November Meeting Salutes Veterans, Emphasizes Health Information

Members of the St. Tammany Retired School Employees Association met Thursday, November 9, for a special health services information fair and Salute to Veterans of the U.S. military forces. President Roxanne Lagarde welcomed the more than 60 members present, including several new members, and thanked the many exhibitors who turned out with health care information on a variety of topics.

In observance of  Veterans Day on November 11, she read a special poem honoring veterans and thanked those in the audience who had served their country in the military. Many members wore patriotic colors in honor of the day, including one that carried the message: Home of the Free BECAUSE of the Brave.

Veterans were among the special honored guests at the November 9 meeting of the St. Tammany Retired School Employees Association. Group President Roxanne Lagarde is shown at left with Kathy and Leroy James during the Veterans Day program. James, 92, is a veteran of World War II and a former Madisonville area school principal. 

Lyn Monteleone, first vice president, reported that new members were signing up regularly, making this a record-breaking year with the highest number of new members joining so far. The association holds several meetings each year, including the all-important legislative meeting in January, which delves into topics of interest to retirees such as pending legislation on retirement benefits and insurance. 

This year's hot topic is the push for a new Constitutional convention, which STRSEA Legislative Chairman Jack Loup warned could be an effort to divert funds away from teacher pensions into other uses. He has been keeping up with legislative issues for years, and his concerns include declining revenues for MFP funding of the schools, as well continuing state efforts to merge, change, or reduce pension funds in an order to save money. 

He asked all those present to write letters to their U.S. Senators to ask them to repeal two unfair laws that penalize teachers who also collect social security based on jobs they had before they became educators. Social security benefits are often unfairly reduced to those teachers and their surviving spouses because they are also members of the state teacher retirement program. 

Jessica Ponze with the Community Wellness Center at St. Tammany Parish Hospital gave a "healthy cooking" demonstration, making (and handing out samples of ) potato salad made with cauliflower and Greek yogurt instead of potatoes and mayonnaise. 

Reports were given by Tom Lusignan on the upcoming applications for this year's Educational Grant given by the organization and Ron Barthet on the printing and distribution of the new Membership Directory for 2017-2019.


A number of door prizes were given away, along with cash prizes donated by the St. Tammany Federal Credit Union. Among the exhibitors taking part in the health fair were Humana, St. Tammany Parish Hospital, Walgreens, Silver Sneakers, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, the Sleep Disorders Center, and the Ochsner Health Network.

      Here are some photographs from the event held at the David C. Treen Instructional Technology Center in Mandeville on November 9th.

President Roxanne Lagarde (standing at right) saluted the Veterans of the armed forces, in particular Leroy James, former principal of Madisonville Elementary School, seated at left. 

A "healthy cooking demonstration" was offered by Jessica Ponze with the St. Tammany Parish Hospital Community Wellness Center.

Jack Loup gave the legislative report. 

New membership directories were distributed to those present. 

 It was a red, white, and blue Veterans Day program

The St. Tammany Federal Credit Union gave out several prizes and gave out information on new checking account incentives.

Health Information Providers

Walgreens 

T-shirts and Polo Shirts were on sale to raise funds for the Educational Grant Scholarship

Video From Our Last Meeting

Our next meeting will take place next Thursday, November 9, at the David Treen Instructional Technology Center. The health fair starts at 9 a.m., with the meeting at 10 a.m. Come early. 

Below is a link to the Channel 13 video report on our last meeting at the David Treen Instructional Technology Center. Click on the image to start the video. 

Spotlight on Marian Arrowsmith

     Marian Arrowsmith retired from the school system in 2006 with 40 years of experience as a kindergarten, first and second grade teacher, a Title I Early Childhood Specialist, an elementary principal, and a Supervisor of Instruction in the Central Office.  She holds a BS in Elementary Education from LSU and a Masters +30 in Education from SLU.  

     Marian began her teaching career in Gretna as a 1st grade teacher and then moved to Baton Rouge where she taught 1st grade and Kindergarten summer schools (at that time EBR didn’t have kindergartens in the schools so they offered 6 weeks of it during the summer.)  She moved back to New Orleans in 1971 and in 1973 moved to St. Tammany and began to teach kindergarten at Folsom Elementary in an air-conditioned classroom!  

     At that time kindergarten was only a half-day program, so she taught a morning and an afternoon class…just imagine, 2 Halloween, 2 Christmas, 2 Valentine’s Day parties, etc. in a day!  In 1976 she became a Title 1 Early Childhood Specialist.  Her office was next to the Central Office building in what would later become William Pitcher Jr. High.  The following year her office moved to part of Rosenwald School which would later become Harrison Curriculum Center.  

     Several years later she would find herself at the Educational Center.  In March of 1987 Marian was asked to start an elementary school in Mandeville.  This was the first time the district of Mandeville had been split, and the parents were not happy about it!  The school, Mandeville East, would be where Mandeville Middle School was at that time which was originally the Mandeville Rosenwald School.  The school became Woodlake Elementary and was opened in the fall of 1987.  It started as a 1st-3rd grade school and later added Pre-K-3, which it remains today.  

     In 1994 Woodlake became a National Blue Ribbon School!  In 1999 Marian became a Supervisor of Instruction in the Central Office where some of her duties included K-8 math, Pre-K programs and grants, liaison person with Regina Coeli Head Start Programs, Teacher Scholar Program with SLU, coordinator of curriculum specialists and resource helping teachers, and monitoring several grants including the 21st Century Community Learning Center grant which provided quality after school learning centers for students in many of our schools.

     Marian has chosen to lead a fulfilling second half of life by building a house in Tellico Village, TN so they could be closer to their grandchildren in Ohio.  They travelled from Mandeville to TN for about a year and then decided to sell their home in TN.  They wanted to travel so after selling the home there they bought a motor home.  They took many wonderful trips and made many great memories!   Their loving pets, a high maintenance cat and a maltipoo dog loved traveling with them! 

     Marian began working part time for The Center for Developmental Learning and provided staff development and whole faculty study groups for schools in New Orleans.  
She always wanted to learn how to paint so Marian began taking art lessons from Larry Casso at the Baton Rouge Fine Arts Academy where she met lots of wonderful friends.  That group of close friends became the “Hue Dats” and meet on Fridays to paint together.

     Other undertakings Marian has chosen since retiring include:

• being an active member of the STRSEA where she served as its President for 4 terms 
• hosting a TV show on Channel 13 spotlighting retired St. Tammany educators 
• working for the School Leadership Center of Greater New Orleans doing learning walks in schools 
• supervising student teachers for the University of Louisiana In Lafayette and the Western Governors University in Salt Lake City, Utah
• being Fellows Director for School Leadership Center of Greater New Orleans in St. Tammany Parish public, private and parochial schools
• volunteering at Clearwater Animal Sanctuary helping to care for and feed rescued animals such as, owls, pelicans, hawks, possums, and other animals needing care
• volunteering at the food bank for the Samaritan Center in Mandeville
• volunteering at Pontchartrain Yacht Club where she is currently serving on its Board as the Social Chair

     The only things typical about her days are the beginning and the end.  Marian wakes up and then goes to sleep!  She usually gets up between 6:30 and 7:30.  Her cat helps make that decision!  After feeding the cat she takes a mile walk around the neighborhood.  When she arrives home she feeds her dog, and then takes him out for a walk.  After that the “typical day” ends!  In the evening she and her husband, Bill, enjoy dinner in their dining room.  After dinner, they read, watch television and talk with out of town family on the phone.

     What Marian values most in her friends is honesty and compassion.

     When asked what the best thing she had eaten this week she replied, “See’s chocolate almond cluster candy!”

     If Marian could have a super power, it would be to have everyone in the world learn to respect each other and to get along…to make our world a happy and safe place to live!  (and to focus on showing good news instead of all of the negative news!)