Sponsored by East Baton Rouge Parish School System
Istrouma High School celebrates its one hundredth anniversary this year. The historic high school, named for a Native American word meaning—what else?—“red stick,” had been closed since the 2014–2015 school year due to falling enrollment and related performance issues. Students who would have gone to Istrouma were bussed as many as fifteen miles away to other schools, and it seemed as though the high school, which had educated generations of Baton Rougeans, witnessed the turmoil of integration, and stood as a local institution for decades, would fall short of a century of existence.
Almost as soon as the school closed, community members and alumni began to petition for its reopening. They had happy memories of their times there and of the community they had built, and the oldest remember the glory days of Istrouma’s post-WWII career as a football powerhouse and the band’s trips to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. Additionally, the area simply needed its own high school—too many students were being asked to travel too far to attend other schools. These efforts paid off, and plans were made for Istrouma High School to be returned to school system control and reopened.
After spending the 2016–2017 school year as “roommates” with Capitol High School, Istrouma moved back into the Winbourne Avenue location it had occupied since 1951. (The school originally moved to this location because, after the Louisiana legislature added a twelfth grade to the curriculum in 1949, they needed more space.) After over $24 million of renovation and modernization, the school welcomed a new crop of 9th and 10th graders, with plans to expand to cover the following grades as current students age into them. Under this plan, the year 2020 will see the first graduations of the rejuvenated Istrouma High School.
Istrouma’s new principal, Reginald Douglas, is excited about the role he’ll play helping restore the historic school. He began his career at Istrouma, teaching special education and social studies, before pursuing administrative positions at other area schools. He stressed the importance of the reopened school to the area: “It’s a big deal to the community. They went all out [in the drive to reopen Istrouma], and now these kids can graduate where their parents and brothers and sisters did.” This long history of pride and community involvement has been continued and strengthened in the design of the academic offerings of the high school.
Today, Istrouma High School emphasizes a curriculum and course offerings designed explicitly for local students who will enter the Baton Rouge and wider Louisiana job markets. An advisory council investigated what knowledge and skills qualified students for the most common job opportunities in the area and sought feedback from local business and community leaders to develop useful instruction tracks for Istrouma students. The resulting core program, the Career Readiness and College Prep Program, gives students the knowledge and skills they’ll need to move on to college and be successful there, pursue a trade-linked training or certification program, or enter the workforce as a young person full prepared to meet the challenges of the modern workplace.
Istrouma High School encapsulates the best of what we can offer our young people: tradition to keep them grounded; community involvement to keep them engaged; and a clear focus on the future, to help them realize their dreams. This balance between past and future, between heritage and new opportunities, is one of the most valuable lessons Istrouma students will learn as a result of their time there. This dedication to the past and the future is one of the best examples a student can get—and it’s the mission of East Baton Rouge Public Schools.
