New charter schools face daunting task of attracting enough students to stay afloat
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The head of one of New Orleans’ newest charter schools spent the last year taking care of nearly everything needed for the first day of school Tuesday — leasing buildings, drawing up a budget and hiring teachers.
But one thing remained uncertain as Tuesday approached: how many seats would be full.
Foundation Preparatory Charter Schoolplanned to open with a kindergarten class of 108. At a minimum, it needed 40 students, Myrialis King, founder of the school in in eastern New Orleans, said in July. Ideally, 75.
By late July, just 20 students had committed.
So the school suddenly changed plans. Tuesday, as kindergartners were getting acquainted with their new school, the Orleans Parish School Board announced that Foundation Prep would add first grade. It will start next week.
New Orleans’ nearly all-charter school system is built on competition, and for new schools, that means competing with established schools for students.
It’s a daunting task for leaders of new schools. They don’t have a school letter grade or test scores to boast of. They must build relationships in the community and convince parents to take a chance on an unproven school.
“It has been hard,” King said about the recruiting process. “It’s hard for new schools. It’s hard for kindergarten.”
A lot rides on enrollment figures. Considering that state money brought in by six students can pay a teacher’s salary, falling short could mean a newly hired teacher must look for another job.
A unified school district or large charter organization, on the other hand, is better equipped to absorb the financial impact of an enrollment shortfall.
Attracting students is just the first step. At all but a handful of charter schools, interested parents can’t simply sign their kids up. Instead, they’re instructed to choose the school on OneApp, the centralized application system for nearly all schools in the city.
If new schools have trouble filling seats, they may be encouraged to change plans.
Cypress Academy also opened Tuesday. It planned to open with four kindergarten classes. When it couldn’t fill them, school leader Bob Berk replaced two with first-grade classes, which had more demand.
“We said, ‘Sure, we’ll take first grade,” he said.
BUILDING A NAME
A study released earlier this year found that most charter leaders in New Orleans compete for students by marketing their schools: attending school fairs, hiring marketing consultants and buying ads.
Foundation and Cypress have followed suit.
Foundation has recruited students by “knocking on doors, passing out flyers, having information sessions at pre-K and Head Start programs,” King said. Berk has made the rounds at daycares and Head Start early-childhood programs.
Foundation has advertised in Spanish-language and Vietnamese publications and on Facebook. Cypress has advertised in various publications and websites. Both have advertised at bus shelters.
On paper, these schools are blank slates.
The New Orleans Parents’ Guide is an inch-thick guide to navigating schools in the city. It lists locations, teacher-student ratios, amenities such as after-school care, state-assigned rankings and standardized test performance.
On the pages for Foundation Prep and Cypress Academy, almost everything is blank. In large letters over empty charts, it says,“PAST PERFORMANCE DATA NOT AVAILABLE FOR THIS SCHOOL.”
STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD
Foundation and Cypress emphasize reading skills. That sort of specialization — by curriculum, teaching methods or neighborhood — is another common tactic New Orleans charters use to stand out, according to the Education Research Alliance study.
King said it was by teaching fifth-grade English that she came to believe that “the opportunity gap, or achievement gap as some folks call it, is really a literacy gap.”
She decided to put the school in eastern New Orleans because “we didn’t want to come into a place that was already saturated with schools. … And New Orleans East, when we applied [for a charter], had two students for every one seat available.”
This part of the city is far from the historic neighborhoods typically associated with New Orleans. Originally developed in the 1960’s, it’s made up of subdivisions squeezed between Lake Pontchartrain and marshes.
“Everything that we’ve done has come back to the community,” King said.
Foundation’s location was one reason Joshua Tran decided to enroll his son Joshua Jr. there. He lives nearby, knows a few of the employees and has talked with King several times.
“They are really connected to the community and it’s a safe place for my kid to go,” he said. “We trust them.”
Tyshanisha Henry enrolled her son Ty’shawn in Foundation’s kindergarten after meeting King at a school fair. She was drawn to the New charter schools face daunting task of attracting enough students to stay afloat | The Lens: