Eunice elementary teachers at (Professional Learning Communities at School)workshop

Four Eunice area elementary schools met for a morning workshop (Professional Learning Communities at School) at Word Ministries in Eunice Tuesday.
Representing Eunice schools were East, Glendale, Eunice and Highland Elementary.
Teachers and principals met together to be informed and to brief each other on different school topics and standards.
Break-out sessions led by different principals included: school writing standards, school resources, Writing Rubics, Math planning for kindergarten through fourth grades, Writing sessions for kindergarten through fourth grades.
Two guest speakers were also part of the program: Madeline Hunter, of COMPASS from University of La. at Lafayette, and Capt. Megan Vizena of the St. Landry Parish Sheriff Department.
COMPASS is a state’s educator support and evaluation system. The system is designed to provide all teachers, educators, with regular and meaningful feedback on their performance and supports to continue improvement.
Under the new system, every teacher and school leader in each public school is evaluated annually using a four-tiered rating – Highly Effective, Effective: Proficient, Effective: Emerging, and Ineffective.
Captain Vizena, an 11-year law enforcement for St. Landry Parish Sheriff Department, spoke about school safety and awareness, and how teachers and principals can help children’s safety on campus.
Vezina says safety begins at home with parents. However, “We as law enforcements cannot always count on parents at home to teach and keep their children safe, and show them safety rules.
“Some children don’t know how to be safe at home because their home environment and parents don’t always guide them correctly.
“I recently had a 7-year-old student come up to me and described my gun to the tee!”
Capt. Vizena says she counts on the teachers and principals to teach children safety rules. It’s very important that our children learn at a young age to be safe at all times,” she said.
“Schools should have an evacuation plan ready for action. Teachers should always keep their classroom doors locked.”
She added, “Teachers, become aware of your students, their actions, the way they speak to one another, and body language.”
Capt. Vezina gave a report of a few statistics of school violence and harmful school incidients reported- * In 2001- 5 cases reported;
* In 2005- 8 cases
* In 2009-16 cases
* In 2012- 15 cases and thus far in 2014 - a reported 20 cases
Vezina added, “We don’t need metal detectors at schools, we need mental detectors instead.”
She added, “Always be in your survival mode, think this way, think safety... practice safety drills at school.
“Some schools allow our SWAT team to go into schools to demonstrate what they do to keep students safe. Some schools also have school resource officers on their campus.”