It seems like only yesterday that the Oprah television network featured an exciting new charter school in New Orleans that promised to turn around the John McDonogh school. The new charter group was led by Steve Barr and his Future Is Now organization.
“One year after the Oprah television network featured New Orleans’ John McDonogh High School in “Blackboard Wars,” hoping to depict a successful charter school turnaround, the Recovery School District is dissolving the school. All staff members will lose their jobs.
“A fresh start. This school needs a fresh start,” Recovery School District Superintendent Patrick Dobard said of the school run by Future Is Now.
“Struggling charter schools have three years to prove themselves, and they can lose their authorization to operate after the fourth. However, the school known as John Mac is closing after only two years. The high school had the lowest performance score in the state in 2013, after alternative schools.
“The school system is speeding up a long-demanded building renovation to this summer, instead of waiting until 2016. But instead of moving to interim space, as typically happens, all the students must find new schools.
“Future Is Now charter chief Steve Barr said it was entirely a facilities decision, not made in response to low enrollment and poor test scores: “I think it’s a little bizarre to think this is some elaborate scheme to get us out of here. We’ve only in the middle of our second year.”
“Barr said they considered multiple temporary homes for the school but could not find a good alternative. While a number of schools are in portables pending the end of a $1.8 billion facilities master plan, Barr said they were mostly startup charters and portables weren’t appropriate for a turnaround school like John McDonogh.
“Future Is Now has the option of voluntarily giving up the charter, which Barr said would require a board vote. But it doesn’t matter, because when the building reopens after two years, the charter will have expired. Dobard said the school would not be eligible for renewal or extension.
“Dobard acknowledged that John McDonogh’s poor academic performance was an issue. He wouldn’t say the state had erred in granting the charter in the first place. “Hindsight is always 20/20, but we went into it with full confidence,” he said. “Obviously we wished the school would have been performing better at this stage.”
“For Future Is Now, it’s an abrupt end to a would-be feel-good tale.”
Oprah was gung-ho at the eg inning of the story. Why did she disappear at the end?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think we know why Oprah disappeared at the end… the results do not make her feel good and she only does what makes her FEEL GOOD. Give away cars, vacations…”yeah, she feels good”… but a school???.. giving money made her feel good but she didn’t think at all ironically about the students and if the school had valid leadership… if she did, it would not have made her feel good. If she had a proper moral compass and it was not all about her, she would follow through on correcting the problem she “paid for”. This is mega millionaire irresponsibility and is so much a part of our national problem. Mega millionaires like Zuckerberg, Oprah and the likes give heaps of money to whomever “sells” them on their ideas. And then there are those like Gates and Broad who have mega millions and THINK THEY KNOW IT ALL when they don’t.
Very well said.
Yes, that’s right. That high profile charter-conversion and Oprah-Winfrery-assisted P.R. stunt—the school featured in Oprah’s reality show BLACKBOARD WARS— has just come to a low-proflie and dismal end.
Charter honcho Steve Barr famously promised that he would transform a struggling New Orleans public school into a thriving charter school that would churn out hordes of college-ready students of color.
Barr was so confident that things would play out that way that he struck a deal with Oprah “Michelle-Rhee-is-a-Warrior-Woman” Winfrey to document all of it in a reality show TV series called “BLACKBOARD WARS”.
Just a year later, Barr is quietly and somewhat sheepishly withdrawing from both the school and from the city of New Orleans.
This was doomed from the start, as community members were initially outraged when Barr made comments about the students and community, “This is what seven generations of crap looks like,” and the show he co-produced falsely defamed the school as “the most dangerous school in America.”
From the article:
———————————————————–
“One year after the Oprah television network featured New Orleans’ John McDonogh High School in “Blackboard Wars,” hoping to depict a successful charter school turnaround, the Recovery School District is dissolving the school. All staff members will lose their jobs.
“Struggling charter schools have three years to prove themselves, and they can lose their authorization to operate after the fourth. However, the school known as John Mac is closing after only two years. The high school had the lowest performance score in the state in 2013, after alternative schools.”
” .. ”
“Dobard acknowledged that John McDonogh’s poor academic performance was an issue. He wouldn’t say the state had erred in granting the charter in the first place. “Hindsight is always 20/20, but we went into it with full confidence,” he said. “Obviously we wished the school would have been performing better at this stage.”
“For Future Is Now, it’s an abrupt end to a would-be feel-good tale.
“Barr came to New Orleans with glowing credentials from the other LA: Los Angeles. His interest in John Mac, plus determined alumni, took the school off life support: The historic Esplanade Ridge structure was to have been shuttered.
“John Mac reopened with high hopes in August 2012. It received $800,000 in start-up funding, which Barr promised to use for iPads. In its charter application, it projected 525 students and a middle school. An alumni association had for years criticized what they saw as the Recovery School District’s neglect; they were extremely wary of the new management, but grateful the school had been given a second chance.
“No one had really paid much attention to the brand-new charter school when the ‘Blackboard Wars’ trailer came out in January, calling John Mac ‘one of the most dangerous schools in America.’ It was a reference to the fatal 2003 shooting inside the high school’s gym. The show depicted Principal Marvin Thompson as a tough but compassionate leader in the “Stand and Deliver” mold. But it also showed students fighting in the halls and a young teacher bursting into tears, overwhelmed by her charges.
“The footage infuriated about 50 people who came to the January charter meeting, which devolved into shouts.
“In response, Future Is Now signed a memorandum of understanding with a community advisory council. Barr got the Oprah producers to take the ‘dangerous school’ line out of the promo. He called the students ‘beautiful and brilliant.’ A student arts group aired a radio show protesting that the “Blackboard Wars” producers had gotten their lives all wrong — even as a non-fatal shooting outside the school in February brought back old memories.
“Barr said the only financial benefit the school got from the show was mental health counseling for the teens. He and charter board members begged everyone to stop focusing on the show and start focusing on the students. But education-watchers throughout the city cringed.
“In fact, the show itself faded fast — not many people get the Oprah network, and the producers never returned to film graduation. The negative impressions, however, lingered. When the main rounds of enrollment ended, only 13 freshmen had signed up for the fall. Future Is Now also gave up managing Cohen High School, a traditional Recovery School District high school that the system was phasing out. That was intended to be a financial support for the charter group but ended up costing money.
“Barr said in a March interview with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that New Orleans is different from Los Angeles, where his schools were filled with first-generation immigrants. NOLA kids had hope, he said, but they were coming out of what he called ‘seven generations of crap.’
“Even as the school started in Aug. 2013 with only 311 students — 70 fewer than the year before — even as the single-digit performance score came out and the financial team reported a nearly million-dollar budget deficit that followed the previous year’s $1.5 million deficit, even as salaries were cut, Barr and Thompson maintained their optimism, reminding everyone that tough school turnarounds take more than one year.”
———————————————————
Almost a year ago, the whole thing blew up in everyone’s faces—especially Barr’s— when actual episodes of the show were shown.
Gary Rubenstein gave some really trenchant, blistering analysis of both the show, and the school’s “conversion / turnaround” efforts in the following three links:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/03/04/bad-o-pr-ah/
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/03/10/blackboard-wars-episode-4/
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/03/29/blackboard-wars-episodes-5-and-6/
I think you covered it here:
This is excellent!
The so-called reformers are so vicious that, not only do they attack veteran public school teachers, but they devour their own.
In what alternate universe is this constant throughput and churning helpful to children (that’s a rhetorical question, since it’s clear that children have nothing to do with any of this, except as props in photo opportunities and as monetized data points)?
Duncan actually brags about closing charters as well as public schools, as if this constant instability is a positive thing. In a sense it is, from the so-called reformers’ perspective, in the same way a dishonest broker churning a client’s account is a “positive” thing, at least for the broker and their employer. It ratchets up their pay and profits, while simultaneously extracting wealth from the rube customers.
Notice that in the eyes and language of so-called reformers, parents and syudents are not “citizens,” but rather “customers.” Customers to be fleeced.
Extracting wealth from the Commons and public sector: an explicit aim of neoliberalism and its wholly-owned subsidiary, corporate education reform.
“A fresh start. This school needs a fresh start”
Fresh start, fresh disruption! How quaint!
“Hindsight is always 20/20, but we went into it with full confidence. . . ”
NSS!
Good intentions by hubristic amateurs equals another “fresssssh start”. That “fresssssh” is more likely “ssssstinkin” as in sssssnake oil.
After her fiasco in South Africa, the idea that Oprah should still be in the school business is just ludicrous. Not surprising, but still ludicrous.
She knows it all so of course she would be involved.
Could this be a golden opportunity? Perhaps it’s time for Oprah to do an honest follow-up on the story, with the ever-honest and frank Diane Ravitch on hand to explain and educate.
I wonder what happens to relationships between the students with the constant churn. When the schools open and close they’re just scattered over and over again, right? And since the schools aren’t attached to neighborhoods, they could end up anywhere.
I remember school friendships as being so central at that age. I wonder how they navigate that, how they maintain those beyond one or two years.
I worked in a charter where students had as many as 6 teachers in one class. Can you imagine sending your child to this school? Don’t you love how this is spun into “innovation” and “change”. What a farce.
As someone who has observed, and to a certain extent, exposed, Charter Charlatan Steve Barr’s modus operandi here in Los Angeles, this sad story is nothing new. Barr shut down the Animo Justice Green Dot school here in Los Angeles under similar circumstances, unable to explain why his miracle “five qualities,” or whatever marketing points he touts didn’t work then. This reactionary idea that using the flawed market model of opening and closing schools does incalculable damage to the students, community, and public education as a whole. One day Barr and his fellow greedy charter ilk might find a rightful place in the penitentiary.
I thought this was sad, the last public school in the RSD closes:
http://www.alternet.org/education/school-nobody-wanted-except-community
“We were successful in getting a part-time nurse assigned to the school,” he adds, in a battle that he thinks should not have needed to be fought, but one illustrative of the way Reed and other public schools have become marginalized as the city embraces a charter school culture.
“The RSD never gave the same amount of time and attention to Reed that it gave to the charters,” he says.
The shift from an effort to restore programs to a fight to save the school itself came in 2011, when VAYLA learned that the school was going to be phased out.
“The reasoning was that it is a failing school,” Sang says. Once a school receives a failing score for a consecutive number of years, it can be taken over by the RSD, which is in turn run by the Louisiana Board of Education. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education makes the final assessment of failure.
But Sang contends that the closing became a rigged game. “When the decision was made to end a grade each year, given the subsequent student loss [and the resulting loss of resources], there was no way for Reed to ever recover,” he says. The decrease in experienced teachers and staff was but one consequence of the diminished funding.”
Is there an example of a reformer-run city, state or district where public schools have actually improved?
Wonder how much profit they walked away with. I’m sorry, how much taxpayers money did they walk away with!
This is why people should not “dabble” in education. They expect miracles in the short term and when they do not materialize, then they move on or tear down and start over. With all of the business talk in edu reform, why don’t they use their own common sense about relationships. Stores build their customer base with relationships. Brands do too …just look at the Coke vs Pepsi wars. These relationships are even more important to learning! And yet we close schools and tear those relationships. These are kids who need a stable school environment. Communities need a stable school, not one who give up and close at the end of each year, or worse, in the middle of the year. Leave education up to the educators who are in it for the long term. Real education does not make for good TV drama!
Steve Barr founded the Green Dot charter system with most of the schools in the Los Angeles area, He has never referred to himself as an educator, but as an entrepreneur. I wish that someone would hang an “Entrepreneurs Need Not Apply” sign at all school district headquarters.
Could someone provide the exact quote (and source it) with which Oprah explained why she opened a school in Africa and not Chicago. Something along the lines that the kids in Chicago were ingrates or spoiled.
Thanks.
”If you ask the kids what they want or need [in the US], they will say an iPod or some sneakers,’ she’s quoted as saying. ‘In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.” There is a link to an article, but the link is defunct – here’s the website where I found the quote: http://district299.typepad.com/district299/2007/01/why_oprahs_scho.html
The second commenter at this link points out that it’s pretty ironic for Oprah of all people to be complaining about materialism.
Ah, edufrauds and their mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$ as they open and close their vanity projects.
The next time you hear the leading charterites/privatizers claiming to posses the secret sauce, the magic bullet, the pixie dust, that will cure all that ails education, and then can never seem to find the time to explain their ever-growing mountain of abject failures—just remember that when it comes to such folks, Gertrude Stein nailed them to the wall long ago:
“There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.”
😎
Again whether it is charter, choice or voucher or public, no one knows how successful a school is because the styandards determine success are scewed. hey do not consider how many kids made gains in the school, only how many are proficient not giving thought to how students were doing when they entered. Yes, they have a complicated formula that says basically nothing but they haven’t tried this . http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
I got more to say on this, and I’m gonna say it.
Gary Rubenstein did a brilliant critique of Barr’s performance in that god-awful, Oprah-produced high school reality show, commenting that Barr, in his opinion, badly mistreated the community members critical of his school in one scene.
Well, apparently Barr’s contempt and mistreatment is not limited to them.
When you wrote that, you might not have been aware of Steve’s attitude towards career teachers—long-timers, unionized, teaching at traditional public schools… and who, as a reward for a demanding career and all a teacher’s hard work, will have something to look forward to—retirement, decent old age health benefits—once a teacher’s long haul of a career is over.
Well check out this little nugget BELOW. (The Internet rocks!)
If one has any doubt about Steve Barr’s contempt for unionized teachers at traditional public schools, and the work that those teachers do, check what Steve say about them here.
Envisioning a world where public education is extinct, and privatization rules, Barr opines…
(again, CAPS mine)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“Says Barr, in his classic no-nonsense style:
” ‘Where are these SHITTY TEACHERS going to go? Where are these LIFETIME BENEFITS going to go? What will happen to all of these GROUPS PROTECTING THEIR INTERESTS AND JOBS (read: “GROUPS” = “teacher’s unions”… Jack) and their construction contracts?
“The political puzzle of this is really fascinating. But I have no doubt that within five years, you’re going to see our impact. And it’s going to be huge.’ ”
– – – – – – – – – –
This 2006 piece is from the L.A. Weekly, which is ever-worshipful of all things privatization, so this gushing article might be hard to take (or amusing, as I found it):
http://www.laweekly.com/2006-12-07/news/the-secret-of-his-success/2/
That’s the page with the quote. Here’s a link to the first page:
http://www.laweekly.com/2006-12-07/news/the-secret-of-his-success/
Barr says, let’s see how things are “in five years.” Well, it’s been eight since the article (2006), and five since Green Dot took over Locke….
… well for one thing, ex-Green Dot teacher Brett Wyatt, Green Dot’s equivalent of “THE INSIDER”—the tobacco industry’s Jeffrey Weigand, played by Russel Crowe in the movie—has part of that answer here:
and the L.A. Times bathroom article has another part of that answer here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-locke-restrooms-20130513,0,2501944.story
Check out the photo. Does this look like a bathroom at a school with an extra $15,000,000 of private funding?
Again, a 30-second Google search yielded a site where they cost a mere $ 90 each:
http://www.allpartitions.com/panels.html
$ 15,000,000 of private funding—on top of the per-pupil allotment that LAUSD gives charters? Where did all that money go? Based on that photo, not to fix the bathrooms!
As to Barr’s disgust for lifetime health and retirement benefits given to teachers after a long, difficult career, that’s been taken care of to his satisfaction, at least with Green Dot teachers… since how much retirement or post-career health benefits can you collect if your teaching career is 3 years or less? (that time frame based on Wyatt’s list in the link ABOVE).
Wow. Barr is a real class act. He just dazzles you with his “tough talk”. Such leadership.
The hype and promotions are accepted as fact by people who wish to believe in the carefully crafted images called celebrities. Aside from her personal financial investments in charters, what does Oprah really know about public education?
Image versus reality. Super Bowl ads versus the actual product. Billionaire investors in the Education Industrial Complex versus the educational needs of children.
I think Oprah feels like she did when he was “embarrassed” by the writer, James Frey of A Million Little Pieces – she didn’t do her homework and then found out things weren’t as they seemed. Charter Schools are not the saviors that the anti-public education people would like the public to believe. Oprah (and others) would have to admit that the problem with education comes from the lack of family involvement in the schools. Student succeed even in “failure factories” when the family supports their child and is involved with their child’s education.
She tried in good gesture, but when it started to fall apart, she failed the childre. that is IT! her more important Hollywood lifestyle was more important then helping her students learn. From her own Lips, saying education and reading is what had helped save her.. so sad for the children and that community.
John McDonogh High School will be closing at the end of the school year, with renovations scheduled to begin this summer. According to the Recovery School District’s (RSD) estimates, the school will be open and ready for students in the fall of 2016.
For advocates of the school, including 1984 alumnus and parent of two graduates Angelina Elder, the announcement delivered to the school on January 16 by John White was a welcome one, but long overdue.
But for Elder, who for the past four years has spent much of her time contacting every individual and agency imaginable with photographs and documentation of mold, exposed asbestos, rodent droppings and extensive termite and structural damage, the kids should have been out of the building yesterday.
About six months ago, the RSD said that renovations would begin in 2016. Asked what prompted the decision to change the plan by two years, RSD Superintendent Patrick Dobard said that after serious deliberations, the decision was made to accelerate the renovation plans, and give John McDonogh “the fresh start it deserves” and “make good on promises.”
Dobard said that any and all reports of hazardous mold, asbestos and termite damage were untrue, and that the building was habitable for students.
The decision to accelerate the renovations had nothing to do with any changes from a health perspective, Dobard said.
Elder doesn’t buy it. For one, Dobard has seen all of her photographs. “He knows it’s not right,” she said. “He knows he’s going to be in trouble and will lose his job. I’m not going to waste four years of my life on something that’s not true.”
Elder produced an email written Oct. 5, 2013 by Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) District 1 Representative James Garvey, just one of the multitude of people to whom she emailed photographs showing a building in undeniably terrible condition. The email was sent from Garvey to Dobard, and reads: “Patrick, Please take a look at the attached pictures which show significant problems at John Mac. Can you tell me if we have plans to address these problems?”
Elder said she believes the sudden decision to close the school was the result of pressure that came from the federal level. She doesn’t take credit, but she has been very busy over the past few months sending out letters and making phone calls.
On Oct. 18, 2013, Elder wrote the following in a letter to President Barack Obama: “On March 18, 2012 you announced that the Department of Education was awarding John McDonogh High School $35 million in that effort. While I do appreciate your commitment to helping public education, I need your help to ensure that the school is quickly rebuilt.
I am writing this letter to let you know that the progress of rebuilding thus far includes merely patchwork. Over the course of four years, I have reported the deplorable condition of the building to the local health department, city officials, state officials, and in particular Mayor Mitchell Landrieu, State Superintendent John White, Louisiana Department of Education and Governor Bobby Jindal. To no avail the problems still exist.
“Having contacted many agencies, I have evidence of black mold existing in the building, rodent infestation, termite infestation and asbestos poison. I have great concern regarding the safety of our children and the staff who must remain in these conditions. The new charter school provider has restricted students from going outside of the building while the windows are bolted. This means that students are constantly breathing toxins that are floating in the air. Black mold is cancerous. The charter provider has refused to relocate to another location while the building is properly rebuilt.”
Elder’s most damning photos were taken from 2009-2011, when she was granted unprecedented access. Since then she has been banned from entering the building, but students have occupied the building since it re-opened in 2006.
Among Elder’s stacks of documents, there are incident reports from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. For the incident report dated August 26, 2013, the “incident description” reads: “The school was built in 1899 and is in deplorable condition. Caller [Elder] has been in contact with DHH regarding mold issues and is also concerned about the school’s asbestos management. School is occupied by students and they are breathing toxic air between the mold and the asbestos and likely lead[.] Administration is aware of the situation. llm”
On page two, the comments by the inspector state the following:
“On 09/10/2013, I conducted a site visit and found suspect material possibly friable. I informed the facility representative. No management plan found on site at the time of the investigation.” The report then states that on Oct. 25, another site visit was conducted and repairs had been “completed to the suspect material.”
A second DEQ report, also dated for a September 10 visit, described the following: “I conducted a facility site tour and found multiple suspect asbestos containing materials that had the potential of becoming friable. The band area had a practice room, store room and an area near a door way that appeared worn and/or crumbled. There was also an area in the main hallway that was crumbled due to foot traffic. I informed the representatives that the areas will need to be maintained, repaired, or replaced if determined to be asbestos containing.”
Then, on the Oct. 25 follow up visit, the inspector reports: “Patch material was found in the hallway area encapsulating the broken tile area. The band room practice closet was repaired with new plywood placed over the asbestos tiles and new tiles covering the plywood. No additional friable suspect material noted during the site tour.”
Yet Dobard and the RSD continue to maintain that reports of exposed asbestos (which can cause multiple types of lung cancer) are untrue.
Asked about the $35 million in federal dollars earmarked for the historic school’s renovation, Dobard said it’s not as simple as that exact amount sitting in a bank account (and accruing massive interest). He said they will determine the scope of renovations and go through the customary bid process, and that all money that is required to do the job will be made available and may come from “different revenue sources.”
In her letter to Obama, Elder wrote, “While it is my understanding that the funds have been released to the state for this purpose, it has not properly been used. The students have been made to remain at this hazardous site while the money is gaining interest and possibly being used for other projects.
It is my hope that you will research what monies have been released from the federal government and how these monies have been spent. Please do not merely accept some written report from the state, but have someone under your authority conduct an audit or site visit with this particular matter.”
For others who are fighting to preserve John Mac as a community school and ensure a high quality education for the students, like Clarence Robinson, chairman of the John McDonogh Advisory Committee, there are still more questions than answers. Robinson, a 1977 alumnus, also serves on the executive board of the FINS.
Robinson said that he was blindsided by the news of the June closure, and that the RSD has not been very forthcoming in providing information about what is happening.
He agrees that the condition of the building is “deplorable” and that “the kids should have never been put in that situation.”
The fate of Future is Now New Orleans (FINS), the current charter operator of John Mac, remains unclear. Dobard said their charter was not being revoked, but that it was unlikely to be renewed. RSD policy states that charter operators have three years before their contract is up for renewal – or revocation. FINS has been at John Mac for less than two years.
Dobard cited FINS’ abysmal 2012-2013 School Performance Score, a 9.3 out of 150, as a serious concern.
The current John Mac students will be prioritized for placement in a list of “participating Recovery School District high schools” for the 2014-2015 school year, according to the RSD. The RSD also says that “Faculty and staff will receive support from FIN and NSNO (New Schools for New Orleans).”
While Robinson does not deny that FINS has made their share of blunders – most egregiously the misrepresentation and exploitation of their students and the community on the reality television series “Blackboard Wars” – he feels that the bulk of the blame for the “utter mismanagement” of John Mac lies at the feet of the RSD.
For one, the RSD selected FINS as the operator in what many considered a backroom deal that sabotaged the wishes and plans of the alumni and community.
“We didn’t pick them, the RSD did,” Robinson said. “Why should the RSD get another chance to fail the students and the community?”
There’s a lot more going on, Robinson said, and he aims to find out. “I’m frustrated with the whole process. I don’t know who to believe.”
Elder said she “hopes and prays” that FINS never returns to the city, and is pleased that renovations will begin sooner than later, but “My thing is they need to get the kids out of the building now.”
Elder said she’s had her suspicions confirmed that some of the mold is potentially cancerous. The windows are bolted shut, many boarded up, and the children not allowed outside, she said. Based on that, and the asbestos, Elder predicts an onslaught of lawsuits from parents. “It’s coming out,” she said.
Robinson says his big concern is that, come 2016, there will be a “shiny new building,” and once again, the community won’t have any say in what happens inside the building. “We are losing the heritage I grew up with,” he said.
Robinson said that he feels that John Mac has been persistently under-resourced while being tasked with serving a disproportionately high percentage of students with special needs, and has never been given the opportunity to succeed. He said all he wants is honesty from the officials.
“The fight is not nearly over,” Robinson said. “I can promise you that.”
This article originally published in the January 27, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
For the past four years Angelina Elder has been furiously waging a battle for her alma mater, John McDonogh High School, from within the lime green kitchen walls in her 7th Ward home.
There has been progress, but most of the time Elder (class of ’84) feels frustrated at the lack of concern and urgency to get students out of a building she said she has the evidence to prove is unsafe and hazardous to the health of the children.
She started taking photographs in 2009. “I cried I was so heartbroken,” Elder said, of what she saw inside the school. “It should have been up to par when the children got in there.”
Elder’s daughter graduated in the spring, and her son in 2002, but Elder says she will continue to fight, armed with a kitchen table covered in copied documents, inspection reports, and printed-out emails, for the kids still there.
At the computer in her den, Elder while she sorts through no less than 1,000 photos of the building located at 2426 Esplanade Avenue.
From 2008-2012, John McDonogh was run directly by the Recovery School District (RSD). Beginning in the 2012-2013 school year, it was taken over by the California-based Future is Now Schools (FINS) charter management organization but still is under the auspices of the RSD.
The RSD has close to $35 million in federal dollars earmarked for John McDonogh, but renovations are not planned until 2016.
The countless rows of images on Elder’s computer show exposed asbestos in the band room, extensive termite damage, vents covered in thick layers of dust, peeling paint (including paint in the culinary arts room she said a maintenance worker confirmed as lead), rotting wood, insulation hanging down, black mold, mushrooms growing out of the floor and feathery white mold on the ceiling of the boy’s locker room.
“They know it’s bad – And I’m going to fight with everything I’ve got,” Elder said.
One image shows a chest freezer, with dark mold growing in a patch on top, which she said sat in the school’s rusty green gymnasium through Hurricane Katrina and was untouched until it was removed in 2011.
She said she’s seen rat droppings in the cafeteria, and wiring so bad in the gym that the electrical fixtures spark when the kids plug in the fans.
One of Elder’s most disturbing photos was taken in September of 2010 and shows thick black mold covering the hidden side of a piece of ceiling cut out of the basement, which is used by the 9th-graders.
On the outside of the building, the red brick walls are stained with dripping rust and graffiti. Plants grow through cracks in the bricks, and most of the windows are missing, broken and sealed in plastic or plywood.
Elder is concerned about lack of fresh air, as the windows have been boarded up and sealed over and cannot be opened. One of the biggest complaints she hears from students is that they are not allowed outside during the entire school day, other than to change classes.
“It’s in bad condition – it really is,” said Clarence Robinson, class of 1977 and chairman of the John McDonogh Advisory Committee. Robinson also serves on the executive board of the Future is Now: New Orleans.
When FINS and its founder and director, Steve Barr, were given the school in early 2012, “Coach” Frank Buckley (class of ’82) said that he was a part of a group of alumni and community leaders trying to charter it themselves after there was talk of shutting it down. Buckley said they were “blind-sided” by one of their own in a backroom deal.
“We should be doing a lot better for the school than we are doing,” Robinson said. Last Wednesday, he said the air conditioning on the third floor wasn’t working.
Robinson, who walks with a cane, said he barely makes it up the front stairs to go to meetings. While there is an elevator, it doesn’t work, creating a hazard and leaving the school inaccessible to students with disabilities.
The most infuriating part for alums Elder, Robinson, and Buckley is that the money designated specifically for the well-being of the John McDonogh community, — $34.2 million of it—is sitting in the bank while the kids continue spend their days locked inside the disintegrating and potentially poisonous building.
According to Executive Director of Communications for the Recovery School District Zoey Reed: “Renovation work on the John McDonogh building is planned to start in 2016 and $34.2 million dollars are budgeted at this time. However, these are only estimates. Actual dates and figures will depend on the current costs of construction when the project begins.”
Reed denied multiple requests for a phone interview.
Asked why wait until 2016, Reed wrote: “Anytime schools are up for renovations, students have to move so the work can be done. A temporary location for the students will not be available until 2016. The reason is that there is nearly 30 projects scheduled for start or completion by 2016, so swing space becomes available as other school projects are completed on the list.”
But Elder said she was told by RSD Superintendent Patrick Dobard’s assistant that FINS was given an offer to move the kids into trailers on the nearby Bell School campus, but that the school declined. When Elder asked Principal Marvin Thompson at the August board meeting why he didn’t accept the offer, she said he put his head down and didn’t answer.
Until she was all but banned from the building in the spring of 2013, Elder continued her regular inspections, and said the only evidence she saw of addressing the problems was by covering the trouble spots with layers and layers of paint, plywood, and cheap plastic flooring.
“When I step in the building they get scared,” she said.
She has stacks of inspection reports from the Department of Health and Hospitals Office of Public Health (from 2010-2013) that list observations including mold, rodent droppings and ants, holes in the walls, low water pressure, exposed electrical wires and leaking ceilings. Over and over the reports state observations of ceilings, walls, and floor in “disrepair.”
The health of the children has not been a priority for the RSD, said education activist Ashana Bigard – just like the lack of adequate mental health care available for children who suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following Hurricane Katrina, she noted.
McDonogh gained national attention in the spring when it was featured in the documentary “Blackboard Wars,” which aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
In an open letter to Barr, Winfrey, and Mayor Mitch Landrieu in March, Robinson’s advisory committee called the show “a source of negative, exploitative depictions of the students and the school.”
At a January board meeting, Barr said that the school will receive a per-episode sum of money, but he could not confirm the amount. He said the money would go directly to students’ needs and programs that they cannot currently afford.
Robinson said he has never seen any of that money or reports of the school receiving that money.
Barr was not in attendance at Tuesday’s board meeting and did not respond to two requests for interview for this story.
While Robinson said he hears that Winfrey herself is generous, “If you are trying to exploit the kids for ratings, why not do anything for the children?”
With all of her documentation, Elder has reached out to FINS, the RSD, the Orleans Parish School Board, the City Council, the governor’s office, her local representatives, BESE, the DHH, the EPA, and the CDC, among others. Next she’s going to try the preservationists.
“I will keep pressure on them,” she said. “I will keeping calling more people.”
Elder has long been requesting a meeting or even phone conversation with RSD Superintendent Dobard. She said she recently called the central office every day for two weeks, but has yet to hear back from him.
“They leave me no other choice than to expose them,” she said. “It’s hurting me to my heart to see children breathing and going into these kinds of conditions.”
When it comes to facilities maintenance in the convoluted New Orleans education landscape, there is often a circular finger pointing between the OPSB, the RSD, and the charter operators.
“They bounce the responsibility back and forth and nothing ever happens,” Bigard said. “The truth is they are all responsible – they are all to blame.”
And they already have the money – a lot of it– to be used only for John Mac.
Asked what has been done and is being done over the past three years in terms of mold, pest control, asbestos, lead paint, and termite infestation, Reed wrote: “RSD is not aware of any lead paint concerns; the charter management organization is responsible for having an asbestos and lead paint management plan. During the renovation, if lead paint is found, it will be abated according to the Louisiana DEQ guidelines. Charter operator is responsible per their lease to maintain termite and pest control services.”
Reed did not address the mold.
Bigard said that while holding their students to a “no excuses” disciplinary model and always telling them to take responsibility for their actions, the adults charged with their safety “do the exact things they tell the children not to do.”
“Everyone ought to be holding the RSD accountable,” Robinson said.
As the historic structure crumbles on the outside and rots from the inside, one thing the school does have going for it is a devoted and determined community and group of alumni.
Elder is most certainly not giving up. “If y’all won’t move out I’m going to run you out,” she said.
This article originally published in the August 26, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
The school, which has struggled academically, is slated to close in June for more than $30 million in renovations.
But at least one woman says the students should have been placed elsewhere years ago.
Angelina Elder went to John McDonogh High school on Esplanade Avenue. So did her daughter. Her passion to preserve the past and protect the future is undeniable.
“If you stand back, you can see how beautiful the architecture is,” said Elder. “Throughout the years it’s just been constant patch work, patch work, and I’m like, ‘How can children learn in these kind of conditions?’”
Elder said in 2009 she started snapping pictures of what she believed to be mold inside the building and sent them to a number of agencies including the Department of Environmental Quality and the Recovery School District which oversees the facility.
“I had sent the state the pictures, because (Recovery School District Chief) Patrick Dobard is still in denial about the condition of the building,” said Elder.
An RSD rep says state investigators who visited the site last fall made no mention of mold in their report. Even so authorities moved up plans to renovate the entire facility two years, closing the school this summer.
“We are making good on our promise to provide a state of the art facility for our students. At the same time we must make academic progress at a faster clip than we are today. Speeding up this renovation will help speed up the day when students can benefit from a world-class education at the facility,” said Dobard.
“I do know that in schools, the Environmental Protection Agency has identified that mold and other air pollutants is a problem and that can cause absenteeism,” said Dr. Faye Grimsley.
Grimsley, an environmental health scientist with Tulane University, has been conducting asthma studies on children in this area post-Katrina.
“We went into homes and collected mold samples, collected dust samples for allergens, dust mites, cockroach antigens and had the chance to do clinical evaluations on the children as well,” said Grimsley.
She has never tested for any of these inside John McDonogh, but after looking at Elder’s pictures she was concerned, because moisture problems in buildings can lead to health issues.
“They have seen some evidence that moisture damage, water damage, that people seem to be more susceptible to asthma in those types of settings. But not specifically for the mold. It (moisture) can exacerbate if a person does have asthma. They need to take necessary precautions against exposure,” said Grimsley.
RSD says several hundred students will be removed this June, but Elder says another day in the school is too risky.
“The school is their second home. The children should be able to learn in a decent environment,” said Elder.
The renovation of John McDonogh is part of the unprecedented $1.8 billion school construction plan for Orleans Parish schools post-Katrina. It’s not known whether current charter operator ‘Future is Now’ will continue to run the school when it reopens in the 2016-17 school year.
Schools, scandals, and Oprah just seem to go together. New Orleans. South Africa. Where will she land next?