School district previews Choudrant bond package

The Lincoln Parish School District would like to issue $2 million in bonds to finance classroom additions at Choudrant Elementary School and Choudrant High School.

To do that, voters in the Choudrant school zone would have to agree to pay the existing 14-mill property tax for another six years.

That was the proposal outlined by schools Superintendent Ricky Durrett at the tail end of a “Coffee and Communication” meeting between CES Principal Jennifer Martin and a gathering of some 50 parents Tuesday night at the school.

The plan is to add three new classrooms at the elementary school, which is seeing more student growth than the high school, Durrett said. That would cost about $1.5 million.

“We need more space here quicker than we do at the high school right now,” he said.

The leftover funds would go toward a new multipurpose room at the high school.

Construction on the CES classrooms would begin in the fall.

Just like the $17.5 million bond proposal in the larger Ruston district, the Choudrant proposal is set to go before the school board at its monthly meeting Tuesday at noon at Ruston Elementary School.

If the board approves the project package, an election would be held April 27 for voters in the Choudrant taxing district to approve or reject the financing.

Durrett said if approved, the existing property tax in the Choudrant district would hold steady at 14 mills for six years and then roll back to about 5 mills the seventh year and 3 mills the eighth year.

In the back half of that sixyear period, he said the school district may come back to the Choudrant community to make plans for a larger bond proposal to expand the schools there, whether that be adding more space to CES, CHS or constructing a middle school.

While parents at the meeting were largely supportive of the current proposal, some pleaded for a separate middle school in Choudrant sooner rather than later.

Choudrant students in grades 6-12 all go to CHS.

“They need to be separated,” said Patricia Vining, who has children at both CHS and CES. “It’s getting overwhelming as a parent.”

Vining said she and some other parents believe their youngergrade students at CHS face more bullying, academic struggles and other issues than they would if middle schoolers had their own school.

Several other parents also asked what could be done to expedite the building of a middle school for Choudrant.

Durrett said he was open to the idea, but it would take a significant tax increase to finance, at least doubling the existing millage if not more, which may be difficult to pass at the polls.

He said the district could use the results of the April election on the $2 million proposal to help gauge whether a larger package in the near future would be feasible.