Porch and Parish The Podcast
Our mission is to make sure every Zachary resident feels heard and engaged! Hosts Mike and/or Jen Gennaro facilitate candid conversations with local leaders, influencers and innovators in Zachary, Louisiana and beyond with the help of producer Mike Holt. New episode every other Monday at noon!
Porch and Parish The Podcast
Insights from Zachary Community Schools with Superintendent Ben Necaise
What if your child could thrive in a school district that prioritizes both academic excellence and community engagement? Join us as we chat with Ben Necaise, Superintendent of Zachary Community Schools, who shares his insights on navigating educational rankings, implementing innovative teaching strategies, and preparing our schools for the future. You'll hear firsthand how the Zachary Community School District maintains its high standing amid changes in the Department of Education's ranking system and get a sneak peek at upcoming statewide shifts that could impact schools across the board. Ben also offers a personal glimpse into his holiday hopes, his son's dynamic high school journey, and his passion for dispersed camping, all while reflecting on how his Army National Guard service has shaped his leadership in education.
Together, we tackle pressing challenges like fluctuating student populations and school overpopulation fears, armed with smart solutions like early intervention strategies and the Steve Carter funds for enhanced tutoring. Hear about the exciting introduction of the Leads teacher evaluation program, set to offer a more nuanced approach than the previous Compass system. We also discuss the district's strategic plan to ensure a well-rounded student experience, optimize resources, and enhance teacher compensation. With a focus on keeping the community engaged and informed, Ben emphasizes the power of collective effort and partnership in pursuing these goals. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that highlights the resilience and forward-thinking nature of Zachary Community Schools.
I'm Ben Necaisse, superintendent of Zachary Community Schools, and keep listening to Porch and Parish the podcast.
Jen Gennaro:What's up, zachary? We are back with another exciting episode, broadcasting from our headquarters right here in downtown Zachary. Our team is working hard on the winter print issue of Porch and Parish. While visions of sugar plums dance in our heads, there's so much going on in town during this holiday season, so make sure to visit porchandparishcom backslash calendar so you don't miss a thing. If you're interested in placing an ad with us in 2025 or have a fun story, idea or event to add to the calendar, reach out to editor at porchandparishcom or call 225-324-9515.
Jen Gennaro:Today we are joined by Zachary Community School District Superintendent Ben Necaisse. We'll be talking about the recently released Department of Education rankings. In case you missed it, the ZCSD no longer holds the top ranking, but we're still pretty high up there. Superintendent Necaisse is going to break it down for us and explain what this means how the scores are tallied to begin with and the upcoming statewide changes to how schools are ranked. I'm Jen Gennaro, founder and editor of Porch and Parish, and your host for today. We bring you the best of Zachary and the Development North region through candid conversations every Monday from our headquarters right here on Virginia Street. This is fortune parish, the podcast. Stay tuned, we'll be right back with the lightning round.
:I'm Carrie Godbold, your top producing local realtor here in Zachary for over 15 years. If you're looking to buy or sell real estate or just have questions about the real estate market, give me a call or send me a text 225-936-4898.
Jen Gennaro:All right, lightning round. So what do you want for Christmas?
Ben Necaisse:Well, I want the same thing every year, and that is to have just a relaxing two-week vacation. For school administrators especially, but even teachers, that two-week period at Christmas is truly downtime, as opposed to, summers are usually extremely busy and hectic, so that two-week period for Christmas is really when we get a chance to take a break.
Jen Gennaro:It does feel like the whole world kind of shuts down for a minute. So that's nice, all right. If you were a student at Zachary High, which electives would you take?
Ben Necaisse:That's a great question. I have a son who's a senior right now and he's going to be graduating this year and I've watched him and he's been able to take, honestly, just this well-rounded course load opportunity. So he's taken everything from AP classes, but then he also had a chance to dabble in business classes. He had a chance to go into culinary stuff. So I think as a high school student, I would have done the same thing, taking advantage of, like, the welding classes, but also academic classes, and that's one of the things that makes Zachary High special. Is this truly a comprehensive high school? So the whole goal is you're not going to be college or career ready. You should be college and career ready.
Jen Gennaro:Cool. In one of our early interviews with you, you told us your favorite hobby is dispersed camping. What does that mean?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah well, it also goes by the name of primitive camping too. You'll see it interchanged, and basically it means going out into a national forest or a national wildlife area and just camping out outside of the camp area. So you know, you can, you can get approved to do that and you literally just kind of go off on your own beaten path. So there's no hookups, there's no power, You're literally just kind of camping out there on your own?
Jen Gennaro:What's the? What's your favorite meal that you've ever cooked in the woods?
Ben Necaisse:Probably steak.
Jen Gennaro:Simple and easy, yeah.
Ben Necaisse:Simple and easy.
Jen Gennaro:All right, and our last question for the lightning round how did your years serving in the Army National Guard prepare you for a career in the classroom and later at the helm of an entire school district?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah, there were really a lot of parallels. I was a platoon sergeant especially during our deployment to Iraq and Baghdad was in charge of a platoon, ran combat patrols and really kind of being in this almost middle position of you know you were supporting and leading soldiers but at the same time you are getting orders and distilling out information you know from superiors as well. So trying to find that balance of support and also you know responsibility and I saw that really fit well as a principal. It was the same thing. You know you have district staff or state that's giving mandates, you're trying to support in the trenches with teachers as well and so really just kind of that same role. So still see it as direct support in the trenches but at the same time being able to you know, manage and support as well wonderful.
Jen Gennaro:now. That is it for the lightning round. We will be right back. All right, we are back with Superintendent Ben Necaisse. And now to get to the meat of the interview. Mr Necaisse, first please give the audience a brief introduction to our school district. How many schools and how many total students?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah. So Zachary Community Schools is really just what I would call in a sweet spot of districts. We're large enough where we have about 5,500 students. We have seven schools, so we're able to scale things that smaller districts can't do, but at the same time we're also not too large where you just kind of lose that personal community school feel. One of the special things about our school district as well is that students matriculate through all the grade levels, starting at pre-K all the way through 12th grade together. So we have schools that are usually about two grade levels apiece and so, again, you'll progress through first, second grade, Then you'll go to third, fourth, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and then high school. But it gives you that matriculation and you know you're able to move together and you're able to have all the experiences and all the supports that come with providing that to every student.
Jen Gennaro:And before delving into the rankings, let's highlight some of the key achievements Louisiana schools have made overall this year.
Ben Necaisse:Yeah, so one of the things that Louisiana did is, you know, especially after COVID, louisiana schools had a chance to go back a lot earlier than most schools or school districts in the country districts in the country. So again, we had a lot of safety protocols in place just yeoman's work from staff to teachers to facility team members to make sure kids could go back safe. That allowed us to really kind of get a jump in advance. Even as soon as today there's been reports about NAEP testing, which is national comparisons that show Louisiana really has accelerated well and came in about fourth place in 2022 after COVID, showing that we didn't see as much learning loss. But we still know there's still issues or things where students did lose learning or did lose opportunities, especially at the younger grade levels.
Ben Necaisse:The other thing Louisiana is being noted for, and our districts as well, is students are doing better in reading. So we're starting to really push the envelope with the science of reading philosophy. That's something that we've adapted. We've mirrored a lot of what actually Mississippi is doing and they have seen tremendous growth in reading based on kind of going back to the basics and going back to phonics instruction and some more direct instruction, along with several other supports as well. So that's been something that's been a great part of Louisiana and our local school districts as well.
Jen Gennaro:Now tell us, how are school performance scores tabulated?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah. So the measure at the elementary and middle school levels is pretty simple. About 65% of their evaluation comes from the spring test that everybody's familiar with, so the LEAP test. 65% is based on the number of students that hit especially at those higher levels of mastery bands and above. We also have a 25% component of growth. So this looks at students not just where they achieve, but if they've grown past, either met their target or exceeded their target for growth. And then there's been a 5% piece that call is called interest and opportunities, which looks at is the school offering. You know, everything from arts or STEM programming or other opportunities for kids. So that's pretty basic and it's kind of understandable.
Ben Necaisse:When you get to the high school, that gets much more complicated. You have entire quadrants that are based on ACT index. You have quadrants based on the end of course test. You have graduation rates included in there. You have quadrants based on the end of course test. You have graduation rates included in there. You have what's called strength of diploma, so how many credentials or dual enrollment credits a student earns in high school. And then you have a 25 or 20 percent piece of the grad cohort. Is a kid graduating on time in four years, and then they then have a 5% interest and opportunity. So the high school piece is much more complicated.
Jen Gennaro:Now, in what areas did Zachary schools meet or exceed expectations in this data?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah. So a lot of things that we saw, especially our graduation cohort rate is well above 97%, which is great. So kids who come in or graduating in four years and exiting well, we do well in strength of diploma. So a lot of our seniors, well over three quarters of our students, not only get a diploma but they get a credential. So they're earning dual enrollment, ap credit, industry-based certifications when they exit, which again builds that whole child kind of experience. So we see that. And then we also do really well in general in the achievement piece. Our kids achieve well. But what we're seeing is a trend of we do have students who are, you know, kind of coming into different grade levels, which I know we'll talk about, and we're having to work with them quickly to try to get them caught up. But we do really well in growth. So we were number two in kindergarten or third grade to eighth grade growth. So when students come into our district we do a great job of growing them and getting them to achieve their potential.
Jen Gennaro:And explain to us how the waiting system works, will change next year.
Ben Necaisse:Yeah. So and this is a little complicated because what people will see is our scores are reported a year behind. So when we got our score report in November, that is actually from the data used the previous year and in some cases with graduation data it's actually two years ago. So it's sometimes it's confusing. So what they will see in next November, november 2005, is the score report for this year and that will stay the same. However, when we go back to school in August, that starts the clock on the new accountability system, and that system in many ways is good in the sense that it has gotten very clean and simple to understand. So, generally speaking, the interest and opportunities pieces and all these other components will disappear and at the elementary and middle level, it will only be achievement. So how well kids do on the LEAP test and then growth how well they grow on those tests. Leap test and then growth how well they grow on those tests, the biggest change being growth becomes 54% of the score as compared to 25% right now.
Ben Necaisse:So the majority of the score becomes growth. So the state wanted to put an emphasis on we understand kids are at different levels and may be struggling and we can't necessarily affect multiple grades of improvement in a year. But what we can do is get them to their target and above, and that's where we're going to focus Now. The high school is much, much different. A lot of the things we mentioned the interest in opportunities, dual enrollment, ap graduation rates, all of those things ACT will all now collapse into 25% Right now. That's making up 75% of the high school score. It's much more comprehensive. All that will be folded into just 25%.
Ben Necaisse:At the high school the end-of-course test will now become 75% of the high school grade and that's important to understand because at the high school there's only six courses that students have to take for the state to pass to graduate, and that is those end-of-course tests, tests. That is so. It's Algebra 1, geometry, english 1, english 2, american History, which is turning into Civics for the test, and then Biology. So, interestingly, 75% of the courses will come, or 75% of the high school score will come, from those six courses, which make up sometimes only six out of almost 200 courses at a high school.
Ben Necaisse:The other thing that's interesting about that is students only have to pass one or the other in those buckets. So once I pass Algebra 1 with an approaching basic not even a mastery score, then I've checked the box for graduation and I don't have to pass geometry. So it becomes contingent on teacher relationship, pushing students to really do their best and incentivizing, saying hey, really this is important for them to take that next test very seriously. So again, lots of changes and there'll be a lot of emphasis placed on a handful of teachers who teach those courses. So we're having to think through how do we prioritize and give those teachers more support, even compensation and things to make sure that they're supported as they become much more of an accountability system.
Jen Gennaro:And those end-of-course tests. We're just talking about final exams.
Ben Necaisse:Yeah, it's similar to that. In fact, in those six EOC courses it replaces a final exam, so basically it will count for about 15% of a student's final grade. That's part of the incentive to make sure students it's still important. But basically it's a state standardized test so they go into a state testing environment. It's a locked environment, teachers don't have access to questions. Of course we teach the curriculum and the content, but it's a standardized test, just like the LEAP, and then students take that and compare it to their peers across the state just like the LEAP, and then students take that and compare it to their peers across the state.
Jen Gennaro:How do you think?
Ben Necaisse:the shift in weighting from performance to growth will benefit Zachary students and educators.
Ben Necaisse:Again, one of the things that we see is that we see great growth at the elementary and middle levels.
Ben Necaisse:One of the areas we're going to work on is growth at the high school level. But part of the challenge there is through our demographic study and also through just our student enrollment counts. What we see is more parents are moving in at the middle and high school level. So when we have a student who moves in and, for example, we have a pretty good bit you know in recent years close to 75 students who may come to ninth grade for the first time as Zachary students. So when they enroll in ninth grade they're immediately in an Algebra 1 and an English 1 class. And so if they have deficiencies or they're coming in with struggling to possibly read or have other deficiencies in math or other subjects, we've got a short amount of time before that March, april, really April to get them ready for an end-of-course test. And so we're thinking about how we provide more supports for those students very quickly, identify them if they have needs and make sure they're ready.
Jen Gennaro:So you've mentioned a demographic shift, with more students parachuting in at different grade levels. How are you addressing the unique needs of students who join the district midstream?
Ben Necaisse:So one of the things and ideally what you want is, as students matriculate through your school system, especially if they enter at the lower grade levels, especially in those grade levels like kindergarten, first, second, where you're learning to read, you have a lot more chances to intervene with them. Moving forward from third grade up, we call it reading to learn. So now the focus shifts from your teaching reading to now students are having to read for content. So I Again, as we see students now starting to matriculate in at much different grade levels, we're having to identify them quicker through different assessments and screeners and then immediately start doing interventions. So we do have strong intervention plans that are built in during the school day for students to either receive pull-out supports or, in many cases, in-class support. So you may see a classroom with two adults in it and one's teaching a larger group, one's doing smaller pull-outs within the class and rotating students.
Ben Necaisse:We also are doing part of the Steve Cartering tutor, so we're supporting parents as they make choices to go into tutoring with Steve Carter funds. And then we also have, you know, outside of that, tutoring and supports outside of school, after school hours in a lot of cases, and we're doing supports with that. So there's a lot of opportunity for kids and parents. But again we want to ensure we focus on not giving a child overwhelming supports or overwhelming interventions. We want to make sure it's targeted and correct interventions and that they're aligned and everyone knows, from the classroom teacher to the tutor, to any other supports a child is getting, what everybody's doing so that it's aligned and connected.
Jen Gennaro:Very smart. A lot of behind the scenes stuff happening.
Ben Necaisse:Great, great job for our teachers and our supervisors. This is what they do every day. They're trying to map that out and work that puzzle.
Jen Gennaro:It's amazing so many folks are concerned about the overpopulation of Zachary and our schools. Do you feel like that concern is unwarranted, and why or why not?
Ben Necaisse:And that's a great question. And that question is what really pushed us to do a demographic study last spring that ran through the summer. We reported out to our board at the beginning of the year on that. If anyone who drives through Zachary the look and eye test tell you there's tons of houses being built. We know there's literally hundreds and thousands of rooftops that will be built in the next few years, so we wanted to see where were we at from a standpoint of population.
Ben Necaisse:What we have seen, and the data is telling us now, is that by 2030, we'll see a fluctuation give or take within about 100 students and actually down probably within about 100 students and actually down probably not up 100 students.
Ben Necaisse:So for a district that's 5,500 kids, that's well absorbable, I guess. If that's where we can absorb that, that's not something beyond the scope of the facilities we have. What we do see, though, like I told you, is we're seeing more students come in at different grade levels, especially at the middle and upper levels or the higher elementary levels, so families moving in, or more mid-career or midlife families. So we may need to make sure we're covered for space in certain grade levels. But then we also see that we're seeing slow declines in early grade levels, but then we also see that we're seeing slow declines in early grade levels. So again, overall not enough of an impact to be a positive or a negative. But it may just require us to make sure we're monitoring for space and when we say we may need more space, it may just be converting a room to a classroom, not necessarily building space.
Jen Gennaro:So, with these projections showing stable enrollment through 2030, it doesn't seem like the district is going to need some major output of future infrastructure or staffing, correct?
Ben Necaisse:Right. And with that said, though, one thing interesting is remember we're now just a little over 20 years old as a district, so a lot of our taxes are tied up in bonds that went to build new facilities and renovate the current ones we have. Those are starting to roll off, so we're, in a sense, basically paying off the mortgage notes and over the next five years we're going to see a pretty dramatic drop, but we'll see yearly drops as we move forward and we've already seen some. So as we continue that, we'll see taxes roll off this. However, we also know that we're going to have to look for potential opportunities because now that the facilities are 10 plus 20 years old now and moving forward, we're starting to see renovation needs or just repair needs, all the simple things that you know you got to start thinking about as a homeowner that you've actually got to fix.
Jen Gennaro:So now air conditioning, roofs, all those things we're having to look at, zachary.
Ben Necaisse:Very relevant today.
Jen Gennaro:Correct Right. Tell us about the new leads teacher evaluation program. How does it work and how is it different from previous teacher evaluations?
Ben Necaisse:So, in addition to brand new accountability systems, we have a brand new teacher and leader evaluation system that started this year.
Jen Gennaro:And that's statewide or.
Ben Necaisse:Zachary Statewide Correct. And so the leads evaluation system is different than what our previous system was called Compass. Compass basically measured about five different attributes in a classroom environment. So when you went in to observe a class you would look at planning, questioning a student, engagement, a few bigger pillars, and you would evaluate a lesson on that. So teachers usually did one or two of those a year and at the end of that there would be a post-conference to talk about, you know, are there things that could be improved? Or you know, reflections on the lesson.
Ben Necaisse:Leeds is much more detailed. Leeds, you know, has well over 20 indicators and a ton of sub-indicators included in that. And it goes beyond just the classroom. It even goes into, you know how well, you know, does a teacher interact with students outside of school or extracurricular activities? It goes into much more detail. The other thing it does is it provides for full support cycles. So you go in, you actually, you know, do pre-observations, pre-conferences, but the first one's usually an unannounced visit, so that wouldn't necessarily happen. So an administrator would go in and observe and then there would be post-conferences and then a whole support plan created thereafter, created thereafter. So then it's a support cycle of not only just the administrator, but the teacher working together, doing self-assessments, identifying areas of growth and things that they could work on or do better, and so it kind of creates this back and forth of a support cycle that would then lead to either a second or third evaluation, depending on their classification or, if they're a new teacher with less than three years. If they do very well on the evaluation the first time and they're an experienced teacher, then that would be their only one of the year.
Ben Necaisse:The big change, though, is it's very time-consuming. It's good work, it's important. It follows tenets where a teacher said you know what we really from a professional practice piece? We want more feedback on our craft. So that was the point of this, but it is definitely time consuming, not just for the teacher, but could you think about the administrator, who may have 20 or 30 of these teachers to do, multiplied by two to three possibly, evaluations. So, again, very time consuming, but it's very detailed work. We also have instructional specialists and support team members and supervisors. We're all pitching in to try to help, to provide supports during those sessions.
Jen Gennaro:Now, you kind of touched on this during the lightning round, but I know that you're a big believer in the whole child philosophy, right, and we've discussed previously that a lot of districts kind of jump to cut this or cut that and put more focus into certain components of academics, right. So tell us what role do you think arts and athletics play in helping students achieve better academic outcomes?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah, absolutely. You know, the most important thing and I think if any of us think about this and reflect probably the best experiences we've ever had in life, the things that when we look back and make us who we are, it's not just the academic piece. There were interactions, there were extracurricular connections, sports, a coach, a teacher, somebody on quiz bolts, something, something made us who we were and we can't we can't forget those experiences. Now, those experiences are not always or definitely now have no measure in a state accountability system and they don't have any, you know, sometimes you know hard to put an objective number on it, but there's definitely those anecdotal experiences that we know are important. So we have to continue to hold strong to that. Athletics all leaned on each other to support each other, and we're going to continue to do that, you know.
Ben Necaisse:Again, I look back at myself. I didn't graduate with a very good GPA. I had no intent to ever go to college. It wasn't an important thing for my family, but I excelled in other areas and that later gave me the confidence to go to college and do well there. So I think it's just important to remember. It builds character, it builds who we are and it makes us great citizens.
Jen Gennaro:You are currently working on a five-year strategic plan. What are the top three priorities of this plan?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah, so we're in the middle of this work and so we've been getting support and feedback from we did surveys and focus groups and you know so many other connections. We're working with board members all the way down to our staff and then we'll be reconnecting with the fuller board and stakeholders as well as we build this out. But you know, our strategic plan from 2020 to 2025 really served us well. It got us through some interesting things, especially like COVID, but now we need to look forward. So we are still building out priorities.
Ben Necaisse:But the things that I can say three things that jumped out that I definitely think will be big pieces to this is one student experiences, academic success.
Ben Necaisse:So we want to again continue to do well, state accountability wise and compete and do very well there. But we also want to make sure we hold tight and we don't disregard all of the other things. The academics and the are the arts and athletics that make us who we are. So the full student experience and I can say that we do that way better than most places I've ever seen and that is truly just from top to bottom, every grade level, every school, the experiences we give students are phenomenal. The second thing is resources and supports. You know, at some point we have finite resources, and that's something we're going to have to start thinking through is how do we continue to fund everything? You know, as inflation hits everyone? You know, how do we continue to do those things and provide supports, and again addressing facilities that are getting older, but then still doing all the work that we do. And then, finally, employee compensation considerations.
Ben Necaisse:So again we know teachers educators deserve to be well-paid and have a good wage and good benefits. We do a good job of that as a district and we definitely have the best benefit package around, but we need to think how do we continue to think creatively and provide better compensation for teachers? There's a lot out there that's competing outside of even education for good people and we need to think about how do we support them better.
Jen Gennaro:How do you plan to keep parents and the community engaged and informed as the district works towards these long-term goals?
Ben Necaisse:Yeah. So we've been doing a quarterly newsletter so they'll get more information there. We've kind of prompted and given them information there. We do a great job on social media, really pushing out a ton of information. So again, I know they see a lot that's happening. And then we'll have engagement sessions too as we begin to kind of look how do we finalize and really prepare the strategic plan moving forward. And the most important thing is, just like any strategic plan is not putting it on a shelf but putting it relevant, out in front of everyone and using it as success measures moving forward. So measuring those key indicators, measuring those stakes that we're putting in the ground and make sure that we're doing well collectively. So we definitely bring to bring it up a lot as we move forward.
Jen Gennaro:Is there anything else you want to add? Pretty much covered a lot of ground, absolutely, absolutely.
Jen Gennaro:All right. Well, that is it for this week's episode of Porching Parish, the podcast with Superintendent Ben Necaisse. Mr Necaisse, thank you for your time today and thank you for your service to our country and to our school district. I'd like to give a huge shout out to our community partners, like the City of Zachary, the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System and Breck Parks, who stand with us in our mission to make Zachary a place where every resident feels heard and engaged. Thanks to the generosity and support of our community partners, the magazine, podcasts and everything you see online is possible and free because of them. Remember the three T's that make up quality of life Pick up trash when you see it, foster technology at any expense and embrace an attitude of tolerance for diverse voices to begin to engage everyone's talents in our community. Those diverse voices are the creative engines that will drive the future success of our economy. Have a great week, everyone, and Merry Christmas.
