Deseg case gets May hearing

VILLE PLATTE — A federal judge has set a May 16 hearing on the Evangeline Parish School Board’s request to end federal oversight in the parish’s decades-old desegregation case.

Attorneys for the School Board filed a motion this week seeking “unitary status,” a formal court ruling that the school system has worked to eliminate lingering traces of segregation and to provide equal opportunities to all students regardless of race.

“We are just looking forward to seeing an end to this. It’s been a long time coming,” Evangeline Parish School Board President Wayne Dardeau said.

The desegregation case brought close federal scrutiny of the school system and spurred major changes over the past decade, including a 2004 school consolidation plan that closed high schools in the rural communities of Vidrine, Chataignier and Bayou Chicot.

The main sticking point in recent years had been the poor condition of Ville Platte High School, which has a predominantly black student population.

The Justice Department at one time suggested possibly closing Ville Platte High and sending the students to other schools in the parish.

The School Board opted instead for a magnet program and Advanced Placement classes at Ville Platte High and has undertaken an extensive renovation program there.

The board has spent about $6.2 million in upgrades at Ville Platte High since 2004, according to court filings from the board.

“It is as good or better than any school in the parish,” Dardeau said.

Ville Platte High remains predominantly black, but the white student population has grown from 20 percent to about 24 percent during the past three years, according to the board’s filings in the desegregation case.

School Board attorneys wrote in the court motion to end the desegregation lawsuit that the board “has done everything practicable to create a more diverse student body” at Ville Platte High.

U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon, who is overseeing the desegregation case, made an unscheduled visit to Ville Platte High late last year and said he was pleased with the progress he saw there, according to a report given by Superintendent Toni Hamlin at a recent School Board meeting.

Dardeau said he expects a favorable ruling from Melancon in May.

The judge, the Justice Department and the School Board have generally been on good terms in recent years.

The School Board has been anticipating an end to federal oversight this year following a 2009 agreement between the Justice Department and the board that called for continued improvements at Ville Platte High and other changes related to student and teacher assignments.

“We are not at the 1-yard line; we are at the 6-inch line,” Melancon told board members when he approved the 2009 agreement.