Baton Rouge Leader Wants to Unleash ‘Genius’ in Every Student | Education

As the new superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, which he calls his “dream job,” LaMont Cole takes over just as the new school year begins, with memories still fresh of a horrific start to the school year 12 months ago.

Much has been done, including approving the first across-the-board pay raise for workers in 16 years and leasing many new air-conditioned buses. But Cole said he is beginning his own investigation to ensure schools are ready when students return from summer vacation on Aug. 8.

“What I hope to do is change the perception that people have that our school system is not one where students can get a quality education in every classroom,” Cole said.

On Thursday, the two discussed a number of difficult issues surrounding the start of the school year.

Student transportation

Smith took the lead on this question, describing several initiatives that should significantly improve the performance of this important department this school year:

• Air conditioning on nearly all buses. Smith said there are currently 396 air-conditioned buses, and about 400 routes are in operation each morning and a similar number in the afternoon. School officials estimate that 367 of those air-conditioned buses will be operational on Aug. 8.
• No longer buying buses, but leasing them. The district garage could not keep up with the volume of repairs on buses owned by the district, especially those with broken air conditioning. Leased buses, on the other hand, are repaired by the company that leased them. The number of leased buses has grown from 54 to 123.
• Updating and reintroducing the WheresTheBus app. The inability of parents to track their children’s bus rides via that app last year proved to be a particular source of frustration. To make the app more useful, the transportation department spent the summer fixing broken GPS locators on buses.

A sudden, unexpected shortage of drivers in August last year was a major trigger for the bus crisis.

The latest budget includes an across-the-board pay increase for all employees, including a $1,300 raise for drivers. For example, entry-level bus drivers will see their annual pay increase from $19,150 to $20,450 per year.

This school year, however, drivers will no longer receive the large one-time stipends that were approved to help curb the crisis. All they will get is a $1,000 stipend for support staff, which was approved by the Legislature in June.

Smith, citing a July 11 report to the board, said the Department of Transportation is in a better position than before, with about 435 drivers.

“We have more drivers in the group now than we did before the pandemic,” he said.

Last year, the driver shortage didn’t start until late July, when dozens of veteran drivers announced they were leaving. Smith said the district is developing contingency plans for such an event, but didn’t go into details.

“We are looking at alternative ways in case there are vacancies,” he said.

Vacancies for teachers

Schools in East Baton Rouge Parish struggle each year to fill all their open classrooms, especially in high-stakes areas like special education and math, as well as in the lowest-performing schools.

Since the pandemic, those challenges have been exacerbated by teacher shortages at the state and national level.

Last year, as of February, there were 132 teacher vacancies in the East Baton Rouge School District, plus another 88 for paraprofessionals. Earlier this month, the district reported 222 teacher vacancies and paraprofessional vacancies. As of Saturday, there were 191 teacher vacancies listed on the district’s job website.

A key part of Cole’s motivation for becoming a school principal is what he describes as a desire to build strong relationships with the people he works with.

“We want to see that we can do some outreach, not only to teachers and staff who work within the school system to share with them how much we appreciate them being employees in the school system,” Cole said Thursday, “but also doing some general outreach to the public to say to anyone who is interested in teaching in our school system, ‘We warmly invite you to join us.’”

He said recruiting and retaining workers will be a key focus of his government.

“I think if we get our minds on the same page, work with the staff, work with the teachers, listen to their cries, we can come up with a plan together that is acceptable to them and that they want to stay in our parish,” he said.

During Wednesday’s interview with the school principal, Cole also made it clear that he is looking for ways to expand the recently approved $2,200 teacher pay raise so that teachers earn at least the Baton Rouge-area average.

But overall, Cole wants people to feel good about their jobs.

“People want to work in places where people like to work,” he said.

Academy

The day Cole applied to become superintendent, Louisiana released LEAP scores for schools across the state. The results showed that schools in East Baton Rouge Parish improved slightly, with English and science up and math holding steady. But scores have not fully recovered from a large drop early in the pandemic.

The district improved faster than the state, which was flat overall but still lags noticeably behind. Some schools lag far behind their peers. At 19 schools, fewer than 10 percent of students scored at proficiency or above on LEAP tests administered this spring — 12 traditional, four charter and three alternative schools.

Cole said he will spend his first days closely examining the district’s curriculum “to ensure that every teacher is prepared on day one to teach in a way that meets the academic needs of the children.”

He outlined ambitious plans to spend a lot of time in classrooms and school buildings, observing and talking to people to figure out what needed to be done.

“I have some maybe out-of-the-box ideas about how we approach our schools and have conversations,” Cole said.

During his interview, Cole published a 100-day plan in which he sets a strict schedule for himself. He said he will visit schools in each region, spend a day as a teacher, shadow a student for a day, visit homes, and attend many school events and performances.

“I don’t get much sleep, so hopefully that will help me learn as much as possible,” Cole joked.

He plans to make unannounced visits to schools and will have his leadership team do the same, perhaps just to meet each other.

“If schools are functioning the way they should, there should be no problem having a space to meet and discuss what we know is important for the district, but when school leaders start saying things like, ‘We are not prepared for you today,’ then we are having a different conversation,” Cole said.

In his 26-year career as a teacher, Cole has made student contact his core task.

“I truly believe that every student has a genius-level talent,” Cole said. “It takes a teacher to instill that spark … That genius-level talent could be something completely different, completely diverse, but they all have it and we have to believe in them.”