Of KIPP New Orleans’ three secondary schools, Frederick Douglass High School has the “weakest alumni association,” charter network CEO Rhonda Kalifey-Aluise declared earlier this year, according to documents obtained by Lamplighter.
In the Feb. 2 email to the charter group’s newly retained crisis-communications firm, Goldin Solutions, Kalifey-Aluise went on to describe the complex and painful school landscape in a city that was overtaken with charter schools following Hurricane Katrina. Her assessment of the Douglass alumni was part of KIPP’s analysis of potential public pushback it would receive for closing a legacy high school.
Told of the network’s conclusion, Douglass alumnus Reggie Ford said the undermining of the alumni association “adds insult to injury.”
“That’s her interpretation,” he said Wednesday, ready to rally the alumni association.
School enrollment is declining across the country. Under-enrolled schools stretch budgets thin because fixed costs — utilities and basic school administration staffing, for example — remain the same. In New Orleans’ nearly all-charter school system, the NOLA Public School district has asked charter schools to volunteer to close schools.
KIPP New Orleans is the city’s largest charter school operator. It runs eight schools — soon to be seven. It is governed by an unelected, nonprofit board, which voted to close Douglass in mid-March, six weeks after Kalfiey-Aluise’s email to the New York-based Goldin.
The vote to close the legacy high school was unannounced, school officials have claimed they realized mid-meeting the need to “move forward quickly,” though emails show KIPP leaders had long discussed closing a school.
Much longer than the 24 hours required by the state’s Open Meetings Law to publicly announce the business public agencies plan to undertake at public meetings. The law requires the public agencies to post an agenda which describes, “with reasonable specificity,” the items they plan to discuss and act on.
KIPP’s March board meeting made no mention of a plan to close Douglass — let alone discuss the possibility of closing a school. KIPP officials maintain they voted to add the closure vote in line with state law, but the organization has refused to explain why it was not on the agenda.
Public meetings law attorney William Most, of Most & Associates said the February emails show KIPP was discussing the possibility of closing a school well in advance of the March meeting.
"These emails would be very strong evidence in court that the school closure issue was in fact foreseen - and therefore that the mid-meeting agenda changes were plausibly an illegal subterfuge under the Open Meetings Law,” Most said.
The ‘weakest’
In her assessment of “weakest,” Kalfiey-Aluise was measuring Douglass against the charter network’s two other high schools — John F. Kennedy High School and Booker T. Washington High School. All three are legacy high schools. Her analysis accounted for Douglass’ closure after Katrina, a name change prior to the storm, further upheaval following Hurricane Ida in 2021, and KIPP’s recent adoption of the Douglass name.
In that February exchange, she surmised dropping the Douglass name would bring the least public pushback.
“Of ours, Douglass is the weakest alumni association and the one that we think could get through this okay,” she wrote. “I will explain that further as we talk (it's been home to several schools, lots of name changes, etc.)”
Six weeks later, KIPP’s board voted to shutter Douglass High School.
Thank you for reading! Comments and news tips welcome at [email protected] ~ Stay tuned for more from this batch of records.
Update: This story was updated with comments from public meetings attorney William Most.
