Advertiser specials

Advertiser: At the right time, the “Foundation Preparatory Charter School” word is getting out

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The word is getting out that Foundation Preparatory Charter School is exactly what parents find most important at some of New Orleans’ most prominent (and private) schools. 9 to 1 student/teacher ratio
Enriched learning (like yoga and coding)
Focus on diversity
Individual Growth
Cultural and art appreciation

Yes, we have a new location and the warm welcome to the City Park/Faubourg St. John Community is appreciated. Foundation Preparatory Charter School is glad to call the McDonogh #28 building our new home. This space will allow us to serve more families who are committed to their child’s education.

schools

Lycee Francais chooses academic director as new CEO (live video)

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The governing board of Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans has chosen to elevate the school’s current academic director, Marina Schoen, as the school’s next chief executive officer. The board deliberated for more than three hours Thursday night before making the decision. CEO Search committee chair Ben Castoriano praised Schoen’s work with the school over the past five years as he made the motion to offer her the job. “The last five years have given me a lot of respect and optimism for all the things she with Lycee can do in the future, and the exciting times yet to come,” Castoriano said. “She has an amazing track record at the school.”

schools

Lycee Francais board to choose new CEO at Thursday meeting

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Following a town-hall meeting with all three finalists for the CEO position earlier this month, the Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans governing board will meet Thursday, May 31 to select the new leader for the school, they announced. The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 31, in the cafeteria at the Patton Street campus. First, the CEO Search committee will hold a closed-door session with the full board to discuss the three finalists. The board will also take comments from the public, and then vote on a candidate for the CEO position. The three finalists — Sci High principal Chana Benenson, Lycee academic director Marina Schoen and Lysianne Essama, a former French-immersion school leader from Maryland — met with the school community in a question-and-answer session May 15.

schools

After ‘rigorous’ new state tests, Sci High leaders hope to maintain B performance score

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Despite the introduction this year of rigorous new state tests, leaders of New Orleans Charter Science & Math High School hope the strength of their many unique diploma offerings will help them maintain their B performance rating from the state in the fall, they said Thursday. Thursday was the final day of testing for Sci High students, school leader Chana Benenson reported to the school’s governing board on Thursday evening. While those test scores will not be known until the summer, Benenson told the board she has already begun trying to analyze the likely changes to the school’s performance score. The state grades high schools equally in four areas, two specifically on testing — the state exams and the ACT college-entrance tests — and two on the success of the senior class, their graduation rates and the relative “strength” of their diplomas. On the state testing, which are comprised of end-of-course exams and LEAP tests, Benenson said that state officials are already warning educators to expect a decrease at nearly all schools.

schools

Audubon Charter to add bus transportation at Gentilly campus

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Audubon Charter School officials are planning to offer bus transportation at their new Gentilly campus location, school leaders said Saturday morning. Audubon’s governing board voted Saturday morning to authorize a contract for up to $388 per route per bus, though the total number of buses needed remains unclear. While the Gentilly campus has already more than filled its nearly 200 spaces, some families may still depart and be replaced by others over the summer. “All of our students haven’t registered, so we don’t know how many routes have to run,” said Dr. Erica Murray, chair of Audubon’s governing board. Chief Financial Officer Justin Anderson surveyed other schools about their transportation costs and ultimately budgeted $110,000 for the bus service, but that remains a very rough estimate, he said.

schools

Lycee Francais CEO finalists make their pitch to parents (live video)

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The three finalists to be the next CEO of Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans met with the charter school’s parents and staff Tuesday night in a crowded town hall meeting, explaining how their very divergent backgrounds each position them to lead the school to continued academic strength while building the city’s first French-immersion high school. The candidates — Sci High principal Chana Benenson, Lycee academic director Marina Schoen and Lysianne Essama, a former French-immersion school leader from Maryland — all offered fairly similar ideas for the school’s policies and plans. All three agreed that the different campuses will likely soon need their own principals, and that special-education students are best educated alongside other students as much as possible, rather than separately. Where the three differed, however, was in the ways they said their careers up to this point have prepared them for the job. Schoen described herself as the internal candidate for the position, and repeatedly emphasized that she wants to continue the school’s academic growth from her past five years there while tackling larger challenges as well.

events

New Orleans Rotary hosts wine-tasting fundraiser for scholarships for Sci High grads

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The Rotary Club of New Orleans will hold its first-ever wine-tasting competition, “Sippin’ for Scholarships,” tonight to raise money to send seniors from the New Orleans Charter Science & Mathematics High School and other schools to college. The wine tasting and silent auction will be from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight (Thursday, May 10) on the second floor of Manning’s Restaurant, 519 Fulton Street. “Participants will sample different wines as a blind tasting and will be asked to vote on their choices for the winning bottles,” according to the event announcement. Proceeds will also support scholarships for students at Warren Easton, Benjamin Franklin and NOCCA high schools. “Many recipients of these scholarships are the first generation of their families to attend college,” the announcement states.

schools

Lycee Francais sets town hall for CEO candidates for next week

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Members of the Lycee Francais school community will be able to meet and pose questions to the three finalists for the CEO position at a town hall Tuesday that will be open to the public, school officials said. Last week, the CEO Search Committee voted to advance three candidates as finalists to be the new CEO of LFNO starting in the 2018-2019 school year (following the retirement of Keith Bartlett this summer). The three finalists are Marina Schoen (current Chief Academic Officer at LFNO), Lysianne Essama (former long-time head of school at a public French immersion school in Maryland), and Chana Benenson, principal of New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School). The Committee believes all three are highly-qualified, strong candidates for the position. The final phase of the CEO Search process will be a “town hall” to be held on Tuesday, May 15, at 5:30 p.m. in the cafeteria of LFNO’s Patton Campus (5951 Patton Street).

schools

Cohen High School seniors announce their college choices in festive “Declaration Day” ceremony

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Nearly 70 seniors at Walter L. Cohen College Prep High School were greeted with an auditorium full of exuberant cheers on Friday (May 4) as they announced which colleges they plan to attend after graduation, from as far Notre Dame and the University of Missouri or as close as Xavier and the University of New Orleans just up the road. Cohen seniors were received more than 125 college acceptances and more than $2 million in scholarships, school officials said.

schools

Lycee Francais CEO candidates offer plans to increase school diversity, teach special-education in French

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The finalists for the CEO position at Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans were asked as part of the application process to detail their thoughts on critical issues ahead for the school, such as improving diversity within the student body, reaching special-education students while in a full-immersion foreign-language environment, and aligning the French national standards with those set by the state of Louisiana. The candidates were asked to choose from among several questions about the school’s future. All three tackled the question about improving diversity in the student population, while two chose to discuss special education and one chose to discuss the aligning the state and French teaching standards. Chana Benenson, the current principal of Sci High, said in her application that she began her career as a foreign-language teacher herself, and quickly observed an interesting “anomaly:” special-education students frequently adapt to foreign-language instruction better than they do other subjects. She outlines a variety of reasons for this occurrence, and describes ways that those reasons can be used to support the teaching of special-education within the school.