CPSB News Feed

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is proud to announce the 2024-2025 District of the Year Winners. These individuals are phenomenal representatives of our CPSB family. 

Below are the middle and high school students from Calcasieu Parish that have earned spots in the Louisiana Music Educators Association Region V Honor Jazz Band. The honor band concerts recently took place at W.W. Lewis Middle School. 

Below are the middle and high school students from Calcasieu Parish that earned spots in the Louisiana Music Educators Association Region V Honor Band. Students recently participated in honor band concerts at McNeese State University.

The students listed below were selected by audition to participate in the 2025 District V Middle School Honor Chorus program. These students recently participated in a regional program at McNeese State University.

Registration for the 2025-2026 school year at the CITGO Innovation Academy at E. K. Key Elementary School will begin Thursday, February 3. All registration will be conducted online through March 10. Any Calcasieu Parish student entering grades K-5 and zoned to the following high schools may register to be tested for admission: Sulphur, Vinton, Starks, Dequincy, and Westlake. 

As the spring semester is now underway across the district, Calcasieu Parish School Board high school students will soon begin planning their class schedules for the 2025-2026 school year. Numerous opportunities are available to students, including through the district’s Virtual Instruction Program.

For the first time, students enrolled in VIP for the 2025-2026 school year will be able to obtain an Associate of General Studies degree through SOWELA Technical Community College.

The Louisiana Music Educators Association (LMEA) is excited to announce the 2025 All-State Music Ensembles. 

The All-State Music Ensembles represent the pinnacle of achievement for Louisiana’s middle and high school musicians. These students, selected through a rigorous audition process, will perform under the direction of esteemed conductors. Congratulations to these students!

We want to address the recent string of incidents involving potentially threatening behavior directed towards several of our campuses and how they are handled internally. These incidents are serious matters, and it is important for us to keep the community informed.  

The district is proud to announce our students who were named to the 2024 Louisiana American Choral Directors Association All State Choir. Students participated in early November in New Orleans. 

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is proud to announce another year of growth following today’s School Performance Score release from the Louisiana Department of Education. The district’s current score, 87.5 (B), is an increase of 1.4 points over last school year. This growth mirrors the district’s achievements every year since the natural disasters of 2020.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona today recognized 356 schools as the 2024 cohort of National Blue Ribbon Schools. T.S. Cooley Elementary Magnet School is amongst the winners for the third time in school history.

The Advanced Studies Department proudly congratulates the 168 students who have achieved AP Scholar status for 2024. 
These students will be recognized in the spring at the Annual Advanced Studies Awards Night.

Nine CPSB teachers participated in Advanced Placement Reading this summer. This is a week-long event where high school teachers and college professors from across the country gather to score AP free response questions. This event takes place in various cities across the country and teachers are invited to be readers. Teachers may be invited to attend face-to-face or virtually. Below is a list of CPSB educators who were given this amazing opportunity.

For the third consecutive year, the number of K-12 students enrolled with the Calcasieu Parish School Board is on the rise. An increase in students in the district continues to mark positive trends following the natural disasters of the 2020-2021 school year. 

“Seeing students continuing to return to our classrooms in Calcasieu is certainly exciting,” says Superintendent Dr. Jason VanMetre. “There is something so special about calling Southwest Louisiana home, and we are proud to continue to provide excellent educational opportunities to students here. We are encouraged by what these numbers reflect, and we hope to see enrollment continue to rise as we move into the future.” 

This early count reflects that 27,159 K-12 students currently attend CPSB schools, showcasing an increase over enrollment of the last three years and an increase over enrollment numbers from the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Click on the title above for details.

With today’s Louisiana Department of Education release of LEAP results for the 2023-2024 school year, the Calcasieu Parish School Board is proud to announce continued growth in the district in overall student performance. With a one-point growth over last year, CPSB students in third through eighth grade continue to outscore the state in the number of students performing at or above grade level. 

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is excited to announce the appointment of Dr. Jason VanMetre as the new Superintendent of Schools. Dr. VanMetre enters the position with a wealth of educational experience as well as district level leadership experience, as he currently serves as the district’s Chief Academic Officer. 

CPSB was well represented at the recent Louisiana VEX State Championships. 

We are proud to announce the 2024 CPSB members of the District V High School Honor Jazz Band, District V Middle School Honor Jazz Band, District V High School Honor Band, and the District V Middle School Honor Band.

We are proud to announce the 2024 CPSB members of the District V Honor Choir.

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is proud to announce the addition of a Graduate Record Examinations (GRE®) and PRAXIS® testing site in the district. The site, located in CPSB’s Curriculum and Instruction Building at 600 S. Shattuck St. in Lake Charles, is now an approved ETS Certified Test Administrator Services (CTAS).  

The LHSAA All-Academic Award Program recognizes the academic excellence of senior student-athletes who have attained a 3.5 grade point average or higher by placing them on the Composite All-Academic Team or Class All-Academic Team.

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is the recipient of a $500,000 school security improvement grant from the Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

The following students were selected for the 2024 District V Middle School Honor Choir. They will be working toward a performance on Friday, February 2nd at 6:30 pm in Tritico Theatre at McNeese State University.

Following the recent release of Advanced Placement results from the Louisiana Department of Education, the Calcasieu Parish School Board is proud to announce increases across the board in results for local students completing tests in the 2022-2023 school year.  

With today’s School Performance Score release from the Louisiana Department of Education, the Calcasieu Parish School Board is proud to announce another year of district growth and significant improvement in schools across the district. The district’s overall score improved to an 86.1 (B), up 3.3 points from last year’s results and nearly ten points above the state’s performance. Out of all CPSB schools, 45 of those grew over performance from the 21-22 school year, and 48 of those schools are now labeled an A, B, or C campus. 

As we find ourselves amid another successful academic year, we want to take this opportunity to remind you of our priority to ensure the safety and well-being of our students, and to maintain open lines of communication with you as our valued parents and guardians.

The district is proud to announce our students who have been named to the Louisiana Music Educators Association All State Band and All State Choir and American Choral Directors Association Choir.

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is experiencing an enrollment increase for the 2023-2024 school year, marking the second consecutive year the number of K-12 students in the district is on the rise. Following the natural disasters of the 2020-2021 school year, seeing students return to the district is a promising sign for Southwest Louisiana. 

During the period of January 9 to 20, 2023 CPSB students in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 in our district are taking part in an important survey on substance abuse, school dropout, delinquency, and violence. The survey is called the Louisiana Caring Communities Youth Survey. 

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is the newest recipient of the Louisiana Department of Education’s Models of Excellence award for the district’s Virtual Instruction Program initiative. The Virtual Instruction Program is in its first year of existence and is already significantly impacting high school education in the district.

Registration for the 2023-2024 school year at the CITGO Innovation Academy at E. K. Key Elementary School will begin Wednesday, February 1. All registration will take place online through March 10. Any Calcasieu Parish student zoned to high schools in Sulphur, Vinton, Starks, Dequincy, and Westlake who are entering grades kindergarten through fifth grade may register to be tested for admission.

Registration for the 2023-2024 school term at T.S. Cooley Elementary Magnet School will happen from February 6-28. Applications are being accepted online. Any student residing in Calcasieu Parish entering grades kindergarten through fifth grade may register to be tested for admission to the magnet school program.

Julia Jiang achieved the perfect score in December in only her second attempt at the standardized test used for college admission.

The Calcasieu Parish School Board is pleased to announce that six schools in the district will be officially recognized as State of Louisiana Certified World Language Immersion Schools next month by the Louisiana Department of Education.

At the recent 85th annual conference for the International Technology and Engineering Educator Association (ITEEA), the CITGO Innovation Academy at E. K. Key Elementary was recognized as one of only 37 programs worldwide to earn the prestigious Program Excellence Award in 2023.

In continued efforts to ensure the safety of students, faculty, and staff, members of the Calcasieu Parish School Board voted to approve a contract between the district and Stratigos Dynamics, Inc. for security services within CPSB elementary schools.

With the LEAP 2025 score release from the Louisiana Department of Education today, the Calcasieu Parish School Board is being recognized as one of the top ten districts in score growth for the 2022-2023 school year. The district showed growth of three points over the previous year.

Today the Louisiana Department of Education released individual school and system performance data for the 2021-2022 school year. The overall Calcasieu district performance score of 82.8 demonstrates growth of a full point over the last official LDOE scores from 2019 and again categorizes the district as a ‘B’ for 21-22. The score, 5.7 points above the state average, also shows a growth of 1.4 over Calcasieu’s simulated results for 2020-2021.