The digital version of this story first appeared on The Lens.
New Orleans Public Schools Superintendent Fateama Fulmore is waiting for the Orleans Parish School Board to tell her what to do with the Leah Chase School, she told parents on Wednesday night. With board backing, the district could cover the school’s deficit, she said, keeping its doors open.
But the group of roughly 50 parents who attended the meeting didn’t seem convinced of Fulmore’s purported powerlessness, as they sat at circular lunch tables in the school’s cafeteria. Many left the meeting feeling frustrated.
“Everyone is talking in circles,” said Renice Alphonse, who said that her daughter Jai has excelled at the school and that she loves the teaching staff.
Chris Edmunds, whose son, Oscar, attends the school, shared the same frustration.
“Everyone is playing coy and refusing to give us a straight answer,” he said, noting that on Monday, school board member Carlos Zervigon had told parents that he was awaiting Fulmore’s plan. Yet here they were in the cafeteria on Wednesday night, hearing Fulmore tell parents that the board had the final say.
This week, dozens of parents who strongly support the continued operation of the Leah Chase School joined a growing chorus across the city, including 15 members of the Chase family, who sent Fulmore a letter a week ago.
Another family member, Travis Chase, sent his own letter to district officials — signed also by his brother and mother — urging them to close the school, as first reported by the Times-Picayune.
The increasing outcry is leading up to a Thursday evening meeting, when the school board will decide Leah Chase's fate.
It’s been a long week — and month and year — for parents and teachers at the school, which took over the former Lafayette Academy building.
In late 2023 and early 2024, Lafayette teachers and families were put through bureaucratic whiplash. First, the district's former superintendent recommended closing Lafayette Academy based on its test scores.
After pushback from board members and other community leaders, she announced that the building would house a new school operated directly by the school district.
Some critics have wondered whether Fulmore fears stepping out on her own to make a similarly strong decision.
The city’s only non-charter public school
When it opened, Leah Chase was the first intentionally opened direct-run school since 2019, when New Orleans became an all-charter district: the first major American city with no traditional schools.
But now, in its second year, the school’s future is uncertain due to a tighter district budget, following the district’s financial crisis. That has left Leah Chase with few arts-integration classes or extracurriculars, some of which are run by teachers on their own time.
District officials have attributed the school’s budget woes to low enrollment. However, parents and other advocates believe the district could do more to support the school.
"If you knew it was a funding situation, you should have never opened it," said Alphonse, the Leah Chase parent. "Don't give nobody no one year with their child for a school to stay open then you want to close it. That's not right."
She wants the district to give the school five years to prove itself, the same amount of time new charter schools get, though contracts can be revoked sooner. Leah Chase is only halfway through its second year.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Stella Chase Reese, the daughter of the school’s namesake, asked parents to attend Thursday night’s board meeting to share their stories.
Parents say they love the school
Alphonse said her daughter didn't get the support she needed at the charter she attended before Leah Chase.
Jai, now a fourth-grader, is in her second year at the school, she said, and has gone from an F to a B student.
On Wednesday, as Alphonse listened in the cafeteria, Fulmore presented three options to parents, the same ones that the board will hear on Thursday night.
Two options would keep the school open by using district funding to support Leah Chase’s operation as either an arts-focused school or an arts-integrated school. The first model would use arts contractors. The latter model would be more expensive and include more arts positions on staff.
Fulmore’s third option was abrupt: “Cease operations.”
“We told her to take that option off the table,” parent Chris Edmunds said after the meeting. “Why are you even presenting that as an option?”
He heard Fulmore listening to parents and noted that she didn’t deny that what the teachers and staff are doing is working, he said. “Why would you close a school that is working because of an imaginary budget deficit?”
Cierra Peters said she doesn’t care whether the school’s planned arts-integration model is fully implemented or if they add more after-school activities, like sports and band.
She transferred her son to the school after hearing great things about what's already happening, she said.
“I need my baby to have an education. He can play soccer outside of school — that’s not what’s important to me,” Peters said. “I need it to stay open for educational purposes.”
The school board is scheduled to meet on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
Accounts of Wednesday's meeting came from parents. A reporter for The Lens was asked to leave. A security guard, acting on behalf of the district, described the meeting as for parents only.
