NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Neighborhood advocates were hopeful last year when the Orleans Parish School Board announced an agreement that would result in the French Quarter turning over its only school to the Lycée Français and sending schoolchildren back to the Quarter after the elementary school moved out of the area.

At the Orleans Parish School Board meeting this week, knowledgeable district officials recommended relocating the French immersion school’s Uptown campus (on Patton Street) to the French Quarter’s iconic ‘Little Red Schoolhouse.’

Homer Plessy Elementary School had left the buildingIt also took over the only remaining school in the French Quarter last year after district officials said $15 million in maintenance was needed to bring the building up to operational standards.

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The district planned a $3.5 million capital improvement project for the building, forcing Homer Plessy to move into the McKenna building in Ward 7 at the end of the 2022-23 school year.

As of December 2023, Plessy leaders said the relocation will be permanent.

“We have two children in school and we’re hoping one of them goes to a French Quarter school as well,” said French Quarter resident and business owner Chris Olsen. “It’s definitely been a big change since they moved. “There are a lot fewer people on this more residential side of the neighborhood.”

Advocates like Olsen were in limbo because the French Quarter had been left without schools since Plessy’s move.

They are now hopeful that school children will once again walk the streets of the French Quarter.

“It just changes the feel of the neighborhood. We have tourists, but mostly they want to know that we have people living and working here in the Neighborhood. It was nice to have the school here and have the kids running around during the day,” Olsen said.

“For those who value the French Quarter and live here or live in the area and want to send their children here, there is nothing like being immersed in it every day.”

A representative of the Lycée Français said details about moving approximately 470 primary school students into the building were still being worked out and could not comment further.

At the district meeting earlier this week, officials said the Lycée Français would bear the costs of completing the building and repairs.

They officially announced the new settlement in a broadcast Friday afternoon.

“Symbolically, this would be a huge boon for the city,” said Scott Tilton, executive director of the New Orleans Foundation for Francophone Cultures and Vieux Carre Owners, Residents and Partners board member.

“I think there’s a real sense that you’re working with our French-language cultural institution, organizations like the Historic New Orleans Collection, which houses all these archives in the city, to bring French back to the French Quarter,” he said.

“Using the French Quarter like an out-of-class experience, but it’s in your backyard. “It’s almost unique.”

The plan is for the Lycée Français to move forward before the 2025-26 academic year.

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