[Clipping: Students thrive on learning: Louisiana School challenges 400 of the best #1] Part: 2 of 2
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4,
'iving complex problems daily
ple for students and teachers
Leonisiana School for Math, Sci-
e and the Arts, but there's a prob-
pm that they are powerless to
S koney is the problem; school of-
iis believe the solution lies with
tate.
SThxree state budget cuts have
straied growth of the school that
ha received more attention na-
l.illy than within Louisiana.
S.,he state expense is about $7,000
t ,pupil per school year. The
S--88 budget is $2.8 million. Stu-
des pay a $500 annual room-and-
b~rd fee.
, ..~h ile the college-level cur-
'*Imun challenges students, stop-
4- further
reduc-
t i oe n s
a ltienges
f -l . hard
t '*win, Louisi-
'a-' School di-
rerr. Brown
B:ri that get-
I '"continued
;:.ort from
S i_.regislature Brown
i the gov-
~yelar" is his biggest chore.
>a 3r -own said the school is not in the
rlim um Foundation Program -
t state's program to fund the
;Assis - and is not under a univer-
i s supervision. "We are indepen-
S)et. .. we get it from both ends. To
ara tain our separate identity, we
.a ly will be a line item" in the
a budget.
h: 1at position has caused the
;.s:ol to readjust:
a u Expanding to a sophomoreclass has been put on hold because
no funds are allocated. Brown said
the school has dormitory and
classroom space for 550 students.
This year, it has 201 juniors and 199
seniors.
a Canoeing, sailing, windsurfing
and other aquatics courses were cut
this year.
a Salary no longer is the main
draw in teacher recruitment.
When the school opened, teacher
pay averaged $25,000 a year. The
figure was above high school pay
and comparable with salaries of
teachers at southern universities.
But the university average rose
while Louisiana School pay froze.
Biologist Allen Tubbs, who heads
the science department, said that
the salary was good at the time he
was recruited but that it's "not com-
petitive now."-WNednesday lunch periods turn wild at Louisana School when
Pill McBride (right, back showing) enters with the weekly door
Iprizes. The activity has become a tradition wi-th students shout-
yes and no as numbers are called.broma teacher Myrna Schexnider circles her students as they
think of a special place and a favorite item. A touch from her
-means she has taken the item, and students must sit up and ask
for it until she gives it back.
Natchitoches enjoys
attention for schoolsNatchitoches Mayor Joe Sampite
thinks he is sitting on a gold mine in
this central Louisiana town, and
te's not trying to keep it a secret.
. He wants more people to learn
about two nuggets in a growing
educational complex on
INatchitoches'
Southwestern
side.
The Louisi-
ana School for
Math, Science
4d the Arts
and the Louisi-
ana Scholars
College sit on
the North-
western State
University Sampite
campus and are setting the pace for
ncation in Louisiana, he said.
Louisiana School houses 400 of thestate's best academic and artistic
students. The Scholars College,
modeled after the high school, has
150 of the top collegiate minds in the
state. The sch iols are designed to
motivate and challenge the stu-
dents' abilities. They are unique in a
state that ranks near the bottom in
literacy.
"Every university and high school
will copy from these two schools,"
Sampite said. "Other schools are us-
ing the concept - that education
has got to be first."
That brings positive attention to
Sampite's town.
Natchitoches also benefits econ-
omically from the schools. Parents
come to visit, and "they do more
public relations for Natchitoches
..." Louisiana School staffing has
brought about 5 families the town.Amy Redmond (left) examines a bottle in a biology laboratory as Jennie Porche observes
It's a college atmospherea Continued from Page lA
peers.
Monica Prasad, a 16-year-old
freshman at Yale, took so many ad-
vancedcourses at the Louisiana
School that she fulfilled all of Yale's
math and science requirements
before she set foot on campus.
But not all students select the
school for academic prowess. Teens
who excel at drama, music or dance
like the artistic freedom that's en-
couraged.
Drama instructor Myrna Schex-
nider said: "They don't do Cream of
Wheat here. They do real stuff from
the heart and gut."
The students are an eclectic
group, and in a few cases an eccen-
tric group, who are not so much
gifted as they are motivated to
learn.
They are students like:
a John Glass, 16, who went to
Caddo Magnet last year and made
straight A's. He's interested in pol-
itical science and solar engineering
and wants to attend an Ivy League
university or Johns Hopkins. "It was
too good an opportunity to pass up,"
he said of the school.
a Will Turner of Slidell, the
senior class president. He may one
day run for seats in the state Legis--
lature and the U.S. Congress. "We
gave up a lot to come here, and
there's a lot of stress. But the best
friends I've ever had are here," he
said.
a Former Caddo Magnet student
Dawn Zitman. She easily passed col-
lege freshman courses at Cornell
University last summer, just after
her junior year at the Louisiana
Enrollment
process a
challenge
Between 500 to 550 students apply
to the Louisiana School for Math,
Science and the Arts each year, and
classes generally range from 180 to
205 students.
The admission procedure - ap-
plication, testing, screening, inter-
views-auditions, selection of semi-
finalists and selection of finalists -
takes months.
Marsha Zulick, assistant ad-
missions officer, said cooperation
from school
systems has
grown.
'More
schools are
./ " wanting us to
do presen-
tations," she
said. "We're.
" ;" better known.
. x a It's not that we
have to con-
Zulick vince people to
let us in, they're contacting us now."
The process begins in September
with visits to every school system in
the state.
The prospective student is gener-
ally a ninth- or 10th-grader with
high academic standards, leader-
ship qualities, perserverance, de-
termination and, in some cases, ar-
tistic talent. The caliber of students
interested in the school, Zulick said,
has gotten better each year.
Prospective students have until
Feb. 1 to submit application forms,
grade transcripts, original essays
and letters of recommendation. Stu-
dents must also take the Scholastic
Aptitude Test before Jan. 23. Grade-
point averages and SAT scores arethe major criteria.
4ouslana
School
FOR 'I4ATH. SCIENCE AND THE ARTS
School. She said about the school:
"It's an environment conducive to
studying all the time, and you want
to study."
In many ways, the students are
average teen-agers with all the self-
est'em problems and all the emo-
tional immaturity that trouble their
generation. Because they spend so
much time together, dating rela-
tionships are intense but often
short-lived.
Each night, a number of the young
men can be found visiting friends in
the girls' dorm. It's a six-minute
walk over there, they say, and a furi-
ous two-minute run back before the
10 p.m. curfew.
There are few cliques. Students
who felt alienated in other schools
because they were smart find them-
selves accepted here.
On a break from studies one eve-
niag, female suitemates talked
topics of special interest, like ex-
istertialism, the poetry of Allen
Ginsberg, the music of
TAw main ,fi ,1tir~-uvvw gi--
fiti they hear is scribbled on the
bathroom wall in the boy's dorm:
"~'blai Khan but Immanuel Kant."
The students' least favorite
aspect of the school is the list of
rules, such as nightly curfews and
requirements to sign out in the dorm
before leaving the campus.
Tim Bates, residence hall direc-
tor in the boy's dorm, said he and theThere are 201 juniors and 199
Seniors at Louisiana School.Lazarus
i .;Y~
" ' . :-:. ?. >Y'
ByrdAeight resident advisers are more or
less surrogate parents to the stu-
dents.
"We have some who are very im-
mature, but they are intellectually
superior. This is probably the best
thing for them," he said.
Intelligence is not the only thing
the students have in common, said
Anita Bordelon, a senior from Alex-
andria. "The most common ground
you have is that most people here
are afraid of being average," she
said.
The pressure to make the grade is
constant.
"I always feel this specter of
homework hanging over me," said
Sally Johnson, a senior-from Abita
Springs who frets about an A-minus
she got that day on a differential
A-plus.
For many students, the concern is
not how far they can go, but where
they will go.
Lyn Roberts, who teaches math
up to a third-year college level at
the high school, said, "We hope
they'll come back (if they leave Lou-
isiana) and we know some of them
will."bigger budget
".means expansionj I.
- ~ ~ .t ;, .. - . '- n x
.319) 4, .
o' .
lPa r
fd a
N R
r.11 .' Co-- g e KeyserAve
Northwestern
State Unavefsoty
, , 3 1 ' ' '
- - -- - ,.
~3 I.;Shreveporter joins plan
Powell a principal at La. SchoolStan Powell Sr. could not refuse
the chance to open another school,
so he retired from the Caddo Parish
school system to become assistant
director at Louisiana School for
Math, Science and the Arts.
Powell opened Oak Terrace
Elementary in 1959, then moved
Shreveport to
serve as Cap-
tain Shreve
High School's
first principal
1979, he went
to the central
office as direc-
tor of instruc-
tion and school
Powell adminis-
tration.
In Natchitoches, his duties are
similar to those of a school princi-
pal. He constantly moves about Lou-
isiana School's buildings on the
Northwestern State University
campus. He's in his office. Seconds
later, he's in the hallway on the sec-
ond floor. At night, he may visit thestudent dormitories.
"The concept was attractive to
me," Powell said of the "opportuni-
ty to have a school for capable
youngsters to come to a place and be
involved in a pretty extensive learn-
ing ... strong academics and the
opportunity for those kids to live
together."
He said the school "is not in com-
petition with school systems but is a
part of, an extension of all school
systems in the state."
He still has a home in Shreveport
and goes home two or three times a
month. He and his wife also have an
apartment in one of the school
dormitories.
Among his observations of stu-
dent life:
Time management is the big-
gest problem for the 15- and 16-
year-olds from across the state who
must leave home to attend the
school. Some have to "learn being on
their own" while others have to
manage their studying.
a There are no classroom cutups.
Discipline problems occur outside
the classrooms.A I IlVlt t.I IL HI-'UH I
Participating in the Louisi-
ana School project were
Writers Melanie Markley,
David Westerfield, and Gary
Fields; Photographer Billy Up-
shaw; and Night City Editor
Charles McCauley.I__
School
answers
question
Louisiana is receiving dividends
from its investment in the Louisiana
School for Math, Science and the
Arts, a school designed to motivate
and challenge the minds and talents
of the brightest high schoolers in the
state.
"Our goal is not to make scientists
of them," said Allen Tubbs, science
department head. "We want to give
them a broad liberal arts back-
ground."
Administrators and teachers at
the school - a shining star in the
state's dark education picture -
say the school is receiving better
students each year.
Louisiana School became real in
1983. It was conceived in 1980 when
state Rep. Jim-
my Long of
SNatchitoches
and North-
western State
University
President Rob-
-! ert Alost, who
.:: was education
- dean then,
were at a
Long Southern Re-
gional Educa-
tion Board meeting where they
heard North Carolina present its
proposal for an exemplary school in
Durham.
"Why not Louisiana?" Long said
when he heard the presentation. He
promised to introduce a bill to the
Legislature if Alost did the legwork
in preparing a package. Alost, who
was hired as the school's director in
July 1982, said he went to about 15
schools up the East Coast to glean
information.
The result is a school to provide
"an opportunity for that 3 percent of
i-7~ our youngsters
. who are not
challenged in
S" high school"
and a chance
("for us to
provide for a
. need at the
- ,, other end of the
spectrum,"
Long said.
Among the
Alost * benefits:
a The school is "giving prep-,
aration for youngsters they cannot
get in regular schools," Long said.
The World Book 5clence Sup-
plement's next publication will
have about 15 pages about the Lou-
isiana School and the two U.S.
schools - Aurora, Ill., and Durham
- similar to it. -
a LSU is the biggest benefactor
of Louisiana School graduates. It
has averaged about 50 from each of
the three classes of graduates. ...
. . , . , . ::. : ,I
i
3
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Markley, Melanie; Westerfield, David & Fields, Gary. [Clipping: Students thrive on learning: Louisiana School challenges 400 of the best #1], clipping, 1987; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc304751/m1/2/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science.