News Roundup

International School is returning to N.O.

Jackson Elementary lease to spur growth

Friday, May 05, 2006
From staff reports

The first foreign language-based charter school in Louisiana, the International School of Louisiana, has leased the former Andrew Jackson Elementary School building at Coliseum Square, returning to the city and giving it space to accept a larger number of its students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

“We are grateful to Superintendent (of Education Cecil) Picard and the members of BESE (Board of Elementary and Secondary Education) for providing us with this facility,” said Tonya Morrow, president of the ISL board of trustees.

The first Orleans Parish-based public school to reopen after Hurricane Katrina, ISL has been holding classes in rented rooms and temporary buildings at Verbo Iglesia Church in Kenner since October. But space constraints forced it to accept only 150 of the 464 students it had enrolled in 2005.

The new campus will allow ISL, which now enrolls students from kindergarten through sixth grades, to add four new kindergarten classes and to open its doors to more than 200 of its displaced students for the upcoming school year.

All academic courses at ISL are taught in either French or Spanish by native speakers from 15 different countries. ISL is a tuition-free public charter school. “This lease will enable us to continue to be one of the most diverse and successful public schools in the New Orleans metro region. We look forward to being part of the Coliseum neighborhood,” Morrow said.