Our Views: Local teachers do good things

There’s a lot of talk these days about the need to reform public education, and we’ve long acknowledged the need for improvement in many of our public schools. But we hope this discussion doesn’t create the impression that all or even most of our public school teachers aren’t doing their jobs.

Many, in fact, are going above and beyond the call of duty in helping their students, and they deserve to be celebrated, not scorned.

We were reminded of this by a couple of recent articles in our newspaper — one about Pamela Dunlap, and the other about Daniel Eiland and some people who are helping him build a stellar robotics team.

Dunlap, assistant principal of Park Forest Elementary School in Baton Rouge, has been recognized as one of the best among her peers across the nation by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

Daniel Eiland, a social studies teacher at Woodlawn High, is helping a team of robotics students prepare for regional competition. Last year’s team, called Panthrobotics, went to national competition. Eiland’s teaching colleague, math teacher Jonathan Nester, helps coach the team. That’s meant a lot of extra hours after school for both teachers. They’re assisted by engineer Hugo Salom, whose sons were on the team last year.

We applaud these champion educators. Let’s lift them up, and not forget their efforts when the state of education is debated.