Lessons from the Bayou: What Happens When Every Student Truly Matters

The Spark of the Trip

This past month, I had the incredible opportunity to travel with the Charter Institute at Erskine School Leaders Cohort to vibrant New Orleans, Louisiana — a city where the scent of coffee and jazz isn’t the only thing stirring in the air. Education innovation is brewing here too.

We visited four high-performing charter schools in the New Orleans area, each breaking records in student proficiency and growth. From arts-integrated elementary campuses to a collegiate academy model, each school radiated the kind of bold purpose and execution that turns possibility into reality. Over two days, our group visited four extraordinary schools: Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary, Alice M. Harte Charter School, G.W. Carver High School, and New Harmony High School—each transforming lives through unique models of excellence. From arts-integrated learning to coastal restoration and collegiate academies, every campus we toured radiated a relentless belief that students deserve the full investment of their community’s trust, resources, and hope.

Throughout our walk through classrooms, hallways, data displays and community partnerships, I kept returning to one profound truth: when the local dollar follows the student, when school leaders are trusted and teachers are empowered, the playing field shifts. Widely. Deeply. Permanently.

Why New Orleans? Because Choice Isn’t Just a Buzzword There

A Garden of Options

In New Orleans, the education landscape is essentially 100% school choice. Most public schools operate as charter schools, meaning families select the school rather than being limited strictly by geography. That alone opens pathways.

The Dollar Follows the Student

The true differentiator is how funding works. In Louisiana, for charter schools, the funding formula requires a per-pupil amount that includes local revenue representation per pupil. The law states that a charter school “is to receive a per-pupil amount based on its October 1 student membership” and that local revenues (sales/use taxes, ad valorem taxes, etc.) are factored into that per-pupil calculation. (Default+2Center on Reinventing Public Education+2)

In practice, what does that mean? It means that when a child walks into a charter school classroom, the funding associated with that child doesn’t stay behind in a district office or get diverted to unrelated costs. It follows the student to the school they selected. In turn, the school can direct those dollars toward what matters most—instruction, staffing, coaching, community partnerships—rather than being bogged down with outdated norms of funding silos.

Research from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) points this out clearly:

“When real dollars follow students, schools are more effective and more equitably resourced.” Center on Reinventing Public Education

Facilities Don’t Come Out of Instructional Budgets

Another powerful piece of the model we observed: in many of the schools we toured, facility costs (capital, debt service, maintenance) are NOT drawn out of the instructional budget in the same way they often are in South Carolina. That means teachers and instructional leaders aren’t competing with fixed overhead in the same way—they can focus their budget, their coaching cycles, their data systems, their student supports on the thing that really drives outcomes: teaching and learning.

In South Carolina, we know how often facility maintenance and capital can tug at the instructional side of the ledger—making every dollar fight harder to reach the classroom. In New Orleans, that tug is vastly reduced. The result? More teacher time, more coaching, more targeted interventions and more flexibility to innovate.

On the Ground: Visiting the Schools

Walking the halls of these schools reinforced what the data suggested. Some key take-aways from each school visit:

• Strong instructional coaching cycles: Every school had embedded coaching systems, weekly debriefs, data tracking, instructional rounds, peer-observation loops. Teachers weren’t left alone, they had built-in support.

• Data‐driven, mission-aligned interventions: We saw real-time dashboards of performance, teams responding to data dips, and interventions tied to mission statements (for example: arts integration, college readiness, bilingual pathways).

• Authentic community partnerships: From local business internships to arts organizations and neighborhood nonprofits, schools were deeply intertwined with their surrounding community.

• Relentless focus on student leadership + belonging: Student voice was everywhere: student-led advisories, leadership teams, peer tutoring, family engagements. The schools didn’t just teach content—they cultivated belonging.

One of the schools we toured, which holds a record of improving its state assessment proficiency by 15% over the past three years, illustrated how a consistent cycle of coaching + intervention + data + student voice leads to breakthrough results.

Why This Matters for South Carolina (and for LLCS)

At Lowcountry Leadership Charter School in Meggett, South Carolina, we are committed to the Blue and Gold Standard: a standard of excellence, equity, leadership and innovation.

The lessons from New Orleans can serve as a catalyst for us.

• Imagine if every student at LLCS truly had the full value of the public dollar meant for them, without those dollars being siphoned by overhead or facility demands.

• Imagine if our instructional budget was laser-focused on what works: coaching systems, data-driven interventions, community partnerships, student leadership and belonging.

• Imagine if we trusted our school leaders and teachers to innovate: with the freedom to try new models, iterate quickly and learn fast.

This is not a pipe-dream. The New Orleans model proves it’s possible. Our challenge—and our opportunity—is to adapt it to our context: rural Lowcountry, charter model, high-performing focus, PBL (project-based learning) orientation. We can stir this culture of innovation right into our standard brew.

Brewing Our Next Steps

Here’s how I propose we lean into what we learned:

1. Audit the instructional budget line items – Let’s identify any “leakage” due to facility or overhead that should instead be directed to coaching, intervention or innovation.

2. Strengthen instructional coaching cycles – Use the New Orleans visits to refine our coaching model: schedule observations, debriefs, peer-to-peer rounds, and data-driven reflection.

3. Elevate student leadership & belonging – Define new pathways for student voice: leadership teams, peer-mentoring, family-school partnerships, culture clubs anchored in our school identity.

4. Deepen community partnerships – Let’s map our community assets (local agriculture, business, Lowcountry heritage) and build intentional partnerships that enrich our project-based learning.

5. Advocate for funding equity – As a charter school leader, I will continue to push locally and at the state level for funding models that mirror what we saw in New Orleans. We must demand that the local dollar follows the student in South Carolina too.

   
   

Final Words

New Orleans reminded me what’s possible when schools are trusted, when teachers are empowered, when students are given the full investment they deserve. It reminded me that school choice is not about competition—it’s about opportunity. It reminded me that equity isn’t a feel-good term—it’s the result of real structural choices: funding formulas, budget architecture, autonomy, accountability, leadership.

Here’s to bringing those lessons home, to stirring up capacity and commitment in our team, and to filling every classroom not just with knowledge, but with possibility.

And yes—I’m savoring this cup of leadership with a latte in hand. The beignets were incredible, and the coffee fueled my energy and my cup on this fast and furious research opportunity.

“When we pour into our schools, we fill more than classrooms, we fill futures.”

Sources

• Charter School Funding, Louisiana Department of Education: “Charter Per Pupil Amounts” details. Default

• “Reflections on Rebuilding New Orleans’ Education System, One School at a Time,” Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). Center on Reinventing Public Education

• “Louisiana: Opportunity,” Education Reform Now Parent Power Index. parentpowerindex.edreform.com