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LSU getting selective
University tightens admissions standards in effort to improve academic reputation and deal with concerns about campus capacity
EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH
Eight schools have new principals 11 assistants also changing locations BY CHARLES LUSSIER Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON
This year’s class at LSU will likely be a few hundred students smaller than last year, which totaled 8,153 first-time freshman and was the largest class in school history, according to an LSU official. BY HALEY MILLER Staff writer
Across her college career, LSU senior Rachel Kashimawo has spent hours circling campus in her RAV4, searching for a parking spot even though she always buys a permit. The parking space was only the first obstacle in navigating the campus of a jampacked flagship university that has seen record-breaking freshman class sizes for the years Kashimawo has attended. In lecture halls, especially early in her time on campus, Kashimawo said she watched while some students stood for
“It’s just a lot of people, and even though we’re a big campus per se, we don’t have that much space for that many people.”
Concerns about campus capacity and a push to become a more selective institution overall have led LSU to ease off the gas in enrollment for the first time in nearly a decade. “If we’re committed to excellence RACHEL KASHIMAWO, LSU senior both in the classroom and in the student experience, then part of that calculus does have to involve maybe not growclass because all 200 seats were filled. ing beyond what the campus capacity “There’s a lot of people in every aspect, is,” Emmett Brown, vice president for not even just classes — game days, trying enrollment management, said. to get tickets, parking,” Kashimawo said. Though Brown said the data is not final“It’s just a lot of people, and even though ized yet, this year’s class will likely be a we’re a big campus per se, we don’t have ä See LSU, page 5A that much space for that many people.”
A veteran principal best known for leading Liberty High has returned to East Baton Rouge Parish to take over management of Woodlawn High, the second-largest high school in the district. And the person he replaced at Woodlawn has transferred across the parish to fill the vacant job at Northeast High in Pride. When the new school year starts Thursday, eight public schools in East Baton Rouge Parish will have different principals than they had a year ago. Four of those new leaders were selected this summer and four during the 2025-26 school year. Overall, it’s less turnover at the top than in years past for the oftenchanging East Baton Rouge Parish school system, the second largest traditional school district in Louisiana. Thanks to a round of school closures in 2025, there are fewer schools than in the past. A recently released list showed 67 school principals in the district. That’s not counting 12 independent charter schools sponsored by the school system. The eight school principals who’ve changed schools in the past year are joined by 11 assistant principals who’ve changed schools during that time frame as well as several more transferring deans of students. East Baton Rouge released the latest school leadership list after The Advocate questioned the absence of recent administrative changes in the Personnel Changes reports submitted monthly to the
ä See PRINCIPALS, page 5A
Race to replace district attorney begins in Livingston Two on ballot so far for 21st Judicial District office
years, it will not include Scott Perrilloux’s name. The longtime district attorney is stepping down, opening the race to succeed him as top prosecutor H H H across Livingston, St. BY GIGI LIMAN Helena and Tangipahoa Staff writer parishes. The deadline In one week, the field of can- to qualify for the Nodidates for district attorney in vember election is next Friday. Louisiana’s 21st Judicial District Whoever replaces Perrilloux will will be set. For the first time in 30 hold one of the most powerful of-
WEATHER HIGH 94 LOW 78 PAGE 6A
fices in the region, deciding, for some 280,000 people across the three parishes, who gets charged with a crime, who is offered a plea and who is sent to prison. They will H H H also lead more than two dozen attorneys and set the strategy for trials. Two candidates have stepped forward so far, and while both are Republicans, they otherwise present divergent options for
ELECTION
voters. Longtime Assistant District Attorney Brad Cascio is running on his experience in the District Attorney’s Office, and former state Cascio Rep. Sherman Mack is running on being the outside-the-box candidate. Mack is “the candidate for change,” he said.
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Mack
After achieving nearly all his professional and political goals, he is running for district attorney to try to give back to the community he grew up in, he
said. Mack has spent his career
ä See RACE, page 5A
102ND yEAR, NO. 32