Trosclair receives national leadership award

Irma Trosclair, principal at South Crowley Elementary School in Crowley, is one of seven recipients of the Terrel H. Bell Award for Outstanding School Leadership.
Trosclair is a former principal at Eunice Elementary School.
“I’m very honored and happy to receive it,” said Trosclair. “It may come in my name, but so many other names of people doing the hard work — in the classroom, at home — deserve it.
“It’s a reflection of everyone’s hard work — the teachers, the support staff, the parents, the students, everyone.”
The U.S. Department of Education announced the recipients Thursday.
In September, South Crowley Elementary was recognized as a 2015 Blue Ribbon School.
The Terrel H. Bell Award for Outstanding School Leadership, part of the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, recognizes school leaders committed to education as a powerful and liberating force in people’s lives.
Trosclair will receive her award on Nov. 9 during an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Locally, it’s a proud moment for Acadia Parish Superintendent John Bourque, former Eunice High School principal.
“It’s hard to imagine that kind of honor,” he said. “The magnitude of it is unbelievable.”
That magnitude is hard to put into a proper scope.
When South Crowley and Martin Petitjean elementary schools were recognized as National Blue Ribbon School nominees, the schools were among only nine total schools to be recognized in the state. Three of those schools were private/parochial, two were magnet schools, one was a lab school and three were traditional public schools, including South Crowley and Martin Petitjean.
Those nine were recognized from a field of more than 2,000 schools in the state of Louisiana.
South Crowley Elementary is comprised of several different races and 87 percent of its population is “economically disadvantaged.” The poverty level of South Crowley Elementary families is actually 113.2 percent greater than the national average.