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The Baton Rouge Center for the Visual and Performing Arts (BRCVPA) is an A-rated, arts-focused Baton Rouge magnet school – and the parents of attending students are getting angry.

In January, a new principal was appointed to the magnet school – Myra Jordan. The issues that concerned parents are having, stem from the fact that BRCVPA is an A-rated school, and Jordan comes from an F-rated school (Howell Park Elementary). But the appointment of Jordan as the new principal, was not the only issue that parents had. Last year, a proposal was up in the air, that proposed cutting the school’s visual arts teacher position – but it is a visual arts school. Jordan’s appointment only added fuel to the fire.

Now, parents feel as if they are not being heard, even more that they are being silenced. The latest battle the parents are fighting, is for control of the school’s parent-teacher organization.

According to The Advocate, “Each year, the PTO holds end-of-the-school-year elections for three of its four officers. Unlike past elections, this year’s will be competitive, with three parents seeking to unseat the current PTO leadership, which has expressed public support for the new principal. For weeks, though, it wasn’t clear if elections would occur at all. On April 14, without explanation, Jordan canceled “until further notice” all scheduled meetings with parents for the rest of the school year. That included the May PTO meeting where officer elections had been scheduled.”

If you are moving to Baton Rouge and aim for your student to attend this A-rated school, Baton Rouge movers suggest joining the motion to get parents’ voices heard!

The East Baton Rouge Parish Libraries rake in $40.7 million in taxes each year, while New Orleans only brings in $9.5 million. What is even odder, is that both areas have the same number of libraries – 14. In order to understand why this has happened, we take to the numbers to explain it for us.

Current property taxes in Baton Rouge (of which goes to libraries) is $134.75 per household (roughly). In New Orleans, homeowners currently pay less than $65 a year in taxes towards their public libraries. As a result, New Orleans libraries were going through some major cutbacks in terms of operating hours and services offered. Meanwhile, the thriving Baton Rouge library system was adding new libraries and renovating older ones.

In order to assuage the issue in New Orleans, earlier this month, a property tax hike was proposed and passed for libraries in New Orleans, after supporting voters voted in favor. The tax hike will raise New Orleans residents with $200,000 homes that take homestead exemption taxes to $71.71 a year for library taxes. The expected generated revenue for New Orleans’ libraries will now increase from $9.5 million to $17.75 million. Despite the good news that this brings, there are many officials on the Metro Council who are angry at the Library Board for this push.

If you are planning on moving to New Orleans, Baton Rouge movers want you to be aware of our library taxes and that of New Orleans. If you are moving to New Orleans in the near future, you can choose to vote or dispute the added taxes.

Folks in Louisiana love them some Jazz music! Last weekend’s Jazz Fest topped last year’s crowd numbers and, well…made history with this year’s crowd reaching around 460,000! Kicking off May with a huge bang, the 2015 Jazz Fest featured 60 food tents, and music to likes of Elton John, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. However, the large turnout was not to anyone but ticket sales’ benefit; according to locals who attended.

Resident Jane Finney Haas explained as she was making her way to get food and then head back to the Blues Tent to see Aaron Neville perform, “I got caught in this literal gridlock, no one was moving. No one could see. For 45 minutes everyone was in this tidal wave.” She said she left to go get an amazing bowl of quail gumbo – one of the perks to Jazz Fest in New Orleans – at 3:15 p.m. and Aaron Neville’s was set to perform at 4:20 p.m. – she never made it to the food or Neville.

The mass gridlock quickly caught the attention and concern for many of the attendees; complaining that not only could they not see anything, they also couldn’t move. Concert security officials say that this is common for a venue that sells far beyond their capacity, there should be a cap on ticket availability.

According to many social media accounts, Jazz Fest was “Music Heaven”; however, more and more attendants Tweeted that it was a nightmare.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” said Haas, a New Orleanian who has been going to Jazz Fest nearly every year since 1974. “I was scared even though I’m used to crowds.”

If you are moving to Louisiana and love jazz, hopefully the 2016 Jazz Fest will be one that you can make it to and enjoy the music and quail gumbo. Despite the capacity issue, Baton Rouge movers urge new residents to check it out, you will love it and you will get to taste some of Louisiana’s finest cuisine!

Earlier this month, the Gonzales City Council gave the green light to a rezoning request that would transform a former cattle ranch on La. 44 into a mixed-use community.

If you are moving to Baton Rouge this year, and are considering relocating to Gonzales, you may want to look into the new zone once it is completed.

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission urged the city council to approve the project request submitted by Southern Lifestyle Development. The rezoning would include 106 acres for a neighborhood complete with residences and retail shops. There will be an additional 204 acres of residencies, with lots of 6,000 square feet.

“This is a wonderful development. I’m proud to see it be a part of the city of Gonzales,” Councilman Kenny Matassa said of the plans for the new community.

The new community cost Prescott Bailey, area president for Southern Lifestyle Development, $8 million; purchased from the heirs of Merritt P. Evans who used to own the land.

If you are checking out real estate in the area, the community will be called Conway Plantation, but there is no released start and completion date as of yet.

Are you moving to Baton Rouge and have children? Does your child love science and school? Even if they don’t, moving to Baton Rouge might help your child’s enthusiasm for education.
This week, 18 students from the Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge, set up displays of their STEM projects for Senate and House chambers to see. The projects reflected upon the students’ enthusiasm for math, science, technology, and engineering.

Teacher at Kenilworth Middle School, Kate Williams, explained how the opportunity for students to be able to showcase their projects to government officials, will help them learn more about the government and its proceedings. The children can show officials what they are learning, and the officials can show students what they are doing about local projects.

The same group of students recently presented their projects at the Louisiana STEM Expo back in February. The Louisiana STEM Expo is an annual event where middle school students from public, private, charter, and even home-schooled, can share their science, math, and engineering projects. The 2015 expo’s theme was “Homegrown STEM in Louisiana”.

If you are moving to Baton Rouge with children who are of middle school age, be sure to check out the Louisiana STEM Expo website to get some ideas for 2016!

Pen Pals animal shelter is a non-profit animal shelter located at Dixon Correction Institute in Jackson, and it is run by “an animal-loving prison official and staffed by some exceptional inmates.”

Spurred by curiosity, People magazine decided to take a visit this month, to see what all of the fuss was about.

Pen Pals animal shelter was created to house homeless animals after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, when the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) needed to find a home for hundreds of animals; it also gives inmates something to care for and love. Inmates from Dixon Correctional Institute get to care and train the animals in the shelter seven days a week.

“It’s probably the best thing that could have happened to me,” Wylie Vanscoter, 22, a lifelong animal lover and former drug addict convicted of armed robbery at 17 told People. “I kinda have found what I was supposed to do in life here.”

Another inmate told People that the animals are much like frightened prisoners when they arrive, in an environment that they are not used to, and they care for them and strive to give them a better life.

According to People, HSUS officials were so pleased with the work and care that the inmates at Dixon Correctional provided, that they granted $600,000 to the prison, in order to build a permanent facility back in 2010.

Pen Pals is the only animal shelter in all of East Feliciana parish, and it includes: a medical clinic, and outdoor course, and has an incredible record of successfully placing cats and dogs in homes over the past four years.

If you are moving to Louisiana, Baton Rouge movers urge families to check out the one-of-a-kind facility and adopt a new pet for your new home, helping assuage the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Movie director Antoine Fuqua is said to be remaking his classic Western “The Magnificent Seven” in Baton Rouge this summer.

This week, rumors were buzzing around town that the director had plans with Sony-MGM for an extended shoot in the capital city of Louisiana, but there was no confirmation – until the project showed up on the state’s list of film and TV projects.

So far, the cast includes Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio and Luke Grimes. The storyline is one of a town that, following the Civil War, hires a bounty hunter and his crew of gunmen to protect the town from a mining baron out for control.

If you are moving to Baton Rouge before May, you can expect to catch some of the action in the capital city for the next two months! Production is set to commence on May 18^th and last roughly 64 days.

Director Antoine Fuqua will be producing via a script written by Nic Pizzolatto, “True Detective” author and Louisiana native. However, a suggested rewrite was done by John Lee Hancock, but it has not been released whether or not it will be the new script version for production.

If you are moving to Lafayette and you have children who will be entering into middle school, you may want to apply for the federal GEAR UP grant. The grant will provide middle school students with experiences that will prepare them academically and socially for college.

A $13.8 million grant was awarded to the Lafayette Parish School System and if your child receives the GEAR UP grant, the services will follow them through middle school and high school, to the first year of college.

Middle and high school students will have access to in-school and special summer learning programs, including campus visits to participating colleges; such as: UL-Lafayette and South Louisiana Community College. The grant became effective during late 2014 and 2,100 sixth and seventh graders will receive the GEAR UP grant for spring.

Middle schools that have been targeted for students to receive the grant are: Acadian, Carencro, Judice, Lafayette, Paul Breauz, and Scott Middle School.

The GEAR UP program was established in 1998, in hopes that less fortunate children would be able to have the opportunity to go to college, many of whom come from families where no one has been able to go to college. According to Alex Chough, vice president of government relations for the National Council for Community and Education Partnership, GEAR UP’s mission has now shifted away from making college more accessible, and towards preparing students academically and socially, so that they can make the necessary grades throughout middle school and high school in order to make it into college and be successful there as well.

According to GEAR UP’s statistics, 75.3 percent of participants enroll in college.

Maynard Holt, co-president and head of exploration and production investment banking at Tudor, Pickering Holt & Co. says that crude oil will bounce back to $80 a barrel in 2016, elaborating that , “We got thrown into this price by a small oversupply, about a million and a half barrels (a day). A million and a half sounds like a lot, but the daily market is 90 million.”

Holt was also a part of a panel discussion at Louisiana State University’s E.J. Ourso College of Business, which discussed the possibility of introducing a new undergraduate minor in energy and energy specialization in the Flores Masters of Business Administration program. The new minor will be introduced at LSU if the school’s Energy Initiative is approved.

The optimism for Louisiana’s energy industry, comes from the balance that the market will undergo more quickly this time around, than previous price drops and crude oil barrel oversupplies. The last oversupply and slump occurred in 1986, but the economy did not recover as quickly as it is expected to this time around.

Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Key Energy Services, Richard Alario, says that the quicker the activity falls off, the quicker the recovery will be.

Alario also explained to LSU students, that this is the time to jump on board with energy companies who have downsized. Getting on board and making yourself “shine” by taking on as many tasks as possible, will put you in a better position when the company starts to soar again.

If you are moving to Baton Rouge to attend LSU and have a passion for the energy industry, keep an ear out for when the undergraduate minor in energy program becomes available.

Unfortunately, consumer electronics store RadioShack is ending their struggle and claiming bankruptcy. In their claim, RadioShack will be selling roughly 2,000 of their stores nationwide. There has been talk that Sprint will be buying some of those locations as well, as part of an effort for RadioShack to be able to salvage a small part of the business. Some also question whether the electronics store has not been able to live up to new electronic retailers, or sometimes cheaper electronic sales that can be found on eBay, Amazon, or even Gorupon.

Baton Rouge movers want new residents to be aware of the closings, in case you frequent them often, and have supplied a list of the local stores that will be part of the closings:

1) Drusilla Shopping Center

2) 7770 Bluebonnet Blvd.

3) Oneal Plaza

4) 19970 Highland Rd.

5) 3120 Government

6) Siegen Village Shopping Center

Two Baton Rouge RadioShacks that have survived the cut are: Zachary and Plaquemine.

For Louisiana residents that do not live in Baton Rouge, there are a total of 38 Louisiana RadioShack locations that will be closing, so check out the interactive map that can be found on the Wall Street Journal’s website.