HOUMA, La. — The effects of Hurricane Ida are still being felt more than a year later. An elementary school in Houma was destroyed, and ever since, the students who went to Grand Caillou Elementary haven’t been able to sit in their classrooms. The students have been attending class at other schools.
“It made it really inconvenient for our parents and our kids and teachers, but we weather the storm and I think the worst days are behind us,” Terrebonne Parish School Board President, Gregory Harding said.
Now, more than a year later, the Terrebonne Parish school board is making a decision about what to do with the building and the students. The board will vote Tuesday. Board member, Roger Dale DeHart knows what he wants to do.
“It’s not about the almighty dollar, the community needs that school in the community,” DeHart said.
The school board has a few options they will be deciding on. The students can remain at the other schools they’ve been attending, the district can merge and expand schools, or they can rebuild the school on the Grand Caillou Middle School site. Harding says there are pros and cons to all these options.
The last option is to rebuild the elementary school on its original site, which would cost about $16 Million. Harding says about 90% of that cost would be covered by FEMA. The other options are less expensive, by millions, but Harding says the community members he’s heard from want the building to be on the elementary school site.
“They believe that if you would move the school from the community, the community would die. They also believe building the school there will pump new life into the community,” Harding said.
Harding said at first, he didn’t agree.
“I wasn’t really in favor of rebuilding the school on Grand Caillou, I might be the minority on that but since rethinking and relooking at it I think it might be the best thing for the community to go back and rebuild the school down there and hopefully that community can come back together again,” Harding said.
The rebuild on the same site would take a few years to complete and would be elevated to be in accordance with FEMA.
Both Harding and DeHart are hopeful and confident in Tuesday nights outcome.
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