Education Guide 2023: St. Bernard Parish offers dual enrollment program for high schoolers both on and off campus

Top photo caption: There were 34 student performances at The Chalmette High Cultural Arts Center during the 2022-2023 school year. Photos courtesy St. Bernard Parish Public Schools.

The 2023 commencement for St. Bernard Parish students.

During high school graduation this year, four St. Bernard Parish high school seniors received their college associate degree along with their high school diplomas.

Providing an opportunity for students to get college credit through nearby Nunez Community College while in high school has been an important initiative for the St. Bernard Parish School District, which accommodates schedules by providing school buses to take students to the Nunez campus during the day and by employing eight high school teachers that have adjunct professor credentials to teach college level classes on the district’s two high school campuses.

“We paid for teachers to take additional graduate level classes that certify them as adjunct professors,” said Doris Voitier, Superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish Public Schools.

Students can earn up to 30 hours—one full year of college courses—without having to leave their high school campus.

Collectively, seniors this year took 578 college courses totaling 2,370 credit hours. Some completed as few as three hours of college credit all the way through 60 hours in general education, math, sciences, English and foreign language, as well as career and technical classes, Voitier said.

“Over half of the graduating class graduated with college credit. Getting a first semester of college done while still in high school (toward) a four-year university is massive,” Voitier said. “We believe that kids should have a good social and emotional experience in high school and the student who wants to play sports or the student who wants to be a class officer or a student who wants to be heavily involved in their high school social experience can still get all of these dual enrollment courses without having to spend the majority of their day on a college campus.”

Teacher recruitment and retention is a major focus for the district, which offers an in-house one-year paid program to certify and train those who have a college degree and pass a proficiency in content exam on the national teacher Praxis exam.

“We provide at no cost the courses for the first year to get certified to teach in the state of Louisiana and while they’re taking (the courses),

Tech students got hands-on experience in producing student performances at the Chalmette High Cultural Arts Center.

they are actually teaching in the classroom and earning their salary,” Voitier said, adding that it’s an attractive option for mid-life professionals looking to switch careers without the need to enroll in a two-year college for certification.

In student life, Voitier said offering rich extracurricular activities for students has always been important, but more so now following to COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have made a concerted effort, especially at this time, to focus on the performing arts and athletics and after school activities and extracurriculars because it is addressing both the mental and social well-being of our students,” Voitier said.

That includes students of all ages starring in and producing shows at the Chalmette High Cultural Arts Center. This year, over 2,200 student performers took the stage during 54 shows with nearly 19,000 audience members in attendance. Students in theater tech put in an average of 450 hours during shows, getting behind-the-scenes, hands-on experience in the field.

The district is also seeing continued success in offering its youngest students free-of-charge 4K programs at its seven elementary schools. The program is available to anyone living in the district, without regards to income or demonstrated need.

“We have universal preschool—we were one of the first three districts in the state to have it. We started around 2001,” Voitier said.

s