A long line of cars filled with children clad in navy blue and burgundy backed up Thursday morning onto Progress Road. It was the start of the 2025-26 school year for schools in Baton Rouge and throughout most of the region.

“They like to bring them to school on the first day,” said Progress Elementary Principal Shanelle Fernandez. “We'll get everybody home on the bus this afternoon.”

It’s a longer carpool line than normal for another reason: Progress Elementary is bigger.

The modern campus, rebuilt in 2013, is the same size but its enrollment has grown substantially thanks to the closure last year of two other nearby elementary schools. They are among nine Baton Rouge public schools that were closed as part of a “realignment” plan approved in late April by the East Baton Rouge Parish S

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