Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.

A new study highlights a growing problem with absenteeism in Louisiana.

We'll look at some possible solutions.

And a nonprofit is helping kids move, play and explore with low cost mobility devices.

Plus, new health concerns just weeks after a plant explosion in tangible how Paris.

And don't cook that.

We are launching a limited series looking at recipes with deep roots in Louisiana.

Let's get started.

Let's do this.

Hello everyone.

I'm Karen Labonte and we have some big news.

This week we are welcoming PBS's newest team member, Christina Jensen.

She joins us as our new anchor here at Louisiana, the state we're in.

So so excited to have you.

I'm so excited to be here.

So Christina, you have roots here in Louisiana.

You've been working as a television news journalist here across the state.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, I've been in the state for over four years now.

Started in North Louisiana.

I worked at the NBC affiliate there.

I was a news anchor there.

So I'm really familiar with that area.

And then in about two years, I went to the Baton Rouge market.

I've been here at the NBC and Fox station, and I loved it here so much.

I bought a property here and I love LSU and I love Louisiana.

I love getting to tell the stories here.

We love that you are here joining our team.

And I want to just to hear your thoughts on what excites you about transitioning from local news to covering the entire state.

It's just that right there, covering the entire state, getting to do the stories that matter for the entirety of the state, not just one particular area.

And I'm so, so excited to be doing that.

Well, a warm welcome to you.

We are so excited to have you on our team.

Happy to be here.

All right.

Now on to the news.

A new report raises concerns about truancy rates in Louisiana.

The analysis from the Public Affairs Research Council, or Pas, finds that the state's absenteeism rate has spiked to an average of 42% in recent years.

So what's driving the trend?

And how can we fix it?

Here's more.

Intentar Parish public School students with perfect attendance have a chance to win a little extra incentive each month.

Ten students are selected in a drawing and each walks away with $10 in cash donated by Superintendent Joyce Ross.

I really think that positive reinforcement is the solution in making school a place that kids want to come.

I mean, a safe haven so that they know, you know, five days a week I can come to school, I'm going to get paid.

I'm going to be around people who care about me, and I'm going to be making myself better.

So that when I graduate, I can go to college or go to a trade school or get a job here and be a productive citizen.

A report by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, using the Louisiana Department of Education attendance data, ranked 10th.

Our parish with the state's highest absenteeism rate at 67.5%.

On the day I met with Superintendent Russell.

She learned of new 2024 2025 school year data showing an 11% improvement.

Tenths our parish is probably the smallest district in the state of Louisiana.

This year we have an enrollment of around 305 kids.

And our enrollment drop from last year.

It was, I guess around 325, 330.

But we've lost some kids.

Economically, there's not really much here in the parish.

They're not in any high wage, high demand jobs here.

Tens.

Our parish has two public schools, an elementary school for students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, and a high school for students and sixth through 12th grades.

The school district has struggled with truancy and declining enrollment for decades.

It's one example of a statewide crisis.

Louisiana's truancy rate averages 42%, and by truancy, we mean that you were absent for, five or more days without an excuse in a semester.

So that's, you know, following five days that you are out, that you count that those were unexcused.

And so that's that's 42% is actually quite a bit.

You just look at those top four and bottom four, you see some parishes with higher poverty ratings on both lists.

And so that means it's not just a simple relationship between if you have more poverty, you're going to have more truancy.

Attendance team continues intervention plan and moves from tier 2 to 2 3rd May include home visits.

Contract with parent and student mentor or incentives for the 2025 2026 school year, tinsel parish is implementing a state issued flowchart that outlines the protocol for addressing absenteeism.

The chart uses an escalating tiered system with tier three, triggered when a student accumulates eight or more absences, whether excused or unexcused.

What percentage of your student population reaches tier three in that flow chart?

So this is our first year using it.

Our hopes are none of them will reach tier three.

I mean, because again, our our goal is not to have a parent in court or child in court.

What do you see as contributing factors to our parishes?

High truancy rate?

So I think a lot of our I mean, a great deal of it just has to do with kids waking up and saying, you know, I don't want to go to school.

And, sometimes parents will say, okay, you're going to school.

Sometimes parents will say, you know, it's okay.

And I think it has a lot to do with with the, with parent thing.

The age of the parent.

If the child is living with the parents of child, living with grandparents, aunts, uncles.

I mean, some people value education.

Some people don't.

The American Institutes for research, a nonpartisan nonprofit, is studying chronic absenteeism defined as missing 10% or more of the school year.

Researchers say an adopted text messaging strategy that sends intensified reminders to families of frequently absent students could help boost attendance.

There is no one solution that works.

I think chronic absenteeism is a problem where you need a really system wide solution, which means that there needs to be states, for instance, that create accountability for school districts and school districts that work with schools to create a really good school environment, make education relevant, include all of those community organizations like afterschool programs, and really create that community that cares about the families and the students so that the students feel comfortable to come to school and the parents feel comfortable bringing their kids to school.

I mean, you have to give them a reason for wanting to come to school and for and you have to give them something to come to school for.

From hashtags to headlines, here's what's trending this week a lot of big news, and most of it is focused on the government shutdown.

Yeah, the federal government has shut down for the first time in nearly seven years, and that's going to have a big impact on people nationwide and of course, on people here in our state.

750,000 federal employees may be furloughed, and that's 19,000 in Louisiana alone.

Yeah.

And the National Flood Insurance Program is also going to be at risk.

So this is important for those people who are trying to get new policies, who want to buy a home and are trying to get that mortgage.

It's going to be interesting to you.

You're already hearing concerns about TSA.

How will air travel be impacted?

I'm going to the airport today to pick up somebody so curious to see what we're going to be confronting there.

All right, another big story this week, Governor Jeff Landry has formally requested that the National Guard troops deploy across the state.

And this is very controversial.

Yeah.

It is.

There's people on both sides of the aisle weighing in.

And he had asked the Pentagon to mobilize up to 1000 troops for about a year, and they would be placed in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport.

It's interesting.

I spoke to state attorney general is about this very topic.

She does support the deployment of the National Guard in New Orleans, but not everybody does.

Yeah, we'll have to wait to see what happens.

So this comes as New Orleans deals with a very high profile carjacking, the murder of chef Carl Morgan.

He was a sous chef at Brennan's restaurant earlier this week.

Sadly it's getting a lot of headlines.

Yeah.

Tragic situation a despite the headlines.

Murders in New Orleans though are at their lowest point since the 1960s.

All right.

We are going to change the pace here.

And we're going to move on to some good news, some happy headlines.

Access to mobility can define a child's future.

And one New Orleans nonprofit is stepping up to make a difference.

With the help of 3D printing and a lot of heart making builds custom mobility trainers for young children.

I'm taking you inside their facility to see how these functional and fun devices are changing lives.

So now we're going to try to put together one of these mobility trainers to really showcase how accessible and easy it is for someone to print this at home, assemble it at home, and do their own maintenance all at home.

All right.

So we're going to start by putting together these two sides okay.

In less than 30 minutes we assembled this 3D printed mobility trainer, a child sized wheelchair designed for independence.

Make good, a New Orleans based nonprofit.

Create these mobility trainers in bright, cheerful colors and playful styles that spark smiles and wonder from the children who received them.

Busy at the playground.

Pete Bacon want a watermelon themed chair?

So make good.

Made it happen here in its 3D printing lab.

The pieces are made from spools of plastic, and designs make good offers free of charge to anyone, anywhere.

We want to continue developing designs like this that are completely open source.

We want people to pick that up and make it better and add to it, and change it in ways we couldn't imagine.

And we want to continue to foster a global community of people doing this kind of work.

The spark for Make Good started with a toilet seat.

Noem designed the 3D printed adaptive toilet at the request of a New Orleans family.

They love to travel, and there's people palsy, and there was not a chair available that supported him on the toilet that they could actually fly with.

If he doesn't have something this warm on the toilet, it's either his parents are holding him on the toilet, which is not fun for anybody.

We have to wear diapers, which isn't fun for anybody.

So there's just like there's this huge gap in what's available for people.

Make good is filling that gap with 3D printed designs for assistive devices, for all types of tasks, from writing to eating.

He works with clinicians who offer up ideas and prototypes based on their patient's needs.

Now, with these new tools like 3D printing, we could design for 3D printing and make things that are really high quality, that cost literally pennies to, to, to make.

And then we open source everything so anybody can can make that.

So for us, the real work is the design work.

And although we're working with the disability community, we have a lot of people with disabilities on our staff.

This is for all of us.

James Robert works as a designer and chief print technologist at Make Good.

He was born with no fingers on his left hand, a limb difference that informs and inspires his career path.

I'd say that it's being born the way that I was definitely forced me to think about the world differently than most people would, and I'd also say that it definitely helps me to empathize with people who have less ability than I do, because I understand from a certain perspective how hard it could be.

It really motivates me to make sure that whenever we do have people that come to us that need help, that I really put my best effort into figuring out what we can do for them.

Wylie has a pastel purple mobility trainer that she wheels around while developing the skills and body strength needed for a wheelchair.

Not only is the kid's physical development is really good, that's really good for their mental development as well.

Their friends love it because it's like totally a kid friendly thing.

It's cool.

They want to.

They want to push their if they want to sit in it, they want to push their friends around and they're excited about it.

And so the parents have told us it actually is breaking down the stigma for the the kid's friends and also the kid themselves.

They're not seeing themselves as so othered.

They see themselves with this, assistive devices that fits in so well with their lives.

It's just like it's just part of their life.

Make good is committed to making assistive equipment accessible to everyone to scale their impact.

They're partnering with clinicians and hospitals to integrate on site 3D printers, enabling the custom design and production of assistive devices where and when they're needed.

We kind of showcase what's possible to everyone around the world, and with that, we show them how it's possible because it's one thing to have an idea, but it's another thing to put it into action and.

We can't control how we age or if we get injured or sick, like those are things beyond our control.

But we can control the design of the objects in our lives and our environments.

That is the one thing that is firmly within our control is people to to do.

Governor Jeff Landry is vowing to clean up after a plant explosion in Paris.

The explosion and fire at Schmitty Supply in Roseland sent thousands of gallons of oil and chemicals into area waterways and onto people's homes and businesses.

I sat down with independent tester Scott Smith, who shared new test results exclusively with LPB.

Joining me now is Scott Smith, an independent tester.

We want to talk about the Roseland Explosion Smitty supply.

All of that oil going into the river into people's homes.

You have new results exclusive to us.

What did you find?

Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Christina.

What we found is, products of incomplete combustion called dioxins from the toxic plume.

We found dangerous toxic metals like nickel and other things.

And we also found dangerous volatile compounds like Tol, Uline, and a whole host of other, other compounds.

And when you mix these together, there are no standards.

And it creates big problems for the health and the environment.

Want to talk about the level of dioxins?

I saw some of your research.

Now you compare the level to Roseland much higher than you did to an explosion in Ohio.

Talk to me a little bit about that.

Very important.

In East Palestine, Ohio, people are dying there from what they've been exposed to.

When I first landed and went on the ground in East Palestine within the first week, the highest dioxin level in water was called nine parts per quadrillion, otherwise known as the TCU.

So to put that into context, the level in Roseland was 165 and a pond near ground zero.

So that is not just, you know, a multiple of 2 or 3.

It's a very significant elevation.

So Lieutenant General Honoré was on the ground with you yesterday.

Talk.

He compared this to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

What can you say on that?

This is very close to the BP oil spill disaster.

And when you look at the spread of the oil and the compounds, we're finding, and I would add to what General Honoré is saying, that this is also like East Palestine, Ohio, unfortunately, with the dioxins and the toxic plume that has deposited the soot and the ash and people's pools in their yards and in their ponds.

What are the short term health effects for people in the area?

The short term health effects, so far have been respiratory issues bloody nose, brain fog, dizziness and a whole host of other issues.

And many other residents have provided me with a diagnoses from their doctors that say chemical exposure.

What are the long term effects?

Long term effects, unfortunately.

Let's look at East Palestine.

Cancer outbreaks, thyroid cancer is now very prevalent in East Palestine.

And people are dying in East Palestine from a whole host of not just cancer, but other issues.

Do you feel that officials are downplaying this?

The national media is talking about it.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, it is being downplayed, and I believe it's being downplayed for a multitude of reasons.

Some some reasons are just lack of education and some reasons are follow the money.

It's that simple.

Follow the money.

And there is what appears to be a lot of, of undue influence.

What comes next for you guys?

We're very early stages of doing the testing, and I'm here on my third round of testing, and we're going downstream in the township, Ohio River, where I'm getting all kinds of messages from residents about continued oil and continued spread of the oil and other contamination.

But now we're at least able initially with preliminary results, to tell people these mixtures of chemicals and what they may have been exposed to.

The bottom line is you really don't need my testing or anybody else's testing to know that none of these reported health symptoms were there from any of the people or the pets or anybody else prior to the Smitty's fire and explosion.

It's that simple.

What do you say to the families watching that live in those communities that are being impacted?

I say in all families and chemical impacted communities, you're not alone.

Connect on social media, reach out to others from Conyers, Georgia, from East Palestine, Ohio, Moss Landing, you're seeing the same unfortunate playbook being executed irrespective of who is in office.

Is there anything else you would like to say on the subject?

I think it's time for a change.

The systemic failure is across all of this, all political parties.

This is not about politics because you saw East Palestine under a Democrat, and now you see Roseland under a Republican.

There is no change.

And the EPA has failed the citizens.

But there's an opportunity for improvement here for everybody to work together for the benefit of the impacted community.

Well, we appreciate you coming in.

We appreciate the exclusive.

Thank you guys so much for the work you're doing.

You're welcome.

All right.

Thank you for joining us Scott Smith.

This week we are launching a new segment called Quapaw, which is Louisiana Creole for Don't Cook That.

Each week this month we're going to highlight dishes you probably won't find in a fancy restaurant, but that have deep roots in Louisiana culture.

Drake LeBlanc takes us into the kitchen with Jordan Thibodeau for his version of alligator sauce.

Pickle.

Welcome to Queen pie, a series where we dive into the odd dishes of South Louisiana.

And today, we're in Saint Martin Parish, Louisiana, where alligator season is in full swing.

And I'm here with my good friend Jordan Toledo to find out how these prehistoric creatures found their way into Creole and Cajun recipes.

Joe, at all times.

So tell the people that are watching a little bit about the history of alligators, because it's my understanding that we weren't always able to hunt them.

At least legally, right?

They got hunted down a lot real bad at the beginning of the 20th century.

So because of that, with numbers down, you couldn't really hunt.

Only a handful of people were really hunting for a couple of decades.

And it was very limited tags, stuff like that.

After that, they started, reintroducing a bunch of them into the wild.

They made the farmers start putting X amount of their hatch.

Right?

So their batch of babies every year, they had to start putting back like 10% or whatever it was into the wild.

Well, because of that, the population has exploded.

Ecosystem is a huge part of alligator hunting.

But also, like you said, it's a big part of our history.

Creole history.

Cajun.

Got it all.

Native Americans are part of our culture.

Even something that was for food.

But that was also food and additional medicine and all that, right?

They use them all and everything.

Like even back with the old people around here, like my grandparents generation, they use the oils and the teeth and stuff like that with a treat as well.

Like if your baby was teething, they'd make them wear some of the alligator and, you know, like put some alligator all on them, stuff like that.

When native people would use like the fat, you could render that down.

It was good for mosquito repellent, all that kind of stuff.

Cooking it don't happen fast.

So tell me on the way to to how we how do we get here?

What part of the process.

So yeah right now a brown my mother's meat, my sausage in there.

Right now I'm making a little roux.

When I'm finished with my little roux I'm gonna take them.

I had my trinity and all that and we'll keep going from there.

Do you remember your first time trying alligator?

Like, were you?

You may have eaten since you were a kid.

Yeah, I can tell you a funny story about it, though.

I remember one time I was eating an alligator sauce pickle, and I got up from the table and I walked in.

My mama started about shorts, left or right in the feet.

I was probably about five years old, and she looked at me like, well, what are you doing?

I said, mama, that's so good it make you want to slap your mama because, you know, she's seen it, all right.

But I was a little boy and sure enough.

And she thought it was not funny at the time, but later she thought it was funny.

Yeah.

Do you consider alligator to be pretty gamey?

Does it taste like the water that it comes out of, or, it depends.

It depends.

What part you cooking?

Like the alligator got different meats.

You know, your white meat is not going to taste as much like that.

But then is the fat take out all that fat.

And so this is going to come out tasting pretty relatively gamey or.

No.

Come on.

This is delicious.

We're not here to cook bad food.

You created the first couple of years, which started God and alligator hunts.

So we go out and on the base and get some alligators and we go out by boat.

I go the day before and we run some lines hanging off the trees with some some big hooks like that.

And then you put like a hand quarter from some chicken.

They swallow that.

We get up the next morning, we go and form lines and put them in a bowl.

Where does alligator rank in terms of meats that you like to eat or game that you like to cook?

As far as like this, like sitting and making a sauce, because I normally only do that kind of stuff during season because you used to be you didn't have everything available all the time.

You know, you just you cooked when you had it.

So to me, it kind of makes it better.

You appreciate different meats at different time of year.

We're almost done making the roof.

We give it to that good, nice brown color.

Jordan, tell me what's next.

What's the next step?

Now that we got the room to a good color on what I had my Trinity like that I'm a cook, my Trinity down.

After that, I'm going to take and add my tomatoes, my tomato sauce.

I'm going to add some chicken broth.

I'm a cook that down for a little bit.

Once that's got cook down and start to blend together real good, I can add back all my meat right there.

And then we'll let that simmer for a couple hours.

I normally cook them down until I can just tell that everything is nice and soft.

And when it's all good and salt, that's when I hit my next step.

Once you put that top on, you got to leave it right.

You got to leave it alone.

Got let it sit.

I heard that there's a did you gotta you got to check a color or something before you.

Well I like I, I check the color muscles the whole time.

But really when I'm cooking down like that, I'm checking my consistency.

And beyond that, I'm just waiting on my meat to be where I want it to be.

I like my meat to be 10 to 10, though, so you got to just kind of wait it out low for low and slow, wait it out, and sooner or later it's going to be nice and soft.

Let's show you where we at right now.

Oh yeah it's a pretty low.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

It smells great.

Everything's in the pot.

The trinity the sausage, the alligator.

It's all been mixing and blending the flavors together for the past few hours.

So now it's time to serve it up.

Oh yeah I can smell it.

Thank you for joining us on Gooey Pie.

Which means don't cook that.

But today we will.

I'm right here in Saint Martin Parish, Louisiana, with my good friend Jordan Thibodeau, making all the good old alligator sauce per call.

And we'll see you on the next one.

Now see I see.

All right.

Fun fact I've had fried alligator.

How about you?

I've had fried alligator and gator at the LSU game when they played the Gators.

So pretty good.

I know a little aggressive there.

All right, well, we have a big announcement from the friends of LPB.

They've drawn the winner for their big power on raffle.

Love this.

Congratulations to Suzanne Holst.

You've just won a whole house generator from friends of LPB and optimized generator people.

Thank you to everyone who has supported LPB through this raffle and helped make this a very big success.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime wherever you are with our LPB app.

You can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Karen LeBlanc and I'm Christina Jensen.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power lights.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center.

Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.