In the Spotlight: St. Roch’s Road to Recovery

by Ted Hornick, Editor-in-Chief

Numerous independent associations have sprung up in distinct parts of New Orleans, each tying personal triumphs to the larger goals of city recovery. One of the most engaging stories of success is that of the St. Roch Project. For each month’s final Friday, the St. Roch Project organizes merchants, food vendors and musicians in the cozy neutral ground of St. Roch Avenue, where locals can laugh and dance the night away, together. November’s Friday on the Roch was not only the usual celebration – it was a step forward for the community, with the announcement of the St. Roch Walkway.
Pious Catholics associate St. Roch with combating plague – but on Friday, November 30, the New Orleans neighborhood with his name came to stand for another kind of renewal. Tulane University’s Partnership for an Active Community Environment (PACE) collaborated with the City of New Orleans to build a half-mile foot path on the neutral ground connecting Independent Square and the St. Roch Market. A survey of the area revealed that ninety-five percent of its residents would use the neutral ground if there were a walking path there. The space was made possible through a $50,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which allowed the group to construct the first two blocks. The New Orleans Office of Recovery Management was convinced by this construction to build four additional blocks and complete the walkway. Additional community groups are already fundraising to develop “public art displays” in support of the new foot path.
A superficial appraisal of St. Roch might leave one thinking that its historical contributions to the city surrounding it (such as being the birthplace of numerous jazz greats, including Jelly Roll Morton), are behind it. However, Dr. Jeanette Gustat, a steering committee member with PACE from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, sees the Path as a first component in a grander scheme of restoration for the city. She explained, “The city needs plans.” She elaborated on the relevance of the St. Roch Path to future plans by explaining similar events as the PACE Community Playspace, an open park located near St. Roch Avenue at Dr. Charles R. Drew Elementary School at St. Claude Avenue. Construction of the playground involved over 400 volunteers from across the country and equipment donated by ABC-Disney TV. Dr. Gustat spoke highly of the park, saying it could host “Forty-to-sixty kids at a time. We are limited only by time and sustainability.
“With this [the path] and the playground, we are very excited,” Dr. Gustat continued. “The speed at which things progressed boggled our minds! The luck of working with the ORM in one of their target zones allowed things to fall into place.” In addition to Dr. Gustat, speakers at the event included Kina Joshua, a Coordinator with Fridays on the Roch, Dr. Ed Blakely, Director of the Office of Recovery Management, and Robert Mendoza of the Department of Public Works. Dr. Blakely opened his remarks by speaking to the importance of the event, saying “Small things mean a lot, and this is a big step for the recovery effort.” Regarding the numerous contributors to the event, Dr. Blakely emphasized that, “People made a real big difference.”
Robert Mendoza’s comments on the event were more modest, but no less aware of the path’s relevance: “This is a simple concept put to use. St. Roch will get many years of service out of this.” He was also certain to acknowledge the private contractors for the event, Hard Rock Construction.
Mr. Kenneth Ferdinand of the French Market Corporation could only joke at the podium, “We know how to do markets, we think. We’re happy to provide technical assistance to our neighbors, [and] you all are.”
Kina Joshua spoke in place of St, Roch organizer Greta Gladney. In Ms. Gladney’s place, she acknowledged a number of contributors, including the Mayor’s Office, Councilman James Carter and Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, Parks and Parkways and the New Orleans Police Department’s Quality of Life Officers. As she left the stage, she jokingly added, “I cut it short, believe me!” Afterwards, it was time for, in Robert Mendoza’s words, the “Officials to cut the official ribbon on the official path and put it to official use!”
Perhaps the most candid and inspirational remarks of the evening were Dr. Blakely’s words for all of New Orleans: “We’re going to put it all together.” The St. Roch Walkway is open and ready for the city of New Orleans.

Rethink New Orleans: An interview with Rayne Martin, Deputy Chief of Operations, Recovery School District

by Courtney French and Lucy Tucker, Rethinkers

Rayne Martin began working for the Recovery School District (RSD) this summer. Not long afterward, she called Rethink to say that Superintendent Paul Vallas wanted her to work with us. Later, she and staff recruit Lona Hankins, Director of Capital Improvements, spent most of their Sunday at a Rethink meeting. We were impressed to learn that they would spend so much of their weekend time in the community. We met up with Ms. Martin again the next week, at her office, for this interview.
Rethink: What made you want to work at the RSD?
Martin: I’m from Louisiana, and I wanted to return here to help New Orleans after Katrina. I was determined to work for someone who would make a real difference in record time. So when I learned that Mr. Vallas had been hired as the superintendent of the RSD, I started calling him. I called a few times a week until he finally gave me an interview. After the interview, I was even more interested in becoming part of a team to revitalize the public schools.
Rethink: You are the Deputy Chief of Operations. What does that mean?
Martin: My stuff is not about what happens in the classrooms, it’s about all the other things kids need in school to be happy and safe, so that they can learn. I deal with school transportation, food services, the buildings themselves and information technology.
Rethink: What is your typical day like?
Martin: Well, I have lots of conversations about transportation, food services, facilities and information technology. I answer questions and e-mails – I get about 120 e-mails a day. My day is not boring . . . but it’s long. I spend about twelve hours at the office. After that, I go home and eat and then I get on the Internet again.
Rethink: What do you like most about your job?
Martin: I like the fact that we have a lot of opportunities to change things and design them in better ways. And I like the people I work with.
Rethink: What would you change about the RSD schools today?
Martin: I would try to change the community’s perception about the kids and families that go to our RSD schools. I would also focus on the good things going on, the things that will make people have faith again.
Rethink: Tell us about your vision and your goals for your own work.
Martin: I believe that school busses should be on time and they should be safe environments for students. Food should be nutritious and good to eat. Buildings should be clean and should smell clean. All the holes should be fixed in the ceilings….and there should be flowers and landscaping at all schools. Schools should be happy and safe places to learn.
Rethink: What are some changes for the better in the RSD schools this year?
Martin: I’ll talk about operations, my area. We have put things in place for kids with disabilities, like elevators and busses. About 300 bathrooms were renovated. Also, all of the public schools have hot lunches now. (Note: not all the schools have operating kitchens yet. Some school kitchens were renovated this summer to act as “commissaries” to prepare hot meals for various schools. Campuses without cooking facilities now have the ability to receive and serve hot food). A lot of the reasons for these changes had to do with pressure from Superintendents Vallas and Pastorek. (Paul Pastorek is the Louisiana State Superintendent of Education.)
We have made sure that students with disabilities are not placed in schools without elevators. Each school with special students now has a “striker chair” so kids can travel down rails and not get stuck in emergencies. Also, we have done special training with bus drivers so they know how to deal with kids who have disabilities.
Rethink: We believe that students are experts on schools and should have a loud voice in “rethinking” the schools after Katrina. How can kids get involved in the RSD school system?
Martin: Well, to my way of thinking, the best partnership would be if kids could respect the school environment. Kids could help us by keeping the bathrooms clean, treating equipment with respect, not pulling firing alarms, not making graffiti or littering the grounds. We want students to feel like it is their environment.
Rethink: Well for some of us, metal detectors in our schools make us feel like we are animals.
Martin: How does that happen, exactly?
Rethink: Probably it is the guards themselves – the way they talk, the way they react to kids sometimes.
Martin: Is it better this year?
Rethink: Some things are the same and some are different. Instead of guards, we need counselors to help the kids.
Martin: Superintendent Vallas is working on that. His vision is to have the security guards also run community programs in the schools. We need the right people with the right spirits – strong but caring. I find it sad that in some schools, four-year-olds have to go through metal detectors. Hopefully, with a new vision and a new security model, this will change over time. We need the Rethinkers and other students to give us your ideas. How can things be better?
Rethink: How about if you installed a hotline for students to call with ideas and complaints?
Martin: We are installing a teacher hotline right now. I can look into a student hotline.
Rethink: Good, we’ll get back to you about this and report your answers in our column next month.
Note: Students who want to talk about an RSD hotline to report our ideas and complaints can call (504)-943-0282.

New Neighborhood Group helps St. Bernard 

Sharon S. Ober
Community Center of St. Bernard
St. Bernard Parish has many reasons to be grateful to the dedicated staff and directors of the Community Center of St. Bernard in Arabi, Louisiana. After the storm, more than 1,500 residents signed a Statement of Support calling for the establishment of a permanent facility where they could network, conduct business, socialize, connect to services, share stories and grieve for the family and friends they had lost. Thanks to this strong grassroots effort and the generosity and hard work of many volunteers and organizations, the Community Center moved from being simply a shared vision to a valuable resource. The grand opening ceremony was held in January 2007.
Today, the Community Center provides parish residents access to necessary services like free internet, faxing and telephones. Community meals, dances and other social and cultural events are also held at the Center and at nearby schools, giving people the opportunity to renew old ties and make new ones in a safe and all-inclusive setting. Food, personal care items and household supplies are distributed to those in need every week, and the Community Center has actively pursued partnerships with other agencies to provide people health care, housing information and legal aid. For all they’ve done to make this possible, we would like to thank the wonderful volunteer team of Executive Director R.M. “Iray” Nabatoff and Board Members Bruce Conlay, Chris Andry, Cynthia Burke, Alberta Lewis, Larry Aisola Jr., Claude Rome, Brenda Catania, George Barisich, Mark Madary and Lt. Col. David Dysart.

NPN & YURPs are partnering to host a forum in New Orleans East, November 7, 6-8pm

Where: Thomas Thien Sunday School 5069 Willowbrook Drive

What: NPN and the Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals are hosting a forum on the ways that race and class affect the rebuilding efforts of our communities.

Come join the small group discussions and audience participation exercise that will address how to collaborate meaningfully with young professionals and your neighborhood.

“It Takes a Village: Community Participation & Education”
Wednesday, October 24  6-8 pm
at Warren Easton High School 3019 Canal St

How Can We Participate Effectively in Our Neighborhood Schools?

Participating Education Advocates:
Karran Royal, Oak Park Civic Improvement Association
Hal Brown, Board Chairman NO College Prep
Shakoor Aljuwani, St. Luke’s Homecoming Center
Mid-City Neighborhood Organization

Please come join our roundtable discussion.  Refreshments provided. 

pdf (2.2 Mb)

Articles:

Letter From The Editors

Letter to The Editor

Poetry

New Orleans Kid Camera Project

New Orleans’ Transient Blues

Teacher’s Stop: An Educational Experience

In The Spotlight: Holy Cross Neighborhood

45 Little Things Parents, Teachers, and Others Can do to Improve Learning

Six in Jena, and Countless Beyond

Queen of The Ball

Creating a Culture of Respect, Langston Hughes RSD Charter School

Nola Public Schools 101

Uniting Teachers of New Orleans: Coming Back Stronger Than Ever

Kids Heal Through Art

New England / New Orleans: Massachusetts College Collaborates with Broadmoor Improvement Association

New Orleans Outreach & New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School

Hill School Offers Teaching Alternatives

The Miseducation of The Lower Ninth Ward

Ask City Hall

Two Poems by Jessica Kinnison

This is the first in a monthly series of photographs taken by New Orleans children.

Artist:LaʼShay

Age 13, from Gert Town

Christy Williams, owner of Teacher’s Stop, Inc., stands in her shop which is surrounded by school supplies. Photos courtesy of Nicholas A. Poggioli.

Nicholas A. Poggioli
staylocal.org

Christy Williams has a concise but powerful philosophy: “Each day I try to help someone. A day without helping someone is a wasted day.” Twenty years ago, she said it was her motto. If you want to verify that, just check her high school yearbook. Much has changed since then, but ask any of Willams’ customers, and you’ll find that she remains steadfast in her devotion to helping others.

Today, Williams owns and operates Teacher’s Stop, Inc., her Mid-City business, at 4315 Bienville Avenue. There, teachers, parents, and students can find all the educational supplies they need.

Before opening Teacher’s Stop, Williams taught at various grade levels in the Orleans Parish public school system. She has a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from UNO. One day, while leaving Lafayette Elementary School, Williams noticed the teachers’ supply store was going out of business and wondered how people would buy supplies once it closed. This concern led her to suggest to a coworker that they open a school supply store, and though the coworker never followed through, Williams used her savings to open Teacher’s Stop in the 100 block of North Broad Street in 1996. This first location was about 400 square feet.

The business did well and outgrew the small space, so Williams moved up the street in the summer of 1997. She eventually realized that she needed to move again. It took some time before a move became financially viable, but in July of 1999, Teacher’s Stop moved to its present location on Bienville. Williams now has 6000 square feet of space at her disposal, though she uses slightly less. In just three years the business increased its space more than tenfold.

Teacher’s Stop is a combination of Williams’ personal philosophy of helping people and a savvy entrepreneurialism that identifies and takes advantage of opportunities when they arise. She also has a “delicious” power of description: “Business is like chicken,” she says, smiling. “My business is baked chicken: You season it, watch it, you take care of it. Others are fried chicken: You just dump it in!”

Williams wants to help people make the right purchases, as she believes that the educational community deserves service that understands its needs. Her years as a teacher and her graduate studies taught her about education, and she evaluates each customer’s needs individually. She knows that teachers have tight budgets, and that they often subsidize those budgets with their own money. Williams works hard to make sure teachers stretch their dollars as far as possible and will even steer them away from unnecessary purchases. She asks teachers what grades they teach and whether or not their schools might provide any materials for them.

Convinced that a smart, knowledgeable saleswoman will create repeat customers, Williams sees individual service as essential to the long-term health of both her business and New Orleans education. New customer Shannon del Corral, an English and music teacher at Ursulines Academy on Nashville Avenue is proof that she’s right. On a recent Saturday, del Corral stopped in for the first time after hearing about Teacher’s Stop from another teacher.

“Several posters had arrived for my music classroom, and I needed to have them laminated,” says del Corral. “When I went in with my posters, Christy was great! Other places often laminate without testing and assume little or no responsibility for the outcome. Christy didn’t just laminate the posters. Since the poster paper was thin and glossy, she took the time to test the machine using similar paper. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated this type of service and attention to detail. One poster alone cost $25! . . . I could not contain myself when I heard that the total cost to laminate five large posters was under eight dollars,” says del Corral. “I was expecting to only afford the laminations, and was more than able to purchase the other materials I had selected. The next day, I shared my good fortune with other teachers in the faculty lounge.”

Best of all, rather than having to drive to Metairie to pay more for less, del Corral was able to make her purchases less than a mile from where she lives. “Here’s to rebuilding New Orleans one purchase at a time!” she said.

No New Orleans business story is complete without a Katrina saga, and Williams certainly has one. Katrina put four feet of water in the store and, as she puts it, “peeled the roof off like a sardine can.” She persevered and traveled to trade shows where she told people her store “had a natural skylight.” She kept the business going by operating without a storefront. Some of the customer base she had developed since 1996 remained intact and called her personally with their requests for supplies. She would order items and deliver them personally. However, she knew this was not a permanent solution.

In January of 2007, Williams applied for a small business recovery grant from the Louisiana Economic Development Department (LEDD?). First word she got back was that her application had been lost. Then, in March 2007 the intermediary assigned to her told her that her application had been found and that she was approved to receive the money. She’s still waiting for her check.

Williams did not sit idly waiting for her business recovery grant to show up. Knowing how critical the fall season is in the education supply business, she applied for and received a small grant from a local business assistance agency so she could open in time for the Fall 2007 back-to-school rush without taking on additional debt. Once again, Williams’s self-sufficiency and creative problem-solving won the day.

Yet, even now, two years after the storm, Teacher’s Stop is not back to its former status. Inventory is less comprehensive, and though Williams can order anything her customers need, she is reluctant to advertise her return too widely for fear of disappointing customers who arrive expecting her to have everything in stock. Her business recovery grant, once she gets it, is earmarked for filling out the inventory, she says.

One thing that has definitely survived the storm is Williams’s devotion to helping customers. Williams’s dedication to her business extends beyond regular business hours, as she explains, “If I’m not at the store, I’m still doing something for it.” She is dedicated to the success of both her store and, more importantly, the students, parents and teachers of New Orleans.

“I miss the classroom,” she says, standing behind the cash register and surrounded by colorful posters and school supplies, “but I feel like this is my classroom, too.” If you’re looking for first-rate advice on educational supplies, or to finally learn how to use one of those misnamed EZ-Graders, Teacher’s Stop and Christy Williams are the only store and teacher you’ll ever need.

Teacher’s Stop is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays and 11 a.m. through 4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, at 4315 Bienville Avenue. You can reach her by phone at 504-483-7687.