Teachers asked to sign 'no interruption' pledge

School public address systems will be silent during classroom time, unless it is an emergency, and Iberville Parish School teachers will be asked to commit to a “no interruption” policy during the school day. A school official is asking parents and students to abide by it, too.

Anita Miller, coordinator for the federal Teachers Incentive Fund/Teacher Advancement Program initiatives, said she visited numerous schools to find the most effective programs for Iberville Parish to support the new programs.

“We looked at TAP schools. They set a consistent culture,” Miller said. “It's understood that education is what matters.”

She was particularly impressed by the no interruption policy she found at a Calcasieu Parish school where there were no constant PA announcements calling people to the office or students in the hall running errants.

“You didn't have 10 parents in the office waiting to check kids out,” Miller said.

She urged parents not to take students out of school for their various appointments, but wait until after class or for school breaks.

“Calcasieu has parents and teachers sign their pledges,” Miller said. “For the first year here, we will have just the teachers do it. If we see parents are doing a lot of pull-outs, maybe in January we might have a community information session and have them sign it.”

For teachers, she said, it will be they must “maximize your instruction time by having instruction from bell to bell, being prepared and ready for the children when they walk through the door and showing up to work every day.”

It will mean, for example, making enough copies and not having to run down the hall to make up the deficit.

“If the kids are there, everything else should be there,” Miller said. “We want to move toward a more consistent seriousness about school.”