[2] Education in early St. Landry Parish tended to be administered by a tutor in a private home or through religious institutions.

Indicative of the deep religious faith of the area's residents, the Catholic Church provided the majority of organized education in the parish.

Irion, petitioned the Opelousas Board of Police to conduct a tax election to help fund a public school in the parish.

The first graduating class of St. Landry High consisted of just one student, Miss Belle Dupre.

Tuition cost fifteen dollars, however, the school had up to 125 students enrolled at its peak before it would be shut down in 1860 by White vigilantes.

[6][7] After the American Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau established schools for Black students and during the Reconstruction era following the war, Opelousas was home to the Peabody Colored School, which was supported by Baltimore banker and philanthropist George Peabody.

Under the direction of committee members Rebecca B. Deshotels, Mrs. G.D. Davis and professor J. H. Augustus, a letter was written to the leaders of the Negro Rural School Fund and the Julius Rosenwald Fund requesting financial assistance in establishing a new Black high school.

The new school was constructed at 1100 East Leo Street in Opelousas and named after Joseph Samuel Clark, the first president of Southern University and a key contributor to the founding of the National Urban League.

[11] The Opelousas Tigers compete in District 5-4A of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association.