School system, ABR tense

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 11, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The recent announcement that Advance Baton Rouge and LSU plan to open two new, small “autonomous” high schools by fall 2009 took top leaders of East Baton Rouge Parish’s school system by surprise and further stressed the  already tense relations between the school system and Advance Baton Rouge.

At the invitation of the School Board, representatives of Advance Baton Rouge plan to give a presentation at Thursday’s board meeting on the new proposed schools and explain how they came about.

Advance Baton Rouge, a three-year-old nonprofit that aims to make “systemic” change in Baton Rouge, has served as a partner with the school system on several initiatives.

The most prominent, created following Hurricane Katrina, is an “autonomous” school network. Like charter schools, autonomous schools have some independence, but work within the school system structure and receive funding similar to normal public schools.

The network includes East Baton Rouge Laboratory Academy and the Can! Academies of EBR. Both operate as part of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system.

Advance Baton Rouge Executive Director Kristy Hebert and East Baton Rouge Schools Superintendent Charlotte Placide, however, have had an ongoing disagreement about the network.

Hebert, a charter school advocate who formerly served as a senior vice president for Edison Schools in New York, has pushed from the beginning for a larger network of independent schools. Placide, on the other hand, has taken a go-slow approach, saying she wants to see if the first two schools work before adding more.

Tensions increased after Advance Baton Rouge applied to operate two of the four low- performing Baton Rouge public schools that are listed for takeover at the end of the current school year. After that move, School Board member Tarvald Smith began calling Advance Baton Rouge “our so-called partner.”

Then came the April 23 announcement.

Standing at LSU’s Memorial Tower, representatives of Advance Baton Rouge and the LSU College of Education outlined two high schools they hoped to open by fall 2009, using a $500,000 startup grant from energy giant BP. Also involved in the initiative is the New York-based Institute for Student Achievement, which also works with East Baton Rouge Laboratory Academy.

One new school would focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, while the other would focus on digital arts and technology.

But in using the word “autonomous” to describe the proposed new schools, the backers implied that East Baton Rouge Parish School Board members already were on board with the idea. They were not.

Under state law, private groups seeking to create new public schools have to first apply for a charter from their local School Board; if denied, they may then seek a charter from the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.