EBR schools superintendent says criticism of ‘Day of Hope’ has been unfair

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BATON ROUGE – The head of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system on Thursday said criticism about the “Day of Hope” field trip has not been fair since there is a lack of evidence of anything controversial.

“What we’ve been trying to do is find facts,” Sito Narcisse, the school system’s superintendent, told WBRZ Thursday.

The field trip — which was billed as a college and career fair — was held at a church and had heavy religious overtones with discussions about abstinence and rape, some participants have complained.

Narcisse said the school system has held similar events for years without complaints.

This year, some parents and students complained that the day turned into a religious event and featured talks on abstinence, rape and suicide.

“We haven’t seen evidence of that,” Narcisse said.

Narcisse’s first public comments came minutes before the school board was set to vote on a resolution asking for an investigation into complaints about the day.

Narcisse said the school system was already conducting its own investigation. School board members said they wanted to show their support for any investigation the school system is undertaking.

“We’ve been getting different, mixed feedback,” Narcisse said of this year’s event. “We’ve been hearing a lot of different hearsay about stuff, and so we are doing an internal review about that.”

The Day of Hope was put on in part by the 29:11 Academy, a nonprofit. Narcisse signed a $9,800 agreement with the group. That amount was $200 shy of the $10,000 figure which would have required school board approval.

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