Ohhh, boy.

To paraphrase a recent email I received, the charter school teachers in the area are fast reaching their event horizons.

When the former Orleans Parish School District was reorganized into the form of a Mobius strip from hell, former OPSD teachers were given the option of taking a "leave of absence" from their OPSD positions to teach in charter schools and see how the situation fit 'em. The time they could take off? - up to three years.

Keep in mind that if the teachers decide to stay with their charters after that time, they are giving up all kinds of benefits that would come to them from working in a public school entity: tenure, retirement plans, other good stuff that can come to those who are busting their buns teaching their subjects for not much money for a few decades.

So...

Guess which year we're coming up on?

It's not much of a wonder why the state and most other private entities are supporting the charters, in this case...and it makes me want to go and read my son's school's charter to see what benefits the teachers get, if any.

I'd advise any other parents whose children are enrolled in charters to check the fine print at their schools as well. It's a good thing to do anyway, since I was witness to a nifty circumvention of what a charter states a while back. Never underestimate the power a charter school board can exercise in exploiting loopholes in its own document - for good or ill.

Update, 9:23 PM: By way of the News Ladder, a high school will be closing...

Decision makers at the state level are planning on closing Frederick Douglass High School on St. Claude in the Upper 9th Ward. We know this for two reasons; one that no new freshmen were admitted last year, and that several weeks ago teachers at Douglass were pulled into a meeting and told that the school is being phased out.

The very way this is being done is sneaky and vague; likely because if these plans were publicly announced they could result in a huge PR problem for the RSD and State Superintendent Paul Pastorek.

....The long and the short is this: Don’t count on Vallas or anyone at the state level for help, and frankly you should not be lulled into waiting for this dubious Master Plan. For the Douglass community, you are going to have to fight to keep your school.

To quote Frederick Douglass: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.”

blog entry by Jim Randels on this meeting

Save Frederick Douglass