Oaklawn students miss the mark on LEAP retest

Demetria Maryland is optimistic as she enters her fifth year as principal of Oaklawn Junior High School.

What many would view as a negative mark for her school, she sees as an opportunity.

Oaklawn is the only Terrebonne Parish public school that has to offer its students “school choice”, an option to transfer to either Lacache or Montegut middle schools.

Overall, Oaklawn met the state’s 60 percent School Performance Score; however, it failed to meet the state’s Adequate Yearly Progress requirements.

A subgroup of students failed the English/language arts or mathematics section on the spring Louisiana Education Assessment Program test for the second straight year.

In 2007, it was African-American students who failed English/ language arts portion of the exam. This year’s subgroup breakdowns were supposed to be released on Friday but as of press time they were not available.

“We’re positive about this. It’s a good thing,” said Maryland. “It’s going to provide the necessary resources we need to really support our students and impact student achievement.”

She added, “I think my students’ attitudes have changed because they realize they’re being held accountable,” said Maryland. “Students who are repeating 8th grade, it has impacted them significantly. They realize this LEAP test is serious.”

Parents have until August 19 to decide whether to transfer their children from Oaklawn.

As of Monday, 17 students had transferred out of Oaklawn (11 to Montegut, six to Lacache) according to Carol Davis, Terrebonne Parish School District’s supervisor of federal programs.

Once it is known how many students have transferred, Maryland and her staff will convene to rewrite the school improvement plan to increase academic rigor in the curriculum.

Oaklawn will receive extra funding to help raise the test scores among the subgroups that failed the LEAP exam.

Maryland and her instructional staff will collaborate with TPSD supervisors to implement a Response to Intervention program.

The plan is to divide the approximately 550 students into three tiers and identify strategies to work closely with these students.

The goal is to have 80 percent of students learning at the general curriculum level this school year by intensive instruction with the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum.

“Every teacher will teach the LCC to the tee,” said Maryland. They’re going to follow it and analyze data. They’re going to make adjustment in instruction. I’m going to be in that classroom 85 to 100 percent of the time.”

Oaklawn is not the first Terrebonne School to offer a transfer option to its students. Ellender Memorial High School was in that same situation in 2006.

“That allowed the school to identify some things and commit more resources to the problems,” said Greg Harding, a Terrebonne Parish school board member. “Now Ellender is a better school today than it was back then. So it might not all be bad because in the long run, it can all work out.”

Despite Maryland’s confidence, the demographics of Oaklawn are a challenge for any administrator to deal with.

A Title I school comprised of seventh and eighth graders from the entire eastside of Houma, over 80 percent of students are on free/reduced lunch.

Oaklawn has the same problems just about all schools have, but it seems to be in higher concentration. Discipline, attendance, lack of parental involvement and teacher turnover is just some the major issues that have be overcome.

“A lot of our kids are at risk and they’re dealing with a lot of baggage. That baggage follows then into the classroom,” said Maryland. “Sometimes it’s hard to learn when you’re hungry or something is disruptive in the home the night before. You have to take all this into account because you can’t teach disturbed child.”

Numerous educational scholars say middle school students are difficult to teach. These students are at an age where they are reaching puberty and begin to develop physically, mentally and socially.

Educators believe that they can not deal with the pressure this population of students face alone. They need parents to be active participants in their child’s learning environment.

“There needs to be a two-way communication between parents and teachers,” said Maryland. “Most of the time we’re calling the parent, but the parent never calls us with a concern about academics. We need to become a team.”

The real issue according to one school board member is the lack teachers best able to deal with difficult to teach students.

“As long as that school has non certified teachers and as longer as the feeder schools (Legion Park Middle and Village East Elementary schools) have non-certified teachers, this will continue,” said Roosevelt Thomas.

He added, “The problem right now is a high turnover rate of teachers. Is the administration offering teachers incentive to stay there? No. So I want to see what the administration is doing to work on it.”

Maryland counters that her staff is fully capable of handling the academic challenge. It’s the other factors in teaching at risks students that need addressing.

“It’s not fair in the message it sends about this school,” she contends. “It places that negative stigma that we’re not doing our job. We’re doing the best we can. That’s what’s not fair. We work hard. I have to applaud the teachers who have stuck it out with me since I’ve been here because it has not been easy. These kids have so many issues that they come to school with.”

Maryland has no doubts in the abilities of her students or teachers to conquer any obstacle placed in the way of meeting the state’s accountability requirements.

“We’re going to work with these kids and show that these kids are just as capable as anybody else in the district,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of work on our part, but we can do it because we have the right attitude. When you have the right attitude, you can do all things.

Oaklawn Junior High principal Demetria Maryland (left) reviews a chart with math instructional coach Andria Robertson. Only 31 percent of seventh graders passed the math section of iLEAP this spring. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF