INDReporter

LPTFA approves $60k for PACE

by Patrick Flanagan

The Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority approved a $60,000 funding allocation on Tuesday to help the Acadiana Center for the Arts in its push to keep the PACE program alive in the Lafayette Parish School System.

The Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority approved a $60,000 funding allocation on Tuesday to help the Acadiana Center for the Arts in its push to keep the PACE program alive in the Lafayette Parish School System.

PACE fuses art with learning, and the program, administered by AcA since 1999, brings "teaching-artists" into K-3rd classrooms at 19 elementary schools throughout the parish. It appeared PACE's fate was nearly sealed this summer, when the school system learned it's federal Title I funding had been severely cut. The across-the-board cuts came in January with the federal sequestration, which was a by-product of the failure by Congress and the White House to adopt a balanced budget.

LPTFA's $60,000 allocation, according to an AcA press release issued before Tuesday's board meeting, will be equally matched by a donation from a "corporate philanthropist." Combined, that will equal what the program was receiving in Title I funds in recent years.