Leah Chase School over budget after growth in enrollment

22nd September 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Safura Syed
Contributing Writer

(Veritenews.org) — The Leah Chase School, which opened last year as the only traditional, district-managed public school in New Orleans, has expanded its enrollment in its second year. And the growth has come with new expenses, leaving the school with an anticipated deficit for the 2025-2026 school year.

Based on enrollment estimates, this year, the school’s total funding is expected to reach $5.1 million, $700,000 over its original budget. The school was able to use leftover Title I funds from the previous school year to lower the deficit to $500,000. The unofficial enrollment count is 353 students, Veal said, but exact numbers won’t be available until an Oct. 1 count. The deficit calculation is based on an estimated 335 student enrollment, up from an official state count of 284 for the 2024-2025 school year.

Leah Chase opened as a permanent district-run school in a school district otherwise made up entirely of charter schools, which are managed by semi-autonomous nonprofit groups. In its first year, it enrolled kindergarten through fifth grade students planning to add a new cohort of students each school year.

This school year, the school welcomed its first cohort of sixth graders. The inclusion of new grades have brought increased teaching and transportation costs, Veal said. Originally, about $500,000 was set aside for transportation costs, but with new students, the school had to add two bus routes, increasing those costs by around $250,000. The school has also hired eight full-time staff members, including two sixth-grade teachers.

The other six staff positions were filled to comply with federal laws that require students with special needs to receive individualized education plans, which often require extra programming and staffing. NOLA Public Schools district Superintendent Fateama Fulmore said adjustments have been made to the school’s facility to accommodate for special needs programming.

Fulmore said moving grade-by-grade isn’t the most cost-effective way to open up a school. Instead of adding a grade’s worth of programming every year, the school should focus on creating it at scale. Fulmore said that all future planning will focus on a K-8 model.

“When we opened the Leah Chase school, there was no long range budgeting and planning for the school,” Fulmore said.

Last year, the district took over the failing Lafayette Academy, preventing a school closure in the neighborhood. But in the process to get the school open, Fulmore said the district didn’t create any long-term operational plan.

Costs for the school are only expected to rise as grades and programming are added. The school has been approved by the state of Louisiana to add pre-K slots, which would increase the deficit by over $200,000. Due to the existing deficit, Fulmore said the school will not be adding pre-K seats this year.

“We have prioritized the needs of students who are currently enrolled in the school to make sure that they have the adequate learning spaces and staffing that they need,” Fulmore said.

To reduce the deficit, Veal said the finance office is looking into applying for high cost service grants through the Louisiana Department of Education, which address costs related to providing services for students with disabilities, and federal funds they can pull into the school.

Board members said they were concerned about the deficit, and that the school wasn’t ready to open seats for pre-K. Board member Olin Parker said the superintendent should look at ways to “eliminate and reallocate positions” and look for ways to reduce operating costs, potentially by moving to a selective admissions model.

“Just as we have different responsibilities, different financial responsibilities, because we’re a direct-run school that actually does give us some different flexibilities in the type of school that we can operate,” Parker said.

Such growing pains are not unique to Leah Chase, or to direct-run schools in general. Charter schools, particularly small ones that are not affiliated with a large charter network such as KIPP, often face financial difficulties as they work to fund teacher salaries, special needs education and other expenses. Board member Carlos Zervigon said the district did a good job in starting the school, but now needs to focus on sustaining its progress.

“I think this is a good learning experience for us to think about what we’re getting with the Leah Chase School and what happens in every school in the city,” Zervigon said. “We need to solve these last things to sustain ourselves … I’m very pleased with how it’s going.”

This article originally published in the September 22, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.