Eight years to the day after being devastated by devastating floods, the renovated, remodeled and expanded Baker High School reopened its doors to students.
About 400 students arrived by car or bus Monday morning to attend classes for the first time at 3200 Groom Road, the address where Baker High has operated for decades. The graduating class of 2025 had just started fourth grade when the flood came.
Beginning on August 12, 2016, East Baton Rouge, Ascension and Livingston parishes were hit by a once-in-500-year storm that dumped 20 to 30 inches of rain into the Amite and Comite river basins.
Twenty-seven schools in the Baton Rouge area were so badly damaged that they remained closed long after other schools reopened. Twenty-one schools have since reopened, while five others have either merged or closed. Baker High is the last flood-damaged school to reopen.
Tre’Kendalyn Dunn, a senior, spent her first three years of high school elsewhere, but trained as a cheerleader at 3200 Groom Room Road and saw much of the construction as it took place.
Her older brother took the opposite path, she says. He spent his first three years on campus, only to hastily transfer in August 2016. He had to spend his senior year two miles east at the district’s middle school campus.
Kenedi McGee, an English teacher at the high school, had similar memories. McGee, who graduated from Baker High in 2012, was a senior and 11th grader when the flood hit. They had to move quickly to the old Baker Middle campus.
“I just left this place and now I have to come back,” McGee remembers her sister saying.
The plan was for the high school students to stay temporarily at 5903 Groom Road, initially for months, then for a year or two. No one expected eight years of exile.
In 2018, McGee was named a faculty member at Baker High. Six years later, he is finally teaching on the campus of her alma mater. She said she is excited that her students will now have a true high school experience with more space and more opportunities.
“The kids can experience new things in the hallways. They’re brightly colored. The vibe is good,” McGee said. “I’m excited about everything.”
She said she hopes the new school will be a blessing for Baker.
“I just want the community to come together with the kids,” she said, “and for the pride to come back.”
Several students said they would not miss the old middle school with its narrow hallways and missing windows.
“It’s terrible,” said Amauri Ward, a junior.
“(You feel) trapped,” agreed Madison Spears, a senior.
Rebuilding the flooded campus was slow and arduous, with many interruptions and rising costs.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Candance Russell, principal of Baker High School.
Russell was hired as a math teacher at Baker in 2006. She later served as assistant principal for nine years and is now in her fourth year as principal.
“I think we lost a lot of kids because of the (middle school) building,” Russell noted. “It just didn’t feel like a high school.”
Originally built decades ago to house 1,500 students, Baker High now has a capacity of 650. Currently, 400 students are enrolled, about 150 fewer than its peak enrollment in 2017.
Construction on Baker High did not begin until late 2022 and took nearly two years. The $23.4 million project, led by Baton Rouge-based Stuart & Company General Contractors, included a mix of renovations, new construction and demolition, all aimed at modernizing the campus.
Superintendent JT Stroder took over the Baker school system in the spring of 2023, shortly after construction began, and completing the project was one of his core responsibilities as head of the small suburban Baton Rouge school district.
Superintendent Stroder, a trained educator who has led small districts in several states, said high schools are typically a center of civic life.
“It’s huge, especially in small communities,” Stroder said. “On Friday nights, this place is the hub of almost the entire community. The school almost represents what a church represents. It’s the place where a community comes together for a common purpose.”
Stroder put his stamp on the project and made a number of changes to the design. One of the most important changes was the creation of a single point of entry as a security measure.
This entrance is in the new part of the campus. On Monday morning, students at Baker High School had to surrender their cell phones – a rule that was implemented here a year ago before the new state law – and walk through two metal detectors before entering their new hallways. Their school bags, which could only be clear or made of mesh, were also checked.
Once they made it through, the students were greeted by a familiar sight: “Buffy” the buffalo, a large statue and the school’s mascot.
“Buffy is 51 years old,” Russell said. “I said we should be careful with Buffy. We don’t want Buffy to break her hip. It might not heal properly.”
After passing Buffy, the students entered the new observation courtyard, a centerpiece of the modernized campus with a stately old tree at its center.
On the walls surrounding the courtyard, students could read large printed lists to find out which class they needed to attend first. Students in the courtyard also have a nice view of the football stadium.
Some students then walked across the courtyard to the stylish new cafeteria, which has a large window front that offers views of both the courtyard and the stadium.
Principal Russell said she wants to put benches in the courtyard for students to rest on during recess, and she also wants to find a place to place memorial stones that Baker High School graduates can purchase.
Celebrations for the opening of the new school have just begun. The school plans to hold a pep rally at the football stadium on Friday at 6 p.m., and the official opening of the new school is scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m. The first home game is scheduled for September 21 against Jefferson RISE Charter School.
The high school stadium survived the 2016 floods unscathed and was used by teams last year. But it is old. Stroder said the Baker High redevelopment budget did not include money for stadium renovations.
“If you know anyone who has a million dollars or something to spare, send them to me,” Stroder joked.
