Parents pleased with charter school education

Rigorous.

That’s the word frequently used by educators and parents of children attending Bayou Community Academy when talking about the college-preparatory-focused curriculum administered at the Lafourche Parish charter school.

“My children are being challenged,” said Ronnie Fanguy, who has three children at BCA. “That’s something I’m excited about and very happy to see. I’m really pleased.”

The Fanguys have three students enrolled at BCA: a kindergartener, second-grader and fourth-grader. They transferred from South Thibodaux Elementary School.

Homework consumes a little more of the evening hours at the Fanguy house, but Ronnie said it’s worth the higher level of education his children receive.

“I have one older daughter who is in high school now, (and she’s said,) ‘Wait a minute, you’re learning about cells? I didn’t learn about cells until I got to biology,’ so the second-grader is talking to her about cells,” Fanguy said. “We’re able to see some of the things we know they wouldn’t have been exposed to until later.”

BCA began instruction last fall. After one semester, evidence of the increased workload is apparent on a school bulletin board hosting multi-lingual work of the school’s youngest students.

Kindergarteners are being taught numerals and the alphabet in English, French and Spanish, but the enhanced education doesn’t stop there.

English and language arts are “embedded” into science and social studies content, and teachers aren’t beholden to teaching certain subjects during mandated time blocks. Instructors independently devise lesson plans, which are submitted for the principal’s approval, and the school’s curriculum is posted on its website.

In staying true to the BCA motto, “Come to Learn, Learn to Serve,” instructors consistently stress character education and teach students “to be kind to one another, to be tolerant, to be caring” and proper behavior that will help them become public servants, Sandy Holloway, the school’s director, said.

Principal Melanie Becnel, during a break in a ceremony rewarding honor roll achievement from the last nine weeks, said the introduction of a rigorous curriculum has not overwhelmed the students.

“The kids are resilient,” Becnel said. “I’ve never come to a point where the kids can’t, because they’re going to constantly keep trying as long as we motivate them with days like this every nine weeks, with parties and with weekly and monthly incentives.

“I haven’t come across a time where I say, ‘Enough is enough.’”

Becnel, a former assistant principal at West Thibodaux Middle School, said the change in culture between her former school and her current one is readily apparent.

“It’s the belief that every child will go to college,” Becnel said. “The kids want to learn, and the parents are there pushing behind them.”

BCA operates with built-in accountability checks meant to deter complacency from students and teachers.

The charter school does not offer tenure, and its faculty is compiled on an annual basis with one-year contracts.

School officials take into consideration student data, “frequent” teacher observations, lesson planning and participation in school improvement when evaluating its teachers, Holloway said.

The BCA director said the process is objective, but officials haven’t yet finalized a policy.

“We don’t have a procedure in place, which we are working on now, as we are monitoring and seeing,” Holloway said. “If they’re on a one-year contract, you don’t need any procedural guidelines, but we’re working on that.”

Students who post a GPA below 2.4 during the course of a school year will not be granted a transfer to the next grade at BCA, effectively putting the onus on children and parents to safeguard their freedom from residential districts and participation in a college-prep atmosphere.

Because the transition from a typical Lafourche public school to the charter school was expected to be a learning experience for instructors, parents and students, the inaugural year is a “grace period.”

Once grades are posted in May 2013, however, low-performing students will be turned away. “Next year is the real deal,” Holloway said.

BCA officials say they’re excited about the school’s future. The school’s board of directors purchased 14 acres of land off of Percy Brown Road in Thibodaux on which they hope to have a new school built within three years, Holloway said.

The school, currently with a kindergarten through fourth-grade configuration, will add one grade level each year until it becomes a K-8 school, starting with fifth grade next year, Holloway said.

Marlo Barbera has two daughters, a kindergartener and a second-grader, enrolled at BCA. Barbera, who has taught at multiple Lafourche Parish public schools, said enrolling her children in the charter school took a “leap of faith,” but she favored the more challenging curriculum.

Three weeks after school started, she asked her older daughter about the adjustment. Aside from telling her mother about she and her classmates making paper, she spoke highly of a social element.

“She also said, ‘There are no bullies here,’” Barbera said. “I think the high standard of discipline and structure has definitely had an impact on a second-grader.”

The Barbera family is pleased with what it has seen to this point.

“The social studies and science is definitely more rigorous,” Barbera said. “They’re coming hope and they know more about worldwide religions and history than I probably ever learned.”