[StBernard] St. Bernard moves from storm recovery to growth as more students return to area

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard moves from storm recovery to growth as more students return to
area
by Anne Berry, Contributing Writer
Published: August 11th, 2011

Editor's note: This is part seven of the eight-part 2011 CityBusiness
Education Guide, which can be found in the Aug. 5 issue or online by
clicking here.

When teachers and administrators in St. Bernard Parish need to train
together, they no longer meet in a cramped school cafeteria.

As the new Chalmette Elementary School was being built, district planners
made sure to carve out a high-tech space that can seat several hundred
teachers in a grand ballroom, two large meeting rooms and dozens of computer
stations that allow for video conferencing.

"We're meshing faculty together, coming from different schools," said Liz
Winslow, principal of Chalmette Elementary. "We've become a family."

Forming a cohesive staff is one challenge for a school district that's had
to shuffle and merge personnel and students as they renovate, reconfigure
and build new schools.

"The students needed to be led by a strong faculty," Winslow said. "It
didn't take us any time to get into the academic groove."

LEAP scores for St. Bernard Parish students made such strong gains this year
- nearly 20 percent more students tested at or above the basic level - that
the state education board recently named it one of Louisiana's top seven
school districts for growth in the past five years.

The new district faculty training center, unveiled when Chalmette Elementary
opened in August 2010, is one example of how St. Bernard schools are
leveraging a flurry of building to better serve their personnel, students
and the community.

In addition to Hurricane Katrina's widespread damage, the need to basically
rebuild the school system is has been driven by more children living in the
parish.

"Many children are coming in, and many hadn't been part of the program,"  

Superintendent Doris Voitier said. "We're bulging at the seams, at the
elementary level."
Prospective teachers sense that, too. More than 100 applied for eight
positions with St. Bernard Parish elementary schools at a job fair earlier
this year.

To compensate, the parish is building two new elementary schools. Gauthier
will open in August with an existing student body, while Lacoste will absorb
new students when it opens in August 2012.

Several school projects directly benefit the local community, including
plans to renovate the Maumus Center, a 1920s-era building most recently used
for area summer camps.

The school system owns the building and has pledged to transform it into a
planetarium that will also host interactive science exhibits on topics such
as storm surge and wetlands preservation. Renovations will begin later this
year.

"We're a community school and always have been," said Wayne Warner,
Chalmette High School principal since 1973.

This spring, the district's only high school opened an all-grades cultural
arts center. A 420-seat theater with a massive stage where drama and music
students perform anchors the building.

Showing that new construction drives academics, Chalmette High will offer
its first-ever dance classes in the cultural arts center next year. About
100 students have already signed up for that, Warner said, and students
interested in show production will be able to learn how to rig the stage's
lighting and sound.

The cultural arts center also boasts a lecture hall with laptop plug-ins for
students, as well as a student-staffed coffee shop serving refreshments
during shows. The school reserved nearly 8,000 square feet of the facility
for a public library.

The cultural arts center was paid for with Federal Emergency Management
Agency money and community block grant funds, as well as private donations.

"We've been extremely creative and aggressive in accessing (federal) grants
money," Voitier said. "These are the intangibles that build relationships.
If students feel comfortable in schools, you get that culture going, and
academic achievement will improve."


Complete URL:
http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2011/08/11/st-bernard-moves-from-stor
m-recovery-to-growth-as-more-students-return-to-area/