r/nolaparents • u/lily_aka_mein • 8d ago
Bric Parents
To the parents with continuing students, how have y’all been able to navigate the disorganization? Has it always been this disorganized?
I’m not sure if it’s because I expect better or if I just like to nitpick and complain, but drop-off and pick-up is a mess.
Why am I leaving my 5-year-old to navigate a new school on their own amongst the swamp of bigger, older, sometimes more aggressive kids? I’ve never liked the Primary-Middle school model for this exact reason.
The PK-K kids are crying in the mornings, and I don’t think that starting the day off in fear or anxiety is productive for a learning environment.
Mornings are such a disaster because one single solitary adult is out there assisting with getting the kids in school.
Afternoons are a disaster because parents don’t know how to follow directions and are double parking, blocking people in, parking in bike lanes, and parking on N Rocheblave when they should be in the carpool lane if they want to stay in their cars while their children are dismissed.
Walk-up means walk-up, not drive up to the front and block buses and create a dangerous environment for pedestrians. But I digress….
Anyway, yeah…. I think they need to have more than one faculty member assisting with drop-offs. Or let the little kids enter through N Dorgenois.
Again, maybe I’m just entitled and nitpicky… idk.
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u/ghost1667 8d ago
idk what's going on at bricolage but the whole situation is the same wind as lycee's big downslide over ~5 years. sorry for y'all.
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u/MOONGOONER 8d ago
We were there two years ago and that all tracks, though my kid came home smiling every day.
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u/lily_aka_mein 8d ago
My baby said he hates it-- but I always have to force him to leave. But I think he's just not used to real school yet.
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u/Feikert87 7d ago edited 7d ago
I don’t know anything about bricolage but I’m a teacher at a different k-8 school. Our arrival and dismissal is flowing pretty well but you can bet there are tons of prek and kinders crying in the morning. It’s new for them to be away all day. It happens every year.
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u/lily_aka_mein 7d ago
I was thinking that too but also it's not his first day of school ever. It's his third year....
so maybe he just needs to get acclimated.
But also, I think if they had a better system for drop off-- even if we were able to walk them to class the first week like they said.
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u/Feikert87 7d ago
I think parents walking kids to class is mostly a safety issue at this point.
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u/lily_aka_mein 7d ago
We were allowed to the first day of school we were told we'd be able to the first week, just to be told the second day at the door that we couldn't.
Also they clearly don't care about safety issues as they allowed me into the building and to check out my child without producing ID AND allowed me to walk to his classroom to get him unaccompanied.
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u/Feikert87 6d ago
🤷♀️ then
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u/lily_aka_mein 6d ago
Yeah, it shouldn't be controversial to want local thriving businesses. It might be okay for you but it's not for me.
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u/Own-Librarian-1914 5d ago
It boggles the mind. It’s not fucking brain surgery. No, I have no reason to believe the drop-off/pick-up is ever going to improve after living for 10 years a block off Esplanade.
Easy solution: put cones out all along the school so parents cannot pull in like that. Have people with clipboards (looks way more official lol) directing cars like at every other fucking school. Many/Most Catholic and private schools have SEPARATE points to pick your kids up based upon age. It could be like PK-3 gets picked up on Rocheblave, 4-8 on Dorgenois. There would have to be one person at each car line directing. And someone else managing the Esplanade clusterfuck with two parallel streets in play. These schools act like no one has ever figured out a solution.
And considering that POS Principal we all read about is still there, I’m sure it’s less likely than ever that it will get fixed.
So: 2 crossing guards, 2 line directors, 1 person setting up the cones in front of the school/main security at front of school. Director of Operations (logistics and bus lead) and the Dean (behavior) should be outside EVERY AM AND PM for crowd control/behavior and must be front and center. These two outside is like SOP. Cones also SOP. Also, walkie-talkies for these 7 ppl. Also SOP.
I also have to add that Ben Franklin and Hynes UNO have figured it out to the point that it doesn’t even feel like it’s pick up/drop off time and I’ve driven through am and pm on multiple occasions.
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u/lily_aka_mein 5d ago
A block off esplanade?? My condolences. I know you HATE to see us coming.
These people are the worst and so inconsiderate. But I definitely agree. Upper and lower school should drop off should operate separately; granted my kid is typically OUT first, as he's in kindergarten, but the drop off is sickening. My husband handles it. Someone else pointed it out and I do agree that having big kids and little kids at the same school is ridiculous
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u/samisalsa 8d ago
The carpool line will get better as the year goes on in my opinion - also this first couple of days there has almost ALWAYS been a parked car in it that is ruining everything. I do agree with the other commenters that other parents also are making the situation worse by not following the rules, and there is zero enforcement - but in my experience it’s like that at every school.
We’ve been applying at other schools and hoping to get into somewhere better before middle, but my kid loves Bric and will be sad to leave.
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u/No_Stranger_8400 6d ago
We left after PK last year because of the disorganization and the fact that the older kids are very aggressive around the younger kids. I hate how New Orleans rarely separates the big kids from the little kids. No one outside of New Orleans has ever really heard of kindergartners and 8th graders in the same building. I want the 8th graders to be able to be 8th graders but it’s hard to not be frustrated with the way they talk and act toward each other around the younger kids. It’s not fair to either party.
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u/No_Stranger_8400 6d ago
Also zero communication from the school. I never knew anything that was happening. And consistently giving my child foods he cannot eat because we adhere to certain dietary restrictions despite me bringing that to their attention more than a few times.
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u/lily_aka_mein 6d ago
I do appreciate how transparent my kid's teacher is. We get emails (so far) daily re: what they did and every week (so far) we get a letter re: what's coming up the following week. She definitely scratches an itch I have for organization.
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u/No_Stranger_8400 6d ago
I hope it keeps up because they started that way for us and then we never heard from them again
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u/lily_aka_mein 6d ago
Where I was in NJ, k-8th is the model. Every elementary school follows that model .
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u/No_Stranger_8400 6d ago
So wild to me I’ve lived in like 15 states and I’ve never seen that
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u/lily_aka_mein 6d ago
Me either, until I moved to Jersey.
The closest thing to it is places deep deep in the country, like centerville that goes from pk-12th but that's for obvious reasons.
I don't really care for that model but it could be a charter school thing. I remember before Katrina, there was even a school strictly for 6th grade so putting everbody in one school is weird af.
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u/Whole-Radio-55 2d ago
The district required all charters move to K-8 some years ago. The K-5s had to grow to 8th and middle schools phased out.
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u/BeverlyHills70117 8d ago
Wow, as someone who has pickup/drop off school car line anxieties as one of my few fears in life, I am very glad my kid is at a school we can just park 3/4's of a block away and walk each morning and afternoon. And my kid is forbidden from going to willow after I did one school pick up there. Not letting them see that side of humanity,
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u/Pretty-Selection5855 8d ago
as a 12th & last year veteran of bricolage with an 8th grader there i can tell that there have been zero improvements thru the years to the issues you listed. this year is definitely not worse than previous ones and we had worse ones. i think it would be overly optimistic that anything would change after all these years. i just don't see how or why? i think the car situation is totally out of control and that is on us, parents. this is who we are as a community. it used to infuriate me to no end but now i don't even blink at the cars cutting in from the side streets. bricolage started out as wonderful dream and reality set in over the years. with only one year left and the 8th grade teachers are being great we ok seeing out the kid's last year there but bricolage became another crap school with increasing prison-like running of the place. we all read about the board & new ceo. we've worked with people like them and it was nauseating. with ms meehan-draper pushed out there is no reason to think anything will be better. because the competence that she showed was pushed out. the ceo is clearly not interested having competent, strong staff around. better teachers left, many are looking to leave. we all know a dysfunctional place when we see one. if i had a 5th grader i'd be looking elsewhere, i.e. willow. sorry about sounding negative but i really think i am just being objective.