Encore Academy will hold a public hearing Tuesday to discuss the charter school’s 2013-2014 budget. The $2.9 million budget for the fiscal year that began one week ago is currently available for review at the school, and the public will be allowed to comment at Tuesday’s meeting.
The charter school opened its doors last year and provides a musical arts curriculum alongside its academic curriculum. Encore shares Crocker Elementary School with a New Orleans College Prep charter school, Crocker College Prep.
The hearing will be held at July 9 at the school beginnings at 6:30 p.m., in conjunction with the school’s board meeting.
Where will ENCORE be located next year? I heard that the RSD is pulling rank on the OPSB charter after this year. Also, for the record, I think it’s a damn shame that a “new” charter school was allowed to open and specifically exclude the 4th grade (LEAP testing). What was ENCORE’s fear? That it could not adequately educate students in one year and prepare them for LEAP testing? This is no way for an open-admissions public charter school to operate, much less one that was authorized by the OPSB. This reflects poorly on Deputy Superintendent Padian’s judgment and performance and casts the OPSB in a bad light. Too many charter schools are already looking for ways to outsmart the system and/or exclude groups of students. In the ENCORE instance, this was an entire grade (4th grade) in its first year of operation. The last thing a school district needs is somebody on the inside (like a Deputy Superintendent) showing particular nonprofit charter boards how to beat the system. And if the ENCORE Board devised this plan on its own, then it should have been corrected before it was approved, because it doesn’t pass the smell test.