A lot of people contributed to the academic rise of West St. John High School.

The West Bank school was ranked 50th out of 500 in the nation by Newsweek in 2014 in an article titled “Beating The Odds 2014 – Top Schools For Low-Income Students.”

The magazine sought to “recognize schools that beat the odds, performing better than statistically expected for their level of poverty.”

The school jumped to fifth on the list in the same article this year.

To celebrate the accomplishment, school staff members were recognized this week at a special ceremony hosted at Whitney Plantation.

Many of those who attended spoke highly of former West St. John principal Erica Merrick, who served the school last academic year and now works in the school district’s central office.

Merrick said the school faced numerous challenges in 2014-15 with a short staff, her own illness and the tragic killing of a popular coach and teacher. Despite it all, she praised the students for never losing focus and exceeding expectations in the classroom

“It can’t just be about English, math, science and social studies,” Merrick said. “We can’t just test the students to death. We have to motivate them, bring in guest speakers and make school fun. It’s not just about testing.”

Merrick would routinely call in students to her office who didn’t have high ACT scores and talk to them individually. She judged how the students were receiving her message based on their body language and participation in a two-way conversation.

She listened to students talk about their struggles with completing the ACT under the strict time requirements and heard about reading passages that were so boring students lost focus.

The feedback was used to model future classroom instruction.

It was part of a true community approach at West St. John High School, one that extended beyond students and teachers and into staff members, administrators, parents and local civic organizations.

Merrick practically gushed this week when we spoke, sharing stories about the many people who contributed to the high school’s success. Those were the people she thought about during Tuesday’s Whitney Plantation celebration.

She mentioned the school’s former parent teacher association president and vice president, Robin Baile and Mark Boudoin.

“Oh my goodness, they worked so hard,” Merrick said. “Am I just blessed or what? They played such a critical role in doing things for the kids, and they helped me. They helped the teachers.”

She described times when involved parents walked through the school and performed a needs assessment about what certain buildings lacked and offered to help fix the problems. They also set up a dialogue session with the new principal, parents and students to foster a team approach.

That community approach is something School Board member Russell Jack knows well and something he feels should be celebrated.

The Edgard resident said if something negative occurs, it’s sure to garner a lot of publicity so he was happy this week’s celebration highlighted positive developments.

“A lot of people look at (West St. John) as just a small little community on the outskirts of New Orleans,” Jack said. “We look at it as much more than that. We take pride in our community. The truth is we have students that are doing this at every level in almost anything you can think of. We had two doctors who came out of college last year. This year we have another one coming out. We have students graduating every year from the major colleges.”

Jack said some see the West Bank as a community weak in numbers — “I think we have strength in education. I think a big deal should be made about it.”

“Even though we have a little over 200 students at that school, this year alone we had 100 percent of our students at the beginning of the year commit to go to either college, a trade school or the armed forces,” Jack said. “It’s remarkable. A lot more could be discovered from this little school that is West St. John.”

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.