Over 90% of New Orleans public school students attend charters. But there are still six traditional public schools, run directly by the Orleans Parish School Board. They came together at McDonogh 35 Senior High School to kick off the school year.
Like any good New Orleans event, the OPSB convocation started out with a second line. Each school had a turn parading down McDonogh's gleaming front hall. Teachers shook bells, waved umbrellas and performed school cheers.
OPSB oversees 28 schools, but it only directly runs six. Those are the ones here today.
"The various charter schools that we have, or charter management organizations, they bring all of their people together at the very beginning of the school year to set the goals and expectations for that particular network," says OPSB Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. "So that's what we're doing with the OPSB network schools today. This is the OPSB network."
Catch that? Basically, he's saying that the same way there's a KIPP network or a ReNEW network, there's an OPSB network. It's new language, as the city continues to redefine what school governance looks like.
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