Community members have mobilized to protest the move, arguing that closure will harm students as well as the unique culture, community, and economic livelihood of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe and broader Pointe-Aux-Chênes community.
- Laurencia Billiot, Pointe-au-Chien Tribe member, Protest at Pointe-Aux-Chênes Elementary, April 1, 2021
Will McGrew, CEO & Editor in Chief, Télé-LouisianeThe Terrebonne Parish School Board announced via its Superintendent the proposed closure of Pointe-Aux-Chênes Elementary School in the lead-up to a March 16, 2021 school board committee meeting, due to the assertion that the school is not sustainable—without specifying the metrics or analyses that resulted in the conclusion. The proposal was approved in committee with a final vote to confirm the change scheduled for next Tuesday, April 13, 2021, at the next full board meeting.
Patty Ferguson Bohnee, Clinical Professor of Law at Arizona State University and an attorney for the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe, said that prior notice was not given to parents or teachers, who have likewise not been informed on the details or criteria behind the closure. Parents have also not been consulted on how the District will maintain its legal obligations to serve PAC’s Native, French-speaking, low-income, and disabled students over the coming year. The dearth of community consultation on behalf of the School District has led many in the community to deem the move arbitrary if not discriminatory.
Bohnee stated that there are at least 99 students enrolled in Pointe-Aux-Chênes Elementary according to the most up-to-date numbers despite the effects of the pandemic and recent natural disasters on student enrollment. The majority of these students are Native American from Indian French-speaking families, predominantly from Pointe-au-Chien as well as Isle-De-Jean-Charles, while most of the other students are from Cajun French-speaking families in the area. The State reports that approximately 90% of the students at Pointe-Aux-Chênes are from low-income or disadvantaged backgrounds with 15% receiving special education services as of 2015.
Indian French is both used to refer to the dialect of Louisiana French spoken in the bayou parishes of Louisiana especially Terrebonne and Lafourche; however, it can also be an umbrella term to describe the Louisiana French spoken by Native American tribes in Louisiana including the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe currently located in Avoyelles Parish. Like all dialects of Louisiana French that in many cases vary with ethnicity and region, the similarities across them are relatively overwhelming.
Comparing Bohnee’s numbers to those the School District offered, Pointe-Aux-Chênes has roughly 20-30 fewer students than Montegut Elementary, the majority-white school that the School Board has decided to leave open and where the PAC students will be sent in the likely case of their community school’s closure. According to Vicki Bonvillain, United Houma Nation member and former member of Terrebonne Parish School Board for the District representing Pointe-Aux-Chênes, the School Board has still not provided any reasonable or fair basis for the decision to close Pointe-Aux-Chênes Elementary, especially in light of the fact that Montegut is not wheelchair-accessible whereas Pointe-Aux-Chênes is.
- Traditional Chief Albert Naquin, Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe (holding drum) and Second Chairman Donald Dardar, Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe (red shirt with sunglasses) among other community members, Pointe-Aux-Chênes, April 1, 2021
Despite not sharing specifics, the basic rationale provided by Martin and some School Board members to justify the closing of the decades-old community school was the declining enrollment at the school and the funding required to maintain the school—concerns that seem somewhat universal in a parish where many schools are struggling in the aftermath of the pandemic and recent hurricanes as well as economic, cultural, and environmental changes. Bohnee and other Pointe-Aux-Chênes stakeholders push back, arguing that the school receives significant federal and state funds due to its proportionally significant populations of Native and disabled students. Furthermore, the School District has not cooperated in response to outreach from PAC community members in their efforts to increase enrollment and sustain the school for the long term through fundraising, public relations efforts, or programmatic changes.
In particular, despite the community’s natural compatibility with a heritage language immersion program in the view of Shana Rae Dardar and other parents interviewed, the School District has thwarted parents, teachers, and community members’ efforts to increase enrollment through a transition to French immersion.
There are currently 35 French immersion programs in Louisiana enrolling 5597 students compared to 26 schools with 2692 in Spanish immersion and 2 schools with 152 students in Mandarin immersion according to statistics from the Louisiana Department of Education for the 2019-2020 school year. Immersion education in Louisiana can either be administered as an option among two or several curricular tracks in a school or in the context a full-immersion school in which immersion is the exclusive curricular model.
As the most extensive network of French immersion schools in the United States, Louisiana’s immersion community has stood out as one of the gems of Louisiana’s public education system. Michelle Haj-Broussard, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Louisiana – Lafayette and the President of the Louisiana Consortium of Immersion Schools, said, “French immersion has worked in a variety of schools in Louisiana since the early 1980s, not mention in Canada since the late 1960s.”
Underlying the benefits of multilingual education, Haj-Broussard, added, “immersion programs that are a track within a traditional English-language school are clearly successful based on substantial research since the 1970s. More importantly, if the entire school is converted to French immersion, the results show that the school will be even more successful.”
Beyond academic benefits, Bohnee says that the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe as well as other Native Americans in the area expect their school to be culturally responsive to the unique needs of the students it serves. Incorporating cultural context in education “affirms the backgrounds of the students, considers their cultures as strengths, and reflects and utilizes students’ learning styles,” according to researchers referenced by Bohnee.
She added, “Whether they take the form of immersion programs, dual-language programs, or a combination, these efforts are essential to (re)connecting our American Indian youths to the full scope of their identity.”
Bohnee, Dardar, and others in the community believe the development of a culturally informed immersion program would likewise respond to critical needs of students at the school. Haj-Broussard agreed, saying “immersion schools in particular improve outcomes for students who historically struggle academically for a variety of reasons. The International School of Louisiana in New Orleans and FLAIM (Foreign Language Academic Immersion Magnet) in Baton Rouge are two good examples of these benefits.
- Parents, students, and community members attend the protest at PAC Elementary on April 1, 2021.
In recent years, Pointe-Aux-Chênes parents twice mobilized successful petitions for the opening of a French immersion program in Terrebonne Parish, once in 2018 and again in 2020, following the necessary steps for opening a program under Louisiana’s Immersion School Choice Act passed in 2013. The School District both times failed to meet its requirements under the law to sufficiently consult with parents and open a program, according to attorneys Louis Koerner and Jimmy Domengeaux. The School District likewise denied similar efforts by the native-French-speaking United Houma Nation and the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, according to Bonvillain,and Geneva Lebeouf, another Pointe-Au-Chien Tribe member and community leader.
Peggy Feehan, the Executive Director of CODOFIL (a state agency responsible for keeping Louisiana French alive, especially in Native American, Creole, and Cajun communities), says, “CODOFIL is able and willing to work with Terrebonne Parish in helping them establish a French Immersion program, and we are looking forward to it. We think it would be an incredible opportunity to strengthen the talent base and economic potential of the parish.”
PAC parents and community members believe they have evidence that converting PAC Elementary to a French immersion school would be more than sufficient to increase enrollment and save the school. In both petition drives, they received signatures from a significant number of parents of students at Montegut Elementary and other nearby schools who said they would transfer their child to PAC for the specific reason of enrolling in a French immersion program, according to Lebeouf, Bohnee. This is consistent with evidence from other parishes demonstrating increases in academic performance, enrollment, and school funding after conversion of a public school to partial or full French immersion.
Underlying how critical the next few years will be in keeping Louisiana’s unique linguistic and cultural fabric alive, Coco Orgeron, mother of Ed Orgeron, head football coach at LSU and resident of Cutoff, Louisiana, says, “If you don’t teach the kids now, our language is all gone. This is your last chance.”
Despite claims to the contrary by the School District, Pointe-Aux-Chénes parents, teachers, students, and residents point to the fact that French immersion programs come with funding from the State and international partner governments—as Haj-Broussard and Feehan pointed out as well—making them a win-win investment for local school districts. The French Government’s role in supporting Louisiana’s French immersion schools was recently re-affirmed for the next four years at the re-signing of the France-Louisiana accords at the Cabildo last month.
The struggles of the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe as well as those of the Grand Caillou, Isle de Jean Charles, and Houma Indians for French immersion schools echo the demands of Cajun, Creole, and other Louisiana communities for heritage linguistic and cultural educational across the State.
In St. Tammany, the School Board denied three times the successful petitions for French immersion organized by 25+ local parents. The parents have since attempted to litigate the case given their strict adherence to the Immersion School Choice Act, but the lack of enforcement mechanisms in the law have failed to provide them with legal recourse, sanctioning an illegal violation of their parental rights, in the view of the parents as well as their attorneys Koerner and Domengeaux.
Music teacher and member of the Louisiana French band Poisson Rouge Kylie Griffin in Vermilion Parish has likewise attempted to petition for French immersion; however, she has faced significant obstacles from the local School District. Furthermore, since there is already a French immersion program in her parish, it is unclear whether demonstrating demand from additional parents would facilitate the opening of a new program, pointing to the need for legislative changes to strengthen the rights of students and families under the law.
- EJ Grabert Jr., a native Cajun French speaker, and his wife drove from Thibodeaux to support the Tribe’s efforts to save PAC Elementary given their shared support for keeping Louisiana French alive, Pointe-Aux-Chênes, April 1, 2021.
Tribe leader Chuckie Verdin and other members of his generation have emphasized that the decision to close PAC Elementary represents the final episode in a long period of discrimination against the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian tribe and other Native American tribes in the region. The Tribe members were initially prohibited from attending PAC Elementary until a civil rights suit forced integration of the school. Later, after they were admitted, they were prohibited from speaking their native language Indian French in addition facing other forms of bias. Verdin has specific memories of being called names and facing discrimination when he first attended 3rd grade at PAC.
The Pointe-Aux-Chênes school community also serves the French-speaking Isle-De-Jean-Charles Native Americans. This Tribe has experienced many of the same difficulties as the PAC. They are also considered by some academic and media sources to be the first community subject to resettlement due to climate change in the United States. Nevertheless, Bohnee and other tribal members argue that Pointe-Aux-Chênes contend there is no environmental justification for closing PAC Elementary, approximately 10 miles to the North of Isle-De-Jean Charles and inside the state and parish’s levee protection system. Instead, the position of both Tribes, shared by community members, is that the decision to close PAC Elementary creates further economic and cultural harm to a profoundly endangered community.
Bonvillain believes that with the only Native member gone from the School Board, Terrebonne Parish School District has begun a series of closures of Native American schools. The United Houma Nation has sued the Terrebonne Parish School Board for what they allege to be an unauthorized, illegal sale of a historic Indian school. A UHN member, Bonvillain met with Philipp Martin, the Superintendent, to see how many more students would need to enroll in Pointe-Aux-Chênes to avoid closure; after finding a significant fraction of that number, Martin moved the goal posts, positing a different threshold at their next meeting, according to Bonvillain.
Despite not having met with representatives from CODOFIL and the Louisiana Department of Education as would be appropriate under the Immersion School Choice Act, Martin stated at the School Board committee meeting where the closure was provisionally approved that the size of Pointe-Aux-Chênes Elementary was an obstacle to opening a French immersion program. Bohnee, Bonvillain, and others have disagreed, saying there is no still no guarantee that the School District would act in good faith to create an immersion program at Montegut Elementary or elsewhere given their repeated failures to respond to parent requests over the past years in several communities across the parish.
Furthermore, advocates and experts point out that Pointe-Aux-Chênes is still a great candidate for partially or fully transitioning to French immersion. According to Haj-Broussard, “school size is not an obstacle to the creation of a French immersion program.”
“In fact, some of the most successful French immersion schools, such as those in Orleans Parish, began with just a handful of grades and student populations that are even smaller than PAC. Lycée Français is a notable case.” Haj-Broussard added, “Myrtle Place Elementary is another great example of how a traditional public school can transition to immersion. In PAC’s case, younger students could immediately begin immersion whereas older students would initially receive French enrichment classes as all grades gradually transition to full immersion.”
- PAC Elementary parents Mary and Alton Dupree and their children protest PAC’s closure and collect signatures for the opening of a French immersion program, Pointe-Aux-Chênes, Apr 1, 2021.
Members of the Pointe-Aux-Chênes school community gathered outside of the school on April 1, 2021 to protest the school board’s proposal to consolidate PAC with Montegut Elementary. Around two dozen parents, students, and residents attended to demonstrate their solidarity.
The community will again be gathering outside and inside the School Board meeting at 6 pm on Tuesday, April 13 at 201 Stadium Drive, Houma, LA 70360. Organizers from the Tribe and community ask supporters to arrive at 5:00 pm to attend a press conference and protest before the School Board meeting where they want as many community members as possible to speak.