Superintendent Brumley hints at more public school takeovers, Recovery School District revival

Louisiana’s controversial Recovery School District (RSD) has been nearly dormant for a decade, but it might be making a comeback.

State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley wants to put the Recovery system to more use and suggested he take over more public schools from local authorities. 

“We believe that there is an opportunity here to help students and help families who are in these historically failing schools,” Brumley told state legislators during a budget hearing this month. “So moving forward, we are going to be more assertive with our RSD work to make sure every student has access to a high quality school.” 

Created in 2003, the RSD is a network of public schools the state has adopted after being classified as “academically unacceptable”  for four years in a row. The superintendent oversees the district, though the state education department often contracts with private charter school organizations to run the day-to-day operations of RSD institutions.

Louisiana’s RSD gained national attention following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the state placed all but 19 of New Orleans’ 124 schools into the system. It then became a model for school takeover approaches in other states.  

In the intervening years, however, most of those New Orleans schools were either closed or turned over full-time to a charter school operator. None of them remain in the RSD. In fact, the RSD hasn’t seen a new school enter its network since 2015, when two Baton Rouge schools joined. 

In 2024, the Recovery system includes just five schools, all of which are run by charter organizations, education department spokesman Ted Beasley said in an email. 

They include Dalton Elementary School, Lanier Elementary School and Glen Oaks Middle School in Baton Rouge, which are operated by Redesign Schools Louisiana, and Prescott Academy in Baton Rouge, which was launched by the Colorado-based Third Future Schools last year. Linwood Public Charter School in Shreveport is also part of the RSD, Beasley said. 

With so few schools to manage, the RSD mostly oversees school building projects that haven’t been completed in New Orleans.

“It’s basically operating as a construction company,” Brumley said in an interview. 

The superintendent implied he is looking to go in a different direction. There are 28 public schools in the state that have been rated failing and meet the criteria for an RSD takeover, Brumley said.  

Seven are in Caddo Parish, and three each are in Madison and Richland parishes. 

“It’s just not acceptable for us to continue to allow 9,000-plus students in these 20-plus schools to sit there year after year in a school that is failing,” Brumley told legislators.

“It will not be fun. It will not always be pretty. It will be ugly at times, probably, but we can’t continue to operate and allow these students to sit in these seats,” he said.

In an interview, Brumley would not specify which schools might be picked out for RSD placement, but the general approach would be “targeted” and “assertive.”

Louisiana Senate Education Committee Chairman Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge, endorsed Brumley’s more forceful RSD strategy.   

“I’m glad to hear you are considering being aggressive on some of these,” he told Brumley during the budget hearing. 

To conduct more school takeovers, Brumley will need permission from the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. At least a few of its members said Tuesday they would be willing to follow Brumley’s lead on the issue.

“We want to do what is best for the kids,” Kevin Burken, a state school board member who represents southwest Louisiana, said in an interview.