OPEN NOLA (Orleans Public Education Network)

The Orleans Parish School Board selected a superintendent search firm at its Tuesday committee meeting, and its administrative arm, NOLA Public Schools, recapped the internal review of its response to Hurricane Ida for board members.

The committee forwarded a recommendation of Greenwood/Asher & Associates to lead the three-month search process for $90,000. The contract faces one more vote at a full board meeting before it can be finalized.The firm is based in Florida. NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. announced last summer he would be stepping down at the end of contract in the summer of 2022.

“We are finally at the point where we have the opportunity to approve the search firm that will take us through the process,” board president Ethan Ashley said. “For the community, it’s the time to get involved.”

He encouraged the public to visit a special website set up for the search to provide feedback and specifically the qualities they’d like to see in a superintendent.

“We want to get as much information from you as possible,” Ashley said, noting they would be scheduling listening sessions across the city. “Now is the time.”

The much-awaited announcement about whether six charter schools that did not meet the district’s standards for charter renewal was not revealed at Tuesday’s meeting. Lewis could grant them a renewal or shutter the schools. That will be announced at Thursday’s full board meeting.
The board also heard from district Chief Operations Officer Tiffany Delcour, who had several updates on facility repairs and the district’s “Hurricane Ida After Action Review.”

The New Orleans City Council is preparing to ask voters to increase property taxes for early childhood education, a plan aimed at closing persistent learning gaps between children who are enrolled in quality day care programs and those who are not.

Council member Helena Moreno said Tuesday that the council plans to file a notice of intent this week to begin the process of placing a 5-mill tax on the April 30 ballot. The revenue would subsidize low-income families who need help paying for day care.

City Hall spends about $3 million a year to send children to subsidized day care, a number that has increased substantially over the past four years. The money helps at least 150 students but falls well short of helping the thousands of children who advocates say need better access to early childhood education.

Based on current property assessments, the tax, if approved, would add about $21 million to the New Orleans Early Education Network City Seats Program. Earlier cost estimates of the program suggest that the tax could mean day care subsidies for more than 1,000 children.

"We want to eliminate the financial barriers to early childhood education, and this millage is a strong step in that direction," said Moreno, the council's president. Advocates say more than 6,500 New Orleans children, largely from low-income families, are priced out of quality day care programs.

The average cost for a 2-year-old's care in New Orleans is about $660 a month, according to a recent Louisiana state survey. That's $84 higher than the state average and almost $200 higher than what one long-running state subsidy program, the Child Care Assistance Program for Families, is willing to pay.

Community check-in. How are y'all doing out there?

We know these last few seasons have been a lot to digest. Are you feeling heard, protected and cared for?

A Letter From Nahliah Webber, Executive Director OPEN

"In more ways than I can express here, New Orleans and OPEN have grown me and pushed me towards a politics that would pursue freedom over progress. As a new mother, I have been moved to get even more clear about what it requires to raise a free and liberated child. On November 5, 2021 I will step down as the Executive Director of the Orleans Public Education Network to focus on this new chapter for my family." - https://mailchi.mp/opennola/a-letter-from-nahliah-webber-executive-director-orleans-public-education-network

After previously announcing plans to allow vaccinated staff and students to go maskless this fall, the NOLA Public Schools district announced Wednesday that everyone — regardless of vaccination status — will have to wear masks inside school buildings as teachers return to training and students approach the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.

“This requirement is designed to protect our youngest students who are the most vulnerable and not yet able to get the vaccine,” a district press release explained.
Children under 12 years old are not yet eligible for the vaccine. Though clinical trials for younger children are underway.

Ya'll 'Wokeism', seriously. We have heard this phrase tossed around, but didn't think it would stick, because... it is absurd. There have been so many conversations around race and critical race theory in education lately. So many. Soooo many.

Teaching actual American history, as it ACTUALLY happened, and its current ramifications on the American education system is only problematic to racists. Read that again.

All children have a right to know their history in its entirety and how that history created their current lived experiences. That means explaining how race is an American construct and how it has been used to manipulate and reduce opportunities for Black and other non-white children for centuries.

Tap your neighborhood racist and tell them nap time is over. If this essential learning is wokeism, then yes we all need to wake up.

Racial justice is education justice.

Racial Justice is the systematic fair treatment of people of all races that results in equitable opportunities and outcomes for everyone.

We are dedicated to training parents, educators and school leaders on creating anti-racist educational policies and liberating educational opportunities for Black kids.



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Ways you can help OPEN
1. Share our posts
2. Volunteer to work with OPEN
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4. Donate to OPEN (link in bio)
5. Tag parents, educators and allies that we need to know

This quote by Bryan Stevenson is from the Ava DuVernay documentary The 13th discussing the criminalization of black people and the intersection between imprisonment, slavery, and the 13th Amendment.
How does this relate to public policy and OPEN work?
Public Policy is policy on behalf of the public.
Public Policy problems are those that require laws and regulations in order for them to be solved.
We each take individual ownership over protecting our black children from Prison Industrial Complex.
We continue to create organizations and societies to combat the effects of the issue of mass incarceration.
We should also get more involved with our local and state governments by staying informed and making our voices heard once we are aware of the issues.
Policy is a process.
We can be part of the change or just keep tolerating it.

Equal Justice Initiative
13TH

Visit us at opennola.org/resources for news, reports and resources, curated to help you:
• Develop your understanding of public policy
• Gain critical context on the conversation
• Advocate for Black and low-income children through public education

What happens in the streets plays out in the classrooms. Our personal access to power, privilege, and resources shapes the policies that create our realities.

OPEN encourages advocates, allies, and accomplices to, therefore, not only reflect on critical debates in education, but to also call out the intersections with other systems that, together, can either lead to schools being sites of resistance to or accomplices in Black children’s oppression.

Bills like HB 564 are being discussed in several states!

It seems that several states are having the the discussion on divisive topics very similar to HB 564.

What are your thoughts/concerns about restrictions and/or removal of discussions about race and s*x from public schools?

It seems that several states are having the the discussion on divisive topics very similar to HB 564.

What are your thoughts/concerns about restrictions and/or removal of discussions about race and s*x from public schools?