Get over here. All right, folks. Good afternoon. Uh, I now call the school innovation and turnaround committee uh meeting to order. Um, roll call, please. >> Mr. Pal here. >> Mr. Pal is present. Dr. Armstrong. Dr.
Armstrong is present. Mr. Burkin. Mr. Mr. Berkin is present. Mr. Castile >> here. >> Miss Castile is present. Miss Shan >> here. >> Mr. Shan is present. Dr. Clark >> Dr. Clark is present. Mr. Harris >> here. >> Mr. Harris is present. Mr. Hollis >> here. >> Mr. Holland is present. Miss Holloway >> here.
>> Miss Holloway is present. Miss Melerine. >> M. Meerine is present. Mr. Morris >> here. >> Mr. Morris is present. You have a quorum. >> Right. Our next item, please. Your first item is on page two, item 2.1, consideration of overview presentations and public input regarding Bessie authorized charter application proposals
submitted in response to the 2025 midyear charter school request for applications. The recommendation is to receive. >> Great. May I get a motion to receive uh Mr. Burken, Mr. Harris? Great. And I think we have a report from the department.
>> Thank you. Uh thanks Mr. Castile. So, um, prior to the board making decisions on charters that have made application for your consideration, um, we give them the opportunity to just provide a fivem
minute update um, on um, their process, the school they desire uh, to put into play. Um, and that's what uh, today is about. We have uh four different schools um and three of them um because one will
be combined will make a presentation. Um and Miss Gillson, do you want to add any additional context to that before we jump into the presentations? >> Oh, we're ready for the presentation. >> Very good. And a reminder to the board, this is not the period of time where you um uh quiz and question the potential
operators that come at a later date. And certainly you can do that over the period of the next month or so. But this is just their opportunity free from distraction to share the information on the school they desire to launch. Great. Thank you. >> Good afternoon Dr. Brumley, Chairman
Castile, Desessie board members. My name is Dr. Steve Corbett, CEO of Ottoan Schools. I'm joined today by Kenya Hill. Uh she is the executive director of Ottoban Baton Rouge, a school that we currently have an administrative agreement with with EBR and is currently operating.
Uh we are excited to be here. Uh and thank you for the opportunity to present today on Ottaban Baton Rouge. The mission and vision Uh the mission and vision in Ottoman schools. Our vision is that all stu Ottoman students feel embraced for who they are and grow into creative
independent thinkers prepared to thrive in and contribute to their communities. Our mission is to offer a unique learning experience um that fosters academic excellence, nurtures student growth and individuality in a welcoming culturally rich environment. Our
students achieve academic excellence through rigorous standards aligned learning while developing healthy social skills, creativity, language proficiency, and leadership through student- centered experiences that nurture their unique talents. The core values of Ottoman Baton Rouge are
courage, compassion, curiosity, and connection. >> Good afternoon. Those core values are what anchor our our instructional model as well as how we support students. We engage students with tier one
curriculum. We believe that every child deserved um to have an experience in the arts and that gaining confidence through the arts also translates to um academic courage in the classroom where they may not have had that. We also like to make
sure that we do comprehensive RTI MTSS support um that gives every student what they need while also addressing the opportunity gap. We currently are located on at 7800 Innovation Parkway which is just a
stones throw away from the Gardier community. So the bulk of our students come from that community. You see the data up there where it shows that 93% of the students that we serve are economically disadvantaged. 99% of the
students identify as African-American or Hispanic. Right? So it is important to note that we are creating a school that not only shows up for them and thinks about them when they walk in the door but also their experience throughout the
day until we say see you tomorrow. Our proven model includes the rigorous standards that are aligned to our curricula, unique integrated approaches such as the arts and world languages. And through this model, we have earned the recognition of one of the highest
performing charter school networks in New Orleans. >> Ottoan schools operates currently two schools in New Orleans, Ottoman Uptown and Ottoman Gentilly. And I said before, uh we are in a under a uh administrative agreement with EBR and currently operating Ottoman Baton Rouge, which is
a K5 school uh located near the Gardier um area. Um as a network, Ottoman Schools holds a holds a B rating as a network, which currently is the highest uh rated network in New Orleans. Uh Ottoman Uptown is an A-rated school. Ottoman
Gentilly is a C-rated school with a 72.4, which is 2.6 608 uh points away from being a B. Um both Ottoman Uptown and Ottoman Gentilly were named top gain schools in the state in 2023 and 2024. Uh from an enrollment standpoint,
Ottoman schools in New Orleans supports 1450 students. Ottoman Uptown is the most applied to school in New Orleans for those entering kindergarten and Ottoman Gentilly consistently is in the top 10 of most applied to schools. From a financial standpoint, we are in an incredibly strong position with over $10
million more in fund balance. Uh, and our financial audits remain uh, clean with no internal control findings or material weaknesses. >> I'm very proud to share that since 2022, Ottoman Schools has raised our score by
35 points and increased three letter grades. Ottoan Uptown maintains an A letter grade and has increased its SPS as well. Prior to this position, I was the principal at Otaban Gentilli. And I'm equally proud to share that during
that time, Ottoan Gentilli had the highest increase in mastery across Nola public schools in 2023. In 2024, you scored 99th percentile in growth for our students with disabilities, 95th percentile in growth
for our economically disadvantaged students, and 93rd percentile in growth for our black students. We firmly believe that it is this these academic milestones that lead to us believing that we can achieve the same results at
Ottban Baton Rouge currently operates as I said under an administrative agreement with East Baton Rouge public schools serving students in grades K through five. An approved uh type two charter would support the expansion of highquality
diverse educa educational options in that community, would promote access to a highquality education for all by addressing opportunity gaps for historically underserved students, and it would strengthen Baton Rouge's educational ecosystem by offering a unique and proven model which
prioritizes academic excellence and artistic expression. Thank you for the your time and consideration. We certainly appreciate the opportunity. >> Great. Thank you. Well, good afternoon, Superintendent Bump Brumley and the U committee. Thank
you very much for giving us the opportunity. I'm representing Third Future Schools. Third Future School. Wait, I'm going to put mine at the time. >> Problem and just identify yourself. I'm giving you a name also. >> Dr. Shirley Miles and I am the chief of
schools for Third Future Schools and also the co-founder. So, Third Future Schools, we get asked this a lot. What does third future represent? The first future is the one related to time. So if you had a
doctor's appointment tomorrow, the second future is one that you can envision, but the third future is one that you can actually create and implement. So third future schools not
Oh, okay. Oh, both. All right. I thought I had that principal's voice. So, um, but third future schools, uh, we have 12 schools, eight in Texas, we have four in Louisiana, and we're applying for a type
two charter for our Bridget Academy. Our mission and vision, as you can see, I'm not going to read that to you, but our mission really is to prepare our children for 2035. And we and and as you know the changing landscape of education is changing so
much particularly with AI. We want our children to be prepared. Our vision is we really would like to have um 100 prove points meaning 100 schools by 2030 because it's not just third future. We're talking about changing the
landscape of public education across the nation. learning how to think this we triangulate not just the data but all the things that we do for third future. So not our compet not only our competencies but the habits of su of
success and closing that achievement gap. That's our main goal. And my main goal as a co-founder is I really want our children to not only read at grade level but read and comprehend so that they have a future in this country. And that's
really critically important to me and I know to my brother Mike. Our model is unique. We have the learning, securing, secured, accelerating, and enriching. And learning meaning they're just getting it, but they didn't quite grasp the
concept. Securing means that they have already grasped the concept and then they go into this individualized learning model. So, we have different um learning modalities for our children and that they fit that personalized learning
model. our demographics. It's hard for you all to see, but in our school now, we have um Bridge Academy, but Prescott, we've taken over Democracy Prep, and this is in our second year. So, you can see in
front of you what the demographics are, the number of students that we have here in Prescott, and we do have two schools in Louisiana. Our NWA growth is what we really base our our success on and we've been
successful. We've had we have 12 schools. Every single school that we've taken over have been and we consider ourselves turnaround experts have been F schools and now we have every single school that has been out of F status within one year. So we have a successful
model. You can see our network. I would like for you to look at Prescott. Prescott grew last year 1.87 years. So um that's one year almost nine months of growth in one year. Uh our goal is 1.7.
We didn't quite make that mark last year with only with only I shouldn't say with only because it's one point one and a half years of growth in one year is excellent. And parents expect right if you send your kids to school one year's growth in one year's time. So to close
that and narrow that achievement gap, we want our schools to have at least 1.7 years of growth in one year. Prescott and I bring up Prescott because obviously we don't have any data for um Bridge Academy, but this is last year.
I would like to particularly point out to you eighth grade math. They grew almost five years in one year's time. I mean, that's incredible. Mr. Taylor, I'd like to give a shout out to him. He's our math eighth grade math teacher at
Prescott. But they they have done very well. >> What? I thought I had 30 seconds left. Okay, wait. >> We'll give you 30 more seconds. >> 30 more seconds. Well, okay. And actually that's my last slide. So um we
feel that we are more than capable of helping our students here in Baton Rouge. Certainly done very well in Shreport as well and we would like to continue that success with Bridge Academy with the type two charter. >> Thank you.
>> Great. Thank you. >> Where's this school? Where do you want to put this one? >> So sorry. Eastbound Route. >> Yes. EBR school. >> And how many students >> right now? We have about 460. >> What proposed for this new site? 450.
>> Yes. >> And that's what K8. >> Yes, sir. >> Mr. Burkin. That's my district. is my district. >> Miss Dillson, I believe we're combining the last two. Is that correct? >> Hey, good afternoon. Um, as always,
thank you for the opportunity. My name is Clint the executive director of strategic development for GIO for GEOME. Um we do have two applications um in front of you but we'll find a point presentation unless the board objects for two. Um
the gomies our mission is to empower students to accelerate their academic pathways and advance their social mobility and achieve their career and lifelong goals. Our approach to this is to provide a student- centered contentrich K12 continuum um across our schools and across our regions that
allows students to begin college course work as early as ninth grade um with many of them earning an associates degree before they graduate high school. Our current um for for the schools we're projecting our demographics to look very similar to our current demographics
which are here for you. Currently, GIO operates four schools in East Baton Rouge Parish with just under 2400 students, 99% minority students, around 85% economically disadvantaged, and around 13% uh with students with disabilities. While we haven't uh
selected a location for the school just yet, we do anticipate it to be in North Baton Rouge, and we anticipate those demographics of that school to look very similar to our current demographics. Geo's model is rooted in four pillars. The first is college immersion. Our college immersion program beginning in
ninth grade. Very proud of the fact and the hard work by our teachers and students that last year's graduating class um about 33% of those students had an associates degree and actually walked across the stage at BRCC before walking across the stage at GO with their high
school diploma. Uh we also had many students with career and technical certifications as well. Uh second, rigorous curriculum and effective instruction. You can't have a great school without great teachers. And to that end, we've fully implemented TAP development system to train and develop
teachers, which provides multiple career pathways for our teachers that allows our best teachers to earn more money while staying in the classroom. Um, ongoing professional growth, instructionally focused accountability, and performance-based compensation. And finally, family and community
partnerships. We can't do this work in isolation. And so our parents, we view them as partners in the work, not just participants. We also seek out uh support from community organizations like BRCC as we're working to get these credentials and YMCA uh which teaches
swim lessons to our students. So we'll spend the next couple of slides talking about some of the accomplishments of GIO. We're in a great position, as I mentioned, having four schools that we can talk about our data that we have already achieved, our students already achieved. And for that, I'm going to hand it to our chief
academic officer, Sherlock Norman. >> Great. Good afternoon. My name is Shalon Norman. I serve as the chief academic officer of the geo prep schools in Baton Rouge. Uh this slide, as you can see, over the last four years, all of our schools have increased in the SPS
scores. Uh as a result of that, all of our schools are now rated a letter B. Uh given an average of about 24 points in growth. As Clint mentioned earlier, uh not only are we graduating, uh students in high
school with a high school diploma, but also an associate degree, but beginning in grades K through third, which is our foundational stage, we are building the essential skills that make future success possible. As you can see, all of our schools have scored of at least 75
or greater on the Dibbles uh literacy assessment. Uh I credit this to the strong leadership in the building and the dedicated teachers along with our TAP program >> and that is it for us. >> Okay. >> Thank you folks.
Mr. Gilson, Superintendent Brimley, anything else? >> Um just beyond today, you know, just encourage you to engage with these uh operators, learn more about, you know, what they're intending to do. And uh I would just offer my appreciation to everyone who uh submitted an
application. Um you know, charters expand opportunities for kids and we're so thankful that you all have placed applications with us for consideration. >> Right. Thanks. Next item. >> Your next item is on page 21, item 3.1, consideration of an update report
regarding the LA Gator Scholarship Program. The recommendation is to receive. >> I get a motion, please. Miss Harris, Miss Champagne seconds. >> Very good. Uh thank you. Uh Miss Gillson is going to make this report on uh really the launch of LA Gator for this
uh school year and where we stand at this point. And uh you've usually seen Mr. Caleb Moore give these presentations. So uh Miss Gillson is picking up Mr. Moore's slide with him being uh uh with the US military at this
point. >> Thank you, Dr. Brmley, good afternoon and I am excited to step in for Caleb to share a brief update uh on the implementation of alligator scholarship program. So we'll start off with some of the uh
milestones of the program and in August families were able to continue making tuition payments and could utilize the marketplace for purchases. The vendor application remained open and will continue to stay open for any new
interested providers. In September, we had some very important deadlines leading up to the beginning of awards for students on the wait list. The deadline for prior LSP students to make corrections that was given to all
schools and also the submission of no shows for students who did not show to the schools in which they have selected. Following the deadline, the Odyssey and LDO team worked together to begin awarding students who were actually on the wait list. So, we have now began
pulling students uh from the Gator weight list and they are now being either enrolled into the school of their choice, the Gator school of their choice or taking advantage of the marketplace. For the month of November, for October, student accounts will continue to be
funded from the weight list and students will also begin making their quarter 2 payments to schools and this of course they have continuous access to the marketplace. Each month we provide for you the
updated Odyssey uh customer satisfaction score and for this month it is 86.2 YouTube and you can see some of the quotes from parents and schools. Everyone is uh definitely uh pleased with the support and the accuracy and
the timeliness of the feedback from the Odyssey support team. >> Miss Gillson, would it be would it be fair to say I know we were running in the mid 90s for this uh percent satisfaction prior to this moment. Would it be fair to say that the decline might
not even be related to Odyssey, but might be related to parents not getting funding? And so then they transfer that uh feeling of being upset to Odyssey. >> Absolutely. So as awards were uh were provided, Dr. Brumley, uh we did see that score go down. It had nothing to do
with customer satisfaction. It was really they did not get funded. So, now we'll talk about program participation. And of course, you all have seen these numbers before. As of September 17th, there were 5,739
students who were participating in the LA Gator program. Uh 314 of that stu of those students were awarded have a valid IDA disability tier. We've shared with you this slide before which breaks down uh by city the number
of awards. And so of course as we begin to pull students off of the weight list we'll see a little shift in those numbers but they pretty they stay pretty consistent. This slide talks about the number of service providers and as you'll see
about half of those service providers come from right here in the state of Louisiana and of course we have over 250 non-public schools that are enrolled and of course schools are continuing to express interest for the next school
year. Our LA Gator support continues. Uh we are providing technical assistance to the schools going out to the schools um if they need we started to do some of our uh popin
business. This provides to you all of the different support um the website our Odyssey support system as well. And that's the end of the presentation. >> Mr. Pel, yes, thank you. Um,
do you have an analysis or a summary of how the money is from the vouchers is actually being spent? In other words, how much is being used for tuition, for tutoring, for um early childhood, whatever, whatever major categories are. Do we have a breakdown of that?
>> Yes. So, I can definitely get you how much is going toward tuition, but what I really thought you were going to ask, I said, "What was Mr. Appel going to ask?" I thought you were going to ask, "What were the top three vendors being used and what are people spending their money on?" >> Well, that's kind of what I asked.
>> Kind of what you asked, but I don't have the tuition amount, but uh the top are of course tablets and laptops, um services to tutoring services, and also educational materials. But I will also find out how much is going directly toward tuition.
>> Yeah, especially tuition because that's uh at least in my estimation where majority >> I would expect to see most of it going >> but again I have that's just conjecture. So thank you. >> Okay. >> Right. So >> originally this the gata program was a
three-year different tier people. Um, is that still the case? Are we going into the second year, the second allocation of people or available to apply or whatever or be accepted?
>> So, the original um so the original draft language for the law uh had it over a three-year period, but that draft was changed during the legislative process to phases. Phase 1, two, and
three. And the phases do not necessarily equate to a time frame. Um they're just eligibility within a phase. So on the first drafts of that there there was a year 1, year two, year three that was removed and it went to phase one, phase
two, phase three that aren't necessarily years. >> And then phase one for this coming up here. Um well, this year we we were only able to service uh in within phase one because of the appropriation that was
made u in the by the legislature. So um if you're thinking about school year 26 27, that's going to depend on the appropriation made by the legislature. >> When does the application process begin?
a new >> um >> or does it? >> Great question. Um during the first year of the program, uh it indicated the law indicated that we had to launch an application process in March, which is what we did. Um and then
we received 39,000 applications. Uh there were some individuals upset that we had opened the application because so many applications came in. Um but we were simply following the law. The law said that we had to open application uh
by March of 2025 and that's what we did. >> Do people have to reapply? >> I think those are conversations that we need to u have over the next few months in in conjunction with the governor's office and uh legislative leadership and
this body. >> Any other questions or comments from the board? Being none. Next item. >> Want to thank Miss Gillson. This has been a big lift uh to transition from LSP to Gator and you know you've led the team uh through that and so I just want to say thank you uh and keep up the good
work. >> Great. >> Do have a new member to the team DeAndrea Northeast Johnson here. Welcome to the team. >> Great. Thanks everyone. And >> that concludes your agenda. >> We are ajourned.