Gulf shipwrecks studied for oil spill effects
September 30, 2015Early voting begins Saturday
October 6, 2015Last week, the U.S. Department of Education recognized Pointe-Aux-Chenes Elementary School, awarding it a prestigious National Blue Ribbon School.
The Blue Ribbon Schools program honors schools that are either high-performing or have closed achievement gaps, especially among minority or disadvantaged students. Blue Ribbon schools have demonstrated that their students can achieve at high levels.
Kudos are due Pointe-Aux-Chenes faculty, students and parents for this feat. Congrats, too, to Cindy Chauvin, the bayou school’s principal who is leading the way.
Teachers at the little school down along the bayou, who were among the state’s six Blue Ribbon schools, deserve the praise. The developed an advanced assessment methods, which allowed them to track each individual student’s progress. Both the educators and students are better aware of which students need help and with what.
By analyzing data to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, and creating smaller learning groups for enrichment and remediation, grades continued to improve over a five-year span.
It’s a modern, scientific approach to education that most wouldn’t expect to find in a small, suburban school in a remote town located along the banks of a bayou.
In fact, most schools in big cities across the country don’t utilize analytics to track and scrutinize students’ progression.
Maybe the very fact that Pointe-Aux-Chenes Elementary is so small allows for more individualized attention, but regardless, the administrators and teachers at the school who dedicated themselves to bettering their students’ lives deserve credit.
The school was recognized nationally for improving student performance, especially among disadvantaged children. It shows that the teachers value every child and are willing to take extra steps to ensure that they, too, succeed.
NEWSPAPERS AREN’T DEAD JUST YET
It is not a secret that the newspaper industry is in constant limbo – our business model is changing and evolving more and more each day.
Staffs are being trimmed at various businesses throughout the country, and major papers are trimming their print schedules in favor of a more “breaking news” model that is centered around the World Wide Web.
But while things change around us and the future admittedly takes us into new places, one theme remains constant: The demand for unbiased, fair information in a local community isn’t going away. It lives forever.
Newspapers and newsgathering journalists are essential in every community. For all of the lumps that media have taken in the past decade (some criticisms laid have been completely fair), our industry keeps a check on power and serves as the very necessary bridge between the decision making government and the public that it serves.
Away from keeping tabs on power and ensuring that it is used productively and fairly, journalists also showcase the tremendous men, women and children within an area – the lifeblood of the community.
Without quality people, any community will perish. Without the community newspaper, these stories would go untold and our neighborhood’s people would be left uninformed.
The Houma Times is proud to give information to the people of Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes.
As Houma’s only locally owned newspaper, we are happy to provide fair and balanced coverage that accepts the opinions and views of all sides in any news, sports, entertainment or business situation.
It is for that reason that we would like to tout the role of media in this editorial column, which is running on National Newspaper Week – a holiday that some say will be one of the lasts within our industry.
Critics proclaim each year that newspapers are an archaic business model that will not last for another decade.
