Overcrowding prompts RPSB to look at student addresses

A principal is asking the Rapides Parish School Board and Central Office administration to review its process for verifying addresses to keep an overcrowding problem from getting worse.

Wally Fall has been principal of Scott M. Brame Middle School in Alexandria for 16 years. He said he has seen the junior high's population grow from 550 students his first year to about 950 now.

"I tell you that history because we have a problem that needs looking at," Fall told the school board's Education Committee on April 21.

Of the many students at Brame who are not zoned for the school, Fall said about 100 seem to be there through false information on resident verification forms that go through the board's Office of Child Welfare and Attendance.

Others in that group include students who have received hardship exceptions to attend Brame and those who attend through "choice" because they are zoned for a failing school. Fall said the number of students in those categories pale in comparison to those there using resident verification forms.

"We're getting swamped, absolutely swamped, with our growth," Fall said, adding that choice, homeless and hardship transfers "are not the problem."

Ruby Smith, director of child welfare and attendance, notarizes many of these forms and places students at schools across the district. She said she is not the only notary public in the community and that it is her duty to place students.

"We know that they lie when they come up here," Smith said. "But we also know I am required to put kids in school by law."

She is aware that Brame has a large student population and commended Fall for receiving so many students.

"He takes them all," Smith said. "When he gets overcrowded, he hollers, but he takes them all. I send him good, bad and indifferent."

School board members questioned the school's capacity as the building structure hasn't changed much to accommodate growth of 400 students over the last 16 years. Fall said the capacity is determined by a teacher-to-student ratio. Staffing has increased to meet student population needs.

"But that doesn't add classrooms," he said.

Fall was the only principal representing this issue at the meeting, but the overcrowding issue is not isolated to Brame. Like other schools in the district, Brame has added modular buildings for more space.

"We're adding modular buildings instead of directing students to the right schools," RPSB member Sandra Franklin said.

Board member Stephen Chapman echoed that argument, focusing the conversation on setting capacities for school buildings as well as updating the resident verification form and process.

"We need to set a capacity that is not dependent on the number of desks in a school," Chapman said. "Once they reach capacity, they can't accept more students."

Other updates to the form, which was created almost 10 years ago, could include requiring a physical address as well as a mailing address. It currently requires only the mailing address, which can be misleading, RPSB member John Allen said.

District administration is convening a committee to review the form and procedure for verifying residency and placing students. The committee will report its findings to the board as early as next month.

Student population at stand-alone middle and junior high schools:

• Alexandria Middle Magnet: 423 in sixth, seventh and eighth grades
• Arthur F. Smith Middle Magnet: 500 in sixth, seventh and eighth grades
• Scott M. Brame Middle School: 950 in sixth, seventh and eighth grades
• Pineville Junior High: 670 in seventh and eighth grades
• Tioga Junior High: 605 in seventh and eighth grades