The annual homecoming of Carroll High School has become the largest community event in the city. Each year it grows larger exponentially. The fact that thousands of alumni gather annually for the event is a testament to the school and community pride it elicits.
The Carroll Homecoming has grown past an event or happening; it has become a phenomenon that outshines all other area high schools.
Without any disrespect to other high schools, one reason for the intense pride for Carroll High is that it is the only school that can trace its history back to the post-slavery reconstruction era.
It began when former slaves started their own school in a rickety building on 8th and Washington Street (The site of the former Excellence Academy). The former slave founders died, and it moved to a new building two blocks up the street and was renamed “Monroe Colored High” (Now the site of J.S. Clark School).
In 1953 it moved again to a new building on Renwick Street and became known as Carroll High School.
With a 151 year legacy, it has roots in nearly every African-American family in Monroe. Today, many students may attend Wossman, Neville, or Ouachita, but families with roots in Monroe have ancestors who have passed the stories and legends of heroes and villains, good times and hard times, and the immense pride generated by the school’s history of academic achievement despite difficulties, racism and lack of facilities.
This year’s homecoming was an eight-day phenomenon that included thousands who tailgated, attended programs, and enjoyed a perpetual New Orleans-styled festival every day. Each morning, alumni groups scanned the area, picked up all of the paper and trash, and left the area clean and ready for the next day. That was amazing school spirit. The week ended with a $20,000 show sponsored by the Class of 1991 at the Hub that featured national recording artists and local talent.
The school spirit and pride were phenomenal, and the school boosters and alumni groups deserve kudos for a job well done.
Other alumni are focusing on another part of the school legacy and seeking ways to restore the Bulldog Academic Pride of yesteryear. Thomas Morehead, a millionaire alumnus of Carroll, has begun a scholarship program that offers a “full ride” worth $130,000 or more to two graduates each year if they attend Grambling or Southern and score at least 22 on the ACT.
For three years, there have been no recipients because the average ACT score of Carroll students is 15. That underscores a major problem; Carroll is becoming academically anemic, but alumni can help.
Carroll needs help attracting more top-tier teachers, and more students need incentives to pursue higher education.
There is a major competition for teaching talent across the USA because fewer people pursue careers in education. While Carroll has an amazing staff, it struggles to attract and hold the best faculty each year.
Many students are choosing vocational career paths and are avoiding higher education instruction which accounts for the low ACT scores.
Alumni could help by giving principal Eric Davis a pool of funds he can tap to attract more super teachers to Carroll. A $100,000 academic fund will allow him to offer signing bonuses from the alumni to get the best math, science, ELA, and Social Studies teachers available.
A similar pool could offer incentives to students who score well on the ACT and to teachers who put in the extra time to teach them.
That’s just one idea, but there are scores of others.
With 68 active graduating classes under the banner of Carroll High School, this shouldn’t be a problem if each class, in addition to the thousands spent on the homecoming festivities, also raised $10,000 or more for the academic fund.
It will help return Carroll to the days when it boasted that 70 percent of its graduate were college-ready and its academics were second to none.
That would demonstrate even more Bulldog pride.
We congratulate the alumni for a job well done. It was phenomenal.
Hats off to the Bulldogs, “All mighty force in this great nation, all the world can see!”
