Toll lane to close Thursday
January 28, 2015
HEART OVER HYPE
January 29, 2015
Terrebonne Parish Superintendent of Schools Philip Martin said there’s one thing his grandchildren and the schools he oversees have in common.
He likes bragging about both.
And in the last 12 months, many schools have made strides while working through several changes including the implementation of Common Core and the change to a 7-period day, among other adjustments.
School Progress
According to data released by the Louisiana Department of Education in October, Terrebonne improved its collective school score from a 90.9 to a 91.3 in the 2013-14 academic year – placing Terrebonne No. 24 among the state’s 74 school districts. Terrebonne earned a B grade both years but is now closer to an A.
“Our ultimate goal is to become an A school district,” Martin said. “We’re currently a B, and we feel we have all the pieces in place to move forward to becoming an A school district. Nothing worthwhile ever happens easily and without a lot of hard work, so we have a lot of hard work before us.”
On an individual school basis, Broadmoor and Mulberry elementary schools achieved an A grade, 12 schools received a B and a C grade, respectively, six (East Houma, Grand Caillou, Legion Park, Southdown and Village East elementary schools and Ellender Memorial High School) received a D and one (School for Exceptional Children) received an F.
The biggest improvement came from Gibson Elementary, which improved a whopping 20.1 points and went from a D school to a C school. For its efforts, Gibson was one of two schools in the state to be honored nationally. According to school officials, another national recognition is on the horizon for Pointe-Aux-Chenes Elementary, also for closing its achievement gap at a school with high reduced or free lunch rates. It grew six points this past school year.
“We’re proud of that. It’s an affirmation of what we already knew that we’re working in the right direction and doing the right things for kids,” the superintendent said.
Assistant Superintendent Carol Davis also commended Caldwell Middle for growing 13.6 points, Elysian Fields Middle for growing 8.6 points and Mulberry Elementary for growing 5.7 points despite already being an A.
“They have teacher leaders at the school, professional development, focusing on the standards that the kids will be tested on, high expectations. They believe that all kids can learn, and they aren’t happy unless all kids are learning,” Davis said of the school leaders of the district’s improving schools.
Common Core
The Terrebonne Parish School District, as well as every other school district in the state, began implementing Common Core requirements this fall.
“It’s not something that we could, if we wanted, opt out of. We can’t. I say it factiously, not seriously, but Terrebonne Parish can’t secede from Louisiana,” Martin joked. “As long as we’re part of Louisiana, Louisiana
makes the rules, and whether we agree or disagree, I’m not saying we disagree, we’re obligated to.”
Martin called the shift one in the positive direction, and it’s one that the school district did not jump into “cold turkey.”
The school district began dipping its toes into the curriculum that was to come as well as practice tests leading into its full implementation, and Martin feels the school district has been very prepared.
“For us not to do everything we can as well as we can, as good as we can, as efficient as we can, so our kids can do as well as they can, that would be wrong for us not to do that so we are putting 110 percent to give our kids every advantage when they take this new battery of tests that are more rigorous,” the superintendent said.
Martin said the new tests brought on by Common Core – called the PARCC Assessment – require more application of skills rather than regurgitation of content. Grades three through eight will take the first part of the test in March and the second part in April, and high school students will take the test in May at the end of the school year. Test results, however, will not be made available until October.
“I think the new rigorous standards are good for our kids, and our kids are going to live up to that,” said Davis. “I feel like we’ve prepared our kids for it.”
7-period day
Simultaneous with the implementation of Common Core, Terrebonne Parish transferred to the 7-period class schedule this year – a shift Martin said meshes better with Common Core requirements giving students an entire school year to master concepts.
“A 90-minute period for a kid and a teacher can be challenging,” he explained. “That’s a long time to maintain high level of interest and focus for 90 minutes.
“As I challenge most people, they probably couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. 50 minutes, I probably could do it,” he continued. “When we get to 901 think we’re losing some valuable instruction time simply because of the humanness of us all and whether it’s from the teacher’s human side or the student’s human side.”
A negative of the 7-period day, according to Martin, is what to do with children struggling in class for the first semester, who reasonably have no chance to turn it around.
Instead of forcing the student to remain in the class, the superintendent said in many cases a student could be taken out of the class during the middle of the school year. This, of course, doesn’t apply to a student taking a class he or she needs to pass immediately to graduate.
Jump Start
Starting with freshmen enrolling in high school next school year, there will be two tracks to graduation – a career and a college diploma.
The career diploma will provide students who wish to enter the labor force in a skill profession with the skills necessary to do so upon graduation, while the college diploma prepares students for higher education.
“In our local, immediate, economic environment, there’s greater employment and skills and crafts than there is with a college degree. Employability is greater if you possess some type of certificate ascertaining you have a skill in a whole list of trades. You can go work quickly and make a lot of money,” explained the superintendent. “Obviously, we’re a school system. We value a college degree. I’m just saying the reality of the economy in Terrebonne parish is that the employment potential is probably greater.”
Due to the Terrebonne Career and Technical High being in operations for several decades, Martin believes Terrebonne Parish has a distinct advantage over other school systems in implementing the new diploma track.
Career tracks will prepare students for a wide range of tracks – not just the limited skills many people have in mind when they think of a trade school.
“People think of Jump Start, an alternate pathway as maybe going to the Career and Tech High School and going into welding, and it’s more than that now,” Davis said. “We now have pathways to deal with business, business administration. We’re going to have pathways that deal with the oil and gas industry, getting involved in the oil and gas industry, pathways that deal with technology specialists, STEM specialists.”
School district counselors are currently working on master schedules for every specialized pathway within the career track.
Students will be given the opportunity to switch between paths and will never be locked into one or the other.
Graduation Rates
Martin said of everything the school district has accomplished over the last several years, he’s most pleased with its progress in graduation rates.
According to the superintendent, 82 percent of Terrebonne Parish students graduated in the latest data released last year – up from a graduation rate in the low 60s several years ago.
“Now we still have 18 percent we’ve got to get, and we have not by any means reached the level that we’re home, but the data indicates we have closed the gap,” he said. “We’ve increased our graduation rate significantly over the last several years, which is very gratifying, but we’re still losing far too many.”
Martin called the blessing a curse in south Louisiana in that young workers can make a very good living by dropping out before graduation.
“If a young man has a strong work ethic, doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, doesn’t mind being in the heat or being in the cold, he can make more than I make, so it’s hard to convince them education is a requirement,” Martin said.
Band
Martin said he would like the school district to look into expanding musical learning in Terrebonne Parish schools.
He would like music classes to begin at a lower grade, and he would like to see instruction on more instruments.
“Predominantly, our music program consists of percussion and woodwinds, which are great. Piano playing is a lifelong skill like everything else. Can we not teach that to our kids? Stringed instruments, violin guitar, can we not teach that to our kids? There’s another whole world of music that we’re not into right now. I want to begin the exploring of that,” he said.
Martin said he wants to speak with some experts to gather more information on when would be a good age for students to begin perusing their musical dreams.
Football fields
Another thing Terrebonne Parish public schools are considering is field turf on the parish’s two football fields.
With four high school schools sharing two fields – and four sharing one field for a brief stint this season when heavy rains rendered the field at Terrebonne High unplayable – many are clamoring for a synthetic solution.
Martin is still in the process of gathering data.
“If you asked an athlete or a coach, what would you prefer, an A-l, manicured, thick, lush grass field or turf, they’re all going to tell you grass, but maintaining that. If you’re going to give them a choice between this broke down, hard, got a little grass or turf, they’re going to pick turf,” he said. ES
The contributions from Gibson Elementary first grade teacher Renada Keneker (center), among other efforts from a fully-certified teaching staff, helped propel the school 20.1 points last year, according to Louisiana Department of Education ratings.
About 140 students participated in the Terrebonne Parish Science and Engineering Fair earlier this month, held at Southdown Elementary.
