BATON ROUGE — At its Thursday evening meeting, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board took another step towards relocating Northdale Superintendent Academy to the former home of Belfair Montessori Magnet along Fairfields Avenue.

The school board approved putting the item up for a vote at its July 23 meeting. If the relocation is approved at the meeting in two weeks, the change will take effect for the upcoming school year.

Northdale currently operates in a facility that has not received substantial upgrades over the past several years, a memo from Superintendent LaMont Cole's office said.

"So Northdale is outgrowing the space first of all, and the building itself needs repairs and needs some updating," Current board president Shashonnie Steward said. "The Belfair location is a better location for the spacing, and the building itself is better than the current location where Northdale is."

According to the memo, "Belfair campus has recently [2022] benefited from approximately $3 million in renovations and improvements, including enhancements to safety, infrastructure, and instructional spaces. These upgrades have transformed the campus into a secure, modern, and student-centered environment that is well-suited to the needs of secondary learners."

The relocation would provide a "safe and more secure campus," as well as modernized classrooms and improved conditions for the academy's 112 students from several schools across the district.

"Belfair is one of the swing spaces. We don't have a lot of available space, and so that's one of the current swing spaces that we have, and so that was an available space that will fit," Steward said.

The academy is currently located at 10755 Cletus Drive.

The board says there are currently no plans for what will happen to the Northdale location.

One educator, Storm Matthews, spoke to the board, saying she believes the EBR Virtual Academy should have been allowed to move to Northdale.

"When they first brought up the realignment, there was a principal who was having to move, and that principal asked if they could go to Belfair and was told no, that Belfair was not fit for students or employees to be in," Matthews said.

Matthews questioned why Northdale would be allowed to go to Belfair when EBR Virtual was allegedly told no. WBRZ asked the board about Matthews' comment.

"I'm not really sure about that, so I can't really respond to that," Steward said.

Northdale Superintendent Academy is part of the latest consolidation effort by the East Baton Rouge School System.