able to do what I’m doing right
now.”
The caucus comes at a time when
HBCUs are facing a barrage of
challenges. In 2011, Congress put
ore funding toward need-based
ell grants, but lowered the cap to
2 semesters (or six school years)
nstead of the previous 18. Non-tra-
itional students, such as parents,
eterans, and people beyond their
early 20s, as well as low-income
students who work part-time, often
ave complicated circumstances
hat make it difficult to go straight
through four years of school full-
time. For such students, it can take
several years to earn a degree.
“Many of our young people real-
ly do have to work…to pay for
education. So a large majority of
students we serve at our HBCUs in
particular are on financial aid –
several types of financial aid,” said
Rep. Adams at a launch event for
the Caucus. “We talk about access
and affordability. You don’t have
access if you don’t have the check
to go with it.”
The same year, federal parent
PLUS loan requirements were
changed in an effort to keep finan-
cially burdened families from tak-
June, the Lagniappe board moved
up the last day because “It came
down to pure funding,” said board
member Dan Forman. “We wanted
to serve the kids as long as we
could but the runway ended in
terms of financing.”
On the students’ last day, top
administrators at the center of the
scandal were long gone, having
disappeared from sight within days
of the scathing report.
The Louisiana Department of
Education (LDOE) and Recovery
School District (RSD) repeatedly
refused to answer questions about
how the administrators named in
the report were being held account-
able for breaking the law.
The rest of the faculty and staff
stayed to the end, and some took
over the running of daily operations
in addition to their teaching duties.
“We still don’t know our last day
of work,” said teacher Jennifer
Pike-Vassell, as she helped stu-
dents onto the bus. Pike-Vassell
took on a leadership role in bring-
ing the teachers’ and parents’ con-
cerns before the board.
Pike-Vassell said she had been
part of a charter school closure
before in New York, and while
heartbreaking, there had at least
been a level of professionalism and
a “sense of timeline.”
“It’s very hard. Yet everyone has
still come to work every day.”
Another teacher expressed fear
about the possibility of suddenly
losing health insurance for his 2-
year-old son.
Teacher Woody Rinker said that
it was hard to say goodbye to his
Kindergarten students after seeing
them make such tremendous
progress. Also a musician, Rinker
said he doubted if he would contin-
ue teaching.
Pike-Vassell said she tried to
communicate to her kids, and par-
ents who fought to keep the school
open, that, “sometimes in life you
can fight for things that are very
important and still lose. And that
it’s nothing that we did wrong and
nothing they did wrong – it’s big-
ger than us. And we need to help
each other get to the next step.”
One parent approached Pike-
Vassell and requested lesson plans
“for the next couple weeks,” so her
son would not fall behind as a
result of the lost time.
At a dismal board meeting the fol-
lowing Monday, board vice chair
Dan Henderson told the teachers
that their salaries and benefits were
guaranteed through May. Beyond
that, things were uncertain.
On behalf of the teachers, Pike-
Vassell requested severance pay
from the school’s primary bene-
factor, founder, and board chair
Ray Smart.
“With the sudden announcement
of the school’s closure, there has
not been enough time for staff to
adequately plan and save for an
uncertain future. Money is not
everything, but right now this type
of support would give each staff
member the respect and dignity
that we deserve. Each one of us has
met the expectations we were
asked to meet, and in fact, has gone
above and beyond to serve our stu-
dents and the greater mission of the
school,” Pike-Vassell wrote in a
letter to Smart.
The board described the school
as an “essentially bankrupt organi-
zation.” Henderson said that get-
ting more money from Smart’s
Foundation would be a “hard sell.”
Forman said that the school’s
lease in the Tremé parking lot was
dependent on their charter renewal.
When it wasn’t renewed, “They
called for our mortgage note.”
Pike-Vassell said that the teach-
ers were told that their employ-
ment was dependent on the sale of
the modular buildings, which will
soon be auctioned.
The parking lot then must be
returned to its prior condition,
requiring repaving and the removal
of plumbing and electrical infra-
structure.
Forman speculated that things
could have potentially gone differ-
ently, “If we’d had a permanent
home, because the OPSB wanted
us, and because of our success.”
The RSD failed in their obliga-
tion to find the school a permanent
campus in their own neighbor-
hood, Forman said.
While the DOE report contained
documentation of serious and rep-
rehensible mismanagement of spe-
cial education requirements on the
part of top administrators – and an
effort to cover up deficiencies –
the outrage from parents in
response to the closure told a dif-
ferent story.
“They got my baby and took
care of my baby like I would,” par-
ent Alicia Parker said about her
Kindergartener who is overcoming
a speech impediment. “Then they
took him to the next level.”
Part of the school’s driving phi-
losophy was small class size and
one-on-one attention.
Parker, who spends nearly every
day at the school volunteering, said
that “all 166 of the kids are my
babies. I’m not going to see my
babies anymore. They are my
world.”
She said her husband compared
the closing to the loss of a loved one.
Parker said that everything the
parents tried to tell the DOE and
RSD “fell on deaf ears.” She said
that there was never an apology
issued to the families. Pike-Vassell
said that no one ever apologized to
the faculty and staff, either.
The quote covering one wall of
the brightly colored cafeteria, bol-
stered by the school’s scores show-
ing consistently growing academic
success, also tells a different story.
In giant type-face on the wall is a
quote from John Ayers, former
director of the Cowen Institute for
Public Education Initiatives:
“If we have a pocket of excel-
lence that may be Lagniappe – and
they may be very proud of what is
happening – how do we get that
innovation to spread?”
The chain of events that resulted
in the school’s sudden closure lead
many to believe that there was
something more at play.
Parents pointed to a disgruntled
and vindictive former Teach for
America teacher who took her
grievances to BESE.
Never before had the state board
closed a school for special educa-
tion law violations, despite the
common knowledge that violations
were widespread in New Orleans,
and as documented in a recently
settled lawsuit filed against the
state by the Southern Poverty Law
Center four years ago.
“Our special education teacher
died,” lamented Forman.
According to the LDOE’s own
records, Lagniappe’s annual
review for the 2013-2014 school
year shows perfect marks for
“Special
Education,
504
Accommodations, and Other At-
Risk Student Populations.” In
seven separate categories, includ-
ing many of the exact same
requirements cited as reason for
closure, Lagniappe received four
points out of four points possible.
Parents of students with special
needs spoke out in support of the
services they received. The report
focused primarily on interviews
with staff no longer employed by
the school.
The timeline of the events lead-
ing to closure was also disconcert-
ing for many observers.
State law requires that charter
schools be informed of a decision
of nonrenewal by Jan. 31. Had this
been followed, the school could
have potentially avoided the dis-
placement of the children.
After the special education prob-
lems were brought to the board’s
attention last fall, the next step was
a corrective action plan from
Lagniappe. In an interview with
The Lens on March 13, Henderson
said that they began implementing
that corrective action plan last
November. He said that the board
was under the impression that the
issues were resolved in the correc-
tive action plan, which he said had
been agreed upon by both sides.
Then on January 7, BESE dis-
trict representative Kira Orange
Jones
sent
a
letter
to
Superintendents John White and
Patrick Dobard requesting that the
renewal decision be delayed.
In the letter that was sent to all
BESE members, Orange Jones
wrote: “I am very concerned
about what has been laid out in
these documents.
These findings represent serious
violations of the law and students’
rights that I do not think can be
fully addressed through the correc-
tive action plan submitted by the
school. That these things were
allowed to occur also raise broader
questions about the operation of
the school.
At this time, I am not comfortable
voting on a renewal for Lagniappe
Academies and would prefer to have
more information before doing so.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, I
will move that BESE defer its vote
until March while more information
can be compiled regarding how stu-
dents and families were served at
Lagniappe.”
Orange Jones then requests that
the state prepare a report elabo-
rating on the findings, and pres-
ent it to BESE for review no later
than Feb. 27.
While there were clearly serious
violations in need of fixing, it is
unclear precisely why Orange Jones
felt that the Lagniappe decision
needed to be delayed past the state’s
deadline, past the OneApp deadline,
and past a date that would be feasi-
ble for the school to change admin-
istration or charter operators.
Orange Jones is also the director
of the regional Teach For America
office.
The alarm and sharp focus on
special education law violations
from a BESE member is an unusu-
al occurrence over the past decade
of privatization. The state has
never closed a school for violating
special education law.
During the
Lens
interview,
Henderson said that the board, of
Orange Jones’ request for delay
and further investigation, “We
interpreted that as a witch hunt,
which I certainly don’t think that it
was. But at this point – I can’t
think of another word.”
Orange Jones did not reply to
repeated requests for comment.
According to parents and teachers,
Orange Jones and Dobard never set
foot in the school to see things
firsthand.
Parker said that in her conversa-
tion with Orange Jones, it seemed
as though Orange Jones had some
sort of “personal vendetta” against
Lagniappe.
Last week, the Center for
Popular Democracy and The
Coalition for Community Schools
New Orleans released a report
examining what it deemed the
state’s “broken” system of over-
sight and the waste and misman-
agement of billions of taxpayer
dollars.
The report included Lagniappe
as a case study, and concluded:
“The situation at Lagniappe
shows exactly the problems with
the state’s oversight structure for
charter schools. The state relies on
a largely self-reporting oversight
structure that is easily manipulated
by the schools themselves – some-
times for multiple years, as hap-
pened at Lagniappe. Upon discov-
ering that a serious problem exists,
rather than developing a solution
that gives the school’s students and
teachers some much-needed stabil-
ity – such as brining in a different
charter operator, or returning the
school to local control – the state’s
solution for struggling schools is to
close them, effectively punishing
students and families for problems
outside of their control. Lagniappe
Academy is a story of how the
state is failing Louisiana students,
not protecting them.”
Forman said that before March,
the school was operating on the
assumption that the charter would
be renewed without question. He
said that Lagniappe’s “action plan”
to remediate the special education
problems had been approved by
the state.
Pike-Vassell was left feeling
incredulous at the state’s claim that
closing Lagniappe is an example of
successful
“oversight”
and
“accountability.” She wrote in an
email: “We’ve been waiting for the
supposed teams to come and help
with accountability—indeed, that
would be a relief in the sense of an
unbiased set of checks and bal-
ances. But how many who had a
hand in this—and other—school
closings never even set foot in the
school? Or based crucial reports on
a limited number of site visits not
even speaking with all stakehold-
ers/employees? This was not just a
‘failed organization’ as has been
suggested: indeed, it’s not that sim-
ple. Instead, it was the failure of a
larger bureaucratic COMMUNITY
to work together to save a much-
needed community school. If they
would have even cared to try, it
would have been obvious that work-
ing together could have opened the
accessible and attainable creative
means to make it happen.”
While the Lagniappe students
were supposed to be prioritized in
the OneApp school assignment
process, a letter sent by parent
Yoshekia Brown to DOE officials
during the final weeks of school
suggests otherwise.
Brown wrote, of her son:
“Jordan is not leaving Lagniappe
Academies because of wrongdoing
on his or my part. We are both vic-
tims of poor decisions made by
adults. I work in the school system
and understand the OneApp
process very well. What I cannot
understand is being told that I
would receive one of my choices
during the 1st round, and now
being told that I have no placement
and will need to participate in the
2nd chance round in hopes that I
will get what I as a mother
“choose” for my son.
Jordan should not suffer for adult
failures. I refuse to accept that my
son is a victim of a random selection
process. He is an intelligent, brilliant
young Black male with a promising
future ahead of him. He will not be
a statistic or a product of a failed
system. The parents of Lagniappe
have been forced into this process
and now that we are cooperating, we
are still being forced to deal with cir-
cumstances beyond our control. My
son should not, and will not, suffer
for the trickle-down effects of poor
adult choices.”
Pike-Vassell said that her stu-
dents spent their last day sharing
artwork and poems about saying
goodbye, and talking about what
was going to happen next, and
what they were worried about.
There were a lot of tears, she
said.
Pike-Vassell expressed frustra-
tion, and contempt for the deci-
sion-making process that resulted
in the devastating closure: “One of
the haunting aspects of the
Lagniappe closure is that the gov-
erning authorities responsible for
the closure were virtually never
here (some even perhaps never
were on campus). How can deci-
sions be made without experien-
tially even being present on a cam-
pus of staff and students? How are
parent voices not more crucial in
determining the fate of one of our
educational endangered species—
the community school? It is heart-
breaking to see a school that could
have been “transformed” genuine-
ly than just shut down? The RSD
uses the word transformation in an
all-encompassing manner to
describe these types of situations.
But I fail to see the “transforma-
tion” here—it’s purely and simply
a closure. Let’s call it what it is and
stop playing the political games.
Students and families and employ-
ees have all lost what has taken so
long to build, and some of those
responsible for that decision never
even visited the campus? Or even
interviewed staff members still
existing? It’s difficult to stand in
front of students year after year
and speak about standing up for
what’s right, and your duty as an
adult to protect them and to make
them feel safe, and then to have no
truly adequate explanation for a
school closure of this nature.”
Following Monday’s board
meeting, Forman reiterated one
point. “On behalf of the teachers,
we did not fail the kids. They
received the best education they
could possibly get. I believe the
RSD failed the kids.”◊
Page 8
THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY -
YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM
Lagniappe Academies’ term as charter school ends
‘Mother of
usic’ to
e honored
ongressional Caucus champions HBCUs
Continued from Page 1
Continued from Page 1
Continued from Page 1
ing on more debt. The changes
went into effect almost immediate-
ly, and thousands of previously
approved parents were abruptly
denied for a renewal. As a result
thousands of students – largely
Black, low-income, and first-gen-
eration – were forced to pause or
delay their college educations.
According to data from the
National Association of Student
Financial Aid Administrators,
enrollment at HBCUs fell 3.4 per-
cent for fall 2012. The number of
students with PLUS loans fell 46
percent, and HBCUs saw a 36 per-
cent decrease in the awarded dollar
amounts. That meant fewer stu-
dents able to continue college, and
less revenue for the schools.
The Obama administration has
corrected this oversight, but the
damage has been done.
“Our parents spend much more
money on educating their children
than white families do. That’s just a
fact, if you look at percentage of
income,” said caucus member Rep.
James E. Clyburn (D-SC) at the same
event. “We’re talking about good stu-
dents who need an opportunity, who
need to go into an environment that’s
nurturing. So we are going to have to
fight for these HBCUs.”
There is also less aid available
for institutions. According to a
2014 report from the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities, state
schools now rely on students fees
and tuition for 48 percent of their
revenues, compared to 24 percent
in 1988. Of the nation’s 105
HBCUs, nearly half are state
schools. Meanwhile, Texas, North
Carolina, South Carolina, West
Virginia, Virginia, Arkansas,
Kentucky, Missouri, Florida, and
Delaware were all caught with-
holding state funds specifically
from their HBCUs.
The Department of Education
shells out roughly $300 million for
Black schools each year. But this
funding, like all federal money, can
change without warning from year
to year. Howard University, for
example, is a private school, but
has historically had its own line in
the budget that serves as a critical
source of funding. In 2012, this
funding was cut by more than $12
million, and has remained at that
amount each year since.
The Obama administration has
attempted to work around the
financial squeeze by awarding of
grants and contracts to HBCUs
through the White House Initiative
on HBCUs, but some reports state
that the amount of these awards is
also on the decline.
President Obama’s America’s
College Promise comes on the
heels of these blows. The pro-
posal offers the first two years of
community college free for stu-
dents who attend consistently
and at least part-time, and main-
tain a 2.5 GPA. However,
HBCUs and community colleges
have always competed for non-
traditional students, as well as
students who need extra instruc-
tion or assistance to get accli-
mated and succeed in college.
With this proposal and slim
chances for HBCUs to match the
offer, community colleges may
be a more attractive choice.
“Anybody that tells you that
these schools aren’t needed, ask
them what is happening on the
other end of the spectrum, when
we are getting rid of affirmative
action admissions policies, we’re
getting rid of various formulae
that’s used to fund schools, and
then you want to close down
HBCUs,” said Rep. Clyburn. “It
means we are on track to creating
a permanent underclass in this
country.”
Despite these challenges,
HBCUs still manage to produce
crucial results.
Despite serving just three per-
cent of the nation’s college stu-
dents, the 107 HBCUs graduate
nearly 20 percent of African
Americans who earn undergradu-
ate degrees and more than 50 per-
cent of African American profes-
sionals and public school teachers.
“HBCUs have long been an
important part of our nation’s high-
er education system,” said Rep.
Byrne, co-chair of the caucus.
“HBCUs deal with many of the
same challenges as other higher
education institutions, but they
also face unique obstacles that
demand special attention. Our
nation’s HBCUs are evolving as
they adapt to a changing work-
force, and through this caucus, I
look forward to helping guide the
conversation about how we can
best support our nation’s
HBCUs.”◊
s she found herself in the compa-
y of various female pianists of the
ime. “I wanted to play like them,”
razier says of the time she spent
atching these women hone their
rafts. At home—Frazier, barely
nto formal education—would
imic the playing styles of the
omen she observed, pretending
o play the piano on what she calls
er family’s “old time banister.”
Frazier became one of the
oungest church musicians in New
rleans in the mid-1950s, playing
or New St. Luke, Mount Bethel
nd Christian Mission churches. It
as at Christian Mission where
razier’s career as a musical talent
eapt from the keys of the organ or
iano into organizing the church’s
usic tradition. She parented the
hurch’s musical celebrations and
nvited “various church choirs,
uartets and groups to sing at the
hurch,” according to a news
elease
in
New
Orleans
ommunity Church News
Frazier is often described as a
music evangelist,” traveling the
ity to perform before Black and
hite congregations. In May, she
egan an effort to preserve
hristian Mission’s history of
usic through a studio recording
f “treasured hymns and tradition-
l gospels songs” sung by the
hurch’s choir. After years of trav-
ling to other congregations,
razier is now the organist for
hristian Mission’s male chorus.
Her love of music also extends
o her six children, among them
hillip Frazier, the co-founder of
he famed Rebirth Brass Band,
hich has traveled the country
lmost since its inception.
lthough the band, formed in
983, is known for its wide variety
f secular hits, Frazier says she
ade sure the sounds of gospel
usic would flow from the group’s
olished instruments. “I taught
hem how to play ‘Just a Closer
alk with Thee,’” she recounts.
[It is] the right way—the church
ay, and they still play it that way
oday.” The group won a Grammy
ward in 2012 for best regional
oots music album in Los Angeles.
The Second General Missionary
aptist Church Association is
mong the oldest Baptist
ssociations in New Orleans. This
ear, the organization marks the
16th anniversary of its general
ession on May 26. Gospel artists,
ike Frazier, will be honored that
ay at Pilgrims Rest Missionary
aptist Church in the Lower Ninth
ard. Frazier also serves as a sup-
ort musician for the Baptist asso-
iation. The group’s annual music
elebration of gospel artists begins
at 7 p.m. at 2428 Flood Street.◊
