UPDATE 8:25 p.m.: According to Tracy Wirtz with LPSS all proposed school projects were approved at Thursday’s meeting.

ORIGINAL STORY: LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — The Lafayette Parish School System is currently voting on a proposed reallocation of funds aimed at adding classrooms and upgrading various schools.

The proposed reallocation of $30 million involves redirecting existing budget funds to address essential upgrades across the district. This includes the construction of 44 new classrooms and six restrooms at Broadmoor, Ernest Gallet and Westside Elementary Schools, replacing outdated portable buildings.

“These are funds that were there in the budget, but they’re reallocating them to these particular projects for necessity, essentially,” said Tracy Wirtz, communications director with the Lafayette Parish School System.

Wirtz explained that the current portable buildings require students to move between them and the main building without cover, exposing them to the elements. The new permanent classrooms will improve the learning environment and eliminate these temporary structures.

“Additionally students need to go from the main building to these temporary buildings, and they’re in the elements, if it’s raining there’s no cover, so providing for these permanent classrooms at these particular campuses is going to make the whole learning environment better as well as get rid of buildings that a lot of people in Lafayette Parish are ready to see,” said Wirtz.

In addition to classroom expansions, the proposal includes a new physical education facility at Milton Elementary and new baseball and softball fields at Lafayette High School. These projects have been prioritized based on requests from principals and community feedback.

“A lot of these projects that you see are projects that principals have requested, that the community has said we need these things and now is the time to take care of it, and they’ve worked really hard to make sure those funds were available and that they were spent in the right place,” said Wirtz.

Wirtz emphasized the hard work of LPSS officials in securing the necessary funds to support these projects, ensuring that they are spent in the right places to benefit students.

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by KLFY. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by KLFY staff before being published.

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