LAFAYETTE, La. — Students at Ovey Comeaux High School are preparing for an emotional transition after the Lafayette Parish School Board’s decision to close their campus and reassign roughly 700 students to other area high schools. Wednesday night’s welcome event at Lafayette High was aimed at easing that process, but for many, the move feels bittersweet.
“I think this whole thing is bringing everyone closer together, and in a way, that is tragic since we're going to have to be split apart to all these different high schools,” said Emma Faul, a junior at Comeaux.
Faul is one of 269 students set to be rezoned to Lafayette High following Comeaux’s closure at the end of the 2025-26 school year. “The bus ride from my home to Comeaux is maybe 15 minutes. If I'm driving there directly, it's maybe five. With all the traffic coming here, it was maybe half an hour," Faul said. "I know nothing about this campus, and that's scary. I don't want to get lost in these halls."
Having spent her entire high school career at Comeaux, Faul said it’s the people — teachers and students alike — who turned the school into a supportive home. “There's a lot of teachers that made that school my home and made me feel comfortable at Comeaux, and there's a lot of people, other students, that have made me feel welcomed there,” she said.
Roughly 700 students will be rezoned to Lafayette, Acadiana, and Southside high schools, but for Faul and others, the identity and pride of being a “Spartan” will remain. “Comeaux is and has been for the last 3 years, my home. It is the home of the Spartans. And that will never change, no matter what school they put me in,” Faul said.
While district leaders hope orientation events will help ease the transition, many students say the sense of loss — and the bonds they’ve built at Comeaux — will not be soon forgotten.
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