Improving student discipline, consolidating schools, ensuring early literacy, and making sure every area of the parish has good school options are a few of the initial priorities that the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board settled on during a retreat this past weekend.
These priorities, 19 in all, now head to Superintendent Sito Narcisse and his senior cabinet. They in turn will spend the next few weeks turning these thoughts into a draft of a new strategic plan for Louisiana’s second largest traditional school district.
One priority, “discipline in the classroom - restorative practices,†prompted debate before it was settled on. Board member Dawn Collins said she wants the district to more widely adopt “restorative justice†as a way to allow students who misbehave a chance to work their way back to the classroom rather than just being expelled or serving lengthy suspensions.
Board member Mike Gaudet said that the district needs to improve “wraparound services†such as mental health services and counseling so that teachers can focus on teaching.
Board member Jill Dyason, however, said any effort to improve discipline needs to find ways of "protecting the integrity of the classroom."
"I hear about discipline all the time," she said.
Consolidating schools, a source of repeated controversy for the board through the years, also made the cut.
Board members Gaudet and Dadrius Lanus said the district has too many under-enrolled schools that need to be combined to save money through lower costs or selling vacant school properties. Dyason agreed, saying that needed school consolidations didn’t happen because superintendents and school boards of the past weren’t willing to go there.
Early literacy is a key focus area for Narcisse, who was named superintendent in January, so it’s not surprising that it made the list. It’s become a statewide focus for State Superintendent Cade Brumley.
showed that about 60% kindergartners across Louisiana arrived at school last fall reading below grade level, and a majority remained below grade level all the way through third grade. East Baton Rouge Parish schoolchildren showed an almost identical pattern, though their reading skills were worse in first through third grade than their peers across the state.
Narcisse says poor early literacy continues all the way through schools and explains while many urban schoolchildren are behind their more affluent peers.
“The achievement gap is a literacy gap and the literacy gap is an opportunity gap,†Narcisse said.
The final wording of the priority, “early literacy proficiency,†was settled on after Dyason had concerns about an earlier suggestion to “close the literacy gap.†Dyason wanted to make sure the language was broad enough to cover otherwise high performing children who have difficulty reading, such as those suffering from dyslexia.
Dyason also pressed hard on an old pet peeve of hers, saying the school system does a poor job of making sure every area of the parish has comparable programs and high quality schools so that families don’t feel compelled to bus their children across town to somewhere that does.
Board member Connie Bernard, however, worried that that idea can go too far, especially with some specialized programs.
“For example, foreign language (immersion), you can’t have that in every quadrant of the parish,†Bernard said.
, which was held Saturday at Baton Rouge Community College’s Ardendale campus, was the second in a series of retreats the board is holding as it develops the strategic plan. Set to be complete by June, is to replace a 2013 strategic plan that’s rarely been used since it was adopted. The board hired Salt Lake City, Utah-based Arbinger Institute, a group hand-picked by Narcisse to manage the strategic planning process.
That draft will come with specific objectives for the 2021-22 school year, as well as ways of measuring progress on meeting those objectives.
Saturday’s retreat wrapped up after nearly eight hours. Facilitator Mike Merchant, however, said the list of 19 priorities is not “set in concrete,†and that board members who want changes or additions have a few more days to weigh in.
That may happen, if only because three of the nine board members left early Saturday for other engagements. Lanus and Tramelle Howard drove to Lake Charles to watch the from New Orleans in the Division I State title game.
A trio of outside consultants hired by the new superintendent are proclaiming that “bold, creative, and courageous action is necessary now†or…
Before setting its priorities, the board broke repeatedly into small groups, filling oversized sheets of paper with thoughts on a recent commissioned by Narcisse as a sort of district audit to help guide his plans for his new job. Board members also considered initial feedback to the report, which was released March 3, in an ongoing public opinion survey as well as from an advisory council of school principals.
