Editor’s note: This story has been updated since original publication to note BASIS still needs approval from the school board to open in Baton Rouge.
Plans are on track for the fall 2017 opening in Baton Rouge of Louisiana’s first BASIS school, an Arizona-based network of charter schools with the most academically rigorous standards in the nation.
BASIS CEO Peter Bezanson told members of the Baton Rouge Rotary Club today at their weekly meeting that a charter school with grades kindergarten through sixth will open here in 2017, pending school board approval, with upper grades added later. A second school will open in fall 2018.
“We were headed to Colorado, but we were recruited to come to Baton Rouge instead,” said Bezanson, noting that New Schools for Baton Rouge recruited BASIS to the Capital Region.
Bezanson first announced BASIS was coming to Baton Rouge in April to business leaders from Baton Rouge and New Orleans during a Super Region trip to Arizona.
Students at BASIS schools perform at record high levels of academic achievement. In kindergarten, students begin taking Mandarin. In third grade, they get Latin. By the ninth grade, they are taking calculus and by the time they graduate, they will have taken at least six Advanced Placement courses, though most BASIS students take many more. BASIS schools typically serve 1,000 students.
“We treat elementary students as if they were high school students,” Bezanson said.
BASIS schools, of which there are 25 in the U.S. and China, are open enrollment and don’t charge tuition. Admission is based on a lottery, and students are expected to perform to the rigorous standards, though the school gives them whatever resources they need to succeed.
Unlike other charter schools, BASIS does not target inner-city or low-income students. Even at its school in Washington, D.C., which is the lowest-income area in which BASIS operates, only between 20% and 40% of the students receive free or reduced lunch benefits. In East Baton Rouge Parish about 80% of all public school students receive lunch assistance.
Bezanson says BASIS will serve those students, but bridging the achievement gap is not the network’s primary mission.
“We’re an income neutral charter school, so we provide as much access as we can and then work with every kid,” he said. “But we’re unlike some of our peers, who exist to serve a particular student demographic. Our mission is this particular program.”
Bezanson says BASIS has identified several potential sites in the local market for its first school, including locations downtown and near LSU, but he declines to discuss specifics just yet.
—Stephanie Riegel
