EBR Schools Superintendent Charlotte Placide

• Her favorite movie is Lean on Me.

• She was a competitive athlete in high school and captain of the girl’s basketball team and a cheerleader.

• She was valedictorian of the last graduating class at Pineview High School in Covington in 1969 before it became a middle school.

For Charlotte Placide, things at the East Baton Rouge Parish School System have gone from bad to worse, but 2007 will put more pressure on her than ever to produce results for the struggling system.

Placide took the reins as the hometown favorite in November 2004, inheriting a system in deep disrepair, losing middle-class white students at an alarming rate and watching its tax base pack up and move out.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita sent a wave of new students into the system, temporarily stemming its spiraling enrollment decline. With Zachary and now Central peeling off to form their own systems—and surviving court challenges, giving other communities ideas of seceding themselves—Placide faces running a system that is now 85% black.

In September, sheriff’s deputies were called to Tara High School to break up a violent fight, their second call to the campus in two days. The next month, authorities were called to Woodlawn High School where they arrested a student for bringing a loaded gun onto campus.

Then in November, school security was breached when a man entered Dufrocq Elementary School and molested an 11-year-old student in the bathroom.

Public apathy over the system is so bad that seven candidates out of 12 ran unopposed in the last school board election.

Even in the face of such a grim outlook, Placide insists she’s more resolved than ever to improve things.

“We have to believe in this school system,” she says. “Someone has to. I do. I have made a career here, and it’s not because I had no other choices. It has been because I believed.”

This is a critical year for Placide and the system itself. The system starts 2007 with a $57.5 million surplus, a stunning glimmer of hope that could go a long way toward solving its worst problems. As someone with a strong accounting background, Placide will be expected not only to ensure the money isn’t wasted, but that it helps produce tangible results.

Placide says her top priority is the strategic accountability plan, which focuses on increasing student achievement, promoting a caring and safe school environment and improving communication with the community. Although she has not formally announced how the money will be spent, there are a number of areas she feels need the money more than others, areas that include curriculum and instruction, teacher recruitment and staff raises.

The surplus is not the only good news coming in the New Year.

The school district has more than 50 new recruits starting the new semester, and in July the system finally comes out from under court supervision from the 50-year-old desegregation case.

If Placide fails to leverage the $57 million surplus and the end of federal red tape into improved results, she may find herself justifying to a new crop of school board members why she should remain in charge.

“There have been a number of things that have happened to overshadow our main focus,” Placide says. “When those things happen, we have to adjust and handle them, then readjust and get back to what’s really important. When you increase your population like we have there are certain situations that come with growth. I’ve seen many changes in my 25 years with the system, and I know that we have people committed to building a strong foundation for public education, and that’s just what we’re going to do.”