A rigorous study commissioned by the North Shore Business Council seeks to understand how the performance of the St. Tammany Parish school system has fallen in recent years, an election-year move that shines a light on the interests of the influential group, which boasts nearly half of the school system’s billion-dollar operating budget.
The survey was sent to all candidates running for St. Tammany school board seats in the Nov. 8 election, along with a pledge asking the candidates to support a more transparent and accountable school system.
The pledge candidates are asking for their support in 10 areas, including early childhood education, the federal unemployment epidemic and school choice.
Business team focus
As the parish’s largest employer, the St. Tammany Public School System is a key focus area for the Chamber of Commerce, an invitation-only league of about 70 business leaders on the North Shore.
“People go to St. Tammany because of the school. “We want to know why,” said Ross Lagarde, a lawyer for the president of the council.
The 96-page study, conducted by Southeastern Louisiana University’s Business Research Center, seeks to analyze how St. Tammany stacks up against top-performing districts in Louisiana and outside the state. The “aspirational” — or high-performing — districts used in the study were Livingston, Ascension and Plaquemins parishes, as well as non-public schools in suburban Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Since 2010-2011, St. Tammany has fallen from No. 4 in the state to No. 18 in the state, in the bottom 25 percent of Louisiana schools.
“We have the highest ACT test rates, but other parishes are teaching to pass LEAP,” Lagarde said.
Third graders will meet St. Tammany Public Schools Superintendent Frank Jabia when he visits Abita Elementary School on Aug. 8.
Less than half of public school students in grades 3-8 in the New Orleans metro area were adequately prepared for the next grade before and after the pandemic, according to recent test results released by the Louisiana Department of Education.
Epidemic learning loss
At the state level, school districts are managing the impact of pandemic-related learning losses. Of the seven public school systems in the metro New Orleans area, St. Tammany was the only district that did not show improvement in LEAP scores from 2021 to 2022.
However, St. Tammany, one of the state’s largest districts with nearly 37,000 students, still ranks second in the metro area with 42% of students scoring above the master’s level on the LEAP tests. That was tied 1 percentage point behind Plaquemines Parish and St. Charles Parish. The state average was 31 percent.
The report also indicated that St. Tamam excelled in the ACT test and college readiness. And school district officials say it’s an issue worth paying attention to.
“ACT is what sends our kids to college. It pays for our kids to go to technical school and community college for free, and St. Tammany Parish is No. 1,” said St. Tammany Schools Superintendent Frank Jabbia.
Earlier this week, the Business Council met with school officials in person, the first in Jabibia’s tenure, to discuss plans to address performance issues. Jabibia, who became superintendent in October 2020, said his focus since 2016 has been on fixing a fragmented curriculum that has been disrupted by community pressure while working to improve state testing issues.
“We had to hide our curriculum for a long time.” “The big problem is all these different curricula. And when you move from one class to another, those teachers have to start all over again.
In addition to St. Tammany, the report examined the performance of three other North Shore school districts — Tangipahoa Parish, Washington Parish and Bogalusa City Schools. Of the four largest parishes with the lowest poverty rate, St. Tammany was the only North Shore school district in the top half of Louisiana’s performance rankings.
According to the study, Tangipahoa Parish It dropped from 47th in 2017 to 58th in 2019. Washington Parish and Bogalusa City ranked 40th and 68th in 2019. All three parishes had lower household incomes and higher poverty rates than St. Tammany, the report said. The strongest factors found in terms of school performance.
