Think New Orleans

Schools and Facilities Master Plan for Orleans Parish

As I set out to come up to speed on the facilities master plan, I find myself unable to wrap my head around the issues. The place to start is, why are we demolishing 50% of the schools in New Orleans? Are we planning on a city that is 50% the size of New Orleans before the flood?

This is the latest round in a fight between people who want to shrink the city and exclude those that cannot afford to return, and those that want to return. As always, it’s a pity that the latter are not around to defend themselves.

I attended one of the meetings of the Schools and Facilities Master Plan for Orleans Parish, at Martin Luther King Jr School in the Lower 9th Ward. I appreciated the irony of attending a facilities planning meeting in a school that was open only because the residents forced entry and remediated the contemporary 1995 structure against the will of the school board.

There we saw some lovely slides with the decisions of engineers. People had sheets of paper. They were given the engineers suggestions and asked to choose from one of two or three choices, choices that were very similar.

Basically, some buildings were going to be demolished, some were not. When the building is demolished, the likelihood that the school will reopen dwindles. People where being asked to sign the death sentence for their school.

This is my bias. I’m approaching this from the crushing disappointment of the UNOP which at no point called for the demolition of the big four public housing projects. We’re getting a mini-AmericaSpeaks where we’re being shown a slide show and asked to markup a form. At the end, the forms will be used as evidence that we agreed to the new barren landscape of our school system.

I’m happy to be proven wrong. I’m happier still to help people get their hands on the contracts for the contractors of this process, the engineering reports from which the PowerPoint is drawn, and the enrollment data on which the closings are based. I’m happy to repeat the stories that others tell in their blogs here at Think New Orleans, and welcome guest bloggers who can help me understand what is taking place with the schools.

This is an initial collective journalism project. As always leave your comments in the Recovery School District forum.

3 Comments | 1 Trackback

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1. Alan Gutierrez Says:
   

   Comments are closed because I want you to please post your comments in the Recovery School District forum.

   Comment by Alan Gutierrez on May 24th, 2008 at 6:57 am #
2. Raymond Smalley Says:
   

   Dear Alan,

   I am contacting you on behalf of John Fleming for Congress. I am writing because this campaign respects your impressive website which showcases your immense talent.

   Blogs are underutilized in politics. This campaign is interested in developing a strong relationship with blogs across Louisiana and the nation, yours included. Please contact upon receiving this e-mail, as I would like future communication.

   Sincerely,
   Raymond Smalley
   Martin-Stewart
   (740)-269-4035
   (330)-204-5331

   Comment by Raymond Smalley on June 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 pm #
3. Think New Orleans » What’s Good Enough for Baghdad is Good Enough for New Orleans Says:
   

   [...] Schools and Facilities Master Plan for Orleans Parish  2 Raymond Smalley, Alan Gutierrez [...]

   Comment by Think New Orleans » What’s Good Enough for Baghdad is Good Enough for New Orleans on June 3rd, 2008 at 2:44 pm #