Judge halts St. Helena plan to place fifth grade at elementary school

A federal judge has ordered St. Helena Parish public school officials to stop offering fifth-grade classes at the district’s elementary school.

U.S. District Judge James J. Brady, who oversees the parish’s 60-year-old school desegregation case, ordered that “the fifth grade for the St. Helena Parish School District shall remain at the St. Helena Middle School in the Recovery School District,” court records show.

St. Helena Superintendent Kelli Joseph said the district “will adhere to his wishes and continue to move forward,” adding later, “but of course we will ask him to reconsider.”

Joseph said she would need to speak with the school system’s attorney before commenting further on the district’s potential legal options.

The judge’s order follows an unscheduled telephone conference held Monday, when “the parties alerted the court that a fifth-grade class has been added to St. Helena schools without the court’s permission,” court minutes state.

School Board attorney Nelson Taylor could not be reached to participate in the status conference, according to the minutes.

The Louisiana Department of Education’s Recovery School District has had control of the parish’s middle school, which includes the fifth through eighth grades, since Brady granted permission for the takeover in May 2010.

The elementary and high schools, which remain under School Board control, were operated under performance agreements with the state known as Memoranda of Understanding from June 2009 until June 30, when the agreements expired.

The agreements specifically prohibited the local district from renaming or reconfiguring the schools to offer additional grade levels.

When the agreements expired, St. Helena officials refused to sign new ones and asked Brady to affirm their right to refuse any more such contracts.

The parties were to present written arguments to the court outlining their positions on the issue by Aug. 13. However, Joseph said, state officials relented and agreed late last week to drop the issue.

Taylor has maintained without new contracts there is no law or provision that would prevent the local district from adding grades to the existing school campuses.

Department of Education officials, through their legal counsel, have “advised the district to abide by the court’s decision to not add an additional grade at the elementary school,” spokesman Barry Landry said Wednesday.

Comments

1) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 18/08/2012

Here is a piece I wrote in March that outlines the research and the mistakes that somehow led to people claiming that teachers had the greatest on student achievement. Please keep in mind that I am NOT saying that teachers don't matter, or that they aren't important. Of course they are! But they cannot control the vast array of factors impacting student achievement, which is another reason why the state's teacher evaluation program is fatally flawed and based on totally erroneous logic. Should we evaluate teachers, again, of course we should, but not based on student test scores. It makes as much sense as rating cancer doctors who focus on lung cancer based on the survival rates of their patients, and ignoring whether their patients continue to smoke. Here is the article. http://educatorsforall.org/mythcontent/2012/3/10/myth- teachers-are-the-most-important-factor-impacting-studen.html

2) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 18/08/2012

Oh my, I just noticed this response. Yankyny, your statement: "There is sufficient research indicating that the single most important factor in student achievement is not whether students are rich or poor, but effective teaching," is actually incorrect. While it is often quoted, even the State Department of Education has finally responded to those of us who pointed out that it is simply not true, and they now have corrected their statements to read that "teachers are the most important in-school factor impacting student achievement. The reason that is so important is that all school factors, including teaching, make up less than 25% or so of the impacts on student achievement. All major research going back over 50 years has determined that out-of- school factors (such as the underlying conditions impacted by poverty) make up a much larger portion of those factors impacting student achievement. Again, in St. Helena is was parents seeking choices that the state purports to support (choice) but NOT when it means parents get to choose options that they (the state and the "reformers") don't support. It is much like the "Parent Trigger." Some of us wanted to at least have the Parent Trigger work both ways, so that parents could also vote to go back to their locally elected Boards... the state fought that tooth and nail!

3) Comment by yankyny - 11/08/2012

Thank you for the clarification. As an outsider looking in or simply looking at the block diagrams and not schematics, St Helena had previously offered 5th grade at the middle school level, they lost control to RSD due to student achievement issues. Now St. Helena is looking to change their infrastructure, by adding 5th grade at the elementary level under the umbrella of "parental choice." Although you cannot make future predictions on past results, this moves appears to me as a way for St. Helena to circumnavigate the system (which may be broken - but still the system we currently have), so how can a judge expect better results now since they weren't there before. I argue he had no choice. There is sufficient research indicating that the single most important factor in student achievement is not whether students are rich or poor, but effective teaching. I would agree that there are challenges associated with teaching students in poverty. However, many educators do not treat it as challenge but a road block or an unmovable obstacle. Hence the chicken or the egg question, is it ineffective teaching strategies in poor communities or vice versa that lead to poor student achievement.

4) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 09/08/2012

@yankyny: No one in the district was "extracting" anyone. After receiving requests from parents actually wanting a "choice" in where to send their students, and this was after they had a chance to see the RSD in action, the local school board (they have no Memorandum Of Understanding in effect at this time) chose to provide choice to parents, a number of whom clearly made their choice by signing up with the school system. For reasons, and under circumstances none of us know about, since it is not clear, someone, the state perhaps, asked the judge to forbid St. Helena from offering choice, thereby ensuring that NO PARENTS could exercise choice in St. Helena is their children were in middle school. As to the district's loss of these schools, it is do to a totally illogical and intellectually dishonest "accountability" system that basically measures achievement at a given point in time, and does not (as most state systems do) account for the growth of students over time. In Ascension, for example, which had no magnets or charter schools (both distort this pattern to some degree) the correlation between the percent of students in a school qualifying for free meals (we'll call these students living in poverty) and the school performance scores is nearly a perfect 1. As poverty in a school rises, scores go down, in a nearly perfect relationship. Looking at it another way, Zachary has the highest District Performance Score (DPS) in the state, and just happens to have the lowest percent of students qualifying for free meals. St. Helena has the highest percent of students qualifying for free meals, and next to the RSD, has the lowest District Performance Score. And in spite of all the claims of the "reformers" that they alone are looking at student success and not money, they fight incredibly hard to get money from all sources, and they engage in court battles as well. In this case, to prevent parents from exercising choice. The state "accountability system" is a shame. Interesting to note, in case you were thinking of making a comment about how students SHOULD be measured, and schools SHOULD be measured based on actual performance measured by student achievement.... you might care to note that the "new" accountability system recommended by John White and approved by the US Department of Education allows schools and districts with students scoring at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, to get credit for "improving" the scores of their students even if they don't meet the "basic" threshold. Obviously, the Recovery School District will benefit the most from such a measure.... and they will then claim "success" even though they are doing no better than any school districts in the state. Their lies are a shame that will cause harm to Louisiana for a long time to come. I invite you to find fault with any of my comments, but please use data or research to show where you differ. Thanks.

5) Comment by yankyny - 09/08/2012

One must question the foundational reasoning of the school board and superintendent for extracting a group of students from a school which they have no control. Even worse, they had control and ultimately lost it because student achievement was low, hence RSD stepped in. I'm sure the battle is about funding and not student achievement. That's how you know when a school district is struggling with student achievement, they talk about "control", "laws", "lawyers", not about "achievement", "success" and "development." What a shame!