Editor’s note: Tiffany Delcour, a 2000 Houston High School graduate, is featured in this article that recently appeared in a Central Methodist University alumni publication. She is the daughter of Harold and Lisa Merritt of Houston.
Tiffany Delcour
Sitting at a sidewalk café, looking out over the city she has called home for more than a decade, Tiffany Delcour reflects on the journey that’s taken her to the Crescent City, and the unique opportunities along the way that made it possible. From the slow pace of the rural Missouri farming community she grew up in, to the bustle of professional life in one of America’s largest, most diverse cities, there’s an amazing story.
A native of Houston, Mo., a small rural community tucked away in southern Missouri, she laughs as she remembers Central Methodist University initially being one of the most expensive schools to which she applied.
“After all the aid and grants, it became the most affordable option for me,” Delcour said.
Reluctant to enroll at a larger university, the size and friendliness of the Fayette campus made her feel instantly at home. And it was a chance encounter while at Central that started Tiffany on her path to New Orleans.
“CMU had a joint program with Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, which brought Tulane graduate school leadership to campus,” she said. “I met with the dean of the Environmental Public Health School as a result of Health Services Career Day; and by the end of that conversation, I had already begun to apply to Tulane. After graduation in 2004, I moved to New Orleans to begin my master’s in public health, one year before Hurricane Katrina.”
Like so many living in the Big Easy in 2005, Katrina changed everything about how Delcour had planned things out.
“Living in Post-Katrina New Orleans changed my perspective on what I wanted to do with my life,” she said.
After finishing her master’s in 2006, she wanted to do “real world” work, so she entered a Ph.D. program in Toxicology. It was while working on her degree that she began volunteering with the U.S. Green Building Council to help solve post-Katrina issues in school facilities within the Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD).
“I helped the school district apply for a grant with the Environmental Protection Agency to focus on improvements to indoor air quality in schools,” Delcour said. “The district was awarded the grant, and gave me the opportunity to manage this work directly as an employee. In order to make a difference, I had to become familiar with the day to day operations of the school district; and at the end of the grant period, I became the Chief or Staff of Operations, and my career has continued from that point.”
Today, Delcour is the Assistant Superintendent of Operations for the Louisiana Recovery School District. In this role, she’s responsible for ensuring that all students have access to high-quality facilities and that those facilities are preserved and maintained for the future.
The Recovery School District is a very unique school district, in that all of the schools are public charter schools managed by local boards made up of New Orleans civic and business leaders. Unlike a traditional school district, where the district manages all aspects of facilities and operations, the RSD provides public school facilities to charter operators through a contract and sets standards for the care and preservation of these facilities.
Following Katrina, the State of Louisiana — not the local school board — reopened most schools, which are governed by the Recovery School District. In 2010, the district was awarded $1.8 billion (yes, a B) to rebuild schools post-Katrina. It’s a unique, pilot form of K-12 education that’s being tested on a city-wide scale. Listening to Delcour talk about it, one gets the sense that the true heart and soul of the people of New Orleans is invested in its success.
“As a district, we are committed to excellence and equity, and we focus on both as it relates to academics and access to high quality facilities,” she said. “It’s my job to ensure that our students have access to high-quality buildings and that these facilities are preserved for future generations of New Orleanians. In the past few years, we have rededicated local tax revenue to ensure the city continues to invest in school facilities and created ground breaking policy for the ongoing management and care of these buildings.”
Beyond the logistics and the nuts and bolts that come from reopening and maintaining a complex system of buildings and charters, she simply loves the challenge in a unique school district like this. There is no other district like it in the country, where an entire city’s school system is operated completely through charters. Working with local school and civic leaders, Delcour has been a part of helping design a system that provides the city’s schools with the flexibility and autonomy to manage school programs, but that also creates non-negotiable standards for the care and preservation of public school facilities.
“At the end of the day this work is made easier with each new facility ribbon cutting and being able to witness the joy and smiles of our students when they get to see their new school for the first time,” she said.
And, like nearly every industry in the city, leaders have an eye toward the future, and how to prevent the kind of devastation they experienced in 2005. With the severe climate of the region, the threat of natural disasters continues to present ongoing challenges to the city’s leadership. This means that, in addition to her day-to-day role, Delcour is also responsible for the District’s Emergency Preparedness.
“Yeah, I start sleeping a lot less in August and September, during prime hurricane season,” she said.
One of the things Central alumni often stress is how much they appreciate their on-campus opportunities to engage in a variety of activities as a student. That is just as true for Delcour, who two years ago, began serving on the board of directors at Luke’s House, a clinic for healing and hope.
“I wanted to find a way to get better connected to healthcare,” she said.
The city’s only “free clinic,” Luke’s House is doing truly innovative work, providing routine medical care several nights a week, as well as specialty nights for women’s health and eye care. Perhaps most interesting is the “street medicine” program, which takes physicians and nurses out onto the streets of New Orleans to bring healthcare to the city’s large and struggling homeless population, treating everything from addiction to wound care and emergency referrals.
Delcour is a living example of Central’s mission of “making a difference in the world.”