EBR revisits charter schools
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Schools Superintendent John Dilworth and his staff plan to have a recommendation ready by December as they re-examine a proposal to create a pair of charter high schools in downtown Baton Rouge, he said in a memo.
Dilworth wrote the memo Tuesday to East Baton Rouge Parish School Board members after a committee of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education sent the charter school proposal back to Dilworth.
“I explained to BESE members present at the committee meeting that trust had to be a major factor in the decision as to whether or not to recommend this proposal to our board,” Dilworth wrote.
School Board member Noel Hammatt, who has vigorously opposed the charter proposal since it was first announced in April 2008, said at a School Board meeting Thursday he will try to keep an open mind as long as there is no more “behind-the-scenes dealing.”
“I hope we can move past the past,” Hammatt said. “It’s difficult when you have a history of deceit, but hopefully we can.”
Board President Jerry Arbour then asked Dilworth to comment, but Dilworth declined.
After the meeting, Dilworth said he will likely ask the organizers of the twin high schools to present their ideas directly to the School Board. He also said he wants to work out in advance any agreements with the seven other school districts from which the proposed regional schools hope to draw students.
The proposed charter school — actually two schools in one — would be called Baton Rouge Regional High. It would operate initially in the Shaw Center for the Arts.
The applicant is called Helix Network of Educational Choices and is backed by a nonprofit group called Advance Innovative Education, or AIE, the LSU College of Education and a $500,000 start-up grant from energy giant BP.
One school would focus on the digital media, and a second school would focus on science, technology, engineering and math.
The School Board rejected the Helix proposal in late August.
On Sept. 30, Dilworth sent a pointed letter to BESE members, urging them to reject the Helix proposal as well. He accused AIE of deliberately withholding information in its 14-page proposal to the local board in hopes of working with the state instead. As evidence, he pointed to the much longer and detailed 71-page document the school’s organizers subsequently sent to BESE.
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