FEATURES
Puttin a Twist on Tradition
by Jessica Dore
Freedom's Sister
by Anitra D. Brown
Acting Out
by Fallon Jai
The Roosevelt Reopens
by Anita Oubre
The Rebirth of Morris Jeff Community School
by Abram Himelstein
Columns & Departments
The Rebirth of Morris Jeff Community School
The grassroots effort to re-create Morris Jeff Community School is community-driven through-and-through. It could break the mold on what school reform can mean in post-Katrina New Orleans
After Jenny Bagert and her husband finished renovating their home in the Bayou St. John neighborhood, the abandoned public school just behind their back fence began to call to her.
Morris F. X. Jeff, Sr. Elementary school, three stories tall and a hundred years old, had educated neighborhood students before Hurricane Katrina, and had sheltered families during the storm. But post-storm, the only activity at the school was the steady stream of copper thieves looking for easy money.
As the months turned into years, Bagert began to feel drawn to the school.
“We looked at the school over our back fence every day. I began to ask myself where the students from our neighborhood were supposed to go to school.” said Bagert.
When she investigated, she found the State and Recovery School District in the middle of planning for the future school needs of New Orleans neighborhoods.The Group Forms
In the Fall of 2007, the Recovery School District (RSD) convened a meeting as part of its School Facilities Master Plan about the future of school buildings. A group of neighbors came together at the meeting, including Bagert.
“I remember one of the people there, Anne Daniell, who was very committed,” said Bagert. “She ended the meeting by asking, ‘So what are we going to do about this?’”
Another neighbor, Davina Allen, a chemistry teacher at McDonogh #35, was glad to see other people from the neighborhood ready to work to renovate the school.
“After the storm, the building was unsecured,” said Allen. “I went in trespassing, and I fell in love with the building.”
At that initial meeting, supporters of Morris Jeff School realized that if they were to succeed in convincing the RSD and the State to bring a school back to their community, they needed to work together.
Leaving the meeting, the group made a decision to hold a community-wide assembly about the future of the school. They made posters and flyers, and set out inviting neighbors to come to a meeting at the house Bagert shares with her husband, David Sobel.
“That first meeting was where things really started to take off,” said Bagert. “It was unanimous: Everyone wanted to see the building become a school again. But we had to make sure the neighborhood was as interested as we were.”
As a way of bringing more of the community into the conversation, the group of about 30 people set out to survey the neighborhood door-to-door.
“We talked to 300 households in two weekends, and we found that 98 percent of the neighborhood wanted a school. It really helped inspire us to take action.”
When the RSD scheduled their final public hearing before the School Facilities Master Plan would be developed, the Morris Jeff group made t-shirts and showed up en masse.
“There were at least 50 of us who went,” said Bagert. “We organized our message and expressed how serious we were about having a first-rate school in our community.”
Once the desire for the school was established, the group began to hold conversations about the kind of school they wanted, and how to structure the organization that had grown up so organically.
The group that emerged was as varied as their Fifth Ward neighborhood itself: educators, preachers, teachers, Black and White, old and young. The membership cut across all the lines that ordinarily divide New Orleans. The group was determined to build a school that would continue to reflect that diversity.
“That’s one thing we’ve talked about a lot. Whatever happened to the goal of integrated public schools?” said Bagert. “That was a rallying cry for the best generation of civil rights organizing in our history. But in many ways, our city is not any further along on that front than we were in 1960. Part of the Morris Jeff movement is about reclaiming that vision.”
It was also a vision of the school’s namesake, Morris F. X. Jeff, Sr. a civil rights champion and civic leader in New Orleans. As the long-time head of the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD), Jeff fought against segregation and pioneered educational programs for young people.
Another core value of the effort is open access.
“We are committed to excellence, and we are committed to open-access. Period,” said Bagert.
Over the next 12 months, the group incorporated as a non-profit organization, formed a board and steering committee and renewed a partnership with the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club. The relationship with Zulu went back many years, through Clarence Becknell, a former Morris Jeff principal, Zulu’s Historian and also a member of the newly-formed effort. Morris F. X. Jeff, Sr himself had been the King of Zulu in 1974, and the organization had been a staunch supporter of the original Morris Jeff School. Zulu stood ready to continue its support of the community.
“With all that organizing and community support, we started to develop very high expectations for the School Facilities Master Plan,” said Bagert.A Setback Becomes An Opportunity
When the original Plan was released, it put off the rebuilding of Morris Jeff until 2012 at the earliest, a delay that was unacceptable to the group.
The group began to work again, gathering still more data to demonstrate the need for a neighborhood school, and continuing to dialogue with both the RSD and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). Power point in hand, the group traveled to Baton Rouge, and made the case for the reopening of Morris Jeff School.
Paul Vallas, the Superintendent of the RSD, saw merit in the group’s data, and began to support the opening of Morris Jeff School. The catch however, was that the RSD had committed to opening schools on a larger acreage than the old school site made possible.
And so an agreement was reached: a new Morris Jeff Community School would open on a temporary location in the Fall of 2010, with control of school leadership and curriculum decisions staying with the community. A new, $19 million building for the school would be built at a site within the community by 2012.
With the RSD’s promise in hand, the group began to work toward hiring a school leader. During the seven-month search process, more than 50 candidates applied, with applications coming from across the country. Four finalists were chosen, and the group spent a day with each candidate.
“We wanted everyone involved to meet the candidates,” said Davina Allen. “We created five ways to evaluate candidates: as a leader of teachers, a leader of students, a leader of curriculum, a leader of parents and the community, and a leader in the finances and business side of the school.”
The group found their match in Patricia Perkins, an educator for more than 30 years, with the last 15 years spent in leadership at Lusher Charter School.
Perkins will spend the year recruiting faculty and students, and collaborating with the Morris Jeff Board and Steering Committee to launch an open-access community school.
“My goal is to see a community of students, parents and neighbors,” said Perkins. “The students will be challenged, held to high expectations. They will see learning as a joy as well as a challenge in their student life.”
Though Morris Jeff Community School will not open until August of 2010, Perkins knows the year will be full of challenges in preparation for the first year. She expects the school to open for Pre-K through second grade, with a first year enrollment of about 150 students.
“A year is going to be a very short time,” said Perkins. “There is a lot to do, but it is very exciting.”A Coming Out Party at Zulu
With a school leader and opening date in hand, the Morris Jeff community has turned its attention to raising funds. On Aug. 19 at 6:30 p.m., Morris Jeff Community School will hold a gala at Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Kermit Ruffins has agreed to play. Tickets are $50, and include food and drink.
“The Zulu bash is a fundraiser, and it is also our coming out party,” said Allen. “It’s our way of letting the community know that we are real, with a new principal and an opening date of Fall 2010.”
As word about the project has spread throughout the neighborhood and the city, excitement has built among the many parents planning to send their children to Morris Jeff Community School.
Among those parents is Bagert. A year-and-a-half after attending her first meeting about the school, Bagert is now nine months pregnant and due in August.
“I can’t think of a better opportunity for my child,” said Bagert. “To be a part of an effort to build a top-rate school from the ground up. To have my child learning and growing side by side with children of every different kind of background, in an open-access public school. For me, this whole effort has been democracy in action. It’s what school reform ought to look like.”
To learn out more about Morris Jeff Community School, visit www.morrisjeffschool.org. The site has information about how to support the school or purchase tickets to the Community Gala on Aug. 19 at Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club with Kermit Ruffins.
