Major projects at two Ascension Parish high schools take shape – The Advocate

New classroom buildings for freshmen are steadily going up on the campuses of two Ascension Parish public high schools, mostly unfazed by the August flood.

Work on the freshman academies at East Ascension and Dutchtown high schools, both of which escaped flooding, came to a halt for two or three weeks after the flood, while construction workers dealt with their own flood-damaged homes, said Travis Parker, the school district's project manager for the academies.

But in the months since, "We've been back to full force and moving along," Parker said.

The two freshman academies, each approximately 38,000 square feet, broke ground in the fall of 2015 and are expected to open for students in the spring of 2018, he said.

On the campus of East Ascension High on Worthey Street in Gonzales, the $17 million Freshman Academy project, paid for by sales tax revenues and a 2009 bond issue, also includes the building of a new kitchen and cafeteria/auditorium that will serve the entire student body.

Currently about 70 percent complete, the Freshman Academy is a two-story, free-standing building that will tie into the main school building by walkways.

The freshman building will incorporate the colors and textures of the existing school, in an updated look for the East Ascension High campus, which opened in 1965, Parker said.

The $12.8 million Freshman Academy at Dutchtown High, on La. 73, will be almost identical to the main school building, one of the newer schools in the district, that opened in 2002 and recently had its cafeteria expanded.

The freshman building, funded by sales tax revenues and currently about 40 percent complete, will tie into the main school building on both its first and second floors, Parker said.

The Ascension Parish school district has, for several years, had a "freshman academy" program in each of its four high schools, three on the east bank and one on the west bank, with freshmen having the same group of teachers throughout the day, intervention for those who are struggling and their own associate principal.

The new freshman academy buildings, each designed for 600 freshman, give ninth-graders their own space, as well, and ease overcrowding in the three east bank high schools.

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ST. AMANT A two-story classroom building just for ninth-graders is being built on the camp

In February, the opening of the school district's first Freshman Academy, at St. Amant High School on La. 431, was instrumental in the student body's return to the campus.

St. Amant High students, who had been going to school at host site Dutchtown High in the afternoon hours since the flood, are now back at their home campus in temporary classroom buildings and the Freshman Academy.

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ST. AMANT For the past six months, St. Amant High students have carried on the school year

The freshman buildings are a way "to help students move from the eighth grade, where they are on top, to high school, where they are beginning anew," Lisa Bacala, director of secondary education for the school district, has said.

Follow Ellyn Couvillion on Twitter, @EllynCouvillion.

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Major projects at two Ascension Parish high schools take shape - The Advocate