Teche schools open this week

After a week of closures caused by Hurricane Gustav, Iberia Parish and St. Martin Parish schools will be back in session Monday while St. Mary Parish has announced plans to reopen Wednesday.

In Iberia Parish, power was restored to 31 of 31 schools in the district as of Saturday, said Iberia Parish Schools Superintendent Dale Henderson.

Grand Marais Elementary School in Jeanerette, which had its meter service pulled from the building during the storm, was without power until late Saturday. Those repairs were by far the most complicated in the district and Henderson said Cleco and E.P. Breaux Electric were working through the weekend to restore power as soon as possible.

Damage from the storm was otherwise minimal in the district, Henderson said.

St. Martin Parish Schools Superintendent Richard Lavergne said schools in his district would reopen Monday, but he said he would wait until late Sunday to make a decision about Cecilia Primary, which only had power in about half of its classrooms as of Saturday.

At Parks Primary, a tree fell on a building and destroyed two classrooms, but Lavergne said the school had shifted the classrooms around and would still reopen Monday. Another tree fell on the corner of the school but only affected a bathroom.

Additionally, boil orders for water at Catahoula and Breaux Bridge Elementary had not been lifted as of Saturday, but Lavergne said water would be brought in to accommodate if need be.

“As a whole, we really came out OK,” Lavergne said. “With a storm of that size, you always get a few little leaks here and there, and we have some at various schools.”

St. Mary Parish schools meanwhile are set to reopen on Wednesday. Superinten-dent Donald Aguillard said in a statement that “a large number of schools reported some minor water intrusion” but the district in general fared well.

Maintenance crews worked last week to clear several downed trees and branches from the schools. And several schools in the district still were being used last week as staging sites for community recovery efforts.

School officials in all three districts said missed time would likely be made up by adding extra minutes to some school days.

Henderson said there was no minimum requirement of school days in Louisiana but minutes. Schools are required to provide 63,720 instructional minutes each year.