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January 13, 2015
The motto of the Terrebonne Parish School District is, “Every student, every day.”
It’s four simple words by which all of the more than 30 schools within the district live.
However, Principal Sharon Henry and her employees at Gibson Elementary School have taken that motto just a little bit further.
Whether it means a cafeteria worker mentoring a child, a custodian discussing behavior with a child or a teacher and even the principal herself staying late after school to tutor a child, Gibson’s laborers have shown time again that it’s a labor of love.
And all of their hard work – dripping down to the students following their lead – although rewarding physiologically has now officially been rewarded on paper as Gibson Elementary has been recognized by the National Title I Association for closing its achievement gap between students in 2014.
Gibson Elementary is one of two schools in the state to be recognized by the National Title I Association and less than 100 nationally. Two schools from every state may be recognized – one in a category for exceptional student performance for two or more consecutive years and the other in the category Gibson won, closing the achievement gap between students. Because not every state participates every year, National Title I Association Communications Director Monica Kemper said she expects about 66 schools to be recognized nationwide for their work in 2014.
“To enable disadvantaged children and youth to meet or exceed high academic standards is the goal of the National Title I Association,” Kemper said. “[The award] means that they’re doing something right and helping their schools achieve higher standards. Whatever they’re doing at their school, they’re doing something that’s allowing them to be better than they were previously.”
That something is much more than one thing. It includes a feeling of togetherness that extends past the school and even into the community.
“Everybody’s engaged. Everybody’s all in. Everybody’s working on the academic tasks with kids, custodians all the way up,” Henry said. “It’s the collaborative nature of what we do here that we work together to teach children. Teachers work together. We work in unison with cafeteria, custodial, paraprofessional staff, we even get some of our bus drivers together in helping mentor kids.”
Whether it’s a teacher tutoring a child, a school bus driver offering to buy uniforms for a child or Henry holding a balloon release ceremony for a child struggling to pay attention at school due to the death of a pet, Gibson Elementary’s staff goes the extra mile time and time again.
“I think that when parents drop their kids off at our doorway, they are trusting us to do what’s best for their children, and I don’t take that trust very lightly. I take it very seriously,” Henry said.
Inside of the classroom, Gibson features a fully certified teaching staff – uncommon for Terrebonne Parish – and Henry said she honors her teachers’ professional skills and doesn’t micromanage what they do in the classroom.
“I give them some freedoms to do the things they need to do to make kids grow, and I think partly that’s why we’ve been so successful,” Henry said.
Gibson, a pre-Kindergarten to sixth to sixth grade school in which 89 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged, qualified for the award by closing its gap in test scores by 10 percent in both the economically disadvantaged category and the special education category, respectively.
“They made remarkable progress. They closed the achievement gap in a very powerful fashion. Kids were doing a lot of good things on student achievement tests and having outstanding results,” said Terrebonne Parish Superintendent of Schools Philip Martin. “The school has every reason to be proud, and it’s not an insignificant recognition that everybody gets.”
In a separate metric released a few weeks ago, Gibson Elementary improved its school performance score by 20.1 percentage points, the highest improvement in the parish and one of the highest in the state.
The school had previously been listed as a D school, however in just her first year as principal, Henry oversaw the school’s improvement to a C school.
“We’re thrilled with the award. We’re happy that we’re no longer a D school, but we really think our students and out community deserves an A school, so that’s our ultimate goal,” Henry said. “We grew 20 points last year. If we grow 20 points this year, we’ll be very close to an A. We’ll be a very high B. that’s our goal, so we have that posted in our cafeteria so kids can see it every single day.”
Martin said Gibson Elementary was one of the schools the district targeted for improvement, and the recognitions speak for themselves.
“When we saw the results, we were like, ‘This is ridiculous.’ The principal and the teachers there deserve 100 percent of the credit, and the kids and parents that supported them,” Martin said. “The bottom line, it’s a lot of hard work by teachers at the school. There’s no mystery. There’s no magic dust. It’s hard work and commitment and deduction.”
Gibson Elementary School Principal Sharon Henry (right) helps first grader Emma Haury take a math test.
