At the end of a most unique school year, marked by a balancing act between in-person and remote learning, The Dispatch sat down with Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Cherie Labat to talk about how the district and its teachers tackled safe learning, the district’s troubled history of underperformance and what community members can do to support local schools and show students their post-graduation options. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Question: Talk about this past school year and how COVID-19 affected the district.
Answer: Leading up to August, there was a lot of uncertainty. We didn’t have a lot of guidance, but that’s not an excuse because I think educators are the most resilient people in the world in terms of figuring things out and making things happen. With the numbers as high as they were in the summer, there was so much fear and, I would say, a lack of continuity about the direction of where we would be as educators — not only in Columbus, but in the state. I have no regrets about the decisions we made because preserving one life of my faculty and staff and students was well worth anything we will have to do in the future to mitigate the unfinished learning.
We were very strict about CDC guidelines in facilitating a safe environment. If a child or an educator’s needs are not met from a safety standpoint, how can we expect them to perform? Going into a hybrid system was the best for us to make sure we had fewer students in classrooms and kept our teachers as safe as possible. I did get a lot of feedback from teachers thanking us.
I was very assertive in making sure that we received our PPE on time and making sure that we had desk shields and were ready to go in August. Kids had been out from March to May and then the summer, so I knew that we had to make the most optimal space for learning given the circumstances, and that’s what we worked as a team to do.
Q: It seemed schools in particular adapted the fastest. What did that look like in terms of decision making?
A: The district staff was very adaptable, so it’s not like anybody didn’t want to do it. I think it’s just a strategic mindset about how to deal with situations that are uncertain. …I am very grateful for going through (Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when she worked for schools in Bay St. Louis). And then I am very grateful for going through the tornado (in Columbus in February 2019), which was a quick one. It was a long one and a quick one. And then the pandemic was every day. Every day the tornado was coming. Every day the hurricane was coming. You didn’t know what story you were going to get. I think that was grace, now that I look back on it. I think you have to be more focused in trying times.
Q: (The district) started out with an option for kids to be virtual or hybrid. How has that gone?
A: As a district, we took the stand that you don’t want to make personal health choices for an individual. So the option of virtual and hybrid by semester, we thought, empowered the parent to make a decision on what they were going to do for their child. I think people forget Columbus is one of the few districts that started on time. Some districts are still in school. We’re done. That is a lesson in getting back to some sense of normalcy as quickly as possible. I think that delaying would have perpetuated the hysteria, especially with the numbers. I even made a bet with somebody. I said, “Everybody says don’t start because the numbers are high. I guarantee the numbers are going to get higher.” Lo and behold, people started, and then a month or two later, right during flu season. (Editor’s Note: Mississippi State Department of Health reported hundreds of new cases per week in the four-county area in late November, December and January.)
Q: I think a lot of people in the community want to help improve the school district. How does that happen?
A: We have really good kids. Like 98.9 percent of them are wonderful and just need the opportunity to do something better and see themselves in a different light. I think from a business owner, taking time and saying, “Let me go in and tell people about journalism or running a business or ethics or writing and writing well. Let’s do a tour for some of those students that are interested in that.”
(Columbus Lowndes Chamber of Commerce Director) Wilson Beck came to our senior night, and he stayed the whole time. That may not have been a big deal to a lot of people, but it was a big deal to me because it said a lot about who he was that he wanted to see our students — they’re not mine — our students in Columbus on their senior night.
Q: When you’re running into the community engagement question, you’re going to have people that will show up no matter what. You’ve got people who won’t come no matter what. And then you’ve got the people in the middle who (say), “I would, but—” What are you running into that’s on the other end of that “but” most often?
A: I think if there are “buts,” it may come from perception issues. I think we just have a lot of people always waiting to see what’s going to happen. To me, that’s a lack of commitment. “I just want to see what’s going to happen with Dr. Labat.” Well, how about we just see what’s going to happen to this community and kids, and invest in them because it’s the right thing to do? I tell people time and time and time again, if they don’t graduate well-educated, where do you think they are going?
If this is your community, every part of it has to be important. In order to have a thriving community, it goes back to the kids. The community has to make sure they are supporting — it doesn’t matter what choice you make (for your own children) — public education and the children that go.
I’m still very proud of this community, don’t get me wrong. And I think it’s happening little by little. But when you go back to the “but,” you can’t be in and out. … It’s got to be you, looking at your children and your grandchildren and saying, “If I’m from here, what do I want from my children and grandchildren? What are my hopes and dreams for this community? What are my hopes and dreams for my kids?”
Q: I’m sitting here wondering what I personally can do to help the district. It’s also a matter of just having pride in your district, and I think something as simple as wearing a ballcap with the district logo on it can communicate that and it shows buy-in.
A: I agree. I was driving to Arkansas, and I went through a community. They had the school district (logo) on every flagpole in the community. I took a picture and sent it to (Columbus High School Principal Craig) Chapman like “We need to do this!” There’s something to the psychology of marketing, people seeing it, people wearing the brand of the district and being proud of it that I think is important.
Q: It’s so easy to dismiss an entire district or an entire school by saying, “That’s a D,” or “That’s an F.” That’s what you’re up against in terms of perception. How do you combat that? (Editor’s Note: For more than five school years running, CMSD has been rated D by Mississippi Department of Education’s A-F accountability ratings.)
A: Seventy-five percent of our incoming kindergarteners are not prepared to begin learning. Our educators do a great job making up for that. But the letter assignment I think is one of the most detrimental compliance measures created in public education. It is the reason why 24-year-olds don’t have common sense when it comes to thinking things through. … We’re not teaching them to think. It’s so corrosive. I always say to Mississippi, “What do you do about the 35-40 percent of the districts in the state that are Ds and Fs, and they’ve been like that for over a decade?” … How is that working for us as a state? Because it is in the lower economic areas. Most of them are in the Delta, in the north part of the state. There’s a reason why the coast is flourishing. There’s industry there, there’s families there, and there are jobs and living wages there. … That grading system I think starts the stigma of what you said: “But.” “But you’re a D.” And I think it also won’t allow people to look at the good things that are happening.
Q: I think a great way for the community to help the district is show the kids they have options after graduation. This could be internship programs or field trips. Does that play into education as far as you see it?
A: I think we’re doing a better job of that. We’re building more relationships with the community, the Air Force Base, some great partnerships with workforce (development efforts) and some different businesses to create more options for students. We have to have a creative, obviously systematic way of approaching an internship program and working out those quirks and say, “If you’re interested in this, we can offer this type of internship.” … I know our district career coach is working on those types of relationships. I feel like the graduation rate and other things will be better when students have options and understand the resources of our community. Columbus and the Golden Triangle is rich in resources and opportunities.
(For example), I’m having pilots from Columbus Air Force Base come in to mentor our high school students. I told them to be in their uniform. I’m also going to have them come and read to our students at the elementary schools. There’s something cool about a pilot coming in, right? That goes back to hopes and dreams. I can guarantee there’s a lot of kids that hear about Columbus Air Force Base, but they don’t know it’s here. So I think we should say, “How can I get more business people in the community to be mentors? Do we have a lecture series? Do we have a way for students to sign up for internships in their interest area?”
Q: National media has cast this as “the lost year” in terms of education. Is that true for CMSD, and how are you going to play catch-up?
A: I’m going to use the term “unfinished learning.” I can never look at a student or a situation with a student and say they’re lost. I think we just have to have a sense of expectation that we will recover from this with an intense focus on grade-level instruction and acceleration. We intensely focus on literacy and ensure that our students are reading complex texts and text-dependent questions. And we understand that we are going to have to do some overtime, which means after-school programs, Saturday school programs. We have to focus, too, on parents, ensuring that learning is happening at home. Parent advocacy is more important now than it’s ever been. And I’m sure parents realize, from the hybrid system or keeping their kids at home from March to May, how tough this is. The good thing is they’ve had a short lesson on what they need to do.
Q: What about the parents who say that’s your problem?
A: I think that’s a problem that’s not only in Columbus, but in public education, period. I always say parent involvement in a child’s education is probably the biggest indicator on how successful they’ll be. (There are parents who say,) “Did you have homework?” and their children say no, then they call the teacher and say, “Did he have homework?” The parents that are involved like that are going to get more out of their child’s education. I think the thing that we have to do is communicate in terms they understand and make them feel a part of the school district. I think as educators, we (say), “Your child’s hopes and dreams can be achieved if you come to this meeting and really understand what their options are for college success.”
Dispatch Publisher Peter Imes, Managing Editor Zack Plair and News Editor Isabelle Altman conducted the interview. Altman transcribed the interview.
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