Will the Last 5 Traditional Public Schools in New Orleans Become Charters?
On December 09, 2016, Danielle Dreilinger of nola.com published an article entitled, “Last 5 New Orleans Public Schools Expected to Become Charter Operations.”
As one might imagine, such a headline could be a surprise and a shock to teachers, parents, and students at the five Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) schools in question. The word I have from a teacher at one of the five schools affected is that it was a shock and that teachers from at least one of the schools found out about the chartering possibility just before Dreilinger’s article was published on the evening of December 9th.
The charter conversion “expectation” hinges upon the following sketchy details in the nola.com article:
Orleans Parish Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. announced Friday (Dec. 9) he had “received informal expressions of interest from current school and charter leaders to convert some or all of our remaining five network elementary and high schools to charter schools authorized by OPSB.”The five schools currently under school board control this would affect: Ben Franklin Elementary, Eleanor McMain Secondary, Mahalia Jackson Elementary, Mary Bethune Elementary, and McDonogh No. 35, comprising a middle and high school. …Lewis offered no further details, saying only, “We are beginning the process of informing school board members, staff, principals, teachers and families. When that process is completed early next week, we will be in a better position to provide more details.”The School Board is scheduled to meet Tuesday [December 13, 2016].
The article hints at “interest from current school and charter leaders”; however, in the article, the public is offered no specifics regarding who these leaders are. Too, as cited in the article, Superintendent Henderson Lewis’ words about “informing” Will the Last 5 Traditional Public Schools in New Orleans Become Charters? | deutsch29: