It's not a bad place as long as you don't mind bad...

2006-08-02T08:49:18.190-07:00

It's not a bad place as long as you don't mind bad schools and needing to drive 40 miles to Shreveport or Bossier for a job and for most basic services. It wasn't my cup of tea because I got tired of driving the 40 miles every day, but some people enjoy living in a place where they can pretty much do what they want with nobody stopping them -- yes, Louisiana recently passed a building code, but Red River Parish doesn't enforce it, they have no code inspectors to do so (or pretty much any other government services, for that matter).

So every year, several houses burn down because of non-code wiring, non-code fireplace or wood-burning stove installs, etc., but (shrug)... that's how folks want it there. And they get it good and hard.

-BT

My sister in law moved there because her friends o...

2006-08-01T21:05:19.680-07:00

My sister in law moved there because her friends offered her a free place to stay.

We live in Michigan and her husband had a job at perrigo making 13 dollars an hour.

They moved because they like to freeload off people.

Tell me the truth guys is Coushatta a "bad" place cuz im thinking she is a idiot!

Also they are buying a house for like 25,000.

You cant even buy a tralior for that here!

Well, first of all, Louisiana is a "lenient home s...

2006-07-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

Well, first of all, Louisiana is a "lenient home schooling" state. All you have to do is file papers with the local school board saying that you're home schooling, and that's that. I know (knew?) the attendance officer at the Coushatta school board officer (the same guy who is the IT director, the discipline officer, the bus director, yada yada), and he would rail about it until he was red in the face... "Alma Mae isn't home schooling her children! Alma Mae can't even read herself! All those kids are doing is sitting around the house getting dumber!" But he was powerless under Louisiana law to do anything about it other than report to the one (1) social worker in the parish that he feared the children were being neglected.

That social worker had a case load of several hundred kids who were supposedly under her "supervision". Given the number of children whose lives were actually in danger, nothing ever got done about kids merely being neglected but whose lives were not in danger -- there just aren't enough foster homes in the entire state for all the kids who are not being raised right, those foster homes have to be reserved for children whose lives were in danger in their natural homes. She might make a home visit, but probably not. Too many kids, only one her.

Then there are the kids who just fail to show up from one year to the next. They're there in 8th grade, never show up at the high school for 9th grade. Those kids now get kicked out by the computer system as "missing kids", and the attendance director calls the elementary school and asks them to track down where the kid went. The school secretary usually knows where the kid went, in these small towns the school secretary has been around for decades and knows the dirt on everybody and everything -- "the kid is living with his uncle up in Shreveport," she'll report. But no records request has come in from the Caddo Parish School Board for the child's records. Hmm. "Exited to private school" or "Exited to out-of-state school" gets put into the computer. Note that kids get passed around from relative to relative all over the area, sometimes being in the Red River school, sometimes Bienville, sometimes Bossier or Caddo depending on what relative last moved up there... I remember a kid I taught in Coushatta, a couple of years later I was at a grocery store in Bossier and he comes up and says "Mr. Green! Remember me?" and no, I didn't, he was about 3 feet taller than the last I'd seen of him, but I did remember his brother Elvis who came up behind his "little" brother Joe (yes, *ELVIS*, some dippy woman named her kid ELVIS!) at which point I said "Oh! Joe! You're a bit bigger than the last time I saw you!". They were living in a trailer park in Bossier because their mom had lost her job in food prep at the Coushatta hospital and was now working as a waitress at the boat. That's how it works a lot of the time, Momma or Poppa gets a job at the boat, the family all moves to a by-the-week place or a trailer park. Momma or Poppa loses the job, they move back home to the run-down old trailer on family land (but it's paid for!). The kids get dragged around, and if they disappear between schools, nobody knows, because nobody has the money to hire a full-time attendance officer to track down where that kid went, and besides, nobody really *wants* to know because if they really knew, it'd be tagged against their dropout rate...

I'm not sure what the solution to the dropout problem is. Frankly, the 50% who drop out are the ones who never learned basic skills in the first place and probably don't belong in high school in the first place. Back in an earlier era they went to work in the factory or fields. Nowdays they work odd jobs and go crazy and burn children to death after getting mad at the child's momma. The only "American Dream" they have is that maybe one day they'll win the lottery... they otherwise have no skills, no hope, no job worth the name, no future.

And the 50% who do manage to stay on and graduate from high school aren't much

That was a sad description, but I fear you are cor...

2006-07-09T20:44:24.506-07:00

That was a sad description, but I fear you are correct in that it is the future. It is disheartening.

Forgive me, Mr Penguin, but I don't quite understa...

2006-07-08T07:34:22.106-07:00

Forgive me, Mr Penguin, but I don't quite understand how the official drop-out rate can be at 5% when 50% aren't completing their schooling.

Please explain.

I went through that area when I went to take a loo...

2006-07-07T05:33:39.126-07:00