School Closings Not the Answer
Another elementary school (Delmont Elementary School) in East Baton Rouge Parish is being recommended for closing due to lack of academic improvement. The school had been reconstituted with a new principal and faculty just before the beginning of the last school session and has already been demonstrating several indications that it was well on its way to improving. Such indications included enthusiastic support from parents and children. But the LEAP scores (in less than one year) have not yet shown significant improvement.
The new EBR school administration is so impatient for higher test results that they are proposing to close the school and assign the students elsewhere without allowing the school the three years originally agreed to for the reorganization to show results. This is a big mistake, and will end up harming children and the dedicated teachers who had accepted the challenge of improving the school. It is very wrong to disrupt the lives of students and teachers when they have all made a strong commitment to turning a school around.
As far as I know, no one even bothered to consult with or properly inform the parents who had put their full faith in this school. The teachers who signed up at Delmont for the reorganization had committed countless extra hours of work, and had been doing the important work of building cooperation with parents. Their efforts had already been rewarded by a huge increase in enrollment compared to competing charter schools and voucher schools in the area. Enrollment at Delmont has gone up by 150 students despite the intense efforts by the State to
The new EBR school administration is so impatient for higher test results that they are proposing to close the school and assign the students elsewhere without allowing the school the three years originally agreed to for the reorganization to show results. This is a big mistake, and will end up harming children and the dedicated teachers who had accepted the challenge of improving the school. It is very wrong to disrupt the lives of students and teachers when they have all made a strong commitment to turning a school around.
As far as I know, no one even bothered to consult with or properly inform the parents who had put their full faith in this school. The teachers who signed up at Delmont for the reorganization had committed countless extra hours of work, and had been doing the important work of building cooperation with parents. Their efforts had already been rewarded by a huge increase in enrollment compared to competing charter schools and voucher schools in the area. Enrollment at Delmont has gone up by 150 students despite the intense efforts by the State to
