In 1989, the brand new $6 million Glade School in LaPlace opened to much anticipation, as it was St. John the Baptist Parish public school system's first school to house kindergarten through eighth grade. The sprawling campus, at 22 acres, had more than over 1,300 students, the largest enrollment in the parish.
"It was like something out of 'Star Trek' when it first opened. It didn't look like a school. It looked more like an airport," said Steven Finckbeiner, Jr., who was among the first students to attend. "I still remember walking into that library and wishing the 'real' library on Airline looked like this. Of course, the new library clearly echoes the Glade design aesthetic.
"The Glade was a good idea and was briefly a beautiful building," said Finckbeiner, now a research scientist living in Memphis, Tenn.
Indeed, the school was plagued with construction-related problems from the beginning: climate control system issues, ceiling leaks, mildew from moisture buildups, falling tiles. There were many complaints.
In an effort to shake off the bad image, the School Board renamed it Lake Pontchartrain Elementary in 2005. The school got a color scheme makeover and new mascot.
Now, 26 years after opening, the massive school is being razed, a casualty of Hurricane Isaac's floodwaters in 2012. In its place, a smaller - albeit more expensive -- school will rise.
Read more about Lake Pontchartrain Elementary's demolition.
"I'm glad it's being done, wished it had been done a year ago," said School Board member Gerald Keller, who was the St. John schools superintendent when the Glade first opened. "I know parents have endured hardships, having to put their kids on buses and having to transport them five and six miles to school."
After the school flooded in 2012, its almost 600 students were dispersed to six different campuses. Last year, they were reassembled on a temporary campus at East St. John Elementary School in LaPlace.
"I'm happy with the way things are going on. We decided on building a much smaller school. The Glade was too big," said Keller, who said he inherited the project when he became superintendent in 1988. "It was a good school. We paid a lot of money for it."
The initial budget for building the Glade in 1987 was $5.6 million. It rose to $7.2 million. It was the first "tech-ready" school that St. John built, Keller said.
However, Keller said the school's size and grade configuration, which were meant to solve the issue of students having to switch schools after elementary grades, created administrative problems.
"It created monsters in that it was too big for one principal," Keller said. "Because of the grade structures, it was very difficult for one principal, so we went to the concept of two, with one on each side of the building."
