Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Oh. My. Lord.

Dear Friends,

While enrolling my son in summer school, I was mandated by his private school that he could only take classes from an accredited school. My research led me to discover that the RSD and its charter schools are not accredited. I am upset considering the ramifications for this. I don't understand how this situation (RSD) can continue unchecked.I cannot afford to continue to drive to and from Kenner twice a day to bring my kids to school. I have not re-enrolled them there for next year. We don't have any acceptable options for next year, after having exhaustively searched, again and again. Right now they are not enrolled anywhere, and I don't know what's going to happen to us.

I hope to God this is wrong, wrong, wrong. If not, this city is in serious trouble.

6 comments:

Mark Folse said...

I don't know who accredits elementary and secondary schools, but this group only lists nine accredited schools in Orleans Parish:
http://www.sacscasi.org/schools/Proceedings_Accredited_SACS_CASI_LA.html

Cousin Pat said...

What Mark said. This list (also from SACS) has only 9 schools in Orleans Parish listed. But those are for the Orleans Parish School Board.

Check down the list further, and you can see that the Archdiocese of New Orleans maintains 55 accredited schools in the Parish.

St. Tammany maintains 52. Plaquemines has 7. Jefferson Parish maintains 44.

None are RSD schools. I even checked down the list to see if the RSD counted as a seperate district as SACS rules go. Nope.

I was thinking about this just the other day, too, as I was going through old papers of my Pre-New Orleans life, and the big thing we were dealing with in Glynn County,
Georgia was being put on probation by SACS.

Just. Fing. Wow.

Leigh C. said...

Oy vey iz mir, as my grandma would say.

Cade said...

Am I missing something? The child is already in a private (accredited?) school and they need to go to summer school (why?) that is accredited (but not the same school). And there aren't any public accredited schools in New Orleans, so they would have to go to a private accredited school in New Orleans but instead they are going to a public accredited one in Kenner (can you even do this if you live in New Orleans?).

Leigh C. said...

Well, this is another reason why I'm opening this up for discussion. I think she had her kids enrolled in private school in Kenner for the past school year and discovered, upon needing to enroll 'em in summer school, that there are few accredited schools in Orleans parish that are NOT private schools. I believe another part of the plan was to transfer the child to a good public school closer to home after this stint in Kenner.

Applying for a private school here or schlepping out to Kenner will be costly either way. What will be just as costly for more people than just this mother is if there are only nine accredited public schools in this city and the elementary and secondary student population keeps growing.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Leigh, you got it and thank you for posting it as such.

My son failed Spanish. My family put my kids in that school upon finding us in the same sort of bad straights we are in now. I would love for them to continue there but I can't afford the transportation and time away from work. It is "unsustainable."

I was lucky not to be raised in Southeast Louisiana my whole life, and I have attended some great public schools elsewhere. I had really hoped after Katrina that this was possible here for my children, but these hopes have all but died. It won't happen with Pastorek in charge, I assure you.

Every year since my kids were born, I have resolved enrollment a year ahead of time, getting my kids into mac16 and Lusher and really good nursery schools back in the day. If I had a great public neighborhood, I could put so much energy into it. Instead we have been treated very poorly.

I'm so mad, and sad, and tired. I don't know what to do. Why aren't more people speaking up? Alot of people say its so much information, it's hard to keep up with. And we keep getting told things after they happen.

For instance, did you know that the RSD accepted a grant from the notorius Walton Foundation back on Feb, to re-design all the school programs? They are paying Vallas asshole consultants $48,000 year to be appointed heads of committees for schools, where local stakeholders are piecemealed and marginalized. The whole thing is fake, I saw it all happen. Frankly I'm disgusted.

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