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(Editor’s note: The charges listed here and the narratives that go with them are provided by the police agencies that made the arrests. Guilt or innocence has not been determined in court.)

A report about counterfeit money led Chitimacha police to drugs, money, guns and two suspects, Police Chief Hal Hutchinson said.
Chitimacha
Hutchinson reported these arrests:
—Jarren Carrier was arrested Tuesday on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia (22 counts), transactions with drug proceeds, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, possession of marijuana, possession of THC oil, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession of heroin, possession with intent to distribute oxycodone, possession of a legend drug without prescription, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (two counts), illegal carrying of weapons in the presence of a controlled dangerous substance and monetary instrument abuse.
—Brittany Conrad was arrested Tuesday on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia (22 counts), transactions with drug proceeds, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, possession of marijuana (three counts), possession of THC oil, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession of heroin, possession with intent to distribute oxycodone, possession of a legend drug without prescription, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (two counts), illegal carrying of weapons in the presence of a controlled dangerous substance and identity theft (16 counts).
About 5 p.m. Tuesday, officers responded to a call for service at a local tribal business in reference counterfeit currency. Officers made contact in the parking lot with a male suspect identified as Carrier. Carrier told officers that he was going to check on his girlfriend in a pickup truck on the lot.
Officers went to the pickup truck and located a woman asleep in the driver’s seat. She was identified as Conrad.
While speaking with Conrad, officers observed narcotics and drug paraphernalia in plain view inside the vehicle. After securing those items, officers applied for and were granted a search warrant for the vehicle.
A search of the vehicle resulted in officers locating:
—123 grams of marijuana
—3.5 grams of heroin
—21.3 grams of methamphetamine
—$2,000 in U.S. currency
—Two handguns
—14 debit/credit cards belonging to persons other than Carrier and Conrad
—Drug paraphernalia
Carrier and Conrad were transported to and booked into the St. Mary Law Enforcement Center.
St. Mary
Sheriff Blaise Smith advised that over the last 24-hour reporting period, the Sheriff’s Office responded to 36 complaints and made these arrests:
—Joseph R. Thomas III, 63, Patterson, was arrested at 4:03 p.m. Tuesday on charges of simple battery and disturbing the peace (fighting). Thomas was released on a summons to appear Nov. 2.
—April Judd, 22, Morgan City, was arrested at 9:21 p.m. Tuesday on a charge of criminal damage to property.
Judd was released on a summons to appear Nov. 2.
Assumption
Sheriff Leland Falcon reported this arrest:
—Reginald C. Washington Jr., 29, Martin Luther King Avenue, Napoleonville, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of domestic abuse battery and on warrants alleging failure to appear on charges of simple battery and traffic violations.
On Friday, deputies were dispatched to a location and made contact with the complainant party. She advised she was seated in her vehicle at the home of her former domestic partner, identified as Washington, and the two were engaged in an argument when the suspect physically attacked her. The suspect then left.
During the interview, deputies noted injuries consistent with domestic abuse on the victim.
At the conclusion of the investigation, deputies applied for and were granted an arrest warrant for Washington.
On Tuesday, Washington Jr. was arrested and booked into the Assumption Parish Detention Center with bond set at $25,000 surety and $1,023 cash.

This item came Thursday morning from St. Mary Superintendent Dr. Teresa Bagwell:

Schools received LEAP 2025 test score data and graduation rates that overwhelmingly reflect the impact that a lengthy school closure had on students’ academic growth, while graduation rates continued a steady increase. Overall, LEAP “Mastery+” percentage scores declined for the total student population at a rate of 7% with fluctuations exhibited according to a specific school, content area, or subgroup. Declines in LEAP performance were of profound concern when schools closed in March 2020 and then reopened in a delayed start in September with many students learning remotely in a hybrid schedule or fully online.

The Louisiana Department of Education noted the significant differences in performance levels between students learning in-person compared to those learning virtually in a separate press release. In St. Mary Parish, approximately 30% of students began the 2020-21 school year as virtual only. Many of these students returned to campus during the school year, with less than 3% ending the year in a virtual learning setting.

In addition to the delayed start of the 2020-2021 school year, students across the state faced intermittent disruptions to daily attendance due to weather events, quarantines of close contacts to COVID-19, and other factors. St. Mary Parish students were able to attend on campus beginning September 28th but still faced interruptions throughout the year for those reasons.

For the first time, student scores on the ELPT (English Language Proficiency Test), the assessment administered to students whose primary language is not English, were included in school accountability data. St. Mary Parish students outperformed the state in the percent of students scoring Progressing (71% compared to 68%) and Proficient (9% compared to 8%).

The state’s score release also included graduation data for the Class of 2020. St. Mary Parish’s graduation rate increased to 95.6% compared to the state’s rate of 84%. Additionally, the percentage of students earning Advanced or Basic industry-based credentials grew from 80.8% to 92.1%. St. Mary Parish students outperformed the state (51.6%) in this measure of accountability.

Clearly, any level of decline in academic performance rates by a school or content area is of serious concern. School and district leaders have begun employing adjustments in daily schedules to offer time within the school day for evidence-based interventions and acceleration of learning. Students also have the opportunity to receive afterschool tutoring services that align to their specific area of academic need. The most important factor in lessening the impacts of educational disruptions is providing students with daily on-campus instruction that encompasses standards-aligned lessons with appropriate measures of learning standard mastery.

In reviewing the score release, Superintendent Dr. Teresa Bagwell commended students on their perseverance in attending school each day and striving to fully comprehend the skills and content presented: “Teachers empathize with the circumstances students faced during the pandemic and are committed to enhancing daily learning opportunities in order to lead them on a path to academic success. Our school system has invested in prescribed resources, technology, and other sup-ports to guide students on a path that will prepare them to graduate on time and pursue a career of their choosing. Principals and teachers are steadfast in their belief that all students have the capability of measur-able academic growth, and they strive each day to lead and inspire them in realizing their potential. We are looking forward to beginning a new school year on August 6th with a renewed focus and analysis of LEAP 2025 results to strengthen an exceptional education for the students of St. Mary.”

Here are local developments in the COVID-19 pandemic:
Festival
Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival organizers are monitoring the COVID situation, festival Director Hailee Thomas said Wednesday. For now, plans are to carry on with the Labor Day weekend event in Morgan City.
The festival was canceled last year because of COVID.
School
Both the St. Mary Parish public school system and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, of which Central Catholic is a part, are telling parents that they will adhere to Gov. John Bel Edwards statewide mask mandate for people 5 and over in indoor public spaces.
Students will also be required to wear masks on buses.
The diocese said masks may be required outdoors when social distancing isn’t possible.
Masks are recommended for younger students in early childhood education programs.
Numbers
Another 55 new COVID cases were reported Wednesday in St. Mary Parish by the Louisiana Office of Public Health. The number of COVID fatalities rose by four to 151, and is likely to rise by at least two more after six east St. Mary COVID deaths were reported Sunday-Tuesday to the office of Coroner Eric Melancon.
The OPH reported 4,778 new cases and 44 deaths statewide Wednesday. COVID hospitalizations were up 135 to 2,247, the highest level of the pandemic.
Seventy of 83 ICU beds were in use Wednesday in Department of Health Region 3, which covers the area from St. Mary to St. John the Baptist parishes.
Ochsner
Ochsner Health System hospitals in Louisiana and Mississippi reported 821 COVID patients as of Tuesday, up 20 from Monday.
In the Bayou Region, which includes Ochsner St. Mary, hospitalizations were down by nine to 83.
Ochsner executives and physicians are seeing what they call a “concerning and significant” increase in COVID test positives among children.
The positivity rate among those 19 and younger was over 23% last week, up from less than 11% in early July.
Eleven young people in that age group were in Ochsner hospitals for COVID treatment Wednesday, up from seven Friday.
The average age of pediatric COVID patients last month was 12. In June, the average age was 16.

Recently, a co-worker from Houma mentioned how many black-bellied whistling-ducks he had been seeing around his subdivision. I had to agree with him. From Sabine Pass near Lake Charles all the way to Pearl River along the Mississippi State line, there are literally thousands of this species of duck hanging out across Louisiana.
During the winter, large flocks of these whistling ducks hang out in the greater New Orleans area in places like Lafreniere and Audubon parks, as well as across the Mississippi River in Westwego, where there is a ready-made food source and safe refuge around grain elevators.
Black bellies can also be a real nuisance in urban areas. Locals complain about how noisy they are, how they defecate on buildings and even knock over bird feeders.
Essentially, for the past 20 to 30 years the black-bellied whistling-duck has been expanding its range further and further north from Mexico and south Texas, where now they appear to be firmly established as year round residents in Louisiana. Oddly enough, there has been very little scientific information published on this particular duck.
Recently, I reported a story about an ongoing study titled, “Regional Examination of the Contribution of Nest Boxes to Wood Duck Recruitment in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic United States” that Louisiana was participating in.
Dylan Bakner, a PhD student with the LSU AgCenter for the past two years, has been working on this particular wood duck study, where one of the “Anticipated Outcomes” according to the project synopsis, is to gain new information on the nesting ecology of black-bellied whistling-ducks, which may open avenues of applied scientific inquiry relevant to the management of cavity-nesting species in Louisiana.
Bakner, who is originally from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and did his undergraduate studies at Penn State University, said, “We don’t know anything about these guys. There has not been a single study done in the southeastern United States focusing on black-bellied whistling-ducks. All of the studies that have been done regarding breeding whistling ducks took place on the northern end of their breeding range in the 60s and 70s, which was southern Texas.”
One of the things Bakner says he’s been focusing on the past two years and starting to get into are questions like, just how much overlap is there in the wood duck and black-bellied whistling-duck breeding season? How many wood ducks are nesting, while black-bellied whistling-ducks are starting to nest? And, what’s the overlap between the two?
Bakner said, “What I found from last year’s 2020 data was if you plot out and consider nest initiation date, which is the first day that a nest is started — the first day that a wood duck lays one egg in the nest box — and the first day a black-bellied whistling-duck lays one egg in the nest box, there is a 93-day period of overlap, where wood ducks are initiating nests and black-bellied whistling-ducks are initiating nests.”
What is the impact or significance of this overlap? According to Bakner, there is a lot of mixed clutches between wood ducks and black-bellied whistling-ducks.
“I have whistling ducks hatching out wood duck eggs, as well as their own and I have wood ducks hatching out whistling duck eggs. So, it goes both ways,” Bakner said.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries maintains approximately 1,750 wood duck nest boxes on its Wildlife Management Areas, with a goal of reaching 2,000. Of those WMA nest boxes, for his study, Bakner manages 310.
What the 2020 data has shown so far is, of all the wood duck eggs observed hatched, 13% of the hatched eggs came from a mixed clutch nest containing both wood duck and black-bellied whistling-duck eggs.
By contrast, of all the black-bellied whistling-duck eggs observed hatched in 2020, 32 percent of the hatched eggs came from a mixed clutch nest containing both wood duck and black-bellied whistling-duck eggs.
Bakner says the data is important in understanding how the overlap may influence productivity or help each species. Therefore, he struggles a little bit with the word parasitism.
He wonders if black-bellied whistling-ducks actually target a wood duck nest or simply was the box vacant at the time. Moreover, did the wood duck possibly start laying eggs in the box and while it was laying its clutch, a whistling duck started laying, where whoever finishes laying first incubates the nest.
Essentially, Bakner is plowing a lot of new ground as he studies the ecology of black-bellied whistling-ducks as part of the wood duck nest box study.
The multistate regional wood duck nest box study will continue through 2022 and its outcome reported once all the data is collected and evaluated.
Bakner says he frequently gets asked, “How’s your PhD going?”
To which he replies, “It’s, well … I am overwhelmed by the amount of opportunity, but it’s a good problem to have.”