Question 1

Southeastern Home > Academic Programs > The Lab School > Standard Assessment Report > Standard 6 > Question 1

Standard 6 Focus Question 1

The leadership at Southeastern Louisiana University Laboratory School ensures that the school is responsive to community expectations and stakeholder satisfaction by involving them in every possible facet of our existence. We communicate our ongoing successes, needs, and progress on a regular basis throughout the school year, as well as during the summer. When attempting to work with our stakeholders, we do needs assessment, create a plan, implement the plan, and evaluate it.

Recently, parents and people in our extended community voiced some concerns and wishes about expanding our curriculum to meet the needs of all students, which will enable them to be more competitive upon leaving our school. For example, parents asked the administration and teachers to consider adding a foreign language program, as well as Advanced Math, to the junior high curriculum. We responded by consulting with Southeastern Louisiana University personnel as an attempt to assess available resources, and now we offer both options to our students.

As in most schools, communication is a very big concern and challenge for administration, teachers, students, and parents. We have addressed this concern by establishing individual teacher web pages, by using the Parent Command Center, and by expanding our school web page to include a wide range of information. We also have conferences with individuals from our PTO, from Tangipahoa Parish School System, and from Southeastern Louisiana University. We also discuss concerns with parents and other teachers who service our students. By gathering information from all of these places, we are able to make decisions that will benefit our students the most.

Assisting students who need additional help with studying and with homework has recently become a much needed service. All of our teachers strive to provide the best education possible, individualize learning, and address all learning styles/multiple intelligences. However, at the end of the day, the children must apply knowledge gained in order to demonstrate skills mastered, and in many cases, this is difficult for parents. As a result, we now have an after school tutoring program, and we work with pre-service teachers to assist with assignments during class. This helps to provide immediate assistance to all children needing remediation in content areas described in the Comprehensive Curriculum, in each grade level’s GLEs, in Tangipahoa Parish Guidelines, and in No Child Left Behind.

Finally, all interested parties were thrilled at the possibility and reality of implementing the DARE Program into our school, as well as the continuation of Red Ribbon Week. Other exciting things integrated into our school recently because of requests made by our stakeholders are the purchase of new computers and the hiring of additional paraprofessionals. Probably the most exciting response to requests made by students and their parents is the expansion of our athletic program. Not ony do we have more team, but we also have teams that are more competitive, and we have a great deal more school spirit.