BATON ROUGE - What exactly happens to a school when it's permanently shut down? For Eden Park Elementary and Glen Oaks Middle School, they sit there, with no plan by East Baton Rouge Schools in place.

According to an EBR School Board member, since Eden Park Elementary was closed in 2021 and Glen Oaks Middle School closed the year prior in 2020, there has been no plan followed and no plan in place for demolition, which costs between $500,000 and $1 million. 

When Carla Powell-Lewis, EBR School Board president, was asked if there is a plan for when a school closes down, the answer was "no." Powell-Lewis was a teacher in 2021 when Eden Park was closed down and is newly-elected to the EBR School Board. Yet, as it stands, there is no adequate plan for when a school closes — which leaves shutdown schools like Eden Park and Glen Oaks abandoned, neglected and vulnerable to unwanted visitors.

"I was unaware that the building was unsecured," Powell-Lewis said. "I know for myself, I have placed that at the top of my radar. We’re in the process of creating task forces which allow us to meet (for) temporary yet urgent situations."

When WBRZ visited Eden Park Elementary last week, the three-year-old neglected school was a home to wildlife: raccoons and a nest of hornets atop an abandoned and eroding stairwell. Powell-Lewis said she watched WBRZ's story and saw the current state of Eden Park.

"To see the last clip in regards to Eden Park, the idea of seeing the raccoons living in the building, that was so far beyond me," Powell-Lewis said.

One resident, a former Eden Park Elementary and Glen Oaks Middle School graduate, said she would be moving out of her current residence because of the utter abandonment of Eden Park and the immense safety problems it brought. She said she felt unsafe by the amount of people going into and out of the school building, the very building she used to run around in as a kid.

"With that situation, that hurt my heart to hear her say that," Powell-Lewis said. "It hurt my heart that we have given a bad look in regard to Eden Park Elementary and any other school that appears to be quote unquote neglected or abandoned."

When asked if EBR Schools is a bad neighbor, as one resident believed the school system to be, Powell-Lewis was hopeful that EBR Schools could meet the standard.

"I would love for EBR to become a better neighbor. We should be a safe haven and not a place where people feel afraid to live near our buildings," Powell-Lewis said.

EBR Schools boarded up a few doors at Eden Park Elementary last week to prevent more unwanted visitors from coming and going. While there is no set-in-stone plan that is being followed, Powell-Lewis said community stakeholder meetings are taking place to decide what to do with school building properties like Eden Park and Glen Oaks. The ultimate goal, according to Powell-Lewis, is to repurpose those buildings, potentially for educational purposes.

"At this point, what we need to do is be urgent and be, move pretty rapidly with the ideas of having (a) task force that help to meet these needs, specifically with talking about the blight of our district and how we can either repurpose our buildings or get these green spaces started, possibly to be used for another purpose," Powell-Lewis said.