NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Fateama Fulmore is waiting for the Orleans Parish School Board to tell her what to do with The Leah Chase School, she told school parents on Wednesday night. With board backing, the district she runs could cover the school’s deficit, she said, keeping its doors open.
But the group of roughly 50 parents who attended the meeting didn’t seem convinced of Fulmore’s purported powerlessness, as they sat at circular lunch tables in the school’s cafeteria. Many left the meeting feeling frustrated.
“Everyone is talking in circles,” said parent Renice Alphonse, who said that her daughter Jai has excelled at the school and that she loves the teaching staff.
Chris Edmunds, whose son Oscar attends the school, felt the same frustration. “Everyone is playing coy and refusing to give us a straight answer,” he said, noting that on Monday, Orleans Parish School Board member Carlos Zervigon had told parents that he was awaiting Fulmore’s plan. And yet here they were in the cafeteria on Wednesday night, hearing Fulmore tell parents that the board had the final say.
This week, dozens of parents who strongly support the continued operation of Leah Chase School added their voices to a growing chorus of support across the city, including 15 members of Chase family, who sent Fulmore a letter a week ago. The increasing outcry is leading up to a Thursday-evening meeting, when the Orleans Parish School Board will decide the school’s fate.
It’s been a long week — and month and year — for parents and teachers at Leah Chase, which was launched in the former Lafayette Academy building. In late 2023 and early 2024, Lafayette teachers and families were put through bureaucratic whiplash. First, then-Superintendent Avis Williams recommended the closure of Lafayette Academy. Then, after much pushback by OPSB members and other community leaders, Williams announced that the building would be re-opened as a school with an arts and cultural focus, run directly by the school district.
Some critics have wondered whether Fulmore fears stepping out on her own to make a similar strong decision.
The city’s only direct-run district school
When it opened, Leah Chase was the first intentionally opened direct-run school since 2019, when New Orleans became an all-charter district: the first major American city with no traditional schools,
But now, in its second year, the school’s future is uncertain, because of a tighter district budget, on the heels of the district’s financial crisis. That has left the Leah Chase School with few arts-integration classes or extracurriculars, some of which are run by teachers on their own time.
District officials have also blamed the school’s budget woes on low enrollment. School advocates say that Leah Chase opened with 300 students, a number that matches the model created by the school district, even if it provides less per-pupil operating money, meaning that, by design, it must tap into the district’s budget.
So far this week, Leah Chase parents have attended meetings every night. They have one more, the OPSB meeting on Thursday.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Stella Chase Reese, the daughter of the school’s namesake, asked supportive parents to show up to Thursday night’s board meeting, to tell the board their stories.
Last Friday, Reese and 14 other members of the Chase family signed a letter to Fulmore, pushing for that same outcome. “Leah Chase’s name has never stood for symbolism alone; it represents service, access, dignity, excellence, and deep accountability to the New Orleans community,” they wrote.
Parents say they love Chase School — ‘I’ve never experienced (teachers) like this’
Last year, Renice Alphonse was “fed up” with her daughter Jai’s school. When she went to the district’s central office asking to transfer, a district employee recommended The Leah Chase School. It was the right move.
Jai, now a fourth-grader, has flourished under the school’s teaching staff, going from an F student to a B student. “I’ve never experienced (teachers) like this,” her mother said.
On Wednesday, as Alphonse listened in the cafeteria, Fulmore presented three options to parents, the same ones that the board will hear on Thursday.
(Accounts of this meeting came from parents; a reporter from The Lens was asked to leave the meeting. A security guard, acting on behalf of the district, described the meeting as parents only.)
Two options would keep the school open, by using district funding to support Leah Chase’s operation as either an arts-focused school or an arts-integrated school. The first model would use arts contractors. The latter model would be more expensive, as it would include more arts positions on staff.
Fulmore’s third option was abrupt: “Cease operations.”
“We told her to take that option off the table,” parent Chris Edmunds said after the meeting. “Why are you even presenting that as an option?” He heard Fulmore listening to parents and noted that she didn’t deny that what the teachers and staff are doing is working, he said. “Why would you close a school that is working because of an imaginary budget deficit?”
Alphonse walked out of the meeting after 45 minutes. She was frustrated by the superintendent’s lack of foresight, she said. She wants the district to give the school a solid five years, the same length of time as a standard charter-school contract.
Parent Cierra Peters told The Lens that she doesn’t care about whether the school’s planned arts-integration model is in full-swing. She transferred her son to the school after hearing great things, she said.
“I need my baby to have an education. He can play soccer outside of school — that’s not what’s important to me,” Peters said. “I need it to stay open for educational purposes.”
The Orleans Parish School Board meets at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
