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S at u r d ay, J u ly 25, 2026
LAFAYETTE PARISH SCHOOLS
$3.1M grant to expand successful program
$2.00X
National firm could help with illegal tire dumping Liberty Tire purchases Acadiana-based Colt Inc.
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL Staff writer
STAFF FILE PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Third grade teacher Taylor Wallace works with students in her math class at Baranco Elementary in 2024. The Accelerated Campus Excellence partnership was implemented at Baranco and J.W. Faulk elementary schools in 2024, and school officials say students have shown significant improvement.
Money from Pugh Foundation targets high-need schools BY CLAIRE TAYLOR
Staff writer
The Pugh Family Foundation on Thursday contributed $3.1 million to the Lafayette Parish school system to extend the Accelerated Campus Excellence, or ACE, partnership to improve learning in high-need schools. The grant, matched with about $1 million from LPSS for a total of more than $4 million, allows for the expansion of the successful ACE school turnaround program to middle school students in Lafayette Parish. With the extension, ACE will con-
tinue through the 2028-29 school year at Alice Boucher Elementary School and the new Paul Breaux preK-8 campus, where students from Dr. Raphael Baranco and J.W. Faulk elementary schools will be able to continue learning under the ACE model through eighth grade. The donation brings to $9.1 million the direct financial support of ACE by the Pugh foundation in the Lafayette school system. The ACE model was implemented during the 2024-25 school year at Baranco and Faulk. The program, which focuses on whole-child development, is the first of its kind in Louisiana.
Third through fifth graders at those schools showed significant improvement since then, according to the school system. At Baranco, an additional 7% of students reached mastery level or higher on LEAP tests. The program expanded to Alice Boucher last school year, where students in their first year under the ACE model posted 2% growth, double the district average. At Faulk, students showed not only academic growth but also behavioral improvements, according to a report from Steady State Impact.
ä See GRANT, page 5A
Can a national company’s entry into Louisiana’s market help the state address its long-standing problem with illegal tire dumping? Liberty Tire Recycling’s purchase of Acadianabased Colt Inc. makes the Pittsburgh company one of just five with Louisiana permits to process used tires in the state. Only three of those permitted companies are currently operating, according to regulatory filings and industry officials. The purchase gives Liberty Tire access to state revenues from a state Department of Environmental Quality program that subsidizes tire recycling projects. But it is entering a marketplace where a handful of processors operated for years with limited methods of disposing of waste tires in a way that both earned state reimbursements and was profitable. In recent years, some new entrants promising alternative recycling plans have struggled to gain state permits and break into the market over the established competitors’ objections, even as other, existing processors have gone out of business. Those business failures have, at times, had catastrophic results. In January 2022, the abandoned tire storage facility of shuttered processor Cottonport Monofill caught fire, forced the evacua-
ä See TIRE, page 5A
FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
Illegal tire dumps across the state have remained a big enough problem that former dEQ Secretary Aurelia Giacometto created a new grant program to help local governments and issued a report calling for new ways to reuse processed tires.
U.S. fires on merchant vessel
Fields sees no path for reelection to Congress
BY JULIA FRANKEL, STELLA MARTANY and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN
BY ALYSE PFEIL
Fields said he did not condemocrat eyed other sider a bid in the two New districts before Orleans-area congressional represented by Demdeciding to seek districts ocratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter Republican House Majorstate Senate seat and ity Leader Steve Scalise, but he
Iran targets American strongholds in region
Staff writer
Associated Press
IRBIL, Iraq — The U.S. military said Friday that it fired on another merchant vessel that was trying to breach its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran targeted American strongholds around CO ONFLICT the Persian Gulf. The U.S. and Iran IN THE T MIIDDLE showed no sign of backing away from their conflict EAST AST after a 13th straight night of strikes. With fighting flaring again and diplomacy uncertain, both sides made moves suggesting an escalation was possible. U.S. embassies in the Middle East began alerting Americans
ä See VESSEL, page 5A
WEATHER HIGH 93 LOW 76 PAGE 6A
STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON
U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields announces his decision Friday not to run for reelection but rather to seek a seat in the Louisiana Senate.
Before deciding that he would not run for Congress again, U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields looked at running in four different districts — but, after Republican state lawmakers redrew Louisiana’s congressional map this spring, he said he realized he couldn’t win. “When I run for office, I don’t run just to run; I run to win,” Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said at a news conference Friday. “I was in deep conversations with members of Congress in Washington, and there was a lot of push. But at the end of the day, I didn’t see the winning path.”
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evaluated the other four. “I had to run in one of the four or not run at all, and that was a tough decision,” he said. Now, Fields says he is returning to his roots and wants to continue in public service “closer to home.” He announced last week that he’ll run to finish the term of the late state Sen. Larry Selders, a Democrat from Baton Rouge who unexpectedly died earlier this month from a heart condition. “The moment has called me to do this,” Fields said. “We’re gonna do our best to fill those shoes of Larry Selders.” A special primary election for
ä See FIELDS, page 5A
102Nd yEAR, NO. 25