St. John the Baptist Parish School Board members, from left in light blue shirts, Rodney Nicholas, Patrick Sanders, Russ Wise, Shawn Wallace, Gerald Keller, Keith Jones, Phillip Johnson, Russell Jack, Superintendent Kevin George and Lake Pontchartrain Elementary School Principal Jason Beber are surrounded by Lake Pontchartrain Elementary School staff and students as they throw out the first shovel of dirt during the ground-breaking ceremony Thursday for Lake Pontchartrain Elementary School. The new 95,450-square-feet school will accommodate 800 students in prekindergarten through eighth grades. It is being built on the site of the former school, which was flooded during Hurricane Isaac. The new school will be elevated with sill to be a foot above base flood elevation, which will put it four feet above the existing site and nine feet above sea level.