Farm-Based Baton Rouge Charter School Gains Preliminary Ok to Open in August
By Charles Lussier
The Advocate
A new elementary school, complete with a working farm, is on track to open in Baton Rouge in the fall after winning preliminary approval to operate, despite a negative review by an independent evaluator.
“You will get to know me very quickly. This is something I’m very passionate about, so buckle up,” said founder Sarah Schnauder.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday tentatively OK’d the proposed Harvest Commons School in a 6-3 vote while unanimously rejecting a bid to create another elementary school in town to be called Community Roots Leadership Academy.
The board is expected to ratify its choices on Jan. 22 when it holds its regular monthly meeting.
Community Roots Leadership Academy has the right to appeal a denial to the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE. If the appeal is successful, Community Roots would receive a Type 2 charter, which would allow it enroll students from anywhere in Louisiana.
The leaders of both applicants are Baton Rouge residents trying to start their first charter schools. They stand in contrast to the established charter school networks, typically from out of town, who’ve had the most success in recent years getting officials to approve their applications.
Charter schools are public schools run privately via charters or contracts. If it opens in August as planned, Harvest Commons would be one of 11 district-sponsored, or Type 1, charters operating in Baton Rouge. Another 12 Type 2 charters are currently are operating their schools in Baton Rouge.
Harvest Commons is planning a K-5 school to open in August with an estimated 180 students. It’s looking to grow and enroll between 320 and 385 students in those same grades by fall 2030. Its charter, though, would allow it to enroll as many as 462 students.
Community Roots is proposing a K-8 school that would open somewhere in North Baton Rouge in fall 2027. It would start with 210 students in those grades and triple in size by fall 2029. Its charter, though, would allow it to enroll as many as 756 students.
Neither has officially selected a site to have school, though Harvest Commons is looking closely at moving into the former South Boulevard Elementary School campus at 802 Mayflower St.
Superintendent LaMont Cole recommended denying both proposed charter schools. He relied on the advice of The Learning Collective, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm. The Learning Collective has a long track record as a third-party evaluator, reviewing charter school proposals in years past in New Orleans and in Jefferson Parish. The firm replaces retired Baton Rouge educator, Mary "Katie" Blunschi, who has served in this role for the past decade.
The Learning Collective identified 23 instances where Harvest Commons’ proposal fell short — “Does Not Meet Standard” — while the firm identified 32 such instances with Community Roots’ proposal.
At the meeting, however, board members barely referenced either of those reviews and none posed any questions to the evaluators, who were available remotely.
One thing that set the two applicants apart is that Harvest Commons supporters showed up in force while Community Roots supporters were absent.
Several board members praised the presentation Thursday by Schnauder and other Harvest Commons supporters. They also said they respected their willingness to work with district leaders in the future.
“These ladies showed that they were very interested in becoming part of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, whatever that looks like,” said board member Carla Powell-Lewis.
Board member Mike Gaudet said Harvest Commons’ challenges reminded him of the negative evaluation that a school he helped form, Thrive Academy, when it successfully landed a charter in 2011 — Thrive later became a state-run school.
“I want to give you guys a chance,” Gaudet said. “I think you deserve a chance to do this.”
Board members Dadrius Lanus, Lewis and Shashonnie Steward voted no to Harvest Commons. Lanus and Lewis said it's unwise to create new schools at a time when the school system is losing students and closing schools, but they also complimented Harvest Commons proposal. Lewis said he almost voted with them as well.
“Some decisions we make with our hearts, and some decisions we make with our head,” Lewis said. “And this decision has been tugging at my heartstrings all week.”
By contrast, when Community Roots’ application came up, Lewis harshly criticized their absence.
“Why waste our time if you are not going to show up?” Lewis asked.
Reached afterwards, school founder Rochelle Scott said she was told that only the Learning Collective review would be presented to the board, that she would have no chance to make her own case.
“No invitation or opportunity to appear, present, or respond in person was communicated to me prior to the meeting,” Scott said.
Scott, a veteran educator who has served as a principal of an elementary and an alternative school in Baton Rouge, said she’s not ready to say whether she plans to appeal her denial to BESE.
“My commitment to the children and families of East Baton Rouge Parish remains unchanged,” she said.
Schnauder was not initially an educator. She spent her first four years of her career as a production manager at printers in Memphis, Tennessee, and Baton Rouge. In 2015, she founded a summer camp at Jefferson United Methodist Church called Kid-Possible, a camp that continues to this day. She soon after became a pre-k teacher at that church’s preschool.
Schnauder said that patrons of her summer camps asked her to consider starting a school. She said she wanted a place that could educate a broad swath of children.
“So we started talking through what it’s like to have a school accessible to all students,” she said.
Along the way, Schnauder in 2023 formed a still-operating private school called The Link School, which continues to operate on leased space at Broadmoor United Methodist Church. That small school, which is the model for Harvest Commons, has a farm with crops as well as goats and chickens.
Schnauder said she needed a place to amass evidence for the success of her educational approach. She also had hoped the private school could bring in students through Louisiana’s private school voucher program. She said she stepped away from The Link School in August and is no longer involved in its operations.