SANDY SEAL / L’Observateur / October 21, 1998

RESERVE – High school students in the St. John the Baptist Parish schoolsystem will soon follow a career path.

The school system, under mandate by the state Legislature, has developed a career major program that includes four career paths: business and marketing, engineering and industrial technology, arts and humanities and health and human services.

School-to-Work Director Beverly Harris presented a report on the program to the School Board Thursday. She told members portions of the programare already being implemented in the parish’s two high schools, and by the 1999-2000 school year 100 percent of St. John Parish’s students willenter high school with a five-year educational plan that carries them a year following graduation, whether education continues or they enter the workforce. The plan can be updated annually, Harris said, and begins at theeighth-grade level when students receive their career portfolios.

The program itself begins at the sixth-grade level when students begin exploring various careers and participating in career awareness activities.

Teachers and parents will be involved with students in selecting their “majors,” Harris added.

Two career “academies” are already in place at East St John High School – a nursing assistant program and a petrochemical program. The nursingassistant program is already on line at West St. John High, as well.Finance academies will be added at both high schools in the fall, Harris said, and the program’s development and implementation will continue until it is to full scale.

In other matters, the School Board: Voted 8-0 to approve adoption of the 1998-99 salary schedules with board members Matt Ory, C.J. Watkins and James Madere absent.The new salary schedule includes approximately $50,000 in increases for substitute teacher pay, approximately $19,000 for increases in administrator and administrative support and approximately $65,000 for bargaining unit employee raises and changed salary schedules.

Learned that the school system’s accounting department had received the following awards for the 1996-97 fiscal year: Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Association of School Business Officials International and Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association for the United States and Canada.

Return To News Stories