By Monique Roth
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Librarian Jodie Mapes seemed cautiously optimistic Tuesday as she stood in what was once her spacious and colorful library at Lake Pontchartrain Elementary.

“Over there used to be my circulation desk,” Mapes said, pointing to the back of the dark room. “You can kind of see the mark on the floor where it was.”

Mapes’ visit to the school this week wasn’t her first, as she was part of a small group of LPE staff members who were allowed into the school immediately after floodwaters from 2012’s Hurricane Isaac’s receded.

All LPE staff and students are now located at a temporary site, situated at the rear of East St. John Elementary. The campus consists of 15 modular buildings containing more than 30 classrooms, offices and restrooms.

“At least we’re going to benefit and have everything brand new when it’s all over,” Mapes said.

For many LPE staff members and teachers, the past two weeks have offered the opportunity to enter the school for the first time since 2012. Staff members and teachers were allowed access to the building this week, as well as a few days last week, to gather any personal belongings left at the school, which has been shuttered for nearly two years.

Kelly Ratliff, LPE’s school nurse, went through her office Tuesday for the first time since the storm.

An employee of LPE for 13 years, Ratliff said the current school building is full of history for her, but she is anxiously looking forward to the new building. She filled the backseat of her SUV with boxes of small personal mementoes, photos and newspaper articles featuring her children.

On Monday it was announced by the St. John the Baptist Parish School District that the Federal Emergency Management Agency obligated the first round of funding negotiated under the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013, which is $25.2 million of the total $39.3 million to be received. The money is for the repair LPE and East St. John High School, the district’s schools flooded during Hurricane Isaac.

Work at LPE will include demolition of the old building and the construction of a new elevated elementary school at the site.

“The fund obligation announcement was much needed after a year of working together as one to get our schools reopened,” Superintendent Kevin George said. “Although this is good news, I will not rest nor will I be satisfied until our children are back where they belong.”

All South Consulting Engineers’ Cindy Janecke, the project manager for LPE’s new school build, said anything salvageable from the current school, such as doors and some desks, will be environmentally cleaned prior to demolition and used in the new building.

She said design development for the new campus should be complete by January, and that the new building is slated to open at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year.