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LSU Plan Aims to Help Zachary Schools

Posted on: Saturday, 11 February 2006, 18:00 CST

By JAMES MINTON

LSU plan aims to help Zachary schools

ZACHARY Counselors in the Zachary Community School District announced goals Thursday to improve student performance by reducing the number of incidents that negatively affect a schools learning environment.

Zachary joined a program in August offered by the LSU College of Education that gives the universitys counseling students hands-on experience similar to student teaching and also gives the schools the benefits of research into new approaches to school counseling.

The counselors at Zacharys four schools set measurable goals for the remainder of the year, all of them designed to improve overall student achievement.

Theyre our best guess on doing something weve never done before, LSU education Professor David Spruill told the School Board.

Superintendent Warren Drake said the program puts the counselors squarely in the academic arena at their schools.

At Zachary High School, counselor Donna Grice hopes to increase the student attendance rates by 30 percent for 21 students who failed the fall semester because of excessive absences, while Ophelia Alcorn proposes a 30 percent reduction in the number of students predicted to fail the graduate exit exams because of their scores on other tests.

Jeff Travasos told the board he wants to reduce by 15 percent the number of students referred to a time-out room for disciplinary infractions. He said 49 students had three or more violations in the fall.

At Northwestern Middle School, Clementine Johnsons goal is to reduce by 10 percent the number of students who have five or more absences. During the fall, 122 students missed five or more days of school.

Margaret Altazin said 27 percent of the middle schools sixth- grade report cards reflected unsatisfactory study skills; she wants to reduce the number by 20 percent.

Dana Vicellio at Northwestern Elementary hopes to reduce the number of discipline problems and negative attitudes among students that affect student performance.

At Zachary Elementary, Debra Haynes reported that, based on their Iowa test scores, 26 percent of the third-graders and 12 percent of the fourth-graders may not pass the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program tests this spring. Haynes said she hopes to increase the percentage of students in this group who pass the tests by 10 percent.

Social worker Melanie Thierry wants to decrease discipline referrals by 10 percent. During the last school year, 40 percent of the students were referred to the school office for disciplinary reasons.

The city of Baker school system elected last week to participate in the LSU program.

Source: Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.

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