Comeaux High Is Closing. Here’s What That Means for an Already-Overcrowded Southside.

LAFAYETTE, La. (KPEL News) — The Lafayette Parish School Board voted 5-2 Thursday night to close Ovey Comeaux High School, and now one number demands attention: 113%.

That’s how full Southside High School in Youngsville already is. It is one of only two schools in the entire Lafayette Parish School System currently above capacity, according to fall 2024 enrollment data from The Advocate. And under the plan the board just approved, roughly 208 additional students are headed there for the 2026-27 school year.

Get our free mobile app

Southside Was Already Overcrowded Before Thursday’s Vote

Southside opened in 2017 as a relief valve for an overcrowded parish, including Comeaux, which at that time was using portable buildings to handle overflow. About 900 students were rezoned to Southside when the school opened in August 2017. The move worked — for a while.

But Southside’s own enrollment has climbed steadily since then, and the school is now the largest high school in Lafayette Parish with nearly 1,900 students. The strategic planners LPSS hired last year told the board directly that an ideal school capacity sits between 80% and 85%. Southside is operating at 113%, well past that benchmark. The only other school above capacity in the parish is J. Wallace James Elementary, sitting at 102%.

Sending 208 more students to a campus already stretched thin is not a minor logistical footnote. It is the most immediate operational question the district now has to answer.

What the Superintendent Said, And What Remains Unanswered

Superintendent Francis Touchet addressed the capacity question during a Wednesday morning interview on NewsTalk 96.5 KPEL, the day before the vote. He said his team analyzed all three receiving schools and that he personally visited each campus.

“I didn’t leave it up to my team. I went myself, and I looked at this,” Touchet said. “I have seen it with my own eyes.”

He did not express concern about capacity at Southside or either of the other two receiving schools. He also did not provide specific data, updated capacity figures, or a projection for what Southside’s utilization rate would look like with the additional 208 students factored in. The board voted without that figure on the table.

The district’s own strategic planners set a clear standard. With the vote now taken, the question shifts from whether the board would act to how the district plans to manage a school that was already over capacity absorbing roughly 208 additional students.

Acadiana High and Lafayette High Also Absorb Students

Southside is the most pressing piece of the capacity puzzle, but it is not the only one. Comeaux’s remaining students will be split between Acadiana High and Lafayette High as well, with rezoning maps already drawn and attached to Thursday’s agenda.

Lafayette High is better positioned to absorb the influx than Southside. The school moved into a new $120-million campus for the 2025-26 school year, and the Performing Arts Academy removed from Comeaux in May 2025 already relocated there. That campus has more room to work with.

Acadiana High will receive the Navy JROTC Magnet Academy under the approved plan, along with a portion of Comeaux’s remaining student body. The specific headcount headed to Acadiana has not been made public at the same level of detail as the Southside figure.

The Broader Picture: A District Shrinking Everywhere But Youngsville

The case for closing Comeaux rested on real numbers. The school had been enrolling about 640 students in a building designed for roughly 1,700, running at less than half capacity. Over the past five years, enrollment dropped 42 percent, leaving it at roughly 38% capacity. LPSS is down roughly 850 students compared to last October, a decline that translates to approximately $10 million in lost state funding.

But the enrollment decline is not uniform across the parish. The Youngsville corridor, where Southside sits, has been one of the fastest-growing areas in all of Louisiana for more than a decade. The same population growth that made closing Comeaux look fiscally responsible on paper is the same force that has been filling Southside past its rated capacity.

The district is now managing two competing realities: a shrinking footprint in older parts of Lafayette and a population surge in the south. Routing 208 students toward an already-crowded campus is a tension the board resolved with Thursday’s vote but did not fully answer.

Get our free mobile app

What It Means for Families in the Southside Zone

For families currently zoned to Southside, Thursday’s vote is not an abstraction. It means more students competing for seats in AP and dual enrollment courses. It means more congestion in hallways, parking lots, and cafeterias. It means a student-to-teacher ratio that was already 21:1 is likely to climb.

LPSS has not released a post-redistricting capacity projection for Southside. That number needs to be public before rezoning begins in earnest — and Southside families have every reason to ask for it now.