RESERVE  – For the 2019-20 school year, the St. John the Baptist Parish Public School District is putting processes and procedures in place to make sure every school, staff member and student levels up.

“Level Up” is the districtwide motto for this school year and it means everyone – from those who may struggle to those who excel – is expected to improve this school year.

“We’re going to ‘Level Up’ across the board, all the way from the superintendent to the street level. Everybody can do better,” Interim Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Patricia Triche said. “If everybody optimizes their performance our school system will get better. We’re improving curriculum, progress monitoring and interventions at all levels to fill in those gap skills and really move our students forward.”

One of the many ways the district is doing this is by forming a Literacy Team to focus on literacy skills, especially in kindergarten through third grades. The team will be made up of principals, central office members, special education staff and others.

“Special education will work with regular education who will work with administration to make sure everybody is on the same page,” Triche said. “Our literacy team is going to help provide structure for our schools and make sure we are progress monitoring. If our kids are not at the level they need to be they will help push them forward.”

More emphasis will be placed on helping special education students and English Language Learners improve.

“We are going to provide maximum support for those students and make sure we are fulfilling their needs,” Triche said.

Last school year, the use of Tier 1 Curriculum – those instructional materials rated highest by the Louisiana Department of Education – was implemented districtwide. This year, the district will focus on implementing it consistently and strongly across the board and analyzing data throughout the school year to drive those decisions. The district will streamline support all the way to the classroom level to make sure teachers are getting the help they need and to make sure they are teaching to students who are performing at every level – from the highest to the lowest. How schools are using the curriculum will also be closely monitored and if a school is excelling in a certain area that practice will be implemented at all schools. Likewise, if one school is struggling in an area, staff members will develop something that works specifically for that school – all with the goal of giving schools the same individualized attention given to students.

“We’re just coming in and we know there are a lot of good things in place,” Triche said of the interim administration that took over in June. “We have now implemented TAP (The System for Teacher and Student Advancement) and that’s how we teach. Our focus now is on processes, curriculum and assessments. We have everything we need in St. John to build and we are going to work together as a team to make sure that happens.”