The Lens (https://thelensnola.org/author/marta-jewson/)
Class Dismissed: OneApp
Parents anxiously await New Orleans’ enrollment lottery results from the time they submit applications in late February to mid-April, when the mysterious algorithm that controls every child’s school placement spits out answers. “It doesn’t allow for hopes to be brought about in a timely way,” parent Alex Lafargue said.
The district rushed to install filters after a 13-year-old tested the water in mid-March
Part three in a series on school closures in New Orleans. The centralized school enrollment lottery takes months to conduct and offers special priority to students in closing schools. Two parents whose kids attend closing schools tell us how they’re playing the odds for next year.
Fired New Beginnings ‘whistleblower’ asks board to rehire him
A former New Beginnings Schools Foundation employee who raised a red flag on what he said are suspicious grade changes at John F. Kennedy High School asked for his job back at a special meeting of the charter school network’s governing board Thursday night. Runell King hired employment lawyer Dorothy Tarver this week.
Runell King said Kennedy High school employees improperly inflated students’ grades from failing to passing. He was fired and has since hired an attorney.
The school had, by far, the most tests voided due to irregularities of any school in the state. A lawyer for Kennedy’s charter group said the issue will be added to an ongoing investigation into other problems, including alleged grade-fixing.
The school district is leaving portable toilets on campus as a precaution.
The move comes one week after a 7th-grader’s water test prompted action. Dozens of other New Orleans public schools are still waiting for lead filters.
Plumbing contractors were digging up Edgar P. Harney elementary school’s lush front lawn on Willow Street Tuesday afternoon while a portable toilet trailer sat on the school’s blacktop playground along busy Claiborne Avenue. “The bathrooms aren’t working,” one of the workers told The Lens.
Law firm will investigate grade changes at Kennedy High School and allegations that CEO falsified board records related to a lucrative bus contract.
