State Education Department Superintendant Dr. Brumely Shares Updates

Dr. Cade Brumley, Louisiana Superintendent of Education, gave education updates to attendees at the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce July General Membership Luncheon.

Dr. Brumley began with school safety sharing that it is a top priority. The department has partnered with various agencies and offices to make sure kids are as safe as they can be. He said, “It’s a crazy world, it’s a dangerous world, it’s a different world from the time we grew up…We are hosting, on August 4, for the first time ever, a statewide school safety expo at the River Center in Baton Rouge.” The summit, in coordination with the Louisiana State Police, is a free event that aims to bring school system leaders, local and state law enforcement, governmental agencies, and mental health providers together for an opportunity to share and learn best practices around school safety and emergency preparedness. All school systems have one seat reserved for the system leader (email healthyschools@la.gov for more information) and general attendee registration can be found here. Dr. Brumely also pointed out they are working on ways to work with students to advise if you see something, say something,” According to the FBI,” he said, “70 percent of shootings that happen…someone knew about it or knew something wasn’t right, but they didn’t speak up.” This led him to share they will be telling the school systems four things:

1. The system has to create a culture where if someone notices anything suspicious, or sees a social media post, they will speak up. 
2. Having access to social workers. He said they want to make sure students have access to care in the case they are needed.
3. Having better access controls. Creating single-point-of-entries so that schools are safer physically.
4. Training and making sure agencies and schools are working together to make schools a safer place.

Dr. Brumley shared that when it comes to education, the 2022 Legislative Regular Session was successful. One of the common questions he said regards teacher pay. He said it is of utmost importance that there are high-quality teachers there every day for students, so he believes the legislative choice of increasing pay is beneficial. Two other bills passed that Dr. Drumley thinks are important is a geometry bill that will make geometry classes a requirement for graduation, “It’s one of the most practical maths that anyone could ever use,” he explained, “Moving forward, every student graduating from high school in the state of Louisiana will have to take a Geometry course. It’s very common sense.” The other bill he noted was the Freedom Bill. “We have Constitution Day, the country has Constitution week, but we did not officially acknowledge that in the State of Louisiana,” he explained, “The bill will allow the department as an agency to push out of the school systems, in the third week of September, the idea of freedom, and the importance of the amendments, the importance of the constitution, the rights we have…we’re excited.”

He shared that the department has been striving to make literacy a priority in the system. They are trying to focus on a basic approach to literacy. What does this look like? “We look at words, we take those words down, we take back the phonics, and we don’t confuse our teachers on how to teach children how to read,” he explained.

He also brought up the conversation from the Federal Government stating if schools don’t comply with a set of rules in regards to genders, bathrooms, and pronoun usage, lunch money would be held. He shared that he wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education to ask specific questions, “Are you seriously considering taking lunch money from our neediest children?.. I am waiting on a response from them at this point because these are the questions schools around our state are asking..so the first thing we have to do is get the answers to these questions,” he said.

The last thing Dr. Brumley shared was the impact of not only COVID but also storms that have impacted both southwest and southeast Louisiana. Over the last couple of years, he said we as a community have faced one of the largest wind storms in the history of the country which has affected students’ learning. “I applaud all of the educators and community members for the continued resilience that you have shown through all of this,” he said. He shared that visiting Houma and Thibodaux in the last couple of years has impacted him and over the last few years, children have lost approximately five efficiency points of learning. He said it’s most damaging in younger learners, more damaging in subgroups such as the financially disadvantaged, and it’s more so in math than it has been in English. He also shared it has had more of an impact on virtual learners. In response, they have launched Louisiana Comeback (louisianacomeback.com) which focuses on children’s well-being and making sure children have all of the resources they need. They also provide after-school and summer programs to help catch students up with what they have gotten behind on in the last couple of years. They are also investing in instructional growth. The department will soon release a data report from last Spring to see if the new programs have helped in points. From the report, they will be able to tell if the programs work, what they might need to work on, and what did work to go forward with a successful plan.

During the question and answer session, there were a few issues addressed. First, he gave thanks to Fletcher Technical Community College for the partnership because the department believes in vocational and career education, “We are, as an agency and a state board, trying to find ways to incentivize career technical education because the jobs are available,” he shared. 

As far as the statewide teacher shortage, Dr. Brumely shared they conducted a study at the turn of the calendar year where they found a shortage of around 2,500 teachers. He said thankfully some things have happened both legislative and policy-wise, that will help dissolve the issue. He noted that they have to listen to teachers to find out what the reasons are behind leaving the profession, “It’s because I think teachers are overbearing with bureaucracy and discipline in the classrooms…so we really need to listen to them.” He also shared an incentive called the Geaux Teach Fund which will take students in high school that are interested in being a teacher, the fund will receive a scholarship (on top of the TOPS program) to any education school in Louisiana. After finishing school, the new teachers will have to teach in Louisiana as part of the program for a certain amount of time. “It’s an amazing opportunity,” he said. Along with that fund, a bill was passed concerning the entrance exam for the school of education. He said essentially, the college of education was one of the only schools that require an entrance test despite the student getting accepted into the university. That prevents an average of 1,000 people a year from getting into college, but thanks to new legislation, the exam will not be required meaning more students will be able to attend the school of education, in turn helping more teachers be released into the field.