Locals discuss new school law

Community stakeholders in education all agree that more parental involvement is needed in schools to ensure a better future for St. Mary Parish students.

The group gathered for a forum sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Educators Thursday at Morgan City Municipal Auditorium to offer suggestions the state should consider while implementing the new Every Student Succeeds Act.

The ESSA law returns decision-making power regarding education back to states, which includes parents, local educators, and communities. President Obama signed the law on Dec. 10, 2015.

It replaces the No Child Left Behind Act.

After presentations about the ESSA law and community schools by LAE representative Thai Browder and Power of Public Education Lafayette board member Kathleen Espinoza, forum attendees transitioned into small discussion groups.

Each group answered two main questions:

—What do schools need to ensure a better future for our children?

—What ideas do you have for creating the schools that ensure a better future for our children?

Participants in small groups listed parental involvement as the overarching factor that schools need.

“We said unanimously more parent involvement,” Larry Guilbeau said. “It’s the real positive thing that we need, we’ll always need. … It’s hard to teach a kid without parents there.”

“It’s very important to have the parents involved,” Herman Hartman said. “Once they see how important it is to be there with their kid, then the kid’s self-esteem seems to go up and they perform better. And that’s what we need in our society today.”

In a separate group session, the involvement of volunteers, along with parents, was mentioned as a success factor of students in schools.

“The parents need to become more interested in their own kid’s education and not leave everything to the teachers and principals in the school,” Victoria Champion said.

“But then I also think … we have a lot of educated leaders in our community who can step up and help our young people, as well as our parents who may not be as versed as they should be in helping kids with homework, a stable home environment, or maybe missing a father figure.

One group member wanted clarity about the usage of “schools” in the question. Does “schools” include school board members, teachers, and administrators?

“You have to care about the students, period,” Beverly Polk said. “We hear that we’re doing everything for the students but I didn’t see it that way,” as she referenced the closing of J.A. Hernandez Elementary.

Another way schools can ensure a better future for students is to encourage children by rewarding their accomplishments.

Children are held accountable for inappropriate behavior. So, why not reward them for doing something positive, Hartman said.

As for ideas surrounding volunteer participation in schools, Hartman discussed a reading program that he and other community members voluntarily started at M.E. Norman Elementary.

And there are plans to implement the program into other local schools, specifically on the west end of the parish.

ESSA goes into effect during the 2017-18 school year. Key provisions of ESSA are:

—Under ESSA, state-designed accountability systems must include the following indicators:

1. Math, reading assessments

2. Graduation rates

3. Another statewide indicator for middle and elementary schools

4. English Language Proficiency

5. At least one indicator of school quality and student support, such as, student engagement, educator engagement, student access to and completion of advanced coursework, postsecondary readiness, school climate and safety and any other state-chosen indicator that allows for differentiation of school performance, and is valid, reliable, comparable and statewide.

—Every year, the state must differentiate all public schools in the state based on all of the indicators included in the accountability systems for students and subgroups.

—States must collect and report on the indicators in the accountability system disaggregated by four student subgroups.

—All the example indicators of school quality and student success can be measured and disaggregated by subgroups.