School turnaround bid starts
LAFAYETTE — New principal Melinda Voorhies rallied about 100 parents and community members Thursday to be part of Northside High School’s turnaround team.
“What I’m looking for is this,” Voorhies told a crowded cafeteria. She raised an arm and yelled, “We are Northside! I need you to help us turn it around … and get the focus where it needs to be: on the positive things happening (here).”
Voorhies is leading the academic turnaround plan for Northside High that includes nearly $1.9 million in repairs and facility upgrades. The School Board approved the plans Wednesday. Voorhies met with faculty and staff after school, and parents and the community later in the evening.
“This is not an individual effort. This is not an administrative team effort. It’s a community effort and we need you … Fair?” Voorhies asked.
“Fair,” some of the crowd responded.
Voorhies spoke briefly to the crowd of parents and community members about what students can expect come Friday and over the next few months. Students will be recognized for following the rules and teachers will be recognized for doing their jobs well, she said.
“Habitual offenders do not need to be on this campus,” she said of student discipline issues.
Her remarks were peppered with applause and audible affirmations from the audience.
Northside English teacher Shanita Scott left the faculty meeting hopeful.
“They talked about tackling the discipline issues. That’s been the biggest problem,” Scott said. Handling discipline issues in the classroom takes away valuable instruction time, she said.
The majority — 96 percent — of discipline infractions at the school occur in the classroom, according to data presented by school officials.
Absenteeism is also high.
The plan doesn’t only address discipline problems. Students will participate in new activities during the day that build literacy skills and develop character. Book discussions will be part of their weekly routine.
Teachers will also get extra support in the classroom from administrators and an instructional and classroom management strategist now on staff, Voorhies said.
Seniors Dalanie Duhon, 18, and Adoria Dugas, 17, attended the meeting with the parents.
“All the students want is a good administration to stand behind us and back us up,” Duhon said.
School pride also needs to be restored, Dugas said.
“We’re already one of those schools looked down on and it makes us look like we’re all bad students,” Dugas said.
Friday is the start of the change.
“You can come back in a month and see a whole different school,” Lafayette school Superintendent Pat Cooper said Thursday during a news conference on the campus.
The turnaround involves additional staff to create a support team to stimulate change on the campus.
The team model approach will be tested at the parish’s lowest-performing high school, before being launched at other schools in academic need,Cooper said.
“This is the pilot. We know we have four other schools in just as bad of shape, and in the fall, we’ll move onto those other schools,” Cooper said.
Cooper said he’d like to find additional funding to create more than one turnaround team. The other schools to be targeted because of their low performance: J.W. Faulk and Alice Boucher Elementary schools and Carencro and Acadian Middle schools.
Board President Shelton Cobb supported the creation of an additional turnaround team, and said he thought the board could identify savings in the budget. He also invited the public to get involved in the change.
“Northside is the beginning … we’re not going to overlook anybody’s child,” Cobb told parents in the evening session.
Not only parents attended the meeting.
“What do you need from us?” community member Jennifer Jackson asked.
“We need mentors,” Voorhies said. “ … I need your time and I need your physical presence. It’s for the children. It’s the only way we’re going to make a difference long term.”
Voorhies retired six years ago. Cooper has said he hired her to lead Northside’s academic turnaround because of her work at Valley Park, an alternative school in East Baton Rouge Parish.
There, Voorhies “came in and cleaned up,” he said in a recent interview.
She selected some of her Valley Park team, who came out of retirement to work with her at Northside.
Cooper said he wanted parents, students and the community to understand the plan was not initiated because Northside is a “bad school.”
“There are far more great kids at Northside … we’re going to allow these kids to flourish,” Cooper said. “It’s a bad situation, not a bad school.”