Three weeks into a massive overhaul of Lafayette Parish’s poorest performing high school, students, teachers and outside stakeholders untap a new level of spirit at Northside.
By Heather Miller • Photos by Robin May
When Northside High School’s regionally ranked mock trial team competes for a state title at the upcoming Louisiana mock trial tournament, Principal Melinda Voorhies will undoubtedly be there as the pseudo courtroom scene unfolds.
While Gov. Bobby Jindal might be casting a large net for his education reform package, it has so far failed to snare anything related to school discipline.
By Jeremy Alford
If you believe the polling, the public isn’t sweating school discipline issues too heavily. According to a PDK/Gallup poll conducted last year, the American public may actually care less than ever. Only 6 percent felt that a “lack of discipline” was a real problem — and that’s down from 11 percent in 2006 and 15 percent in 2001. More times than not, funding issues or teacher quality top such lists.
We view Glenn Stewart through a lens of outrage even as we try to focus on the greater good.
This past Christmas morning Steve and Cherry Fisher May, The Independent’s co-publishers, were driving through south Pennsylvania on the way to a family visit for the holidays. Just before noon, Cherry received two messages. The first, via a phone call, was news that her 81-year-old mother, Leta Gilmer Fisher, had passed away in Lafayette. Twenty minutes later came the second message when she opened an email with the subject line, “Merry Christmas!” The sender was Glenn Stewart.
An online search reveals surprisingly low property tax assessments on downtown buildings, leaving what could amount to millions in revenue — for our schools, libraries and public safety — on the table.
Some critics of smart meters and the comprehensive plan cite a little-known resolution of the United Nations for the basis of their opposition. We hope their paranoia doesn’t hinder progress in Lafayette.
By Walter Pierce
If you haven’t yet heard of Agenda 21, please read on. But even if you set this newspaper down, flip the page or navigate elsewhere online, Agenda 21 will find you. It’s actually been with us for two decades, but it’s beginning to push its way up through the soft crust of community consciousness in cities across Louisiana and the nation including Lafayette, borne on the hot, pneumatic energy of paranoia about government.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
Most Read
in case you missed it