IDEA Oscar Dunn charter school, which opened in New Orleans less than three years ago, will close at the end of the 2021-2022 school year in May amid declining student enrollment citywide, according to an announcement from the NOLA Public Schools district.
The school is the second NOLA Public Schools district charter school this week that officials have said will close due to low enrollment. On Monday, FirstLine Schools announced it would close Live Oak Academy.
Both announcements come weeks after a study showed the city’s schools enroll about 47,000 students but have roughly 3,000 open seats. Schools are funded on a per-pupil basis and empty seats can strain school budgets.
The IDEA charter network is a national group that operates in several cities. The group opened its first school in New Orleans in fall 2019 — meaning Oscar Dunn, located on Hayne Boulevard, has operated through three pandemic-affected school years.
As COVID-19 cases were detected in the state in the spring of 2020, Gov. John Bel Edwards shuttered schools statewide and students ended the school year learning from home. Because of that shift, state testing was canceled and no state performance scores were issued. That fall, students resumed in-person schooling part way into the fall semester. Students took state standardized tests last spring but the state school board declined to issue official performance scores, arguing the pandemic had a substantial impact on learning.
State officials did issue what they called “simulated” school performance scores, rather than formal letter grades. Under the statewide scale, however, Dunn’s score would have earned the school an F.
The K-8 school’s website says enrollment is 522 students, but state data from an enrollment count taken in October shows just 342 students. Live Oak had a similar enrollment shortfall.
Dunn is located in the old Frances Gaudet school on Hayne Boulevard in New Orleans East. The building was previously occupied by Lake Forest Elementary Charter School which moved into a new school building.
Ken Campbell, executive director of the IDEA charter network’s Southeast Louisiana group, said low enrollment and the building’s age both factored into the decision to close.
“Our entire team was compelled by the data that New Schools for New Orleans and district released publicly in early December that talked about the overcapacity challenges we have in New Orleans public schools. It certainly doesn’t seem to be getting any better,” Campbell said.
Campbell said the school will work with families to help find new schools for their students.
New Orleans charter schools expanded rapidly over the past 15 years as the city recovered from Hurricane Katrina, and in particular over the last decade, when officials expected a much larger population increase than what materialized. The expansion included the opening of dozens of new charter schools. Now, officials say, many schools are under enrolled.
NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. said closures and consolidations or reductions in grade sizes may be necessary to ensure the all-charter district’s schools can continue operating sustainably and with extracurricular activities.
“We know these decisions were not easy to reach, and I greatly appreciate First Line and IDEA for their commitment to putting students first and foremost,” Lewis said in a statement released Tuesday.
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January 05, 2022 at 06:00AM
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Another New Orleans charter school will close; declining enrollment cited at IDEA Oscar Dunn - NOLA.com
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