Public education in New Orleans is at a crossroads.

By school district opened up a new traditional audience school in August — the first permanent district-run school in nearly two decades — the idea of ​​transitioning from a charter school system back to a more traditional school district has gone from a talking point to a real possibility.

But one big question remains: How far are district leaders willing to go? Will they be content to open the occasional single school — or will they push for a school system that is more evenly split between district-run schools and charter schools?

When the Orleans Parish School Board earlier this year ordered NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Avis Williams to replace an underperforming charter school with the new district-run Leah Chase School, they also asked him to formulate a plan to open more such schools in the future. . Any new schools would most likely replace charter schools the district closes.

On Tuesday, Williams presented her plan. He did not say how many charter schools versus traditional schools the district would target, but offered some insight into how and when the district might decide to open its own schools.

A plan for opening schools

The first step is to decide when to launch new schools.

Williams’ plan includes a framework to guide these decisions. One consideration is whether the district has the resources to manage multiple schools, including staffing and funding.

Another question is whether there are enough potential students to justify a new school, Williams said. As citywide enrollment declines, the school system may need fewer schools, whether they are run by charter or district operators.

Williams also said the district should consider whether a new school would meet a specific need, such as a school dedicated to English language learners or an arts-focused school in West Bank or New Orleans East.

“These decisions will be individual decisions made based on opportunity,” she said.

Once the district decides to open a school, the next step is figuring out how.

Williams’ plan featured two district-run school models. The first is a “transformation,” in which the district retains most of a charter school’s staff and aspects of its identity, but changes the school’s instructional model and allocates funding for school improvements.

The other option is an entirely new school, like Leah Chase. That model involves an almost complete overhaul, including significant changes to a school’s instructional model, staffing and grade range, and is significantly more expensive, Williams said. The district budgeted $3.8 million in start-up costs for Leah Chase School.

Persistent questions

Even as Williams laid out his plan for running the schools, the board seemed undecided about what to do with it.

Board member Nolan Marshall said the district should assess what schools and programs already exist and look for gaps, rather than picking a “number out of the blue” as the optimal percentage of schools that should be run by the district.

“That’s the basis on which we begin to make prudent decisions about whether we’re going to take over a school,” he said at Tuesday’s board meeting.

Board member Ethan Ashley said it could be difficult to form a complete plan for the future without demographic and enrollment data. Even so, he said, the board should consider creating a shared vision for “where we want to go.”

Caroline Roemer, president of the Louisiana Public Schools Association, said the board “needs to get its house in order before it starts running schools.”

She argued that recent events call into question whether the district can effectively manage its own schools while also supporting the school system’s dozens of independently operated charter schools. Last week, NOLA Public Schools said it gave charter schools too high tax revenue projections in March, an accounting error that could have catastrophic consequences for students in the city.

“We have to ask ourselves with this latest crisis,” she said, “was NOLAPS-PS too busy opening their own school to not take care of the schools they have?”

At their meeting Tuesday, board members indicated they would introduce a policy to ensure district-run schools are held to the same standards as charter schools. If charter schools don’t meet certain performance standards, they risk losing their right to operate, but it’s unclear what consequences a district-run school might face.

Even as board members considered opening more schools, they were reminded that running even one school can be a daunting task.

Shelita Jones, the district’s chief academic officer, told the board that nearly half of Leah Chase’s students in grades K-3 started the school year two or more grades behind in reading. And only 4% of students in grades K-5 started at or above grade level in math.

Board member Leila Eames, who has advocated for more traditional schools, called the data “bleak.”

“But,” she said, “we have nowhere to go but up.”