St, Mary's, in eastern New Orleans, is among schools accepting public school students under the new voucher program.

About 2,300 New Orleans public school students have been offered slots in private schools under the state’s voucher program, leaving about 5,500 spots still available at schools across the state, the Louisiana Department of Education announced today.

The department unveiled the list of private schools slated to accept those students today, as well as other schools across 33 parishes available this fall for students outside of New Orleans participating in the voucher program, officially known as Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence.

Legislators in early April approved a statewide launch of the program, which was originally a pilot program limited to New Orleans. Though the law was originally written so that low-income students at failing schools could attend the private or high-performing public schools of their choice, it’s the private school provision that has drawn  the most attention in the past few months. Critics have said that funding private schools with public dollars raises constitutional issues.

Proponents, however, have said that the dollars should follow the student.

Of the 125 schools students can choose from, only one, Park Vista School in St. Landry Parish, is a public school.

State superintendent of education John White says he believes more public schools will participate as the program grows.

“This is a promising start for a program that will provide thousands of options for Louisiana families now, and increasingly in the future,” he said.

White said that schools in New Orleans have made “tremendous” academic gains with scholarship students in recent years, and that he anticipates more academic success when results are announced from this year’s standardized tests. Private schools enrolled in the program are mandated by state law to give vouchered students the standardized tests administered in public schools, so the state can track progress uniformly.

State law says that schools with fewer than 10 vouchered students must not publicly release test data, in order to protect the identity of the students. White said the department will follow these rules when releasing data on outcomes.

It’s not yet clear what accountability measures White will impose on private schools that accept vouchers. State law mandates that he come up with clear measures for accountability on or before August 1, but doesn’t offer guidance on how to do so.

State lawmakers have clamored for White to develop ways to remove from the voucher program schools with chronically low scores on standardized tests.

Students protest for better bus service.

A vigorous protest by more than 20 students, who are also associated with the Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans, preceded Thursday’s meeting of the board that runs Benjamin Franklin Charter High School. Students protesting said that while the school does give free public-transit fare to students whose parents can’t drive them to and from school, the wait times for those public buses are long. They want private buses to shuttle them instead.

The association’s assistant director, Jacob Cohen, said students first raised these issues with the board at April’s board meeting, but they haven’t yet gotten a clear answer on if the board will provide those buses.

School board President Duris Holmes said that the board hasn’t affirmed a new form of bus service because it’s still looking into the issue, and it didn’t want to give out any further information until it checks out the costs. After the students staged a protest on the neutral ground in front of the school, Holmes and the other board members amended the meeting’s agenda so students could again address the board.

State law requires public schools to provide some form of free transportation to students. However, the Orleans Parish School Board’s operating agreement with Franklin doesn’t mandate a specific type of transportation, Orleans school system Deputy Superintendent of Charter Schools Kathleen Padian said.

Cohen said that despite the fact that the school gives out free bus fare, the hour and a half it takes for students to get to school from the East on a public bus, plus the blocks-long walk some students have to make from the bus stop in the early morning and late evening hours, is difficult.

“People feel like it’s not reliable, it’s incredibly burdensome, it’s dangerous,” he said.

More than 20 students at the hour-and-a-half long protest held up signs, chanted, and made speeches about their experience on public transportation.

Toward the end of the meeting, the board and the school’s chief executive officer, Timothy Rusnak, began to discuss the bus issue. When asked by board members if private bus services are common at other schools, Rusnak said that while elementary schools are known to have private bus companies, for safety reasons, “generally speaking, high schools in urban areas do not supply direct yellow bus transportation.”

Padian released a statement late Thursday that seemed to align with Rusnak’s assertion:

“Benjamin Franklin High School, like many charter high schools in the Greater New Orleans area, offers availability to public transportation for all students through the distribution of free bus tokens,” she said. “This common practice is in full compliance with OPSB’s operating agreement.”

At least one city charter high school – Warren Easton – offers that service, and has expanded it recently.

Holmes did say that the board has reached out to the Regional Transit Authority to help work out a solution to students’ concerns. He said the board still needs to do some research before it makes a decision, including how much it would cost to fund a private bus.

The board’s next meeting is on June 21.

The organization, which took over Tubman last summer, received the go-ahead in March from the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to run Akili Academy starting this summer. The boards will merge in June, and Crescent City Schools’ Chief Executive Officer Kate Mehok will assume leadership of both schools.

The decision to merge the two boards was made shortly after Sean Gallagher, Akili Academy’s founder and former executive director, announced his departure.

Crescent City Schools begins running Akili on July 1.

At the meeting, Mehok laid out a five-year plan for the organization. Next year, only Tubman and Akili will be under the organization’s umbrella, but the year following, Crescent City plans to apply for a third charter. By 2015-2016, they’ll have applied  for a fourth.

Mehok emphasized her intent to keep the administrative office small, in order to funnel more resources to the schools.

“One of the reasons we aren’t a huge (charter management organization) is because the show is at the school,” she told board members.

While the organization hasn’t yet applied to charter a specific school, Mehok mentioned some soon-to-open buildings to think about. Alice Harte Charter School, housed in modulars on Gen. Meyer Avenue, is waiting for a new building, but once the move is made, the Gen. Meyer site could be up for grabs, Mehok said. The merger of O. Perry Walker and L.B. Landry high schools would also leave the Walker building available, she said.

After outlining plans for additional schools, Mehok laid out the organization’s administrative structure. The principals at Akili and Tubman will answer to Mehok, but that doesn’t mean she’ll tell them what to do, Mehok said. Rather, she’ll work collaboratively to achieve outcomes the principals set for themselves.

Additionally, Julie Lause, Tubman’s principal and the management organization’s chief academic officer, will trade her CAO title for a co-founder title, but she’ll  remain a member of the executive team. The organization also will soon hire a new chief officer, Mehok said. The new chief will succeed Nick Walker, who is leaving June 15.

Mehok mentioned another three hires that the management organization plans to make. One, called a school principal fellow, will be trained by Mehok to lead one of the organization’s new schools. A director of human capital also will be hired to recruit and set appropriate compensation for staff, and to develop and oversee personnel policies.

Finally, the group wants to bring on a program associate, someone who can help Mehok manage the organization’s office.

The executive staff would then total six.

Other meeting highlights included discussion of the board’s finances and pending approval of next year’s budget, slated for the June 20 board meeting.

Louisiana’s Local Government Budget Act requires the management group to make its budget available for public review at least 10 days before it is subjected to a public hearing. The date of the meeting and the availability of the document must be announced in the parish’s journal of record, The Times-Picayune.

Because Crescent City won’t officially begin overseeing Akili until July, the Akili board is responsible for approving its budget and advertising it properly, Mehok said.

Crescent City Schools board members in attendance at the meeting included Carolyn Chandler, JP Hymel, Agnieszka McPeak, Doug Harel, Julius Kimbrough, and Anna Burrell. Akili board members in attendance included Ronnie Evans, Bob Stefani, Tim Bryant, and John Hummel. Also in attendance: Peggy Wilson, Stephanie Bibbs, CEO Kate Mehok and Director of Development Alison Mehr.

The June 20 board meeting is at 6 p.m.

Undoubtedly, a major source of the turmoil was the unwavering antics of longtime gadfly Sandra Wheeler Hester, who was a key antagonist of the School Board pre-Katrina, and who has begun attending monthly meetings again. Hester and a group of four other henchwomen, which included Lower 9^th Ward activist Vanessa Gueringer, talked above every speaker who addressed the board and interrupted board members repeatedly while they discussed and voted on issues. Hester filled out a comment card for every agenda item, as she’s been known to do, and used her time to personally berate board members and audience members who spoke out against her.

Longtime School Board critic plays to the crowd as she takes to the rostrum Tuesday night. Photo by Jessica Williams.

But in another explosive turn of events, the seven-member board broke into a shouting match over who should be the interim superintendent, and a quieter, but no less argumentative, disagreement on the appointment of the deputy superintendent of charter schools. A five-member majority voted to appoint Chief Financial Officer Stan Smith as superintendent. But members Ira Thomas and Cynthia Cade vehemently spoke out against Smith’s appointment, with Cade nominating 10 other people.

Among those she wanted for the spot: Executive Director of Human Resources Armand Devezin and Executive Director of Exceptional Children’s Services Rosalynne Dennis, both of whom Thomas said last week he’d nominate.

Cade and Thomas both said that Smith, while qualified to serve in a financial capacity, did not have the credentials to be superintendent. They also said that the board’s majority made the decision to appoint Smith behind closed doors, and they  denounced board President Thomas Robichaux’s decision to go public with his intent for Smith to take the position prior to the board meeting.

In the case of the deputy superintendent, Brett Bonin rejoined Cade and Thomas in what has become their traditional alliance to vote against the creation of the deputy superintendent of charter schools, the appointment of the district’s Executive Director of Charter Schools Kathleen Padian to the position, and to set Padian’s annual salary at $145,000.

Dissension among board members seemed to encourage Hester and a few like-minded audience members. After Thomas and Cade’s argument with other board members, Hester and her cohorts began insulting board members by using obscenities and personal attacks. The jeering continued after adjournment, as at least two of the five loudest audience members followed board members Lourdes Moran, Seth Bloom, and chief financial officer Smith out, screaming insults and expletives just steps away from them.

Vice-president Lourdes Moran, who has served on the board since 2005, said Tuesday’s meeting was the most disruptive she’s seen.

“It’s as bad as I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “The worst part is that it goes against us because….people don’t want this type of performance, and the chances of us getting back our schools, they make that worse,” Moran said, gesturing towards the jeering audience members behind her after the meeting.

She said the board does have two security officers, but that “they just aren’t doing what we need them to be doing.”

Hester repeatedly scoffed at the board’s security force throughout the meeting, saying more than once that she dared anyone to remove her. She received her fair share of criticism from audience members and the board for her behavior.

It didn’t deter Hester, who’s come to be known as “18 Wheeler” by her critics and supporters. She kept talking over speakers.

And in the battle between School Board members over the appointment of the two positions, Cade took a page from Hester’s book as she talked over board president Thomas Robichaux, and told him he was out of order for refusing to consider the other 10 nominees for interim superintendent she proposed, and instead only voting on Smith’s appointment. Ignoring the president’s gavel banging, she and Thomas raised their voices in a heated dispute with Robichaux that culminated in Thomas walking out of the meeting, only to return minutes later.

“Stan Smith is not certified to be a superintendent,” Cade said to Robichaux. “If he can’t be a superintendent, he can’t be interim. He was hired to be a CFO.”

Cade, along with Thomas, said Robichaux shouldn’t have informed the media last week of his intent to place Smith in the position.

And when it came time to discuss Padian’s salary as deputy superintendent, Thomas alleged that the Orleans Parish School Board has systematically discriminated against its black employees by offering experienced black staffers less pay than white staffers with less experience. He then read aloud the salaries of the School Board’s executive staffers, comparing Padian and Smith’s proposed salaries and years of experience with that of those staffers. Both Cade and Thomas said the duties Padian would be performing as deputy superintendent were no different then the duties she’s performing as executive director.

Despite all this, the board managed to roll forward the millage, and get the two positions appointed. The tax rate for the board next year will be set at 45.31 mills, up from this year’s 43.6 mills. It means the board will take in an extra $5120 million, and have more to distribute to charter schools. Correction: The tax increase will raise just more than $5 million, not $120 million.

Several charter school leaders and proponents spoke out in support of the increase during the board’s hour-long public hearing, which was held prior to the meeting. Several other commenters spoke out against it, citing the School Board’s history of mismanagement of taxpayers’ dollars and clamoring for more accountability.

The board voted 5-2 in favor of the proposed millage increase, with Cade and Thomas opposed.

The increase brings the millage up to the total previously allowed by voters.

The board of trustees for the Algiers Charter School Association met Monday night to discuss their chief executive officer’s departure – but it didn’t notify the news media of the meeting and they held it at a private office building in the Central Business District.

Shortly after the meeting began, the association posted an item on its website revealing that its chief executive officer was not seeking a contract extension or renewal past the  June 30 expiration. The notice also said the board knew about the impending departure of CEO Andrea Thomas Reynolds since Feb. 28. Correction: The purpose of the meeting wasn’t made clear on the board’s agenda or in an interview with the board spokesman afterward, as The Lens reported earlier. 

Although the organization posted an agenda for the specially called meeting on its website Friday, it didn’t send The Lens a notification, despite our long-standing request for all such meeting notices. State law demands that public bodies give written, mailed notice of meetings to any member of the news media who asks for it at least 24 hours in advance.

A spokesman for the charter network agreed to send notifications to The Lens in the future, but he said they aren’t required to send mailed notice.

The board meeting was held at the Entergy New Orleans office on Perdido Street, an unusual venue change. Normally, board meetings are held at one of the eight West Bank schools the charter network governs, rather than across the river. While nothing in state open-meetings law forbids a public body from gathering and discussing public business at a private venue, the law does say that “public business (should) be performed in an open and public matter,” and that toward that end, the provisions of the chapter should be construed liberally.

Board member Charles Rice is the chief executive officer of Entergy.

Board Chairwoman Cassandra Bookman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Network spokesman David Jackson insisted that the network isn’t obligated to send a mailed notice.

“Normally we interpret (the law) to mean we have to make it available for the public,” he said Tuesday. “We post it at the place where the meeting is going to be held and on the website. I can do it as a courtesy but am not legally bound to give an advance copy.”

Jackson said the meeting notice was posted outside the Entergy building.

Of course, if the public doesn’t know where the board is meeting, posting the notice there does little good.

The Louisiana open meetings law (La. R.S. 42:19) is clear on the fact that public bodies, such as the Algiers group, must give such notice:

•  (1)(b)(i) All public bodies, except the legislature and its committees and subcommittees, shall give written public notice of any regular, special, or rescheduled meeting no later than twenty-four hours before the meeting.
• (2)  Written public notice given by all public bodies, except the legislature and its committees and subcommittees, shall include, but need not be limited to:
• (a)  Posting a copy of the notice at the principal office of the public body holding the meeting, or if no such office exists, at the building in which the meeting is to be held; or by publication of the notice in an official journal of the public body no less than twenty-four hours before the meeting
• (b)  Mailing a copy of the notice to any member of the news media who requests notice of such meetings; any such member of the news media shall be given notice of all meetings in the same manner as is given to members of the public body.

A year after we first ran a story highlighting charter schools’ obligation to comply with open-meetings law requirements, about half of the 45 charter school boards in New Orleans regularly sent us meeting notices. That number’s dwindled in the months since our Charter School Reporting Corps was formed. Only three of 42 boards that met last month sent us advanced meeting notices, instead counting on our reporters to hear through word of mouth about a meeting date change or special-called meeting.

Charter school boards failure to comply with open-meetings law has drawn critics both locally and statewide. Louisiana Public Charter School Association executive director Caroline Roemer Shirley has called charters’ failure to adhere to state law “upsetting,” and said that charters are expected to do better than traditional school systems of days past have done in regards to transparency.

Orleans Parish School Board vice president Lourdes Moran said that the Algiers’ charter group’s meeting at a private venue, as well as their failure to properly notice it, “is a problem.”

Andrea Thomas-Reynolds

“That’s a huge problem because they’re not running private schools. They’re running public schools with public dollars, and they should have noticed correctly,” she said Tuesday. “And in particular if your CEO is stepping down, (that meeting) should have be in the area that your school is in.”

The meeting’s agenda was sparse at best – other than an announcement of an executive session to discuss personnel issues, no discussion or action items were listed. Jackson confirmed Tuesday that the meeting was to discuss the departure of CEO Andrea Thomas-Reynolds. State law allows public bodies discussing issues relating to a person’s employment to hold closed sessions. Correction: Jackson did not confirm the subject of the executive session discussion. 

Reynolds’ confirmed her departure late Monday, saying that she felt her assignment with the Algiers group “is largely complete.” She’d been working with the board on a transition plan since February, but she hadn’t announced officially until Tuesday that she wouldn’t seek to renew her contract.

Custodians say representatives from ARAMARK, a Philadelphia-based service corporation that RSD contracted with on April 1 for janitorial services, told them on May 1 they didn’t pass the probationary period that’s standard for new hires. But several custodians said they have been with the schools, although not with ARAMARK, for years, and they said they performed well on their jobs.

Union members protest the firing of a dozen custodians at Recovery School District direct-run schools on Tuesday. Photo by Jessica Williams

Union officials said ARAMARK’s targeting of only full-time employees is a standard tactic to break up unions.

But ARAMARK officials say that the terminations were in line with the employees’ union contract, and that they plan to hire new employees to fill 12 now-open full-time slots.

A crowd of at least 30 employees, represented by the Service Employees International Union, protested the move outside of RSD offices on Poland Avenue Tuesday morning.

“I gave my all to my job. Not just for (ARAMARK), but for the kids and the teachers,” former Abramson Science and Technology School custodian Kim Lewis said.

Lewis, along with the other 11 employees fired, worked full-time. The direct-run schools where they worked are Abramson, L.B. Landry High School, John McDonogh High School, Joseph A. Craig Elementary School, Mary D. Coghill Elementary School, and F.W. Gregory Elementary School.

Two employees, former head custodian Nicole Molett and former lead custodian Sonja Richard, from John McDonogh and Coghill Elementary schools, said that when they were terminated, ARAMARK representatives cited a clause in the employment contract that said that newly hired workers must pass a 30 to 60 day probationary period before being considered for permanent employment.

During the probationary period, “an employee may be terminated in the sole discretion of the employer without recourse to this Agreement,” the employment contract reads. A probationary employee is also not eligible for any of the benefits in the employment agreement.

ARAMARK contracted with RSD on April 1 for facilities services, RSD spokeswoman Kizzy Payton confirmed. Molett and Richard said they worked under Sodexo, another service provider, prior to that.

Molett said she’s worked at John McDonogh for two years, and Richard said she’s worked at Coghill five years. Molett’s been working in public schools for six years, and Richard is a 22-year veteran.

Local union president Helene O’Brien said that a majority of the other fired employees had at least five years of experience at their respective schools.

“All but two of the 12 fired employees had been at the school since 2006 or 2007. Who said they were suddenly on probation?” O’Brien said. The firings were violations of the just cause agreement in the union contract, she said.

And on Monday, the union released a statement that called ARAMARK’s specific targeting of full-time employees “a union-busting tactic.”

ARAMARK communications director Karen Cutler disagreed with O’Brien, and said that they plan to hire more full-time slots:

“All of our employment decisions are fully compliant with the terms and conditions of the union’s collective bargaining agreement.  As such, the union was aware of the recent decisions made with regard to these employees, and is also aware of our intention to replace all 12 full-time positions,” Cutler said in an email.

When a reporter asked RSD officials why RSD switched to ARAMARK in the first place, Payton sent this statement:

“The Recovery School District’s engagement for custodial and maintenance services with Aramark is based on two primary objectives; providing superior service to RSD schools using high-technology equipment that improves employee safety and efficiency, and providing this service at a competitive cost, maximizing the dollars going into the classroom.

“Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 21LA’s agreement and the terms and conditions of that agreement are with Aramark.”

Payton also said that the RSD is not likely to consider another switch because of these complaints.

Thomas Robichaux

Thomas Robichaux, 43, a former city attorney who now works as a lawyer for a gaming distribution company, ran in 2008 as a reform candidate for a seat on the Orleans Parish School Board and today is its president. Few dispute that change was sorely needed. For years the city school system had been synonymous with financial mismanagement and atrocious academic performance. The system had gone bankrupt shortly before Katrina and probes had been set in motion that eventually would send a former school board president to jail and determine that $75 million in federal support had been misappropriated. Within weeks of the storm, the system’s failing schools – the overwhelming majority of the 100-plus schools that OPSB had governed – were swept into the state’s Recovery School District, leaving the OPSB to manage the handful that were deemed still functional. Reeling and rudderless, the OPSB fired virtually its entire teaching staff, effectively canceling its contract with their union, the United Teachers of New Orleans. Several of the schools still under its purview rushed to establish themselves as charter schools.

Today, the school board presides over 11 charters and six traditional schools. The rest of the city’s schools – 71 in number – are under the state’s Recovery School District or its Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, most of them charters, plus a residual few that the RSD is running directly. Amid contentious debate over how best to restore the city’s bifurcated school system to local control, in December 2010, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved a procedure whereby improving schools can opt to return to the OPSB fold either as charters or as direct-run schools. But to date, none of the eight schools eligible for this option have chosen to do so. The reasons why were among questions we brought to a conversation with Robichaux, who was elected OPSB president in January.

The Lens: Why did you get into the public education sphere in the first place? What inspired you to run in 2008? 

Robichaux: Well, I had been preaching for years that education is the key. And it turned out that no one was running. So Woody (Koppel) called me and said, “Thomas, nobody is running in your district.” I’m like,”Ok.” So I decided I needed to put my money where my mouth was. I borrowed the $200 and I went and qualified. I had one opponent at the last minute, but then he didn’t live in the district, so I sued and got him out. And I ended up getting elected unopposed.

I’ve seen how the lack of education has been a detriment to the city and its progress. And that’s all true. But the reality is that during Katrina we all saw the news footage the day of, before the levees broke, all the looting. That’s 50 years of bad education. I was so embarrassed to watch my fellow citizens behaving so horribly. Police too!

For years, people have lived in isolation. And the rich white man on St. Charles Avenue didn’t care about the poor black kid in New Orleans East getting shot, or dealing drugs. Katrina showed us, if nothing else, that we are all in this boat together — that the kid who’s dealing drugs and getting no education in the Lower Nine does affect the guy on St. Charles Avenue, and if we don’t work together to improve the city then we’re working against each other. Education is the single key to it. It’s the key to poverty, the key to crime, it’s the key to racism, sexism, homophobia, it’s the key to all of it. Unless we fix a broken system, we’re neglecting ourselves.

The Lens: When you got on the board what did you see as the future of the Orleans Parish School Board, the burgeoning charter school movement and so forth? 

Robichaux: I saw it about where we are. But I’d hoped to be getting some schools back by now. I really did. We’re working hard to make that happen this fall.

The Lens: What do you think some of the barriers are for that? Why do you think schools are wary about coming back under OPSB management?

Robichaux: Well, I could tell you that political pressure was brought to bear on the eight schools (that were eligible to return). That’s what we hear, that’s what we’re told. And there’s some trepidation on their part as well because we don’t have a comprehensive plan for the return. We have a general plan, but we don’t have a comprehensive plan. There’s a lot of nuanced, nitpicky details. And since we didn’t have that detailed plan, they were just hesitant to do it. And I don’t blame them. So we’re actually working that out right now. Kathleen Padian is the new executive director of charter schools; she’s been working on that plan since she started.

The Lens: When do you think that plan will be complete?

Robichaux: Very soon. By the end of next month.

The Lens: Besides the lack of a concrete plan, are there other reasons why they have resisted coming back?

Robichaux: The Pastorek plan calls for them to have a vote, and it’s their boards that vote. Now originally, when he described the plan in public — at the meeting when the BESE board voted (on it), he said that the school communities would get to vote. Meaning the parents, the neighborhood, and the board and all that stuff. But that was not the case. It’s just their boards. Some of those boards have multiple schools in the Recovery School District, and they have political ties and financial ties, and they don’t want to burn those bridges.

The Lens: Describe the reasoning behind the proposed changes in board governance.

Robichaux: Even though we’ve gone through all these reforms, until we put them into policy, they are not permanent. And that’s our goal this year. Our job is not just to be a good board now, but to set up future boards for success. And part of that is this governance model that we put forward. It doesn’t really substantively change much internally. At the committee meetings, the director of charter schools comes to the accountability committee. The director of finance comes to the finance committees. And we give them directives, through the board and through those committees. So we’re not changing that at all. The only thing we’re doing is separating out the traditional (direct-run) schools and the central services, so that the superintendent will be able to focus on his true mission, which is traditional schools. And then the CFO, who would be the deputy superintendent for finance and operations, would handle all the central services. In other words, there’s a lot of stuff that we provide for our charters and also for private schools that we have to provide, because of federal regulations. So we have to provide those services for all schools, and all those central services would be under operations. And then, charter schools would be under the deputy superintendent for charter schools, and traditional schools under the superintendent of schools.

The Lens: So, would the deputy superintendent of charter schools be subordinate to the superintendent or an equal?

Robichaux: (Motions with his hands, indicating that deputy superintendents are just below the superintendent.) All three report to the board, but that’s one of the debates. Should there ultimately be one person, and if there is one person, at what point does that person get involved with the decisions of the deputy? How much freedom does the deputy have officially? For instance, if the deputy of finance wants to do a certain project, does he have to wait for the superintendent to come to work to get approval for it? And so, it’s about efficiency and it’s about the specialists in that area being in charge of that area. And then, the counterargument is that you need one person in charge, where the buck stops. But, ultimately the buck stops with the board.

The Lens: Now that Superintendent Darryl Kilbert will be stepping down in June, what qualities will the board be looking for in his replacement?

Robichaux: We certainly are going to look for an experienced administrator, someone who is innovative and can take us to the next level. We’re the No. 1 district in the state, but want to be a nationally ranked district.

The Lens: Do you have anyone in mind right now?

Robichaux: No.

The Lens: What is your response to folks who say that the era of local board control, specifically in New Orleans, is coming to an end?

Robichaux: I would say that the traditional model is certainly gone. There’s no movement to bring it back. The traditional model is no longer sufficient, because we neglected it. It’s outdated, and not sufficient for modern society and modern educational needs. But that does not mean the board should be eliminated by any means.

What I’ve discovered is that there can be no true accountability to the people without an elected board. Appointed board members are only beholden to their appointer. They are not beholden to the people. They are not responsive to the people. Even through the corruption of (convicted former board president) Ellenese Brooks-Simms, and all that, the democratic process worked. She was voted out of office before she was indicted. And that’s rare. (New Orleans City) Council people weren’t voted out of office before they were indicted. They were indicted, and then they had to resign. So the democratic process worked for the school board. It’s just because council people are known as individuals, and board members are known as board members, that the board gets branded, rather than the council. There’s been a lot more people in City Hall to go to jail than school board people. But the school board has this burden that the council doesn’t seem to have.

Anyway, back to the model. The American educational model was designed after World War II to create classes of people. It was designed to create a labor class, and a skilled clerical class, and an elite professional class. That model worked fine, for the 20^th century. Then we got desegregation, and the whites fled. Especially in the South. And not only did they flee the schools with their kids, they started ignoring the schools. Because their kids didn’t go there, so they didn’t care about public education any more. Then, we learned the lesson, finally, that we’re all in this together. And we have to pay attention.

So the model, when you neglect the system … it’s going to fail. [With] any system, you’re going to always have to be feeding it some energy. You have to always be getting new blood and new ideas, and new people. And that was not done for 50 years here. So, the system produced exactly the results that we should have expected it to produce, considering, one, the model, and, two, the neglect that we gave it. So, now we are trying to break that cycle, and reverse 50 years of neglect. We’ve done it on the fiscal side, and we’re really succeeding on the academic side. So now it’s about making it as permanent as possible and designing the system for the next 50 years.

The Lens: What do you think about the school voucher program that Governor Jindal got the Legislature to enact?

Robichaux: Here’s my stance on vouchers. I think that they are a small Band-Aid on a large gaping wound. I don’t think that public money should be going to private schools, but on the other hand, if it’s the only way that a child can get a better education, then I think that overrides my constitutional objections. But again, it has to be monitored so closely and there has to be conditions on it, because there is a constitutional question about separation of church and state. I am not opposed to the program in principle, if it is to educate children who would not otherwise be able to receive quality education.

 The Lens: Elections are coming up in November. What do you want folks to take away from this board’s term?

Robichaux: I never in my lifetime thought that the Orleans Parish School Board would be the No. 1 district in the state.* And that’s the situation we have. I want people to realize that four years ago we came into office and promised that Orleans Parish School Board would be the No. 1 district in the state, and we’ve succeeded. There’s going to be a lot of controversial things this year, because we’re going to be putting everything into policy. And we need the public’s support to make permanent these great reforms that we’ve put through.

*Note: Robichaux is referring to the Orleans Parish School Board’s 2011 cohort graduation rate of 93.5 percent, the highest rate in the state. According to the Louisiana Department of Education, the district has a district performance score of 118, or No. 2 statewide. The Zachary Community School District had the highest statewide district performance score, at 121. 

One of the schools under the KIPP New Orleans brand is up for a contract extension this year. The school’s performance history, including a less-than-favorable 2011 financial review, was up for discussion at a recent board meeting.The state education department has deemed that one of the schools under the KIPP New Orleans brand needs extra fiscal monitoring.

Board members briefly discussed the Louisiana Department of Education’s 2011 review of KIPP Central City Primary at their Apr. 19 board meeting. KIPP Central City Primary, one of KIPP’s schools eligible for a contract extension this year, received a less-than-favorable financial performance review from the Louisiana Department of Education. The review mentions flagged findings on an audit report, a spending deficit in at least one of the last three years, and a financial safety net deemed too small by state standards.

Note: The above has been changed to reflect that the fiscal review was conducted in 2011. 

Charter schools receive annual evaluations from the state for their academic, financial, and legal and contract performance. When the state conducts a financial risk assessment on a school, that school can score anywhere from “excellent” to “unacceptable” in five targeted areas: business practices, questioned costs, audit report results, cash on hand, and major events that could affect financial performance.

KIPP Central City Primary received a “needs improvement” and an “unacceptable” ranking in the cash on hand category last year, for having a deficit of just more than $7000 for the 2008-2009 year and for having less than 5 percent of a financial “cushion” – meaning that its general fund balance was less than 5 percent of its revenues. The state also noted that the independent auditor’s report on KIPP for that year found a material weakness in internal controls. As a result, the department has decided to either conduct a site visit or host a conference call with school leadership to discuss finances. The assessment indicated that the state could also bring the matter up with the state Board of Elementary and Secondary of Education, or employ a fiscal administrator to assist the school with finances.

The KIPP New Orleans Board discussed the state’s decision when discussing the school’s charter extension. s for the brand’s other eight schools. It also reviewed student applications and briefly discussed next year’s revenues.

Note: The other eight schools at KIPP are not up for renewal. 

KIPP Chief Financial Officer Michael Dunn said in a follow-up interview that the deficit is from the 2008, when KIPP Central City Primary was only receiving start-up funding and not all of its per-student revenue.

“In the very first couple of months…we may have been starting to buy supplies, but we didn’t have any revenue yet,” he said.  “So that year we ran a deficit in the start up period.”

Dunn said that the school is no longer carrying a deficit. He also said that collectively, KIPP New Orleans’s fund balance is more than 8 percent of its revenues, and that in the future, KIPP would work to improve fund balances at its individual schools.

Although the state’s assessment said that an audit report found a material weakness, the audit report in question, which covered the 2009-2010 fiscal year, noted several findings that contributed to what auditors called “internal control deficiencies,” not material weaknesses. An understaffed accounting department with a high turnover rate, for example, led to slow financial reporting. The administration also didn’t properly document the time of staffers who get paid with certain federal funds, the auditor wrote.

KIPP responded by hiring a new chief financial officer, a grants manager, and an accounting manager, the audit report reads. The organization also bought new software to help track employee time, and had all staffers who got paid with federal funds provide extra documentation.

Still, the state is putting put a closer eye on KIPP’s finances, in what is officially called a “dialogue” response.

Note: The above has been corrected to reflect the timing of the review. 

The state’s choice to review KIPP Central City wasn’t the only topic of discussion at the meeting. Board members also got around to enrollment and next year’s finances.

KIPP McDonogh No. 15 has received the most applications for the 2012-2013 school year – 806 total – from students who listed the school as a choice on their application, board members discussed. In all, KIPP schools have received 3,338 applications.

Some board members asked if the state’s new student private-school voucher program would affect the enrollment process. The program funds some public-school students’ private-school education, using public dollars. However, in order for students to qualify, they have to be attending schools that are low-performing by state standards. Two of KIPP’s six schools – KIPP New Orleans Leadership Academy and KIPP McDonogh #15 – fall into that category, receiving a D and C grade from the state, respectively.

Bertsch said that most likely, competition for enrollment would only come from Orleans Parish School Board high schools. KIPP has also been communicating with students to get an idea of where else they are applying, he said.

KIPP has also received its dollar amount per student from the state, the finance committee reported. Schools received $12,111,542 and accounted for 63 percent of the budget. The board had estimated within one percent of this amount, leaving no surprises for the budget in the months to come.

The next board meeting is on June 21.

To make expulsion hearings more equitable for Recovery School District students, the state-run agency will coordinate hearings at its 66 New Orleans schools through a central office.

The RSD Expulsion Hearing Office, once responsible for conducting hearings only at schools the district runs directly, will now oversee hearings for students at its charter schools as well. The move comes three years after media reports questioned data on the expulsion rates at some charter schools.

The change was approved last week at a meeting of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“Much like the unified enrollment system, the RSD’s new expulsion hearing process will help ensure a consistent, equitable process for every student in the district,” RSD spokeswoman Kizzy Payton wrote in an emailed statement. “Schools will maintain their autonomy to build a positive culture, and students’ families will have a uniform experience regardless of where they are enrolled.”

The email did not respond to a reporter’s inquiry as to whether the policy change was a response to complaints about expulsion inequities.

While state data recorded only four student suspensions at the RSD’s east bank charter schools in 2009, school administrators at those schools said the actual figure was higher, according to The Times-Picayune.

The new policy takes effect Aug. 1.

Racial crossover voting and low black voter turnout appear to be the keys to City Councilwoman Stacy Head’s narrow victory Saturday in the election for an at-large seat.

Head, who is white, won far fewer precincts than challenger Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who is black, but the turnout was much higher in the 148 that Head won; Willard-Lewis won 217 precincts.

This map, created by NolaStat.org, shows how the votes were divided in each precinct, along with relative turnout. Download or view a larger pdf here.

Click to enlarge. Map courtesy of NolaStat.org

The website is the brainchild of geographic systems consultant Brian Denzer, who started the advocacy project in 2008 to promote performance management in City Hall, and to improve public access to city data.

Head has expressed support for Denzer’s efforts, and Denzer likewise supported Head’s candidacy. His information and related analysis, however, is neutral, drawn from and based on Secretary of State’s election results.

The map shows much stronger voter turnout in the precincts that voted for Head, particularly in predominately white districts.

The map also shows:

• Willard-Lewis dominated in  the predominately black District E in eastern New Orleans, which  she represented on the City Council for 10 years. The east also had relatively high turnout compared to other areas of the city, with most precincts reporting 100 voters or more.

• Gentilly also had a relatively high turnout, although voters in that part of the predominately black District D were more likely to split the vote evenly between the two candidates.

• The Lower 9^th  Ward and Desire-Florida neighborhoods voted overwhelming for Willard-Lewis – but their numbers were under a 100 in each precinct, meaning that overall, they couldn’t beat the 200 or more Head-supporters per precinct that turned out in the Lakeview, Lakeshore-Lake Vista, and West End areas.

• Head’s strongest support came from the predominately white District A and the predominately-black district she’s represented since 2006, District B. District A includes parts of Uptown and the Audubon neighborhood, and Freret neighborhoods, and District B includes Central City, the Central Business District, and the Garden District. Voters in both districts came out in droves at the polls, with upwards of 100 votes in most precincts.

What’s even more interesting, Denzer said in an interview, is overall turnout in the precincts won by each candidate.

“Stacy Head received an average 26 percent turnout in precincts that she won, compared to 17 percent turnout in precincts that Cynthia Willard-Lewis won,” Denzer said.

He also said that based on his analysis, Head won only eight precincts that were majority black, compared to Willard-Lewis, who won 215 majority-black precincts.

“In a city that is 60 percent African-American…and in a contest which heavily favored Cynthia Willard-Lewis by voters’ racial preferences, the deciding factor was the overwhelming turnout for Stacy Head compared to Cynthia Willard-Lewis — and even then, the vote returns coming in all night showed a very close contest that was ultimately won by only 281 votes,” Denzer said.

The results are not yet official. If Head’s victory holds, she’s expected to take office shortly after the results are certified, likely within the week. The council will then appoint an interim replacement and call a special election to fill her District B seat.