50 year old desegregation case in Avoyelles

Holmes said parties in the 50-year-old court case -- which Holmes has led as plaintiff/intervenor for the past 32 years -- met Tuesday (May 29) for an “open discussion on issues facing the Avoyelles Parish School District.”


Holmes said the U.S. Justice Department or he, as intervenor, could file objections with the federal court if they find anything that still needs to be addressed before closing the books on the deseg case.

Holmes said there were a few issues raised at the meeting.

One was Superintendent Blaine Dauzat’s recent changing of principals at eight of the district’s 10 public schools.

“I told them I don’t want to see us go back to putting white principals at majority white schools and black principals at majority black schools,” Holmes said. “I told them we had worked on that in 2008 and had it satisfied, but this could open a can of worms.”

Dauzat said Holmes’ statement at the deseg meeting dealt with the fact that there was only one black principal in 2008. There are now four black principals in the 10-school district.

“But, I want to note that none of them were hired because they were black,” Dauzat said. “The four of them were hired because they were the best person for the job.”

Of the eight changes, the three that concerned Holmes the most were at Riverside, Plaucheville and Lafargue elementaries.

Riverside is a majority black school that had a white principal and will now have a black principal. Lafargue and Plaucheville are majority white schools that had black principals last year and will have white principals this coming school year.

Dauzat said principals at two of the highest-performing elementaries, Lafargue and Plaucheville, were moved to the two lowest-performing elementaries, Riverside and Bunkie.




Bringing these two principals from highest performing schools to the lowest will not help. The make up of the student body will remain the same.


LINK