Charter schools will outnumber traditional schools two to one in the Recovery School District next school year in an effort to rapidly shrink the roster of schools under the state-run districts direct control.
Four new charter schools including Lagniappe Academies and KIPP Renaissance High will open. Six traditional schools including Live Oak and Dibert elementaries will convert to charters. Moreover many existing charters will expand adding additional grades next year while several traditional schools will reduce the number of grades they serve.
All told the Recovery School District plans to have 47 charter schools next school year and no more than 23 traditional schools compared with 37 charters and 33 traditional programs this year. The Orleans Parish School Board will continue to operate 12 charters and four traditional schools. Charters are publicly funded but run by nonprofit boards.
The RSD has largely shifted from opening start-up charters to turning over existing schools to operators who want to run them as charters.
But that method can come with more political and educational challenges as school leaders do not have the time to build a school slowly grade by grade and are more likely to face community opposition particularly if they lay off staff and teachers.
Vallas stepping aside
Superintendent Paul Vallas said he does not plan to take the lead in future charter conversions and will largely leave it up to potential operators or community groups to propose them down the line.
I dont want to say weve reached our saturation point but I think any additional charters really need to emanate from the community he said. I am not going to be handing off any new charters.
Vallas said the only exceptions would be schools that persistently fail to rise out of the states failing category because of low test scores. That group still includes most of the districts traditional schools although new test scores will be released next month.
This year the charter proposals met with mixed responses. In the case of the Morris Jeff Community School the state agreed to grant its charter a year early partly because it had gained deep-rooted support in the Mid-City and Bayou St. John neighborhoods.
We surveyed the community literally knocking on doors even before we decided to put our work into getting the school open said Aesha Rasheed executive director of the New Orleans Parent Organizing Network who has been helping the school with outreach. Because there was no reason to fight the fight if we didnt believe that was the consensus on the community.
On the other hand opposition by some Treme community members changed plans to turn over Craig Elementary School to the charter operator FirstLine.
Some Treme residents including Jerome Smith director of the Treme Community Center objected to the process that Vallas used to select FirstLine.
Jay Altman FirstLines CEO said his organization remains open to working with the Craig community but will most likely not operate the school next year.
Folks in the community wanted another process and weve decided to honor that he said.
Traditional schools shrinking
With only a couple of exceptions the RSDs traditional schools will shrink rather than expand.
The districts three West Bank elementary schools for instance will no longer enroll seventh- and eighth-grade students. Rabouin and Douglass which will likely be operated by KIPP will continue to phase out grade by grade as will four elementary schools: Drew Wicker Gregory and Carver. Additional RSD traditional schools may also close or merge pending enrollment and test score data.
Three RSD traditional high schools will grow in size however. Clark will resume accepting freshmen Greater Gentilly will add an 11th grade and the district will reopen L.B. Landry which has been shuttered since Katrina in a new building on the West Bank for students in seventh through 10th grades.
Jonas Nash a member of the alumni group at Clark said hes pleased the school will resume accepting new students. We believe eliminating such an institution would in essence eliminate peoples history and there wouldnt be that sense of obligation to give back to the place you came from.
He added that a community group might push to charter the school. Many community members feel that to save their schools thats what they have to do he said.
While the city will add public high school seats the number of schools offering prekindergarten will shrink at a time when demand already exceeds supply.
Specifically some of the schools converting to charters plan to drop pre-K for financial reasons.
Gary Robichaux the head of the charter management organization taking control of Laurel and Live Oak said neither school will offer pre-K. Instead he hopes to apply for federal money to open a charter school specifically for 3- and 4-year-olds. He said the states existing LA 4 program makes pre-K unsustainable from a bureaucratic and financial standpoint since it pays only part of the cost and heaps requirements on school operators.
The RSD may compensate for the loss of pre-K programs by adding classes at some of its existing sites.
Charter schools will outnumber traditional schools two to one in the Recovery School District next school year in an effort to rapidly shrink the roster of schools under the state-run districts direct control.
Four new charter schools including Lagniappe Academies and KIPP Renaissance High will open. Six traditional schools including Live Oak and Dibert elementaries will convert to charters. Moreover many existing charters will expand adding additional grades next year while several traditional schools will reduce the number of grades they serve.
All told the Recovery School District plans to have 47 charter schools next school year and no more than 23 traditional schools compared with 37 charters and 33 traditional programs this year. The Orleans Parish School Board will continue to operate 12 charters and four traditional schools. Charters are publicly funded but run by nonprofit boards.
The RSD has largely shifted from opening start-up charters to turning over existing schools to operators who want to run them as charters.
But that method can come with more political and educational challenges as school leaders do not have the time to build a school slowly grade by grade and are more likely to face community opposition particularly if they lay off staff and teachers.
Vallas stepping aside
Superintendent Paul Vallas said he does not plan to take the lead in future charter conversions and will largely leave it up to potential operators or community groups to propose them down the line.
I dont want to say weve reached our saturation point but I think any additional charters really need to emanate from the community he said. I am not going to be handing off any new charters.
Vallas said the only exceptions would be schools that persistently fail to rise out of the states failing category because of low test scores. That group still includes most of the districts traditional schools although new test scores will be released next month.
This year the charter proposals met with mixed responses. In the case of the Morris Jeff Community School the state agreed to grant its charter a year early partly because it had gained deep-rooted support in the Mid-City and Bayou St. John neighborhoods.
We surveyed the community literally knocking on doors even before we decided to put our work into getting the school open said Aesha Rasheed executive director of the New Orleans Parent Organizing Network who has been helping the school with outreach. Because there was no reason to fight the fight if we didnt believe that was the consensus on the community.
On the other hand opposition by some Treme community members changed plans to turn over Craig Elementary School to the charter operator FirstLine.
Some Treme residents including Jerome Smith director of the Treme Community Center objected to the process that Vallas used to select FirstLine.
Jay Altman FirstLines CEO said his organization remains open to working with the Craig community but will most likely not operate the school next year.
Folks in the community wanted another process and weve decided to honor that he said.
Traditional schools shrinking
With only a couple of exceptions the RSDs traditional schools will shrink rather than expand.
The districts three West Bank elementary schools for instance will no longer enroll seventh- and eighth-grade students. Rabouin and Douglass which will likely be operated by KIPP will continue to phase out grade by grade as will four elementary schools: Drew Wicker Gregory and Carver. Additional RSD traditional schools may also close or merge pending enrollment and test score data.
Three RSD traditional high schools will grow in size however. Clark will resume accepting freshmen Greater Gentilly will add an 11th grade and the district will reopen L.B. Landry which has been shuttered since Katrina in a new building on the West Bank for students in seventh through 10th grades.
Jonas Nash a member of the alumni group at Clark said hes pleased the school will resume accepting new students. We believe eliminating such an institution would in essence eliminate peoples history and there wouldnt be that sense of obligation to give back to the place you came from.
He added that a community group might push to charter the school. Many community members feel that to save their schools thats what they have to do he said.
While the city will add public high school seats the number of schools offering prekindergarten will shrink at a time when demand already exceeds supply.
Specifically some of the schools converting to charters plan to drop pre-K for financial reasons.
Gary Robichaux the head of the charter management organization taking control of Laurel and Live Oak said neither school will offer pre-K. Instead he hopes to apply for federal money to open a charter school specifically for 3- and 4-year-olds. He said the states existing LA 4 program makes pre-K unsustainable from a bureaucratic and financial standpoint since it pays only part of the cost and heaps requirements on school operators.
The RSD may compensate for the loss of pre-K programs by adding classes at some of its existing sites.
