By MELISSA PEACOCK

LAPLACE – Seventh-grade students leave their cramped classrooms, portable trailers on the lawn of LaPlace Elementary School, in a crude line.

They are an army of teens clad in white – armed with bookbags full of supplies and heads full of determination. The first seventh-grade class at LaPlace Elementary is comprised of more than just students.

They are school leaders. It is a role they take very seriously.

“Oh no, there are no problems (between the older and younger students),”seventh-grade student Samantha Huffman said emphatically. “Some students go out and help the teachers with younger students. Usually we go out and make sure they (younger students) get on the right bus and get home safely.”

There are nearly 70 seventh-grade students at the LaPlace school. It is almost three weeks into the new school year and no seventh-graders have been written up for discipline problems.

“We have asked them to be the true leaders, the role models of the school,” Principal Courtney Millet said. “They are well behaved. They keep their hands to themselves. They walk in a line to the bathrooms and to lunch.

“I’m really proud of this seventh grade.”

Seventh-grade students are distinguished at LaPlace Elementary School by location and uniforms. Seventh-grade courses are primarily held in mobile trailers, away from the elementary (K-6) classrooms and students. White shirts and blue bottoms set them apart from their elementary school counterparts clad in red.

Next year, seventh- and eighth-grade LES students will have their own emblem marking their uniforms.

The distinctions do more than just give older students an identity on campus. The variances in uniforms and location give administrators at the school a way of monitoring students, keeping variant age groups from coming into conflict, Millet said.

“If you see a white shirt you know it is a middle school student,” Millet explained. “You know by looking at the shirt if someone is not where they are suppose to be.”

St. John the Baptist Parish voters accepted a new school reconfiguration plan in July. The plan virtually eliminated public Middle/Junior High schools in parish, bringing seventh-grade classes back to elementary school campuses this year. Eventually, probably next year, eighth-grade students will also attend elementary schools.

Concerned parents cited potential conflict between elementary (K-6) and junior high (7-8) students and the loss of extracurricular activities as the biggest disadvantages of the new reconfiguration. So far, those problems have been minimal, school officials said.

“Something I learned over the summer is that it does not matter what kind of sports you play. It is about the kind of education you get,” LES student Chrystal Howell said.

Howell enjoys volleyball, basketball and soccer and said she wishes the sports were available at LaPlace Elementary. But given her choice, Howell said she would choose two more years at LES over the athletic opportunities afforded at a junior high school.

“I am so happy,” Howell said. “It would be hard to leave here. I have been here practically my whole life.”

Glade School officials are currently working with LaPlace Elementary to get seventh-grade athletes into sports programs at Glade.

School System Superintendent Michael Coburn said all the schools have had similar successes with the new reconfiguration.

“Only one parent called and raised a concern,” Coburn said. “I went immediately to the school. I talked to teachers, the principal, the assistant principal and was assured that there was no reason for alarm.”

Coburn said older students are kept as separate from younger students as possible. Students go by classes to the bathrooms and lunch, leaving little room for unsupervised interaction between different age groups. Soon, new facilities will be built on elementary campuses in the parish to house the new seventh- and eighth-grade classes.

“I met with principals yesterday,” Coburn said Thursday. “We sat down to look at some preliminary drawings for construction of the buildings.”

John L. Ory School could get a new six-room facility for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students next year. If administrators approve the facility and of moving sixth-grade classes, an old building on the campus will be demolished and used for parking. East St. John Elementary is asking for a 10-12 count classroom facility and LaPlace Elementary School an 8-12 room facility. If there is enough money left from the projects, Garyville Magnet will get a gym and East and West St. John could get recreational facilities.

“It all depends on the amount of money left,” Coburn said. “All we have to spend is $5 million.”

A $5 million bond issue accepted by voters in July will fund several construction projects.