St. Mary schools awarded $5.1M stimulus

The federal government has allocated $5.1 million in stimulus funds to the St. Mary Parish School Board.

Schools Superintendent Donald Aguillard said the full amount must be budgeted for the 2009-10 school year.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lift education to a new level. It provides an unprecedented level of funding for educators to implement innovative strategies that improve education for all students and eliminate the achievement gaps,” Aguillard said.

Spending plans include:

• To make progress toward rigorous college- and career-ready standards and high quality assessments that are valid and reliable for all students.

• To teach the English language to foreign students and students with disabilities.

• To implement a system technology upgrade that tracks students progress from pre-K through high school, with a college and career screening of that progress for high school students.

• To make improvements in teacher effectiveness and in the equitable distribution of qualified teachers for all students, particularly students who are most in need.

• To provide intensive support and effective interventions for the district’s low performing schools.

• To pay for the district’s Summer School Remediation program, which the district will have to start paying for beginning in 2010, which is aimed at preventing dropouts and keeping students on track to graduate.

Some of the areas mentioned above include allocating $310,000 for LEAP/GEE remediation programs and dividing $300,000 among the parish’s schools for their own individual plans, spending $381,774 for early intervention plans, and $260,000 for college and career programs.

“We have a rare opportunity to leverage these dollars with state initiatives that are proven methods of improving student performance and turning around low performing schools,” Aguillard said. “Certain practices must be in place for the district to be successful.”