The future of L.B. Landry High School on New Orleans’ Westbank is uncertain after its board voted last week not to renew its charter to run the school when it expires in June.
That means the New Orleans Public Schools district could assign a new operator to run Landry, run the school itself or close it after this school year.
NOLA-PS held a community meeting at Landry Monday evening as part of a series explaining the district’s charter renewal process. Several hundred alumni packed the meeting. Many wore the school’s colors — gold and blue — and made emotional pleas for the district to keep the historic high school open. Landry opened as an elementary school for Black students in 1938 before becoming a high school in 1942.
Speakers criticized the citywide enrollment system, questioned the school’s academic performance and called for greater accountability from charter operators.
Faye Harrison, who graduated from Landry in 1964, was one of several people who questioned how the city’s charter school system has served Landry and other New Orleans students. Harrison told district leaders the school she remembers had strong teachers, administrators, and a sense of pride.
“ Don't just throw us away like we a bag of trash, 'cause we're not.” Harrison said. “We love Landry. What are you gonna do to keep Landry? Don't close our school. I'm asking you, please, do not close our school. Please.”
Superintendent Fateama Fulmore made it clear that no decision has been made yet about closing Landry. She told the crowd that the district still needs to figure out if the school can realistically keep serving its current students.
“It’s not because it’s not a love for the school; it’s not because we don’t care about children,” Fulmore said. “It’s about real decisions that people have to make to be able to serve the children we have well. So we’re not there yet on a decision.”
Finding another operator is one possibility. But Fulmore said the district also has to determine whether another organization could financially sustain the school with its current enrollment.
Fulmore then asked a question that brought the enrollment challenge into focus: for people with a child or grandchild currently attending Landry to raise their hands.
Fewer than a dozen hands went up.
The moment illustrated one of the challenges facing Landry: The school has a large and passionate alumni community, but far fewer students attend today.
“It's important for me to understand if there are families in the room who have attempted to make this the school to go to,” Fulmore said.
NOLA-PS data show Landry enrolled 496 students during the 2025-26 school year. That’s down from 743 students in 2021-22 — a decline of about a third.
Landry’s enrollment decline is part of a larger demographic shift affecting public schools across New Orleans.
Larger enrollment decline
The district had the most students in 2019, but enrollment has mostly declined since then. NOLA-PS officials say this is because fewer people live in the city and fewer babies are being born. Early numbers from Fulmore show there are about 1,000 fewer students than last year, but the final count isn’t done yet.
This isn’t just a New Orleans issue — public school enrollment is dropping all across Louisiana and the United States, also due to residents moving to other states and fewer children being born. The Louisiana Department of Education expects another 12,000 to 13,000 students to leave public schools this year for the same reasons.
Fulmore told the crowd that enrollment losses can force school leaders to make difficult decisions about staffing, academic programs and student services.
At Monday’s meeting, some people urged NOLA-PS to consider directly running Landry as a traditional public school instead of finding a new charter operator.
But right now, the district’s only directly-run school — The Leah Chase School — is pretty small, with just 339 students enrolled in 2025-26. In comparison, Landry had 496 students that same year.
Fulmore explained that running a school with fewer students is tough financially. Most school funding depends on enrollment, but costs like staff salaries and building upkeep don’t disappear when enrollment drops.
Landry's charter is up for renewal
Landry is one of nine New Orleans schools up for renewal this year.
The other schools going through the renewal process this fall are:
- Audubon Charter School Uptown
- Edward Hynes Charter School Lakeview
- Martin Behrman Charter School
- Phillis Wheatley Community School
- Pierre A. Capdau S.T.E.A.M School
- Rooted School
- The NET: Gentilly
- Warren Easton Charter High School
Academically, Landry has struggled: in 2025-26, only 10% of its students scored at mastery or above on state LEAP exams, while 36% of high school students across the district reached that level.
NOLA-PS began communicating with schools about the renewal process in August, followed by public information and community meetings in September and October. The district’s renewal timeline says schools will go through its review process this fall before it makes renewal recommendations.
This is not the first time Landry has faced uncertainty over its charter. In 2023, the NOLA-PS board granted the school a three-year contingent renewal.
The district also had new operators take over two other schools that year after their governing boards withdrew from their contracts. NOLA-PS records show Lafayette Academy and Robert Russa Moton Charter School remained open with new operators, while another school that did not receive renewal, Living School, closed.
What happens next
Some elected officials are already calling on the district to keep Landry open.
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, whose district includes the school, called on NOLA-PS and the board to find another operator if Algiers Charter leaves.
Carter, who grew up in Algiers and whose mother graduated from Landry in the 1950s, called for the district to publish a transition timeline, provide enrollment, financial, and academic support, and give the Algiers community a role in decisions about the school’s future.
He urged the school board to consider other options to preserve Landry as a public high school, including interim management.
The board could approve a contract with another charter to operate Landry or let the school close and allow an existing school to move into the building.
If Landry closes, families looking for another public high school on the Westbank would have limited nearby options — with Edna Karr High School and the New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy as the only other public Westbank schools listed on the city’s school finder.
NOMMA follows a military and maritime model and is overseen by the state rather than NOLA-PS. Edna Karr is one of the city’s most sought-after high schools. Its ninth-grade demand score rose to 689 for the 2026-27 school year, according to the NOLA-PS data, up from 637 last year.
New Orleans students can apply to any school citywide through the district’s common enrollment process, so Landry students are not restricted to Westbank schools. However, seat availability and enrollment rules determine placement — not a guarantee of attending a school near home. According to NOLA-PS, families seeking a school during open enrollment may transfer to any school with open seats.
The district expects to decide Landry’s future in December.
