Education Guide 2023: St. Tammany Parish finishing up school construction projects, offering salary incentives to recruit and retain teachers

Top photo caption: Students at Madisonville Junior High School have the opportunities to participate in Future Focus Family Nights for junior high school students and parents to help set the path for success in high school, college and future careers. Photos courtesy St. Tammany Parish Public School System.

Superintendent Frank J. Jabbia visits Madisonville Elementary School students.

St. Tammany Parish, which enrolls more than 37,000 students in 55 schools across the parish, is currently finishing its 2019 voter-approved Capital Improvement Plan for school construction, which will remove modular buildings from school campuses.

It includes construction projects at Fontainebleau High, Magnolia Trace Elementary, Covington High, Little Oak Middle and Abney Elementary, according to Frank Jabbia, Superintendent of the St. Tammany Parish Public School System. There are also ongoing renovation projects at Florida Avenue Elementary, Lancaster Elementary and Madisonville Elementary.

There are no school closings or consolidations in the district for the next school year. The school board voted to rename Mandeville Middle School in honor of Gayle Sloan, former St. Tammany Public Schools superintendent and former assistant principal of the school who passed away in January of this year.

Jabbia said the district has created an incentive package to recruit new teachers and retain current educators for the upcoming school year.

Teachers will receive various salary increases ranging from $1,000-$2,000 depending on their experience and expertise in a critical shortage area, like special education. Built into the incentive package is an additional salary increase for teachers who pursue additional credentials to teach a different subject in order to fill critical shortages and a salary increase for each advanced degree teachers earn while employed by the public school system.

“Our educators and new STPPS teachers will be eligible to receive stipends in the 2024-25 fiscal year. These include a $1,000 Annual Effectiveness Stipend…and an annual stipend from an Employee Salary Reserve Fund (where) applicable,” said Jabbia.

In other staffing news, the board voted to hire 25 library aides to assist the librarians in the system.

A pep rally was held at Folsom Elementary School after the school was recognized as Blue Ribbon School in 2022 for excellence.

Folsom Elementary was named a 2022 Blue Ribbon School, presented by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona as a high-performing school that serves as a model of effective school practices for state and district educators and other schools throughout the nation.

Folsom Elementary serves 424 students in grades PreK-5. Folsom Elementary was one of only 297 schools across the country to get the designation.

The district has many initiatives for students to explore careers and leadership opportunities. The 2023-2024 school year will be the second year of the three-year implementation of the Leader in Me program at its schools.

“We believe Leader in Me will lead to a huge transformation in our district and will create student leaders on all of our campuses in the future,” Jabbia said. “We will continue our work in making sure our students are successful and our families, employees and community are supported.”

The district launched Future Focus Family Nights for junior high school students and parents to help set the path for success in high school, college and future careers.

“These events, held on each junior high school campus, allowed attendees to learn more about career and college options and identify interests, skills, strengths and goals. Students were given time to explore pathways to success, choose courses and join clubs and activities,” Jabbia said. “We look forward to hosting more Future Focus Family Nights, ensuring students and families know their path to graduate high school ready for a career or college.”

The district hosted a Career and College Expo, which had over 3,000 participants, and what Jabbia called a huge success.

“We are already planning our next Career and College Expo,” Jabbia said. “Our school system theme this past year was Impact! and every day we saw the impact our teachers and employees had on the lives of our students. We are excited to continue making a difference and we are looking forward to the future.”

The district is in the process of adding an additional internal auditor and created an independent financial audit committee. Jabbia noted that the parish increased its financial transparency this year by adding an online checkbook and credit card registers to its website for viewing. The district revamped its website, all 55 of its school websites and launched a new mobile app this past school year.

-Jenny Peterson, Contributing Writer

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