Belle Chasse Academy, a unique school situated on a naval air station in Louisiana, serves a highly mobile population with over 87% of its students connected to the military. Despite consistent student turnover, Belle Chasse has created a thriving academic environment grounded in high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), strong systems of support, and a culture of continual growth.
High-Quality Instructional Materials as the Launch Pad
Belle Chasse has used their instructional materials to provide a consistent bedrock, which is essential for a student body in constant flux. Teachers at Belle Chasse internalize these resources deeply, using them not only for instruction but also as a key part of their intervention strategy during the school’s daily 30-minute "accelerate" block. This commitment ensures that whether students are with the school for one semester or several years, they receive a rigorous and rich instructional foundation.
From schoolwide goals in evidence-based writing to individual student growth targets, Belle Chasse prioritizes clear, measurable objectives. Students actively participate in setting their own learning goals, helping them identify their own strengths and areas for improvement.
Director of Academic Improvement Lauran Breaux emphasized, "When my students leave this duty station, they know what they're good at, and they know what they're still getting better at."
The instructional leadership’s intentionality with HQIM and rigorous instruction has enabled a targeted focus on specific learning concepts or student cohorts to improve. For example, last year they focused on improving third-grade writing skills. Because they’ve spent time implementing their ELA HQIM and have strong data protocols with their ANet assessments, they were able to identify different cohorts of third graders to support in various ways and boost writing outcomes. This level of nuance and personalization comes from years of hard work, focusing on their HQIM and culture.
Feedback as a Core Practice
The feedback culture at Belle Chasse is robust: students receive regular, actionable input on their work, particularly in writing. Teachers are trained not just to give feedback, but to do so in ways that encourage student reflection and growth. Teachers are encouraged to build in time for students to revisit and reflect on feedback, ensuring the cycle of improvement continues.
"If we don't value feedback, and our kids don't value feedback beyond a number... then it's useless," said Breaux.
The value of feedback translates into how teachers and leaders work together. With their instructional coaches and district leadership, teachers regularly receive feedback on their instructional priorities and have the tools and systems to grow with support. Relationship building becomes essential to maintaining strong feedback loops, and these educators ensure that they develop strong working relationships with one another so feedback can be trusted, timely, and actionable.
Highly-Aligned Assessments and Data Practices
Assessments at Belle Chasse serve as more than a benchmark; they are a roadmap for targeted support. With its transient student population, ANet assessments help give teachers and leaders information on where each student is and what they’re able to do. They take ANet assessments three times a year, and structure district and school data meetings around them. The data meetings focus on analyzing the findings and what targeted support can look like.
"One of the great things about working with Achievement Network is that we have the data to support the decision-making," explained Wichers.
The data meetings support their student “Accelerate” blocks. Each cycle, they group students based on different criteria to support their skill development. The ANet assessments inform what grouping and skill is the most important for the upcoming cycle. This structure informs instructional coaching and PLC discussions, helping to ensure alignment across classrooms and grade levels.
Professional Learning with Purpose
Instructional coaches play a pivotal role in supporting teachers, working closely with ANet coaches to tailor support that meets the unique needs of each classroom. Both newer and veteran coaches at Belle Chasse described how external coaching has developed their capacity—through modeling, role playing, and accountability structures—to guide teachers in data-driven, student-centered instruction. Jessica Wichers, a first-year Belle Chasse coach, shared, "Jared has coached me on being a coach ... he pushes me to have those difficult conversations that I might otherwise avoid." Their Director of Academic Improvement, Lauran Breaux, emphasizes a culture where leadership follows through on commitments and where teacher voice and data are both central to decision-making.
Belle Chasse prioritizes professional learning that is embedded, actionable, and aligned with school goals. With structures like regular PLCs, cross-functional leadership meetings, and instructional coaching support from ANet, teachers are supported in a learning environment that mirrors what they aim to create for students. Coaches are themselves coached, and all learning is rooted in classroom realities and student outcomes. As Wichers stated, "The work, while it might be ELA and math-centered now, we're able to shift that over and have these conversations and come back with ideas."
Looking Ahead: From Foundation to Focus
Thanks to years of foundational work aligning instruction to HQIM and refining schoolwide systems, Belle Chasse is now poised to go deeper into instructional excellence. With core structures in place, they can focus on more nuanced instructional goals like student independence and deeper analytical writing. Their progress shows what’s possible when vision, alignment, and community commitment come together.
As Belle Chasse's instructional coach Heidi Cox noted, "You will never walk in a math classroom here at Belle Chasse Academy and not see Eureka Math Squared and kids doing math."
Belle Chasse isn’t just keeping pace despite its challenges—it’s setting the pace for what effective curriculum implementation can look like in a complex school setting.
Explore the HQIM Story
Our story spotlighting Freeport School District is part of a three-part case study exploring HQIM implementation. Explore the other parts of the case study:
- Case Study: HQIM, It’s More Than Just Materials
- Freeport School District - A Model of HQIM Implementation
Through our work supporting schools and districts with HQIM implementation and building assessment products, we know materials alone are not enough. Belle Chasse and Freeport’s success demonstrates how intentional and strategic HQIM implementation helps align classrooms, teachers, and educational leaders. In October, we will release a new white paper exploring the need for a high-quality instructional assessment (HQIA) to ensure materials, curriculum, and assessments work cohesively. We explore this coherence crisis and the impact an HQIA has on educators in this paper.