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ADVOCATE BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
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M o n d ay, S e p t e M b e r 1, 2025
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GEO charter moves onto BRCC campus School expanding students’ access to college courses
BY CHARLES LUSSIER | Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Woman’s Perinatal Mental Health Unit patient Brittany Lane, left, and clinical director of the unit Bianca Glueck hug before parting ways at Woman’s Hospital on Aug. 13.
‘It’s OK to talk about it’ Patients with maternal mental health struggles find hope
BY ANDREA GALLO | Staff writer Brittany Lane keeps a yellow birdhouse in her kitchen, the word “hope” painted on one side of its roof and “love” painted on the other. It’s a reminder of how far she’s come since June, when Lane, 31, wanted to end her own life. After having her fifth baby, emotions she’d tried to suppress for years spiraled out of control. She never fully mourned her father and her uncle, who both died in 2022 while she was pregnant and then taking care of a newborn. Her fourth and fifth children arrived back-to-back, leaving her little time to adjust to a much bigger family. All at once, the grief and the demands of motherhood overwhelmed her. Instead of taking her doctor’s advice to seek inpatient treatment, Lane assumed she would improve with time. She said she didn’t have anyone to watch her kids. But her mental health got worse, and after calling her doctor’s office, she was routed to a hotline for women in crisis. A nurse on the other end of the line was working at the inpatient perinatal mental health unit at Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge. I need help, Lane told her.
A Baton Rouge high school is expanding its long-running partnership with Baton Rouge Community College by taking over several classrooms at BRCC’s Acadian Thruway campus and exposing teenagers to the career and trade courses at its center. It is the latest step by GEO Next Generation High School, where students take not just collegelevel classes, but classes on college campuses taught by college instructors and professors. Since it opened in fall 2019, GEO Next Generation has bused its students from its main campus, 2355 N. Sherwood Forest Drive — formerly the site of St. Louis the King Catholic School — to BRCC classes. In fall 2022, the school moved some of its operations to BRCC’s main campus on Florida Boulevard. This fall, it relocated again, this time to BRCC Acadian, 3250 N. Acadian Thruway E. That facility now serves as the upper school, home to juniors and seniors, while GEO Next Generation’s Sherwood campus is where ninth and 10th graders take classes. “Half of our students are here today,” said Kevin Teasley, founder and CEO of the Indiana-based GEO charter school network. “And they’re here every day, for their entire school year.” Teasley spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday to commemorate GEO’s new satellite campus. The high school’s marching band greeted visitors to the campus and then gave a short concert.
ä See CHARTER, page 4A
Brittany Lane, a patient of Woman’s Perinatal Mental Health Unit, sits at her home with her children Ke’Shawn, from left, Zy’Reihn, Zy’Liah, Mhe’Shaun, Rae’Shawn, Shaun and Jasmine. I can’t do it. I feel lost. An ambulance came to pick her up in Baker. Then they admitted her to the mental health wing for pregnant and postpartum patients at Woman’s, which opened last September. “I knew deep down that I needed the help,” Lane said. “And at that point, it was like, get it now or there
might not be a next time.” Lane is among an often overlooked demographic: women facing severe mental health struggles during pregnancy or soon after giving birth. An estimated 1 in 7 women suffer from mood disorders during or after pregnancy, which can include postpartum
ä See HOPE, page 5A
High-stakes hunt underway for endangered sea turtles
able turtle species are nesting on the Researchers fight time on disappearing Chandeleur Islands. Every week during the turtle’s sumdisappearing La. islands mer nesting season, state officials in-
BY JOSIE ABUGOV | Staff writer A small seaplane flies circles around a skinny strip of land more than 20 miles off the Louisiana coast as two of its passengers scan the sand below for promising tracks. Keri Lejeune and Todd Baker shout out when they spot them. Lejeune, the state’s herpetologist, and Baker, a project manager with the state’s coastal authority, are on the hunt for “crawls,” evidence that endangered and vulner-
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STAFF PHOTO By CHARLES LUSSIER
Katie Grimes, a college and career counselor, showcases some of her students at GEO Next Generation High School during a ceremony on Thursday at GEO’s new satellite campus located at Baton Rouge Community College’s Acadian location.
volved in the project to restore the iconic barrier islands fly out on the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ seaplane for a survey of the area. The scientists document any evidence of new crawls and, if weather permits, wade out onto the islands for a close-up look. This year, they’ve found the most crawls they’ve seen since the turtle surveys started in 2022. In the earlier hours of Aug. 22 alone, they spotted one new path and three others they had already identified.
ä See SEA TURTLES, page 4A
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Natalie Gerald, an undergraduate student worker at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, speaks to Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority project managers Jessica Diez and Todd Baker during a turtle survey on the Chandeleur Islands on Aug. 22. STAFF PHOTO By JOSIE ABUGOV
101ST yEAR, NO. 63