Louisiana State Superintendent of Education visits Calcasieu Parish Schools Wednesday

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - Schools in full session, and a special guest made an appearance in class today in Lake Charles.

“We have some visitors, exciting visitors, who get to come in and see our teachers and what our students are working on,” said the principal over at T.H. Watkins, Ashley Johnson.

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley.

“I was here roughly a year ago, right after Laura, and so we wanted to come back today and just check on everyone to see how everyone was doing.”

Visiting T.H. Watkins Elementary School Wednesday morning, he tells me he is inspired by what he is seeing in the classrooms.

“We use the word resiliency all the time in Louisiana, and we have to use it too often as a matter of fact, but you know, these teachers and these kids, and these leaders are resilient.”

Something principal over at T.H. Watkins Elementary School, Ashley Johnson would agree with.

“Even last school year, in the school year, the students, it just doesn’t bother the students or really the teachers, we kind of, you know what, there are no floors and walls, we kind of covered it up with paper, and it’s really all about the learning here.”

A former teacher himself, Dr. Brumley explains he maintained a dialogue with teachers today about how two improve schools.

“I’ve asked the question a number of times today, what can we do better? What do you need from us? Because I want to take that back to our team so that we can make decisions to help support them in the classroom.”

Shifting the focus to COVID-19, I did ask Dr. Brumley about dropping the mandatory quarantine for kids that were exposed to COVID-19.

“My position was local educators, local parents, the medical community, talk about all the factors associated with covid,” he said. “From the health risks, but also the mental health concerns the increase in childhood obesity, the increase in type two diabetes, all these things also play in. And so we just wanted local communities to weigh all that out and make the decision that was in the best interest of their community.”

Dr. Brumley also visited S.P. Arnett Middle School.

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