events

Audubon Charter School revives its Fall Fête at Live Oak campus

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Audubon Charter School will hold its Fall Fête fundraiser and fair at its new Live Oak campus in the Irish Channel on Saturday (Nov. 5). After the festival’s two-year hiatus, Audubon PTO President Katie Pedroza expressed excitement, saying the festival is back bigger and better than ever with live music, activities, food and prizes. “We can’t wait to show off our new Live Oak campus. We will have bands, games, food, and spirits to be enjoyed in the backyard and under the oaks on Ninth Street.” Pedroza said. 

To kick off the event, artists such as Preservation Hall All-Stars, Sam Craft from Sweet Crude, the Miss Sophie Lee Band, Roland Cheramie and Friends, Coach O and His Band, and the NOCCA Jazz Ensemble will perform, a press release from Audubon Charter School said.

Audubon Charter

Audubon middle school to move to Live Oak campus in the Irish Channel

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Audubon Charter School’s Uptown Upper Campus serving grades four through eight will move into the Live Oak facility for the 2022-23 school year, Audubon Schools CEO Steve Corbett announced. The recently renovated facility at 3128 Constance St. offers more than 84,000 square feet, a theater and auditorium for Audubon’s flourishing arts curriculum, as well as colorful murals along the hallway. Audubon plans to make it the Upper Campus’ permanent home. The Irish Channel campus now houses FirstLine Live Oak Charter School, which announced in January that it is closing at the end of the school year because of declining enrollment.

Audubon Charter

New Orleans Public Schools unveils potential names for schools named for segregationists, slave owners

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The Renaming Committee for New Orleans Public Schools met Tuesday (May 25) to deliberate on the final names they will propose to school Superintendent Henderson Lewis. From there, Lewis will review the list of names and make his recommendations to the Orleans Parish School Board for their final vote of approval over the summer. The Renaming Committee consists of a School Board member appointed by the OPSB president, a representative of the NOLA Public Schools administration and community members approved by the superintendent. 

According to NOLA P-S, the parish school system has the authority to change the outward facing name on any of its buildings. However, NOLA-PS cannot change the program name designated by a charter management organization because the charter schools are governed by their own boards and leadership. 

In a press release, NOLA-PS gave this example: “The OPSB could change a school building’s physical name to read Nelson Mandela School. But, if the charter management organization chooses to keep its program name, the school’s official name would be titled as follows: ‘McDonogh 7 Charter School at the Nelson Mandela building.’” 

The School Board had more than 300 qualified recommendations for renaming honorees and thousands of community comments on the renaming initiative. 

“This gives us an opportunity to correct the racial and gender imbalances in our school naming,” said committee member Olin G. Parker.

schools

Middle school filmmakers at Audubon Charter enjoy their long-awaited premiere

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Audubon Charter School’s very first film festival was scheduled for March 14, 2020. That was five days after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Louisiana, and it would be over a year before the middle school students — who wrote, acted in and helped to shoot the movies —  would be able to show off the products of their hard work. Out of the glare of the May morning sun, in the cool Prytania Theatre, Stephanie Knapp, an Audubon parent and teacher who led Audubon Charter students through the process of making movies together, took the stage. The students and their supporters — parents, family and friends — were masked and spread out in the theater, with alternating rows taped off to allow for sufficient social distancing. “It’s interesting to see how everything is changed, how everything is different … and everything is still kinda the same,” Knapp said.

schools

Audubon Charter CEO addresses the school’s financial straits

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The following letter was emailed Jan. 23 to Audubon Charter School parents and others associated with highly rated public school with two established Uptown campuses and a new Gentilly campus. The email from Audubon CEO Latoye A. Brown addresses the charter school’s financial situation. Formerly Audubon Montessori School / L’Ecole Franco-Américaine, Audubon offers French and Montessori programs for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Dear Audubon Community,

Many of our families have reached out for clarification regarding how our current financial position will impact our academic programming. Over the past few years, Audubon has experienced reduced revenues and rising expenses that have had a dramatic impact on our organizational budget.

arts, books and music

Audubon Charter celebrates Black History Month at Ashé

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The ACS Black History Celebration comes to the Ashé Power House Theater for 6 p.m. this Wednesday , Jan. 30. 

Audubon Charter School’s Talented in Arts students will celebrate Black History Month with the Ashé Cultural Arts Center through music, dance, drumming, spoken word and storytelling. The theme will be the origin of the Anansi the Spider Stories (Ghana West Africa); students will perform and show how these stories crossed the ocean through oral tradition told from generation to generation. The ACS Black History Celebration will also feature special guest artists Sha’Condria ‘ICON’ Sibley and the New Orleans Society of Dance NOLA Baby Dolls. ‘ICON’ is a national poetry slam artist whose work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue and BET.

schools

Audubon Charter prepares for holiday move to new Milan Street campus

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After years of waiting, Audubon Charter School will move out of its temporary campus in the old Carrollton courthouse over the holidays and into a newly refurbished temporary home on Milan Street, officials said. With the McDonogh 7 campus at 1111 Milan Street nearing completion, Audubon’s governing board changed the school calendar Saturday morning to make students’ last day of school Dec. 17. Teachers will remain at the school packing their classrooms through the last three days of the week, and the moving company is scheduled to begin work Dec. 26, said Audubon operations manager Alisa Dupre.

schools

Construction on Audubon Charter School to begin Monday; students to return in fall 2014

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Nearly a year after Audubon Charter students moved out of their Broadway Street campus in preparation for a major renovation and expansion project there, major construction efforts will begin there Monday and end in time for students to return in the fall of 2014, officials say. Pile driving will begin at the Broadway site on Monday, though it will take a break on Thanksgiving and the Friday afterward, said Alisa Dupre, the school’s facilities and operations manager. Construction should finish in the late spring or early summer of 2014, giving faculty and staff several months while students are out of school to move back from the Gentilly campus, Dupre said at a brief meeting Saturday morning of the school’s governing board. While board members applauded the news about the Broadway campus, they listened with concern to news that the citywide Master Plan for school construction is running tens of millions of dollars over budget and likely to be cut — raising questions about the desperately needed repairs to the old Carrollton courthouse intended for several years as a temporary location for Audubon’s upper grades. To read our live coverage of the meeting, see below.

neighborhood groups

Audubon Charter to begin exploring possible high school

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Audubon Charter School plans to begin taking concrete steps this fall toward the possibility of creating a new high school, officials said Saturday morning. Meanwhile, Orleans Parish school officials are hoping to find a way to start renovations on the school’s Broadway campus even as negotiations continue with neighbors over a pending lawsuit. Back in December, in founding member Carlos Zervigon’s last board meeting, he recommended the creation of an exploratory committee to begin investigating issues related to a possible high school at Audubon, calling it a “burning question” for many parents. The issue stalled during the spring as the board dealt with facilities issues around its Broadway and Carrollton campuses, but on Saturday morning, board chair Cornelius Tilton said it was time for the committee to begin its work. Tilton named board members Jolynn King and Claire McDaniel, school operations manager Alisa Dupre, French school leader Elfi Cheynet and Montessori school leader Dennis Smith to the committee, and said he’ll also sit on it as a non-voting member.

schools

Audubon Charter school board to hear updates on renovations, admissions at meeting Saturday

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The Audubon Charter School governing board will hear updates on renovations to the Broadway campus, admissions, and on each of its academic programs at its monthly meeting Saturday morning in the Carrollton campus cafeteria. The complete agenda, which is also available in the “Events” section of the school’s recently revamped website, follows below:

Audubon Charter School
FAME, Inc. Board Meeting Agenda
July 28, 2012
Carrollton Campus Cafeteria
10:00 A.M.

I. Call to Order/Roll Call
II. Board Training
III. Adoption of the Agenda Additions/Deletions (Action Item)
IV. Approval of the April Minutes (Action Item)
V. Administrative Report
A. Broadway Renovation Update
B. Admissions Update
C. French School Update
D. Montessori School Update
E. Development Report
VI.