The parent of an incoming freshman in Lafayette High's gifted and talented program has requested a temporary restraining order against the Lafayette Parish School system, seeking to stop changes to bus routes that could affect up to 1,000 families.
“I am trying to make the School Board retract their proposed bus routing changes, which would deprive Gifted and Talented and Schools of Choice students from having transportation services similar to those they had in the 2007-08 school year,” attorney Randal P. McCann, who is representing the family, told The Advocate.
McCann filed the restraining-order request on behalf of Jimmie Johnson, whose daughter, referred to as K.J. in court filings, has been in the parish’s Gifted and Talented program for five years. The new bus routes offer K.J. a morning pick up bus stop that is two miles away from her Carencro home and a drop-off point that is four miles away.
The changes would require one of three options for the family: Johnson would have to miss 90 minutes of work each school day to pick up K.J.; K.J. would have to walk the four-mile route back home; or the family would have to remove K.J. from the school.
McCann stated in court documents that the changes may be without legal authority because they represent a reduction in services that could be in violation of state statutes protecting gifted and talented students as “children with exceptionality.”