When they came over from St. James Parish in 2007, Iberville Parish Schools Superintendent Ed Cancienne and Chief Academic Officer Elvis Cavalier were given a mandate to attract local students back to traditional public schools. System officials say that at the time, they were losing about 100 to 150 students per year.
At their previous posts, Cancienne and Cavalier created a specialized Science and Math Academy. They decided to take a similar approach in Iberville.
“If we’re going to compete with charters, then we have to create choices that parents really want,” Cancienne tells Business Report in a feature from the current issue.
Iberville’s Math, Science and Arts Academy was established on two campuses as the first manifestation of that idea. When opened in 2008, the schools promised smaller-than-average class sizes, a high level of academic rigor and a robust arts curriculum.
For the 2015-16 school year, Iberville has created an elite offshoot of the MSA program. Known as Starship, the new program is touted as a technology-immersed, nontraditional learning environment for students interested in science, technology and math careers. The program emphasizes hands-on, project-based learning and will include interaction with LSU College of Engineering faculty.
Sixteen students each from grades six, seven, eight and nine, with an average GPA of 3.75, have been admitted to Starship. About the same number of students are on the waiting list. Cavalier calls the Starship students “the best of the best.”
He stresses that Starship was created specifically by and for Iberville Parish and is not a “canned program” piloted elsewhere. But they are getting help from Edgenuity, an Arizona-based vendor, to implement a “blended learning” approach that integrates online content with traditional classroom instruction.
Under Cancienne, Iberville public schools have gained nearly 1,000 new students, officials say, while opening several specialized academies. During a recent conversation with Business Report, Cancienne and Cavalier repeatedly stressed the importance of having an eclectic mix of educational opportunities for students. But they acknowledged that frequent mandated testing complicates that goal.
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