Comeaux High's Second Act: A Career Center Big Enough for the Waitlist

LAFAYETTE, La. — The former Comeaux High School campus is on track for a second life. Lafayette Parish School System leaders are asking the school board to redirect $14 million toward converting the closed campus into a new vocational career center — one big enough to more than double the district's capacity for hands-on career training.

The school board voted in June to close Comeaux High and repurpose the campus. Now the district wants the board to green-light the construction that would move the parish's career center onto the site, with a vote on the funding expected Thursday, Oct. 8.

A School That Emptied Out

The numbers tell the story of why Comeaux closed. In its final year of operation, the school enrolled about 400 students in a campus built for 2,100 — a lot of empty hallway for a building to carry.

A Program That Can't Keep Up

The district's career and technical programs have the opposite problem. The current career center can only accommodate up to 500 students, and hundreds of students sit on a waiting list — proof of demand the facility simply can't hold.

The Match

Moving the career center to the former Comeaux campus would allow more than 1,000 students to enroll, Superintendent Francis Touchet told Acadiana News First — capacity that also helps the district compete with charter and private schools.

Charter schools have already contacted me in order to get seats, Touchet said. I've said to them that our kids get first dibs. But we are open for anyone to actually benefit, because this is about benefiting the entire parish.

What Happens Next

The $14 million request would cover about three months of construction that Touchet calls crucial to meeting the district's deadline. The overall project is expected to cost about $40 million. A construction start date hasn't been set, but district officials project the new career center will open in time for the 2028-29 school year.

It's something that the board has tasked me and the team [to open] by the '28-'29 school year, the superintendent said. These three months of construction that I am asking funding for is going to be crucial for us to be able to meet that deadline.

A school built for 2,100 that finished with 400 is a hard ending. But a campus that goes from half-empty hallways to a waitlist finally cleared — that's the kind of second act Acadiana does best.