Tangipahoa schools plan academy

• By DAVID J. MITCHELL
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Oct 8, 2008 - Page: 3B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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AMITE — Tangipahoa Parish school officials plan to start an academy to identify future leaders for the school system, the school superintendent said Tuesday.

The leadership academy is one of Superintendent Mark Kolwe’s 10 goals for the 2008-09 school year that he presented to the parish School Board on Tuesday night.

Kolwe said school officials plan to use grant funding to seek out new leaders from among the system’s faculty and staff.

Goals also include creating handbooks for child welfare and attendance, school finance and human resources matters.

Other goals for this school year overlap with a strategic plan already in place, including the use of school data teams to improve school decision-making and expansion of the use of Scantron tests to measure students’ progress versus the state curriculum.

School Board President Al Link said the goals are “very ambitious.”

He noted that Kolwe and his staff have put in a lot of programs that, when they filter down to the school level, can sometimes be overwhelming with the record-keeping and work staff must do.

Link pointed out that teachers sometimes might be a little reluctant “to say what is truly on their mind” in advisory meetings and that he is concerned about the feedback he is getting from classroom teachers.

Kolwe said last year’s goals were more school- and teacher-oriented but this year’s initiatives are more on the district level.

“This year, we don’t have as many of those type demands,” Kolwe said.

He said parish school officials are sensitive to the concerns Link expressed but Kolwe also said that sometimes progress and improvement are “painful.”

In other business, the board approved new members for the school system’s discipline committee.

Responding to a board question, Kolwe said committee members were selected with assistance of Assistant Superintendent Thomas Bellavia and administrator Beth Moulds.