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NOLA Public Schools Recommends Non-Renewal For Crocker College Prep, Extends Charters For 17 Schools

Clarence Williams
/
WWNO
Lawrence D. Crocker College Prep teacher Katie Murray pictured with her seventh grade class in 2017.

Lawrence D. Crocker College Prep was the only school not recommended for charter renewal at Tuesday’s special meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board. Of the 18 schools up for renewal this year, Crocker is the lowest-performing.

Each year, NOLA Public Schools reviews schools with expiring charter contracts and decides whether to recommend renewal based on standards outlined in the district’s Charter School Accountability Framework.

Delivered by Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr., the recommendations are not final and can be overturned by the school board with a supermajority vote.

“After reviewing multiple data factors ranging from overall academic impact, growth and impact across varying student populations and other qualitative factors, the one non-renewed school stands apart as one of the lowest-performing under review in the district and the state,” Lewis said.

Under the superintendent’s recommendation, Crocker will not close. Instead, it will undergo what’s known as school transformation and will be handed over to a new charter operator.

“We can offer stability instead of disruption for families, and we will work with the families and the school community to identify new charter leadership to build a promising vision for the school,” Lewis said.

During the 2018-19 school year, Crocker received an F letter grade in both school performance and student assessment. It received a C on the state’s progress index, which measures year-over-year student growth.

Located in the city’s Milan neighborhood, Crocker serves students in PreK through the eighth grade and is operated by New Orleans College Preparatory Academies.

Last year, 533 students attended Crocker, according to the state’s enrollment records. Its student body is 80 percent Black and 20 percent Hispanic, and 97 percent of students are considered economically disadvantaged.

Crocker was praised for its participation in New Orleans Trauma-Informed Schools Learning Collaborative. The school later faced criticism for laying off a social worker and restructuring its program. 

Lewis said while the decision was “tough,” he did not feel Crocker had shown enough turnaround potential based on information gathered by the district during its new comprehensive evaluation process.

Crocker leadership said they were “shocked” by the superintendent’s decision given the school’s “tremendous academic growth” and financial health, according to a letter sent to families Tuesday night. They plan to challenge the superintendent’s recommendation.

“We will certainly do everything possible to refute this recommendation. In addition, we are proud to say that our NOCP Board members will be engaged in refuting this recommendation as well,” the letter said.

As part of the comprehensive review process, Crocker said, they shared data demonstrating student growth for the 2019-20 school year with school board members and Lewis during a public hearing on Sept. 22.

Parents and teachers were also asked to complete surveys distributed by the district measuring school satisfaction. Of the 53 staff members surveyed, 67 percent said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with school plans for improvement, according to the district’s chief accountability officer Kevin George.

George did not share results from the parent survey, but a presentation slide sharing information on Crocker said that approximately 2 percent of parents had completed the survey.

Interim board member Grisela Jackson also disagreed with the district’s recommendation to hand Crocker over to another charter operator and said Lewis had discounted the school’s recent growth.

Jackson helped reopen Crocker after Hurricane Katrina and served on its board of directors before becoming a school board member.

“I don't see how that would not be taken into account,” Jackson said, referring to information gathered during the comprehensive review process that showed Crocker as “making headway academically” and having a “stable, consistent board of directors,” as well as a 20 percent fund balance.

The district characterized Crocker as not in good financial standing and said the school had struggled to identify “measurable goals and accountability for school improvement” during the review process.

Crocker leadership encouraged families to attend the next school board meeting on Dec. 17 and said school and charter leadership will be in attendance to “make sure the OPSB members have accurate information.”

“We want to express how absolutely proud we are of our Crocker teachers, staff and administration and the work that they have done that has yielded documentable and significant growth,” the letter said. “We will move on to focus on the Dec 17th meeting of the OPSB and hope for more reasonable minds to prevail as they review our data in an objective manner.”

The school board does not have to take action on the district’s renewal recommendations. If no action is taken, the recommendations become final. If the board does decide to challenge the superintendent’s guidance, a two-thirds vote of the full board is required to overturn renewal recommendations.

Public comment was not allowed on the Lewis’ recommendations Tuesday night because they were delivered in the form of a report. Comments can only be made on agenda action items.

Pandemic ushers in a new renewal process

The state could not calculate performance scores for schools this fall due to missing standardized test scores. Exams were canceled last spring after Gov. John Bel Edwards ordered schools closed due to the coronavirus.

In response, the district passed an amendment in September effectively loosening renewal standards by making the process more comprehensive.

Schools were allowed to use one or two years of letter grade data to determine renewal decisions, and in certain cases two years of progress data instead of three years, to determine renewal length. The amendment also gives the superintendent the authority to offer a “comprehensive evaluation” to all schools that do not meet the current renewal standards.

Using this new power, Lewis decided to conduct comprehensive evaluations for the five lowest-ranking schools: Schaumburg Elementary, Robert Russa Moton, Phillis Wheatley, SciTech Academy and Crocker. All had D or F letter grades for the 2018-19 school year.

Schaumburg and Crocker did not meet the district’s standards for renewal but were granted comprehensive reviews under the new amendment.

Evaluations included a public hearing, parent and staff input, school developed improvement plans, school visits, and analysis of federal and state funding in addition to usual test-based metrics.

Based on the information gathered, Lewis decided to renew all of the comprehensive review schools except for Crocker, granting them the district’s shortest extension of three years.

Lewis said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the second-lowest performing school up for renewal, Schaumburg Elementary. He said while Schaumburg’s scores were unacceptable for the 2018-19 school year, the school had exhibited stable leadership, a clear vision for improvement, and the ability to grow.

Out of the 18 schools with expiring charters, three had high enough letter grades to earn automatic renewal. Those schools are Lusher Charter School, Benjamin Franklin High School and Lake Forest Elementary Charter School. All three have selective admissions policies and were given 10 year charter extensions.

Another 10 schools with middling scores were subject to renewal reviews. All 10 were issued five-year charter extensions. Those schools are Arthur Ashe Charter School, Homer A. Plessy Community School, KIPP: Believe College Prep, KIPP: Booker T. Washington High School, KIPP: Central City, KIPP: Morial, Livingston Collegiate, Mildred Osborne Charter School, Morris Jeff Community School, and Paul B. Habans Elementary.

Aubri Juhasz covers K-12 education, focusing on charter schools, education funding, and other statewide issues. She also helps edit the station’s news coverage.

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