The Lafayette Parish School System consists of 42 school sites and 4 other district facilities. The total square footage of all facilities is approximately 4 million square feet serving approximately 29,000 students in the 2008/2009 school year. There are currently 23 elementary schools, 11 middle schools, 6 high schools and 4 district administrative facilities.
The goal of the master planning effort is to create an actionable project based plan ready for implementation. This will include a list of projects at each site with a master budget and a comprehensive schedule. Our efforts will include:
- Collaboratively working with the stakeholders of the LPSS to create a master plan that will guide future school improvements
- Developing standards that support the educational objectives of the district
- Conducting a facilities assessment to identify the existing conditions at each site.
- Developing student age population projections for 5 to 10 years for the purpose of guiding the planning efforts
- Engaging the community and all stakeholders throughout the process
- Developing a facilities master plan that includes a master budget and schedule for all projects
LPSS Master Plan is accomplished through the following phases:
- Deferred Maintenance Assessments
- Demographic Analysis
- Educational Programming
- Community Engagement
- Staffing Recommendations
- Facilities Master Planning
Since May of 2009, CSRS gathered information and data in various forms and meetings. An assessment of the physical nature of each school campus was performed over the summer of 2009 and a Deferred Maintenance Manual was produced listing detailed items of the physical needs of each school with recommendations and budgets for each.
A demographic study was conducted in November, providing enrollment data, growth patterns, decreasing population, diversity trends and anomalies for the Parish. The end results was over the next 10 years the student population will remain the same as it is today. Some areas will see increases while other areas will decrease but the forecast is this shift in population is from within the Parish rather than from the outside.
Our greatest task has been engaging the community in the process through Community Dialogues held at Plantation and Faulk Elementary Schools. Next month the Community Dialogues will be held at the five high schools in order to get greater input from the community.
The final phase of this Master Planning Process will be producing a “road map” for LPSS to follow. It will be in a two phased blueprint of needs, timeframes and budget values called “CIP” Capital Improvement Plan. The CIP will be allocated over two 5 year periods designed to help LPSS to begin to manage their assets more effectively and to bring many of their school facilities in line with the new learning environment of the 21st century.more>>