Statewide voucher program expanding to add more students
Last Modified: Friday, August 17, 2012 6:46 PM
By Ashley Withers / American Press
The statewide voucher program will be expanding to add more students with a second round of the placement lottery.
According to the Louisiana Department of Education, all offers from the second lottery will be decided by Sept. 5 — about three weeks after the start of the participating schools in Southwest Louisiana.
The voucher schools in Southwest Louisiana started classes Wednesday, bringing nine new students to Our Lady’s Catholic School in Sulphur and 12 to Holy Family Catholic School in Moss Bluff.
All of the voucher students attending Our Lady’s School are from Sulphur, and all those attending Holy Family are from Lake Charles. No students from surrounding areas or parishes accepted the vouchers for those schools.
Parents and students applied for the program and then entered a lottery for the small number of available seats at the two schools.
Scholarship offers were made to 5,600 students statewide, but more than 10,000 students originally applied.
“There is going to be a second lottery to see how many of the remaining students can be matched,” said Barry Landry, the LDOE spokesman.
Our Lady’s has one more slot available in the second lottery and Holy Family has asked for nine more students.
“The second lottery will work the same way as the first; it just doesn’t include the 5,600 students who have already received offers,” Landry said. “It’s a way to see if we can accommodate more students.”
Landry said the finals numbers of students participating in the voucher program from both the first and second lottery will be available Sept. 10.
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