Pugh Family Foundation to donate $1.9 million for new program at Boucher Elementary
Photo caption: Lafayette Parish School System Superintendent Francis Touchet, left, chats with Nick Pugh III, co-founder and chair of the Pugh Family Foundation, Thursday, January 30, 2025, at Baranco Elementary in Lafayette, La. Photo by Leslie Westbrook.
By Ashley White
A Lafayette nonprofit is donating $1.9 million to the school district to fund an educational program at Alice Boucher Elementary that has shown early success at two other parish elementary schools.
The Pugh Family Foundation, which is focused on bringing quality education to students in Lafayette, is making the donation to fund the Accelerating Campus Excellence program at Boucher for the next three academic years.
The Lafayette Parish School Board will need to accept the donation at its meeting on Thursday.
The program, which focuses on whole-child development, is the first of its kind in Louisiana. It focuses on five pillars: highly effective principals and teachers, instructional excellence, extended school day, mental health and social resilience, and parent and community partnerships.
The model, developed in Texas, also uses financial incentives for staff and costs more to run because of the extended school day.
The Pugh Family Foundation made a $4.1 million donation to LPSS last year to bring the program to J. W. Faulk and Dr. Raphael Baranco elementary schools at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.
Baranco, Faulk, and Boucher have performed far below average on state standardized testing when compared to other elementary schools in the district. In the past two years, the schools have shown little or no growth in the percentage of students who are performing at mastery or above in math or English-language arts.
But early data released earlier this month from Baranco and Faulk shows that students are growing academically in both math and reading, according to beginning- and middle-of-the-year testing. And teachers said the social-emotional learning has helped students build relationships with teachers, staff, and each other.