- LaGrange High School is located at 3420 Louisiana Ave. (Special to the American Press)
By Emily Burleigh
A proposal to advertise LaGrange High School as a Level 1 and Level 2 turnaround principal school was heavily debated at this week’s Calcasieu Parish School Board meeting.
The purpose of the proposal is to incentivize the positions of principal and vice principal at the school.
“The Calcasieu Parish School Board introduced a turnaround principal position for schools that were persistently struggling in 2017. The turnaround principal position was utilized that year at Brentwood Elementary and was highly successful,” said Superintendent Shannon LaFargue.
LaFargue said LaGrange has realized its potential at times, but “not in a manner that has been sustainable.”
“In our efforts to provide every opportunity for success that we can for our students, we reached for the option existing in policy — the turnaround principal,” LaFaruge said. “We are continuing to rethink our system of education and how we can empower our stakeholders to engage at all levels.”
The proposal labels LaGrange as a persistently struggling school. According to the proposal documentation, to be considered a persistently struggling school, a school has to exhibit the following characteristics:
• Been assigned a C, D, or F through the state accountability system in at least two of the previous three school years.
• Has a high turnover rate of teachers and has been consistently hard to staff.
• Decreasing enrollment due to a prevalent perception the school does not provide effective instruction or a safe and orderly learning environment.
• Faculty exhibits low teacher morale and expresses a lack of support from the current school principal as measured through teacher surveys.
“There is no doubt that it has been a very difficult school to staff,” District 8 Representative Eric Tarver said. “I think it’s probably the most important job right now that’s open in the whole district. We need the best person we can get in a 500-mile radius to want to come be the principal of LaGrange High School.”
The turnaround principal proposal was inspired by the success of a similar program at Brentwood Elementary in 2017.
“The whole basis of where this came from was from Brentwood,” said Dean Roberts, District 6 representative. “Now we have a principal that is maintaining and keeping that school turned around.”
Tarver motioned to make an amendment to the proposal to double the supplemental income the position offers. This creates a possibility of $30,000 in supplemental income for Level 1 and Level 2 turnaround principals.
According to the salary schedule, for a Level 1 turnaround principal, $20,000 will be added to their annual salary. The amount will continue if the principal maintains “effective” status in the end-of-the-year evaluations and is assigned to a school designated as persistently struggling. At the end of the year, the principal will earn a lump sum of up to $10,000. The person will earn $2,000 for each individual performance target attained by the end of the school year. There are five performance targets.
The Level 2 turnaround principal is any currently sitting assistant principal applying for the job. That person will be held to the same criteria, except they will receive $10,000 added to their annual salary and a lump sum of up to $20,000, with $4,000 being awarded per attained individual performance target.
“Either one of those is going to be a small price to pay if we can get the right person in,” said Mark Young, District 5 representative. “This job is going to require more hours in a day than there are, and we’ve got to get the right person in.”
The amendment to double the supplemental pay was passed with a vote of 10-4. John Duhon, District 15 representative; Glenda Gay, District 8; Aaron Natali, District 1; and Fred Hardy, District 2, voted against the motion.
A motion to approve the proposal as a whole passed with a vote of 13-1. Hardy voted against the motion.
Bliss Bujard, District 11 representative, was not present for these votes.
Struggling LaGrange on the hunt for a new principal - American Press | American Press - American Press
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