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Erase the Board Coalition

Armtrice Cowart of the Erase the Board Coalition speaks at the New Orleans International Working Women’s Day March, March 16.

To the Orleans Parish School Board,

We have made our demands plain on several occasions, and here they are again.

First, we would like to acknowledge the attempt to implement two of our demands, which was the School Improvement Plan as well as the issue of TRAUMA—although they were not done as we originally stated. A part of the reason these demands were not implemented correctly is the same reason we are in this position in terms of education in the city of New Orleans. Your work is being done without including several other very important stakeholders such as parents, community members and local experts.

Erase The Board Coalition, as a group, has no interest in meeting with any entity in private. However, if there is a genuine interest in publicly going on record that this disastrous experiment has been a complete failure and you display a vested interest in course correcting, we are ready and willing to roll up our sleeves and work shoulder to shoulder with you to secure a truly equitable public school system for Orleans Parish students and families.

In closing, we would again like to show our demands:

  • Implement an immediate moratorium on charter school expansion
  • No more school closures. Orleans Parish School Board must permanently take over every failing school and implement school improvement plans using the sustainable community school model (e.g. Louisiana Legislature SR 133)
  • Conduct a series of accountability audits administered by the Erase The Board Coalition in schools that have a C score or lower
  • For the five schools set to close, Orleans Parish School Board needs to take over each school for it to remain open, and pay for private tutoring for all students impacted by the potential school closures and the instability at those campuses during the 2018-2019 school year
  • Abolish the One App and develop a more equitable centralized enrollment system that prioritizes access to neighborhood schools

We love our children and sincerely believe that these demands are not luxuries and should be the standard. We are diligent in our work and unwavering in our belief that this is both necessary and attainable. If these simple demands are not met, we have no choice but to continue to pull apart the fabric of this very unstable system and the people who have helped create and maintain it.

 

Sincerely,

Erase The Board Coalition

 

About Erase The Board Coalition: The Erase The Board Coalition is a grassroots-led effort composed of community leaders, parents, and grassroots education justice groups such as FFLIC and Step Up Louisiana, as well as Peoples’ Assembly and Take Em Down NOLA, established to remove the current Orleans Parish School Board members off of our board and to replace them with leaders who will actually listen to the demands of their community and run our schools as sustainable community schools! #EraseTheBoard #CharterExperimentNOLA #LetKidsBeKids #WeChoose #ReclaimOurSchools #SchoolChoiceScam #FollowTheMoney #NOLACharterCorruption #SchoolToPrisonPipeline #WhatsTheNameOfOurSchoolNOLA

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Community Protests Election of Homophobic School Board Vice President

On Thursday, January 17, the Orleans Parish School Board suspended its own rules so it could re-elect an openly homophobic school board member as Vice President. Despite the vocal opposition of the LGBTQ community and the Erase the Board Coalition, the board voted to re-elect Leslie Ellison and John Brown to their current positions, against the will of the people of Orleans Parish. Instead of responding to the 30 people who spoke in opposition to Ellison (and the entire board), they offered only a token acknowledgment of the outrage by changing the elections and putting another board member up for Vice President at the last minute. Still, they voted 4-3 to reinstate the same officers who have sold New Orleans schools off to private hands. Ellison’s history of homophobia came to light as she was running for President of the board, with community members revealing her testimony against anti-bullying provisions for LGBTQ youth and her history of supporting pro-charter school policies and officers. The OPSB chose to maintain the status quo instead of listening to the voice of the people. Their long history of disservice to the New Orleans community shows that they have no respect for the students they should be serving. The board must be replaced and schools turned over to the control of the community.

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Parents and Students Protest For-Profit School Closures

By Dylan Borne

They Demand: “Arrest the Board!”

On December 20th, 200 parents, teachers, and students packed the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) meeting to demand that McDonogh 35 Senior High School remain direct-run by the Board. They exposed the OPSB for intentionally letting McDonogh 35 fail so that a for-profit charter corporation could take it over.

“The School Board is coming as a business man. It’s not that they don’t know what they’re doing, it’s that they don’t care… OPSB has never raised an arm or eyebrow to their word, they shy away from it” –Alex, parent

“We’ve been told so many untruths, the word ‘lie’ isn’t strong enough… Pres. Trump has a better track record.” –Woodson, McDonogh class of ’85 graduate

Statement from youth organization Rethink New Orleans: “Equitable education for all young people to stand in solidarity with all students in New Orleans, and we want to make sure we keep McDonogh 35 direct-run”

“The police officers around here remind me of the charter I went to… y’all prepared us more for prison than anything else… for me this is life or death” –Antonio Travis, Black Man Rising

“Any school district worth its salt would jump at the opportunity to work with parents that are this involved… don’t say it’s about children if you don’t respect the voices of their parents”—G 2 Brown, Journey 4 Justice Alliance

“The time for us pleading, begging crying is over, the time now is to fight… we’re gonna recall the entire board. They refuse to listen to children, parents, and community. We’re done. We’re done begging and making our case. We sent them reports, we sent them data, we had people from Chicago come and talk about what happened to them, we’ve done it all. So if you’re still not listening, it’s over…we don’t wanna wait until it’s time to vote.”—Ashana Bigard, Families and Friends of Incarcerated Children

Paid representatives of Inspire NOLA, the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, and other pro-charter organizations tried to make speeches. Audience members drowned them out with boos and chants. Parents and youth yelled “Whose Schools? Our Schools!” and “Arrest ‘em and do the time it took to make ‘em!”