Bourque talks education at Rotary Club meeting

A lot has changed since Acadia Parish Superintendent of Schools John Bourque took over more than a decade ago – curricula, policies and even the school dynamics themselves.

What hasn’t changed, for Bourque, is the teachers’ dedication and the importance for education, which is why he invited everyone at the Rotary Club of Crowley’s Tuesday meeting to visit the schools in Acadia Parish to see how well they are all doing.

“Tell them I sent you,” said Bourque, “and see what these kids are doing.

“I think we have good schools in Acadia Parish.”

The district’s superintendent turned to Acadia Parish residents when he first took the job to understand the state of education locally, and Bourque was quick to point out how the residents in the parish have always been a great help to him and the community. He pointed to the Rotary Club’s recently completed school supply drive as an example of this and expressed his gratitude for the club’s involvement with the community and its children.

“Our kids need you now more than ever,” he said.

Bourque then turned his focus to the education landscape, which in Louisiana has been changing quicker than the weather. With litigation and appeals and so forth, Bourque projects the ongoing Common Core battle won’t end this year.

But for the most part, it doesn’t change things in Acadia Parish, he said, teachers will continue to teach. The question arises with testing in the spring, so Bourque understands the frustrations and uncertainties that teachers and administrators have faced already this year.

Still, he is quick to complement the parish’s educators and continues to ask them to just teach.

“If you teach them, they’ll pass any test put in front of them,” he said

Bourque isn’t off-base either with the simplistic approach as the district’s scores have seen significant rises in his tenure. He even pointed to the great success and turn-around schools like South Crowley Elementary have had.

Circumstances within the schools are also not always ideal. Bourque points out factors of accountability and performance being improperly taken to account. 

The district has no problem with accountability, he said, but it needs to be true accountability. Bourque explained factors like all high school students – including those not in college-bound courses — not going to college at all — and special needs students being forced to take the ACT and their composite scores counting against schools.

Bourque also talked about the direct relationship between poverty levels in an area and the school’s performance, but he says the district does not accept it as an excuse.

The superintendent also accepted questions from the Rotarians. He covered subjects like the Leader In Me program. The program is currently in place at South Crowley, Martin Petitjean and Ross elementary schools. The program, as he points out, helps give students a reason to want to attend school.

“We have to compete with so many things,” said Bourque. “It’s important we make kids want to come back each day.”