Following a series of complaints from community members about how the charter school has been run, a state board of education committee will consider a proposal Wednesday to move John McDonogh Senior High School from the state Recovery School District to local control.
Last week, the Orleans Parish School Board passed a resolution asking the state to let it take over the school building, which was closed this summer for renovations. The resolution states that OPSB oversees 20 schools but has only 15 school buildings.
The matter is slated to go before a committee of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at 6 p.m. today. The Lens will live-blog the meeting below.
At a BESE committee meeting in June, Recovery School District Superintendent Patrick Dobard indicated that his district intends to retain control over the facility when it reopens in the 2016-17 school year.
BESE board member Kira Orange Jones has objected to moving the school to the OPSB, pointing out that the district still lacks a permanent superintendent.
“This is a district that’s still in a lot of instability currently and has a long way to go,” Jones said.
But several former school officials and Treme community activists have criticized how the Recovery School District, and the former charter operator Future Is Now: New Orleans, ran the school before it closed.
Frank Buckley, a teacher and founder of a community group called C6 — Conscious Concerned Citizens Controlling Community Changes — is one of those activists. He has campaigned for more than a year to return the school to OPSB, which would run it as a traditional school rather than a charter.
A similar petition created this summer by educator Shawon Jackson-Bernard has received more than 500 signatures so far.
“We are representing a lot of voices,” Bernard said during a recent community meeting.
The resolution will be considered as part of a larger agenda item regarding an update of the 2011 School Facilities Recovery Plan.
