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