The New Beginnings Schools Foundation may add two new members to its board of directors tonight, after dropping one below the state-required seven members last month when three members resigned.

Members Tim Ryan, April Bedford and Carol Skriloff Star left the board in August, leaving the governance of the charter school network to six members.

After the resignations, board member Ramsey Green said UNO President Peter Fos and Darrell Kruger, the dean of UNO’s College of Education and Human Development, would likely join the board. He said a special meeting would be held after Labor Day to consider the two.

Green could not be reached for comment but the board is scheduled to meet tonight. Though those potential board members are not mentioned by name on tonight’s agenda, there is an item entitled “board recruitment.”

Even though New Beginnings dropped below the state required number of members, the state did not issue a formal “notice of concern” to the charter school network — as it did to another New Orleans charter school that dipped below that threshold in July.

When Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans dropped below the state’s required number of board members this summer, newly elected board president Tim Gray received a formal “notice of concern” from the state.

Barry Landry, a spokesman for Louisiana’s department of education, said no notice would be issued to New Beginnings.

“When the Department spoke with New Beginnings board chairman about this issue, there was already a plan in place that had two members ready to join the board and a board meeting to install them had been scheduled,” Landry wrote to The Lens via email Thursday.

“This is in contrast to LFNO which did not have a plan in place to replace the board members when the Department spoke with the board chairman,” Landry wrote.

Lycée has since come into compliance by adding a seventh member at its August board meeting.

The New Beginnings board will meet at the network’s headquarters (2045 Lakeshore Drive) at UNO at 5 p.m.

Marta Jewson

Marta Jewson covers education in New Orleans for The Lens. She began her reporting career covering charter schools for The Lens and helped found the hyperlocal news site Mid-City Messenger. Jewson returned...