"the unique academic experience that students have come to expect"

Is that the unique experience of moving campuses multiple times in four years...only to get kicked out of your school at Christmas for a project without financing or a business plan...and then get moved to modular units far away?

The long, sad saga of Priestley Charter School continues beyond it's time at McDonogh No. 11 School in the LSU Footprint:

The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) announced on July 21, 2011, that Priestley Charter School of Architecture and Construction will be re-named Architecture Design Engineering Preparatory High School (ADEP High).


In late 2010, the Priestley Board of Directors voted to relinquish its charter to OPSB, citing ongoing concerns over finances and enrollment. ADEP High, located at 4300 Almonaster Ave., is now being run as a traditional school under the OPSB, with open enrollment for the 2011-2012 school year.

Almost

"The school also has to move this month, since its Palmyra Street campus is in the footprint for the new Veterans Affairs hospital."

Priestley Charter School will have to move, but the current campus is in the footprint of the proposed UMC hospital, not the VA hospital.

Another Possible Twist in the Priestley Charter School Saga

There's now another interesting aspect to the long, tortured saga of Priestley Charter School, the school that currently occupies the historic McDonough No. 11 School in the LSU Footprint.

The students are set, unfortunately, to be forced out of the building over the holiday break and sent to an inferior location way out on Almonaster Avenue.

Recently, though, I heard about a proposal for a long-term replacement home for Priestley Charter via Jeff Schwartz with Broad Community Connections.  Schwartz worked with an MIT team that came up with a winning plan for creating a home for the wandering school in the old Israel M. Augustine School building that currently sits vacant on Broad Street near Tulane Avenue:

An innovative fabrication center


The idea of linking was a signature theme in the second group's proposal for a vocational school and fabrication facility in the Broad Street area of New Orleans. A team of DUSP and architecture graduate students worked with the non-profit Broad Community Connections to develop a proposal to rehabilitate an abandoned school building into a construction and design center. The redeveloped space would provide a home for the Priestley School of Architecture and Construction, a charter school that serves at-risk students. A permanent home for the Priestley School — on its fourth location in four years — will allow the school to focus on providing a quality education. In addition, the building will feature a Fabrication Laboratory, or Fab Lab, as a complementary use on site. Fab Labs are workshops for high-tech digital fabrication that aim to bring innovation and entrepreneurship to the local community. The final piece of the team's proposal calls for sustained relationships with the MIT community to add additional capacity to both the development project and the operations of the school.


“Several community members approached our team at the finals (even some that had come to support other proposals!) to tell us how important the renovation of the Augustine school would be to the local community,” said Caroline Todd Edwards, a graduate student in urban studies and planning who was part of the team.

Forced Out

Students at Priestly Charter School will have to switch locations - from their classic 1879 school building in the LSU Footprint - in the middle of the school year:

The Orleans Parish School Board told Priestley school officials earlier this week that the school will move into a group of modular buildings at 4300 Almonaster Ave. over the Christmas holidays. Though the time limit may be extended, Priestley may use these modulars for up to three years, Priestley board President Dennis McSeveney said.

It warms the heart.

“My hope is that we can stay in this facility for at least three years while we continue our quest for a permanent site, preferably in a more historic, architecturally significant area of the city that can serve as a ‘laboratory’ for our students,” McSeveney said.

The Sad Tale of Priestly Charter School

The fact that its present home in the LSU Footprint - the beautiful McDonough 11 School built in 1879 - will be demolished by LSU is only one aspect:

They’re not sure if space will be a problem come January or not – because neither they nor the faculty know where the school will be housed in less than three months. The current site is within the footprint of the new Louisiana State University hospital that will replace Charity Hospital, and they school is being forced to move.

The other is this:

By January, Priestly School of Architecture and Construction seniors Tamara Handy and Jason Lang will have attended classes at three campuses in four years, moving with the peripatetic New Orleans charter high school.

HT/Michelle K