Catahoula Elementary School, a small predominately white school closed in 2022, will not be able to re-open under the conditions set by the judge overseeing the 60-year-old St. Martin Parish desegregation case.
St. Martin Superintendent Frederick Wiltz told the school board during a special meeting last week that the school's very small population won't allow for it to re-open.
After initially ordering the school closed, the judge in the case revisited the issue after an appeals court reserved the closure order. In 2024, the judge ruled that the school could re-open, but only as a pre-K through first grade school. The court's orders also forbid any pupil-teacher ratios that are lower than those at the parish's STEAM magnet schools - and the Catahoula district wouldn't meet those numbers, Wiltz told us Wednesday.
"For grades Pre-K through 1st grade, there are not enough students to fulfill a 19 to 1 pupil-teacher ratio which would be above the required 18 to 1 pupil-teacher ratio at the two STEAM Schools," Wiltz told KATC.
The order states that the school system will not recruit staff, faculty or allocate resources to Catahoula Elementary "in a manner that hinders, impedes, or is inconsistent with its compliance with the Magnet Consent Order or any other order entered in this case." That would include the pupil-teacher ratio, Wiltz said.
In his presentation to the board, Wiltz said that fewer than 10 children residing in the Catahoula district would be in each of the three grades.
