Fueled by a $15 million federal grant, three elementary schools in Baton Rouge are racing to launch new arts-oriented magnet programs in time for when children return from summer break in August.
However, a fourth magnet program funded by the grant lacks a home. It is an arts conservatory, dubbed the “Juilliard of Baton Rouge,” that was approved in 2021 and would serve grades six to 12.
Plans to renovate the former Broadmoor Middle and place the new conservatory there are on hold after projected costs to renovate the 73-year-old campus came in well over the $15 million voters approved for the project in 2018. Nevertheless, school leaders are committed to opening the arts school at a location still to be determined in time for the start of the 2025-26 school year.
Three of the four schools with new magnet money — , and — are off to the races. Applications went live Monday on , and applications will continue to be accepted through much of the summer.
McKinley Elementary held a parent meeting last week, and the other two schools plan similar meetings soon.
Millions in federal grants
The federal grant is known as the , or MSAP. The $15 million — roughly $3 million a year between now and 2029 — will cover the costs of staff, curricula, training, supplies and technology for the four magnet programs. The whole effort is called Project Red Stick.
The East Baton Rouge Parish school system and six other winning school districts learned they won , the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education court ruling. Magnet programs first began as methods of voluntary desegregation, but have continued even as many school desegregation cases, including East Baton Rouge’s, have been settled.
The grant award is part of a longer winning streak that has brought more than $43 million to Louisiana’s second-largest traditional school district.
The school system won this same grant in 2017, also for $15 million. It was used to underwrite magnet programs at Belaire High as well as feeder schools Park Forest and Villa Del Rey elementaries and Park Forest Middle for five years. All those programs were based in STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and math. The schools added courses such as renewable energy, computer science, entertainment technology and film, and digital animation.
Last fall, the school system was one of two winners of the Fostering Diverse Schools Demonstration Program, which aims to increase socioeconomic and racial diversity in schools. This $13.2 million grant is funding programs at Twin Oaks Elementary, Glasgow Middle, and Broadmoor High.
The school system applied for the latest MSAP award in 2022. After making a few changes, . The U.S. Department of Education awarded 16 MSAP grants last fall, but let the school system know its application was still alive and that it might receive an award this year, which it did.
“We are thrilled for yet another opportunity to implement innovative programs,” interim Superintendent Adam Smith .
Growing magnet school options
The grant will increase the number of East Baton Rouge schools with magnet programs from 26 to 30, or more than a third of the district's schools.
The number of schoolwide, or “dedicated,” magnet schools would increase from 12 to 13. Three of those dedicated magnet schools are centered around the arts, though others have popular arts programs.
Here are the three schools starting new magnet programs in August:
- Broadmoor Elementary: visual and performing arts.
- McKinley Elementary: communications focus via “museum-based learning,” including partnerships with local museums.
- McKinley High: modern theater, mass media and communications.
McKinley High is also launching a Future Educators Access program, encouraging high school students to pursue a career in teaching. It will allow high school students to get early training and field experience in the classroom.
The high school has already started an online radio broadcasting program that will benefit from the grant.
As with the magnet programs that opened in 2017, these new magnet programs will have open admissions. That is a contrast to older magnet programs in Baton Rouge, which typically employ selective admissions involving test scores and grades. Students in the upper grades in the new magnet programs, however, will need to maintain at least a 2.5 GPA to stay.
And as in 2017, the application process is starting right away and focusing initially on students already enrolled in the new magnet schools — they collectively enroll more than 1,800 students.
“We really have students on campus who can fit in to the program immediately,” said Theresa Porter, executive director of innovative programs for the school system.
In 2017, initial recruiting began that fall for a launch in January. This time, Porter’s office has the summer to recruit new students for a fall launch. She said the school system has successfully opened new magnet programs over the summer in the past, pointing to the 2013 formation of Mayfair Lab School.
“The sooner you let the parents know there is a choice, the better the results are,” Porter said.
Arts conservatory still needs a home
The new arts conservatory, however, is proving more difficult to bring into operation.
A priority of former Superintendent Sito Narcisse, the new art school aims to train students for possible careers in theater, instrumental music, vocal music, dance, visual arts, media and graphic arts.
Such schools are common in many cities, , but would be new for Baton Rouge. The new school would also be home to summer camps and after-school arts classes accessible to students across the district.
It is provisionally called Baton Rouge School of the Arts — an official name is still to be settled on. The school’s projected enrollment has fluctuated. Narcisse originally called for a school with as many as 625 students but reduced overall enrollment to less than 500 amid concerns that the school would compete with other popular art programs in town, including at Baton Rouge Magnet High. The latest application, though, lists the projected enrollment as 830 students.
The number of students enrolled will depend on where the school is ultimately located. The original option, Broadmoor Middle, has an official capacity of 800 students. That location would also benefit from its proximity to Broadmoor Elementary and that school's new magnet program.
The school system has limited time to figure out the new school’s location. The first magnet application period for the 2025-26 school year, when the new arts school is to open, starts in late September.