In February 2024, the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) directed the superintendent to open a District-operated elementary school, The Leah Chase School, starting with grades K-5. Now in its second year, the school serves around 340 students in grades K-6. Prior to this Board action, all schools in the District (NOLA-PS) were charter schools.

So…how’s it going? Not so good.

Finances: Operating at a Loss

The District projects an operating deficit of more than $500,000 for Leah Chase, equating to a loss of over $1,400 per student.

To put this in perspective: if every charter school operated at a $1,400 per student deficit, the city’s public schools would overspend by more than $50 million annually.

What’s more, even the $500,000 deficit is understated. The District does not charge the school for the central office support it provides (e.g., accounting and finance, legal, the superintendent’s time, human resources, etc.).

Exacerbating the District’s Overcapacity Problem

The Board has known for years that the District needs to close some elementary schools due to a declining birth rate and under-enrollment. It even adopted a policy to encourage existing schools to consolidate or turn in their charter.

When the District closed Lafayette Academy, it had the opportunity to lessen the problem of over-capacity and lessen the financial burden it has created for schools. It failed in its responsibility to do so.

The notion that there was pent-up demand for District-operated schools was misguided. Despite an aggressive six-figure marketing campaign, The Leah Chase School fell short of its 2024-25 enrollment target, with only 284 students enrolled. For the most part, parents do not care who operates the school; they just want a good one for their child.

Huge Consumption of Administration and Board Time for 1% of the District’s Population

Operating The Leah Chase School distracts from the District’s ability to be an effective authorizer, supporting schools and the other 99% of students in the District.

For example: In spring and summer of 2024, it was all hands on deck to open the school – including the Finance Department. During this time, the District failed to accurately project revenues, and its 2024 annual audit was eight months late.

Academic Performance: Mediocre

Out of NOLA-PS’s 44 elementary schools, The Leah Chase School ranked 30th in the percentage of students scoring Basic or above and ranked 33rd in the percentage scoring Mastery or above in English and Math.

When School Performance Scores are released in November, The Leah Chase School will likely receive a D rating, placing it around the bottom third of K-8 schools

Predictable and Preventable Problems

Former Louisiana superintendent John White and former NOLA-PS superintendent Henderson Lewis both pushed to convert all schools under their control to charters. Their reasoning was sound:

•  It is inefficient and costly for the District to operate only a small number of schools.
•  Charters had demonstrated they could do as good of a job or better than the District.
•  District operation of schools consumed way too much of the superintendent’s and key executives’ time and focus, diverting attention from more important functions.
•  District operation of schools created inherent conflict and distrust, with charters believing—rightly or wrongly—that the District would favor its directly operated schools over the charter schools.
  • To see this conflict in action, go to NOLA-PS’s website. The Leah Chase School is the only school on the About page; go to the “Schools” tab, and when you click on it, the Leah Chase School is the only school on the dropdown menu.

Strategic Rationales for Direct Operation

While NOLA-PS may need to directly operate a school, the decision to do so should be based on a compelling rationale, such as:

• Addressing an unmet need (e.g., serving a specific student population, offering a unique program, or filling a gap in a particular geographic area).
• Managing a failing school when a qualified charter operator is not available, and the school is needed to meet student enrollment demands.

The District’s Options for Next Steps

1. Continue to operate the school, but on a “level playing field,” playing by the same rules as every other school: no deficit spending; charge the school for central office services as you would any other school; no special positioning on the website or other marketing preferences; and operate in a manner that consumes less of the administration’s time and energy.

2. Relocate a school currently in a substandard facility to the Leah Chase building: NOLA-PS ranks its buildings by capital repair needs: Tier 1 facilities are in excellent condition and require the least investment, while Tier 4 facilities have many more needs. In practical terms, this means that students in Tier 3–4 schools are in older, more deteriorated facilities with significantly greater deferred maintenance.

The Leah Chase facility can house 700+ students and is a fully renovated Tier 1 facility. It is one of the few renovated school buildings along the “River Sliver.”

Operating The Leah Chase School in a Tier 1 building at under 50% occupancy, while other fully enrolled schools are in Tier 3 and Tier 4 buildings, is simply poor facility management.

There are a number of schools located in reasonable proximity that have low-quality facilities that could benefit from the Leah Chase facility. Audubon Middle School (Tier 4), ReNEW Laurel Elementary (Tier 3), Green Elementary School (Tier 3), Benjamin Franklin Middle School (Tier 4), Willow elementary (Tier 3), and Willow middle (Tier 3) are all potential candidates.

3. Expand High-Demand Schools: Explore whether high-demand schools like Hynes, Willow, Lake Forest, or Audubon would be interested in expanding into The Leah Chase School building, particularly if data indicates they would attract new students and families to the District.

Conclusion

The District should not be spending $500,000 of its fund balance to operate a D school serving less than 1% of students, when there are higher-performing schools with available seats.

The District should not be operating a school in a Tier 1 facility at less than 50% occupancy when there are many schools in Tier 3 and Tier 4 facilities that could make better use of the space.

It is time for OPSB to remedy this situation.

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 Additional Sources

NOLA Public Schools. (2024, June 6). Facility utilization by geographic area: NOLA-PS five- year portfolio plan technical report (pp. 53-56).

Facility quality tiers can be found for individual schools on the NOLA-PS Data Dashboard at data.nolapublicschools.com; select a school and navigate to the “Quantity” tab and scroll down to “Facility Information.”

For decades, tens of millions of dollars that were approved by voters for classrooms, teachers, and students have been diverted and pocketed by the City of New Orleans.

The City’s actions are unconstitutional and must end!

Since a 1941 ruling, the Louisiana Supreme Court has made it clear – repeatedly – that the City of New Orleans has no right to take a cut from the school district’s tax collections. Yet the City has done just that – diverting tens of millions of dollars approved by voters for classrooms, teachers, and students and instead pocketing the money.

The City began this practice after it lost its appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court over pension expenses. The Morial administration quietly began taking a fraction of a percentage of OPSB’s taxes to help the City cover these pension costs. Over the years and across multiple administrations, the diversion of funds increased and now stands at 2% of property taxes and 1.6% of sales and use taxes, totaling over $8 million in 2025.

The City is NOT entitled to take any of these tax revenues:

Argument #1: The Louisiana Constitution specifies that the City must collect taxes on behalf of the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and does not give the City authority to withhold or divert tax revenue to offset its tax collection costs.**

In Orleans Parish School Board v. City of New Orleans, 3 So. 2d 745 (La. 1941), the Louisiana Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a city ordinance that authorized a one-percent deduction on all real and personal property taxes for the cost of collections. The court ruled that the City had a mandatory duty to remit the entire tax amount to the School Board and that any lesser amount would be in violation of the constitutional provision.

This principle was reiterated in the 1963 case Orleans Parish Sch. Bd. v. City of New Orleans, 156 So. 2d 718 (La. Ct. App. 4th Cir. 1963) – and the following excerpt from that case was also quoted in the 2020 case, Orleans Par. Sch. Bd. v. City of New Orleans et al, No. 2020-CA-0043, 2020 La. App. (4th Cir. June 3, 2020):

“It is the opinion of the Court that the intent of the Constitution is that the School Board should receive one hundred percent (100%) of all taxes levied by it, without any right or authority from the City to lower the avails of such taxes.”

 

Argument #2: Voters did not authorize the City to divert any of the school board’s tax revenues for collection purposes.

In 2007 in City of New Orleans v. Louisiana Assessors’ Retirement & Relief Fund, 986 So. 2d 1 (La. 2007) the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that:

“…when citizens are presented with a proposition that would impose a special tax for a specific purpose, and they approve the imposition of that tax, a covenant is created which must be respected and upheld. Once citizens vote for a tax dedicated to one purpose, the tax cannot be used for a purpose other than that approved by the citizens.”

Argument #3: There was no side agreement between the School Board and the City granting the City any authority to withhold these funds. I was on the School Board in 1994; the Board did not enter into an agreement with the City, and the City has been unable to produce an executed agreement.

Argument #4: The rationale of the drafters of the state constitution and stated in some of the previous court cases is that the City incurs minimal additional costs in collecting OPSB’s taxes as it is already expending the effort to collect its own taxes.

Attempts To Get The City To Stop!

In 2019, OPSB sued the City to stop illegally diverting tax revenues.

OPSB won this case in 2020 at the appellate court (cited above). However, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the ruling on procedural grounds and remanded the case to the trial court where it has languished. As of fall 2024, and with $40M+ more school board revenue lost to the city, Judge Sheppard still had not set a trial date.   

In November of 2024, the New Orleans City Council, the City of New Orleans and the Orleans Parish School Board negotiated a settlement:

• The City would stop charging the School Board for tax collection.
• It would repay $20 million in cash, one $10M installment due 12/31/24 and one due 4/1/25.
• It would fund additional support for the next ten years: $3M for Thrive Kids or a similar program; $1M for career technical education; and $3M/year to OPSB from the Casino lease.

Months later, the mayor refused to honor it, prompting City Council to step in.

Councilman-at-Large JP Morrell sponsored an ordinance effective in April 2025 that prohibited the City from charging the schools any fees for tax collections through December 2026.

• Despite the ordinance, the administration continued to charge the fees. 
• In late August, the KIPP, Firstline, Collegiate, and ReNEW boards filed suit and achieved a significant victory in court, securing a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and a consent judgement against the City. This order mandates that the City comply with the city ordinance and cease taking any portion of the OPSB’s taxes, both property and sales taxes, until the ordinance expires on December 31, 2026.

This is a win for all of NOLA Public Schools and its students. However, this is merely a temporary victory; we need a permanent solution.

 

Remaining Litigation

When the mayor refused to honor the settlement, the OPSB and the Council sued for enforcement. The court ruled that the City must honor the $10 million allocation the council included in its 2025 budget but disregarded the rest of the agreement. While OPSB and the Council are ready to appeal this decision, the mayor has requested a rehearing and filed another motion preventing the appeal from moving forward until Judge Sheppard rules on the pending motions. So, the suit over the enforceability of the settlement also remains in Judge Sheppard’s court. 

What’s Next?

The new mayor should do what is right for children and schools by complying with the constitution and honoring the settlement agreement.

If not, OPSB and its legal team must zealously pursue with a heightened sense of urgency the original lawsuit and push Judge Sheppard to rule on the case. Once there is a ruling, the case will be appealed by whichever side loses. The Louisiana Supreme Court will ultimately have to rule on the issue.

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**The constitutional language prohibiting the City from diverting has been consistent (and crystal clear) for more than 100 years.

Although Louisiana adopted a new constitution in 1974, the language regarding OPSB’s right to levy taxes and the City’s obligation to remit these taxes to the School Board remains (to this day) substantively unchanged:

“The Orleans Parish School Board * * shall levy annually * * * a tax, * * * which shall cause said tax to be entered on the tax rolls of said City, and collected in the manner and under the conditions and with the interest and penalties prescribed by law for City taxes.

ORIGINAL – 1921 Louisiana Constitution (La. Const. art. XII, § 16 (1921)), as quoted in the Supreme Court case Orleans Parish School Board v. City of New Orleans, 238 La. 748, 116 So. 2d 509 (La. Dec. 14, 1959)

CURRENT – 1974 Louisiana Constitution (La. Const. art. VIII, § 13(C) (1974))

“The Orleans Parish School Board shall levy annually a tax not to exceed thirteen mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation of property within the city of New Orleans assessed for city taxation, and shall certify the amount of the tax to the governing authority of the city. The governing authority shall have the tax entered on city tax rolls. The tax shall be collected in the manner, under the conditions, and with the interest and penalties prescribed by law for city taxes.

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Dear Friends and Readers,

When I stepped away seven years ago, it felt like the right time. Schools were returning to OPSB, progress was visible, and the central role Educate Now! had played as a clearinghouse for data and analysis seemed less urgent.

But here we are, twenty years after Katrina with New Orleans’ education story still unfolding, and I find there are new issues that need distilling and new information that needs to be disseminated.

So, welcome to Educate Now! 2.0.

Educate Now!
Leslie Jacobs
Founder