Tutoring New Orleans’ students after Katrina

By Joanne Bender
Sun contributor
One year after the Gulf Coast fell victim to the most destructive and obvious effect of Global Warming that has hit the United States to date, the Glen Arbor Sun brings you the story of another local resident who traveled to the Deep South to help.
Answering the call for academic assistance from Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, 30 graduate and undergraduate students from Michigan State University, including Maria La Cross, 19, of Cedar, formed New Orleans Summer Project (NOSP) in June of this year and drove in vans from East Lansing to help. Faculty members accompanied them as well, led by director and organizer Dr. Joyce Grant who is a member of MSU’s music school faculty.

Maria graduated from Glen Lake High School in 2004 and is a junior at Michigan State. She is an Education major and plans to teach secondary English after graduation.
The tutors were assigned to a New Orleans school now called “MAX”, a combined institution of three uptown schools — St. Mary’s, St. Augustine and Xavier Preparatory, all of which have been out of operation since Katrina’s devastating hit on August 29 of last year. The principal is named Father Raphael.
The New Orleans students waiting for educational aid had been shifted to out-of-state schools or had not been in school at all for an entire school year. So the job of Maria and her co-workers was to teach a lot of material in a very short four-week time span.
Fortunately, the tutors from MSU were prepared and ready, dividing into six sub-groups and going right to work. “It was so sad to see the signs in the MAX school still in place for the 2005-2006 school year which read ‘Welcome Back’ and ‘We’re Going To Have a Good Year’,” she remembers.
“New Orleans looked like a war zone frozen in time.”
Maria’s tutoring assignment was with middle school children, and she assisted with two English classes and two Test Preparatory classes (for the SAT and ACT tests). She studied the material and was able to present her own lesson plans covering the established requirements.
Maria bonded with several of her students. Two of her favorites were Greg, a high school senior seeking a college music scholarship as he plays the tuba, and Daron, also a senior. Both boys were catching up on their studies in English III. They were unable to write a paper properly with an introduction, body and conclusion when Maria first met them. “They knew no mechanics of writing, but by the conclusion of the four-week class they both accomplished this,” she reports.
“Southern hospitality remains alive and well in New Orleans and we had some time to experience the culture there,” Maria adds. “‘Donna’s,’ a jazz club across from Louis Armstrong Park was one entertaining part of our trip.”
The group received a warm welcome from many Michigan State alumni during their stay, attending dinner and pool parties, another happy result of their tutoring trip. And they attended the inauguration of incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin and also saw Reverend Jesse Jackson.
While in New Orleans the group stayed in the St. John Birchman Orphanage, which is under the auspices of the Sisters of The Holy Family. The sisters live in FEMA trailers behind the building.
About her heart-warming experience Maria says, “I felt a loss when we left. We all enjoyed a real sense of belonging during our four weeks in New Orleans with the students. I wish I could have done more.”
She also hopes that when she visits again, the “piles of thrash, including hundreds of cars underneath will have been removed. These have been there for almost a year.”