NAACP wants Tangipahoa's supt. of schools to step down

The president of the Tangipahoa NAACP is calling for the parish school superintendent to resign.

Patricia Morris made the request of Superintendent Mark Kolwe during public comment, at Tuesday night's school board Meeting.

"I'm asking him to resign as superintendent of schools for Tangipahoa Parish," Morris told Eyewitness News Wednesday.

"The main reason is the fact that our schools continue to plummet under his administration," Morris added. "Although he's claiming they're coming up a little bit, we don't feel like they're coming up enough."

Kolwe said Wednesday, he had no intention of resigning.

"29 of our 33 schools actually had growth in their school performance scores over the previous year. I've been superintendent for the past two years, and in each of those two years now, our district has improved in the assessment tests."

Kolwe recognized those 29 school principals at Tuesday night's meeting.

The Tangipahoa School System and the NAACP have clashed over the long standing and still unresolved desegregation lawsuit.

“I think the politics of the parish has a lot to do with it, with people who may be in place who want the same system that's been in place for the past 50 years, and that just can't be because it's no longer working," Morris said.

The school system's desegregation plan has not been approved by the court. If it is, voters will then have to decide if they want to pick up the $187 million price tag with new taxes.

Kolwe said, the school system is on the right path.

"As my staff reminds me, progress takes time, and we're moving in the right direction. We didn't have 29 schools here the other night in which their scores went down, we had 29 schools in which they had improved scores, and we want to build on that."

Of the 61 parish school systems evaluated by the state, Tangipahoa ranked 39th in the 2008-2009 school year.