The New Orleans Police Department has already moved its training academy into the vacant Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. High School building in the Lower 9th Ward, and now city officials and NOLA Public Schools are negotiating a lease that could turn the entire campus into a permanent shared training facility for police, fire and EMS. The move comes roughly a year after the high school closed, leaving the neighborhood without a public high school for the first time since the building reopened following Hurricane Katrina.
From Rebuilt Katrina Landmark to Empty Campus
The school, originally known as Alfred Lawless Senior High School, was badly damaged during Hurricane Katrina and rebuilt for $39 million as part of a FEMA-funded school reconstruction plan, reopening in 2016, according to NOLA.com. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. High School, dedicated on November 2, 2016, in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, occupied the rebuilt facility until it closed in 2025 and was vacated, per the same report. The Orleans Parish School Board had voted in December 2024 to shutter the school due to low test scores and declining enrollment, a decision that left the Lower Ninth Ward without a public high school, as reported by The Lens. That closure came after the $39.4 million rebuilt Lawless facility had housed the charter school for less than a decade.
NOPD's training academy relocated to the former Lawless campus in July, according to NOLA.com's reporting, after the department's previous academy building at 4650 Paris Avenue became unworkable. That 24,000-square-foot facility opened in 2009 and underwent a $5.4 million renovation in 2017, but it was plagued by persistent air-conditioning failures, the outlet notes. Biz New Orleans had earlier detailed how the city completed a $3 million renovation of that same Paris Avenue academy building alongside a $2.4 million Third District station in September 2017, touting both as state-of-the-art, hurricane-resilient facilities before the recurring problems set in, according to Biz New Orleans.
A Shared Campus for Multiple Agencies
City officials and NOLA Public Schools are now negotiating a new lease for the former school, and the Orleans Parish School Board will vote on an agreement at a later meeting, per NOLA.com. The New Orleans Fire Department and EMS would also use the former school as a training site, along with other public safety agencies, the outlet reports. Repurposing plans for the vacated Paris Avenue academy building remain under review, according to NOPD public information officer Aaron Looney.
Don LeDuff, NOLA Public Schools chief operations officer, said the proposal would activate a vacant facility and reduce the risks and costs associated with long-term vacancy. The arrangement fits within a broader legal framework: under Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 41, the Orleans Parish School Board holds authority to lease or sell unused school sites directly to other public bodies and municipal agencies without a traditional commercial auction, according to Justia Law.
A District Drowning in Empty Seats
The Lawless situation is not an isolated case. NOLA Public Schools data from March showed roughly 7,100 empty seats across the system, prompting projections that five to six K-8 schools and two to three high schools will need to close or consolidate to hit the district's 92% facility fill rate benchmark, according to WWNO. A March analysis from K-12 Dive, based on research from New Schools for New Orleans, projected districtwide enrollment will drop by 8.6%, or roughly 4,250 students, by the 2029-2030 school year, driven by a record-low city birthrate in 2024 and an 11% decline in the under-18 population since 2015. Orleans Parish public school enrollment fell from 49,071 students in 2019-20 to 44,808 in 2025-26, per that same analysis.
Other Ninth Ward and New Orleans East high schools have faced similar reckonings. In November, the school board approved closing Sarah T. Reed High School at the end of the current school year after enrollment dropped to 295 students, about half its target capacity, with the school merging into Livingston Collegiate Academy on Dwyer Road, according to WWNO's reporting. NOLA Public Schools has been trying to get ahead of the surplus problem since 2023, when it launched a formal Request for Ideas process inviting community groups, nonprofits and developers to propose reuses for vacant Orleans Parish School Board properties.
Community Voices Weigh In
Rev. Willie Calhoun, a 9th Ward community advocate, supported using the Lawless building as a training facility, according to NOLA.com. He said an unoccupied building could be broken into and graffitied, and he hoped the community would still be able to access the auditorium, gym and classrooms for an arts and culture program. The U.S. Army and the New Orleans Fire Department did not respond to requests for comment on the proposed use of the building, the outlet reported.
The stakes of coordinated training were on display Monday, when the NOPD SWAT team and U.S. Army Special Forces conducted a joint training exercise at the former Edna Karr High School campus in the old Aurora area, running through September 26. The exercise, which could bring low-flying helicopters and loud bangs to the area, was intended to practice coordination among agencies, with NOLA Public Schools security staff shadowing the agencies throughout. LeDuff said the exercise was an opportunity to get multiple agencies together, noting that New Orleans hosts many large-scale events requiring that kind of coordination.
NOPD's staffing pressures underscore why facility planning matters to the department. The agency operated with roughly 900 sworn officers in early 2026, down from historical levels above 1,200, even as it serves an effective daily population of nearly 400,000 residents and visitors, according to JoinNOPD. In the Lower Ninth Ward itself, NOPD's Fifth District covers the neighborhood and Bywater from its station on North Claiborne Avenue, serving 28,631 residents across 8.7 square miles, as Hoodline previously reported.
