Uptown Messenger (https://uptownmessenger.com/tag/lusher/page/5/)
Which Uptown New Orleans school buildings need attention the most and how to divide the money for building and renovating them was debated by motivated and skeptical crowd of nearly 200 public-education supporters Monday night.
Supporters of moving Johnson Elementary to the old Priestley site will make their case to state and parish school officials Monday night at a public hearing on school plans in School Board District 6, which includes the Carrollton, Audubon and university neighborhoods in Uptown New Orleans.
Lusher Charter School and several other charter schools in the city are continuing to negotiate with the Orleans Parish School Board over their governing agreement for the coming year, officials said Tuesday. The agreement will have basic elements common to all the schools chartered under the Orleans Parish School Board, which include Audubon Charter and other top-performing schools around the city that have banded together for a unified legal approach, said Lusher CEO Kathy Riedlinger at a Tuesday afternoon meeting of the board that governs Lusher. The agreement will also have conditions specific to each school, she said. “The main goal is to get something we can be comfortable with for a number of years,” Riedlinger said. One issue in particular for Lusher is the length of time for which its charter will be renewed.
The governing board of Lusher Charter School met with an attorney for an hour and a half in closed session Monday evening, coordinating strategies with other charter boards regarding the Orleans Parish School Board’s operating-agreement renewal process. For Lusher and many other charter schools, this year’s renewal process is the first since Orleans Parish granted their charters five years ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, said Blaine LeCesne, chair of the Advocates for an Arts Based Education governing board that operates Lusher Charter School. Lusher officials have been vocal about their frustrations with the process since consultants said their performance made them eligible for a 10-year renewal but the school board offered them a shorter seven-year contract. Now, a group of charter schools that belong to the Eastbank Collaborative of Charter Schools are banding together for a greater voice in the process, “negotiating collectively” for a standard operating agreement from Orleans Parish, LeCesne said. The Lusher board spent about 90 minutes Monday evening in a closed-door executive session with attorney James Brown of Liskow and Lewis, and LeCesne said afterward that they were discussing the strategy for those negotiations.
A city planning hearing on an Irish Channel corner store, the final meeting of the year for the Lusher Charter School board and an arts forum sponsored by a Congressman are among the meetings and events of interest on deck in Uptown New Orleans. On Monday, U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond is hosting a reception for the Congressional arts competition and a forum on the arts at the George and Leah McKenna Museum of African-American Art. Also on Monday, the Lusher Charter School governing board will hold its final scheduled meeting for the academic year. The planning commission meeting Tuesday includes a request to reopen a corner store at 548 Jackson Avenue as a sandwich shop, which received the support of the Irish Channel Neighborhood Association earlier this year despite neighbors’ misgivings about loitering and crime around the store in the past. Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the St.
Friday evening brings the return of Freret Street’s celebrated monthly outdoor boxing matches and tailgating party, and Saturday morning several Uptown New Orleans neighborhoods invite you to join them for a walk. At Friday Night Fights, boxing is only part of the attraction, as the Freret Street Gym recruits all sorts of entertainment and for each month’s event. A recent video by Dillard University students explains:
On Saturday morning, explore a more introspective side of Freret Street — or the Irish Channel, or Oak Street — by taking part in one of three “Jane’s Walks” around Uptown New Orleans. Activist and author Jane Jacobs championed a pedestrian-oriented approach to city planning, and the neighborhood walks are intended to bring her ideas about community identity to life through group exploration on foot. Other events this weekend include a premiere of Lusher students’ short films, a black-tie fundraiser for Audubon Zoo, free comic books and a mother’s day concert.
Lusher Charter School took a preliminary step toward a new and possibly more restrictive neighborhood admissions policy Saturday morning, but also signaled some initial interest in joining the growing effort to turn around New Orleans’ failing public schools. School officials have repeatedly questioned the role of Lusher’s small attendance district in recent months, saying that the influx of parents moving into the tiny neighborhood to assure their children entrance to Lusher defeats the original intent of the district, which was to increase diversity and offset the impact of the Willow Street campus on the surrounding neighborhood. The admissions policy is already restricted to kindergarten students, and further possible changes have ranged from requiring a family to have lived in the district for a year or eliminating the district all together. With little further discussion Saturday, three members of the Advocates for Arts Based Education board (Lusher’s governing body) were named to a subcommittee to study admissions policies: Paul Barron, Susan Krinsky and Carol Whelan. They will report recommendations back to the full board.
The former NOCCA school building on Perrier Street is scheduled to return to the auction block at the end of the month, with a new sale price set low enough to encourage its purchase by developers and demolition for new Uptown homes. The Orleans Parish School Board had previously tried to sell the century-old school building several years ago, but failed to draw an offer higher than its appraised value at the time, which was higher than $3 million, said Stan Smith, chief financial officer for the district. State law regarding public-property auctions has since been changed and the property was reappraised last month, and the minimum bid is now $1.5 million, far closer to the offers that were received during the previous sale attempt, Smith said. The Perrier Street property, referred to by its pre-NOCCA name of the “LaSalle School,” was built in 1901, but has been vacant since NOCCA left in 2000. It now suffers from “advanced depreciation from age, exposure to the elements, storm damage, vandalism and functional obsolescence,” the appraisal reads.
Lusher School’s Annual Crawfish Boil Saturday afternoon. There was 3,000 lbs. of crawfish at the event, according to Kevin Kingston of Kingfish Seafood. The event featured live music, games, rides, food and of course boiled crawfish.
The leadership of Lusher Charter School is frustrated by the process of renewing their charter with the Orleans Parish School Board.
Meanwhile, moving into Lusher’s small attendance district in Carrollton is continuing to become a less-likely route to admission.
