The Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana issued an endorsement Monday of efforts by the Louisiana Department of Education and nearly two dozen parish school systems to seek federal Race to the Top funding. Statewide, Louisiana could snatch as much as $300 million in grants from the stimulus-funded program.
“A+PEL leaders believe that this opportunity to make positive policy changes for Louisiana should be seized. Unlike programs in the past, the R2T initiative encourages direct involvement of teachers and education leaders as details are addressed,” a Monday press releases reads in part.
Lafayette is one of 23 parishes identified by the state as seeking grant funding through R2T, which is designed to bolster at-risk schools and raise performance scores parishwide. Lafayette Parish School System officials estimate our portion of the R2T funds could be as high as $7 million. But like some other parishes, Lafayette has committed to the program with an opt-out clause in case it deems the R2T commitment burdensome or otherwise unsatisfactory.
In December, the Louisiana School Boards Association urged public school systems across the state to pass on R2T grants, warning that securing such funding could have long-term fiscal consequences, namely that when the federal funding runs out school systems could on the hook to continue funding programs at their own expense.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Plains Exploration and Production, the Houston company Flores has been running since 2002, is building a deepwater Gulf of Mexico warehouse and storage facility on Bernard Road in Broussard.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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