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Up to 20% of students fail in transition to college Support groups step up to counsel high school graduates at a make-or-break time
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EBR judicial elections unlike previous years New subdistricts created along with at-large seat
BY QUINN COFFMAN Staff writer
The fall races for district judgeships in East Baton Rouge Parish will be unusual, with many sitting judges aging off their benches, new subdistricts created and the first seat to be elected by the entire parish in more than 30 years. Even the ballot for the Nov. 3 election will look different, with up to eight H H H H H H judicial seats being decided rather than five from previous years. This year’s election changes are due to a new law, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, and passed by the Legislature last year. The law drew new subdistricts for the 19th Judicial District, resetting which portions of the parish vote in each judge’s race. The previous map, drawn more than 30 years ago as part of a legal settlement meant to protect Black voting rights, had three subdistricts, each of which selected five of the court’s 15 judges.
ELECTION
STAFF PHOTOS By ENAN CHEDIAK
Intern Skyi’ Lewis, a student at Colorado College and a graduate from George Washington Carver High School, contacts recent high school graduates to prevent ‘summer melt’ at Dillard University in New Orleans on Thursday. BY MARIE FAZIO
Rhonda Dale, center, helps Jalana Farlough and Olivia Morales contact recent high school graduates on Thursday.
Staff writer
Skyi’ Lewis dialed the number of a high school graduate headed to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette this fall and rattled through a list of questions. “You got your confirmed housing? A schedule? Can you send me a screenshot? Do you know the location of your courses and what time they start? How are you getting to Lafayette?” A recent alum of G.W. Carver High School in New Orleans ä Group and a rising sophomore at Colorado College, Lewis is helps familiar with the checkstudents list of things that need fight to be completed before a ‘summer student ever sets foot on campus. She’s also seen melt.’ what happens when those PAGE 12A logistics fall through the cracks. Up to 20% of students who are accepted into college and fully intend to enroll never make it to campus, according to national studies. In Louisiana, that could mean hundreds of students across the state. The phenomenon is called “summer melt,” and it is often driven by financial aid confusion or hang-ups in other logistical steps in the enrollment process.
Nonprofit support groups, high schools and colleges across the state have stepped up their efforts to ensure students who commit to a college make it there and eventually graduate. Collegiate Academies, which operates Carver and three other New Orleans high schools, is one of them. The organization has tapped Lewis and three other college students — all Collegiate alums — to help recent high school graduates make the transition to higher learning. “You have to complete a whole bunch of steps before actually moving on campus,” Lewis said on a recent afternoon between phone calls. “I’m just
here to support them do everything step by step.” The summer months after graduation can be a make-or-break time for high school graduates hoping to begin college in the fall. Students need to secure housing, register for classes, attend orientation and often navigate the ins and outs of financial aid, among other logistical tasks. Those tasks can be much more difficult for first-generation students navigating the process, said Mia Gonzales Washington, director of the NOLA College and Career
ä See TRANSITION, page 7A
ä See ELECTIONS, page 7A
Federal agents in New Orleans unraveling monkey torture ring Covington woman arrested in global probe
BY JAMES FINN Staff writer
Federal agents knocked on a door in Covington last summer, searching for a woman wanted for an unusual crime. Ariel Kornienko had been hiding a second life from her children and ailing mother. To hundreds of closely vetted visitors in secretive chat rooms, she was the “Baronness” — a leader in a dark underworld whose members draw delight from videos of live apes being burned, flayed and sexually tortured. In an interview with a U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent that morning and in documents filed later in federal court, Kornienko laid out new revelations into the “monkey hate community” she had come to inhabit.
ä See RING, page 8A
WEATHER HIGH 95 LOW 78 PAGE 8B
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