Livingston mother confused with parish lines, no idea where her children will go to school
WALKER – Down a long gravel road, the same bus has transported Livingston Parish students to Livingston Parish schools. After 60 years, the bus won’t just service them any longer, it won’t service them at all.
On Leggett Road, a row of houses are secluded by both St. Helena Parish and Livingston Parish trees. The occupants of those houses have, for decades, had Livingston Parish addresses, paid permits for Livingston Parish and have been registered to vote in Livingston Parish. The kicker? They pay property taxes in St. Helena Parish.
Summer Dougia, a mother to six and a Livingston Parish resident, has three kids that currently attend Live Oak elementary and middle schools, both part of Livingston Parish Public Schools. She is trying to register her two twins, Amelia and Cameron, for kindergarten at North Corbin Elementary — the elementary school the rest of her children, and herself, have attended at some point.
But she can’t register them.
“They are no longer wanting my kids to go to North Corbin,” Dougia said. “They’re saying this is a St. Helena school district, and it’s not. Livingston Parish has always picked up on this road.”
Dougia said when she went to register her twins the past few weeks for the 2024-25 school year, the Livingston Parish Public School website allowed her to register her twins for kindergarten at North Corbin Elementary, with the very Livingston Parish address she provided. She said she later got a call from the North Corbin principal, telling her that her twins were not allowed to attend Livingston Parish schools.
Around the time of the pandemic, Dougia’s family moved to another home in Livingston Parish. There, her three children attended Livingston Parish schools, which they had attended prior when they lived on Leggett Road. The family is now moving back to Leggett Road to build on their 10-acre land.
“For a couple of years, we’ve always told my daughter, ‘We’re going back to North Corbin because we’ve purchased the land,'” Dougia said. “The thought of moving them to a whole different school district, it would be completely new all over again for them. That would be hard.”
Dougia’s father-in-law, Herbert, also lives on Leggett Road. He held his youngest granddaughter on Monday, standing on his dual Livingston Parish-St. Helena Parish property, also perplexed by parish lines.
All he wants to know is why his grandchildren cannot attend the very schools he and his children attended years ago.
“The property that we’re standing on is actually St. Helena property, it is landlocked by Livingston Parish,” Herbert said. “I would like Livingston Parish to just… St. Helena, turn us over to Livingston Parish completely. We don’t have a problem paying taxes to Livingston Parish if that’s what they are requiring.”
His daughter-in-law shares the same belief. She said she’s been asked multiple times where she pays her property taxes to, which is St. Helena, but she counters with where her children have always gone to school and how Livingston Parish has always serviced that same gravel road all these years.
“If St. Helena wants to pick up my kids, my elementary children would be getting on the bus at six in the morning when there’s a Livingston Parish school that’s always picked them up… seven minutes down the road,” Dougia said.
Livingston Parish Public Schools said they made the switch during the 2023-24 school year when they were first made aware of the issue. But Dougia refuses to let her children be bussed 50 minutes to St. Helena, and she won’t stand for it.
“I voted for you to sit in that chair,” Dougia said as a message to Livingston Parish Public Schools, frustrated and confused. “I voted for you because my voter registration is in Livingston Parish. I didn’t vote for St. Helena… With me voting for you, I would rather my children go to your schools.”