OLPH, Belle Chasse ‘Micro-School’ is small in size, big in its love for learning

For additional photos of campus life at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Micro-School, please visit the Clarion Herald’s Facebook page. All photos are courtesy of the school.

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

Brittany Breaux, the principal of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic “Micro-School” in Belle Chasse, says her school’s slogan sums up its recipe for success: “Small School. Big Opportunities.”

The parish-based elementary school, which currently educates 67 students in grades pre-kindergarten through 7 – and cares for another 26 nursery-age children as young as 6 weeks of age in its Early Childhood Center – has been successfully reconfigured as a micro-school for the past two academic years.

In the wake of declining enrollment at its traditional parochial school, the parish decided to adopt one that embraced smaller numbers of both students and staff. Ever since, the micro-school has been making waves as a happy hub of personalized education that fosters students’ lifelong learning, self-confidence and social-emotional maturity, all within a strong Catholic setting.

Rather than being grouped into a single grade,  students spend the school day in one of the following multi-age “studios”:

• Adventure Studio, for grades pre-kindergarten and kindergarten;

• Marvel Studio, for grades 1 and 2;

• Discovery Studio, for grades 3-5;

Innovation Studio, for grades 6 and 7.

A 15-minute “soft start” to the school day begins at 8 a.m. and permits students to decompress through journaling, pleasure reading or to simply relax before their core subjects begin.

The daily “Morning Meeting” follows – a time in which students share with their teacher and studiomates anything that’s on their minds.

“It’s such a beautiful way for the teacher to know their students and for the students to know their teacher and also their classmates,” Breaux said, noting that sometimes stressors, such as the illness of a family member, crop up at this time.

“So you know when and why your students might be having a bad day,” Breaux said. “The students really gravitate to that; they’re learning to understand their peers.”

Independent learners

Students receive the full daily complement of their core subjects of religion, English/language arts, math, science and social studies; however, the micro-school “twist” is that they do the bulk of their learning independently and at their own pace on school-issued Chromebooks. This approach makes the teacher more of a guide than a lecturer, Breaux said.

“The teacher has an opportunity to walk around the classroom, guide each student individually and learn what they’re struggling with, versus giving a lesson to the whole class and expecting students to go straight through the material and complete the lesson,”she said.

This self-guided, teacher-assisted learning is mixed with small- and whole-group instruction by the teacher that reinforces the lesson.

“You’ll see students reading to the whole class, or you’ll see peers working together, reading to one another,” Breaux said. “We give them opportunities to learn in ways that they’re excited about!”

Other innovative features include two recess periods, flex seating, enrichment classes in art, music, P.E. and social-emotional learning, two afterschool clubs and the daily “Take 10” – 10 minutes in which students can grab an age-appropriate book of their choice, write in their journals or take a quiet break.

“We allow them to embrace topics that catch their interest, versus saying ‘all the students in this classroom are going to read this novel,’” Breaux said.

Because the micro-model allows teachers to more easily identify gaps in learning and address them, Breaux has seen “a lot of growth” in her students’ standardized test scores. A smaller enrollment also makes it possible for students to invite their parents to campus for individual, quarterly presentations on the topic of their choice.

Prayerful, Catholic campus

OLPH’s pastor, Father Kyle Dave, said the switch to the micro-school model has only enhanced his school’s Catholic identity, parishioner support and parental involvement. Father Dave celebrates a weekly school Mass on Wednesdays, assisted by students serving as altar servers and ministers of the Word. The children pray throughout the school day and learn about their 2022-23 Gospel value of “holiness” through a daily reading from Scripture.

“The church’s primary place of evangelization is the school, so when our parishioners were faced with having the only Catholic school in Plaquemines Parish taken away, it was a wakeup call,” Father Dave said.

“By the grace of God and the ingenuity of Dr. (RaeNell) Houston and her team, we were able to reconfigure our school with the same quality of education,” he said. “Nothing has changed other than the size of the school.”

[email protected]