ERIC TARVER

The Fresh Young Face Of The Calcasieu Parish School Board

By Angie Kay Dilmore

It’s that time of year again. Back to school!

Teachers, students and parents are gearing up to head back to the classroom for another school year.

But they aren’t the only ones getting ready. The Calcasieu Parish School Board is also preparing for another year of striving for high quality education in Southwest Louisiana.

Lagniappe recently spoke with Eric Tarver, one of the newest and youngest members of the School Board. What he lacks in experience, Tarver more than makes up for with energy and enthusiasm.

 Lagniappe: What prompted you to run for school board last year? What was your motivation? 

Tarver: Basically, a bunch of people begged me to. Several local business leaders were active in trying to get new, young, smart, engaged people elected onto the school board. They told me, “We need you in there.”

I don’t have any kids. But I felt it is somewhere I am needed. Being a part of democracy is important to me. It became an opportunity for service that I was willing to do.

Education is very important. I’m very patriotic and democratic, and I felt obligated to run. I don’t aspire to be a politician. But I accepted the banner and rolled with it. The campaign was hard work, but it felt natural. I won big, and here I am.

Lagniappe: You have a reputation for being very open and accessible as a board member. Why do you feel you are different in that respect?

Eric with his father Philip, a former school board member.

Tarver: We (the Tarvers, owners of Lake Charles Toyota and Tarver Ford) are very comfortable being in the public. I’m new to politics, but my dad (Philip Tarver) was on the school board in 2000. That was his only venture into politics.

But we’re very public people. Everyone knows who we are, what we do and what we say. And we’re comfortable with that.

So I have no problem talking to anybody anytime. I’m active on social media, which makes it easy to get access to me. People can message me on social media or email me.

I understand my job is to represent these people — 8,000-10,000 people. How can I represent them if I’m not available to hear what their ideas and wishes are?

I’m very open about what I think. If I don’t know something, I’ll say I don’t know. But if I do have a feeling about something, I’m not afraid to say it. For example, the PARCC tests; I’m not afraid to say, ‘I don’t like that.’ There are problems there. It rubs some people the wrong way, but the genuineness is more of a positive thing than a negative. If someone is irritated with me, at least I know and we can talk through it.

Lagniappe: What are your goals as a member of the school board?

Tarver: When I ran for the school board, I had three objectives. Assuming I was elected, my three objectives for my four-year term were:

Improving teacher morale

With corporate education reform and testing, teachers [in Calcasieu Parish] have been getting beat up on. [Until the teacher pay raise passed in May], there had been no pay raise for many years. They haven’t been feeling appreciated. So teacher morale is my first objective. We’re making progress. It’s not an overnight fix. But the main thing is to make them feel appreciated, professional and respected. We also are currently recruiting teachers. We want certified teachers in all the schools.

Obtaining adequate facilities

With the expected influx of population — as many as 5,000 new students coming in — we already have overcrowding in some schools, such as S.J. Welsh, and under-population problems in some north Lake Charles schools. We’ll have to add some capacity over the next few years, probably in south Lake Charles. We have to figure out where we’re going to be population-wise in four to five years. Where are we going to put those students and how are we going to pay for those schools? We need to put a plan in place.

Navigating Common Core

We need to get us, as a parish, through the Common Core process without self-destructing. I don’t like Common Core — I have no qualms saying it. It’s not being done right. It’s not all bad, but there are major problems. And we, as the Calcasieu Parish School Board, can’t say, “We’re not doing it.” If we could, we probably would have done that already. So the goal is to get through it without self-destructing as a parish and battling each other. We’re trying to get all the parents and staff on the same team. Then we need to take the issues up with the state and BESE (Board of Elementary and Secondary Education), instead of fighting amongst ourselves.

Lagniappe: Common Core is such a controversial issue. Could you expand on your thoughts?

Tarver: It’s a total disaster. It doesn’t matter who you ask. But you can argue, is the concept good or bad? There are people who think it is a great concept. I’m not one of those people. I’m very protective of local autonomy. Nationalizing standards is not a good idea. States lose the ability to function as a state if our children are educated as a nation. Should we do better? Yes. Do we need high solid standards? Yes. Should they be nationally developed standards? No.

Lagniappe: Locally, is there a solution to Common Core?

Tarver: We need to be loud. Some of the board members, but mostly parents, have been loud, loud, loud. Consequently, we’ve made a little bit of progress at the state level. BESE, the Dept. of Education, and the Louisiana Legislature have basically said we’re getting out of the restrictions of Common Core. We’re not going to follow the existing Common Core 100 percent. We’re going to write our own standards, which I’m all for. We need to be out of the control; out of the rules. We can start with Common Core and write our own standards. That’s a compromise I’m willing to accept. We have to be super-active in that process. We have to push that process and publicize it and get people involved. We have six or seven official representatives on the committees that will write the standards. There are 70-100 people total on the committees. So Calcasieu Parish has good representation, considering there are 64 parishes. There will be an online forum for public input. The public will be able to speak at the committee meetings. I’m optimistic at this point that that will have some effect. If citizens are concerned about this process, they need to be active in the process through the Louisiana Dept. of Education’s website and get involved with one of the local Common Core activist groups.

Lagniappe: What are your thoughts on students attending schools that are out-of-zone?

Tarver: I’m significantly concerned about it at S.J. Welsh [Middle School]. They have a real overcrowding issue there. At Barbe [High School], they’re not busting at the seams. They like to be at 2,000 students. That’s where they’re at.

Eric and his grandfather Harold Corley putting up campaign signs last summer.

Are there a lot of transfers in? Yes. Is it a significant problem? It’s a problem that those students don’t feel comfortable going to the school they are zoned for.

I don’t feel it’s a they-don’t-deserve-to-be-at-Barbe problem. They deserve to be wherever they can get the best education. We [the School Board] have to ensure the best education is offered wherever the students are zoned for. That’s my feeling at Barbe.

At S.J. Welsh, there’s an overcrowding problem. The fact that we’re transferring kids into an already overcrowded school is a problem.

We’re doing a lot of work at F.K. White [Middle School] with programs for gifted kids to keep them at F.K. White. Eventually, those programs will grow into similar programs at LaGrange [High School] and Washington-Marion [High School]. It’s our job to give them a reason to stay in their zone.

We have to make the schools desirable. It’s a challenge.

We don’t have all the answers yet to any of these issues, but we’re fixing to start some monthly planning meetings.

Lagniappe: What other issues will the School Board tackle this year?

Tarver: Bullying. And how do we reduce the damage as much as we can without turning our schools into prisons or trying to control the kids’ lives outside of school, which we really can’t do; so we’re limited. But we must have as much impact as we can.

Another personal goal is to repaint the Calcasieu Parish School Board and the Calcasieu Parish school system as an organization of trust and integrity that the people can be proud of. We are a big district, but we’re also one of the higher-performing districts. I think it’s important that we give the people of this parish confidence by being open and trustworthy.

We want to rebuild our image and we want people to be proud of their school system.

Lagniappe: What are your own personal goals? Do you have any further political aspirations?

Tarver: I would never do anything full-time. If they say, “Would you be the mayor, the governor, the president?” No, I would never consider anything full-time.

I love what I do. Cars are in our blood. I know what I won’t do.

What will I do? Who knows. Right now, I don’t even have aspirations to run for school board again in four years. Currently, it’s just about these four years, and let’s see where it takes us. In four years, if no one runs against me, will I serve again? Absolutely. But if there’s someone enthusiastic about it, I think I’d be OK turning it over, as long as it was someone trustworthy.

Tarver welcomes his constituents to contact him with any questions or concerns related to the school system. “I’m here, look me up, call me, email me, find me on social media.”