My only experience with community-organizing was through the lens of funding. From K -12 I was a METCO student in Weston, MA. Each year they would ask a few students to go to the state house to rally so that METCO would not experience budget cuts. I believed in the METCO program, so I went a couple times because power is in numbers. Doing research for this project taught me how effective community-organizing and grassroots activism can be. With regards to New Orleans, the high number of community based websites shocked me. I had no idea how drastically the education system in New Orleans had changed after Hurricane Katrina. A part of me was shocked at how there were so many factors that went into shutting down public schools and opening charter schools, and hiring teachers from outside the community, and the effect that had on the community. I knew Hurricane Katrina was beyond detrimental to New Orleans, and I knew that a lot of deaths could have been prevented if the city had taken proper precautions. What I did not know was that oppression and destruction was occurring even after the storm.

When I read that the governor implemented an order where parents and teachers did not have to be consulted if a school was changing to a charter school really surprised me. I did not know something like that was even possible and it again confirms that there are different factors and aspects of New Orleans’ public education system. It honestly reminded me of the drawings of the hydras we did at the beginning of the semester, whenever a part of the hydra gets cut off more grow to replace the lost limb.

Trying to determine if an organization could be considered grassroots was challenging for me. There were some organizations that seemed very local and community driven but were funded by large corporations. Or other organizations were community driven but focused on multiple things and were funded by small local businesses. Or there were organizations who’s websites no longer worked because they were active immediately after Hurricane Katrina, and are probably inactive now. My main focus was to find organizations that were community driven and had an educational component. Not all of the grassroots organizations I chose are associated with specific schools in New Orleans for two reasons: 1) education happens outside of the classroom, I included a group that focused on art and teaching the community different art forms because that group was compensating for what the schools lacked. 2) It was difficult finding a parent coalition or a student coalition tied to a specific school. It would have been nice to see an organization comprised of students advocating for themselves and their peers but maybe too much time has passed between 2005 and 2017. But I enjoyed looking at different grassroots organization websites, it reminded me that there are creative ways to improve a community, it doesn’t necessarily have to be through policy.

I’m interested in seeing what happens to the education system in New Orleans. If the charter schools remain will the community based organizations also remain? Will one give in before the other? Are grassroots organizations sustainable without funding from a large corporation? Even if regular public schools never reappear in New Orleans, will the majority of charter schools ever give the community power? To clarify, when I state “community power” I mean will the parents have a presence in the school? Will the community have a presence in the school? Will the charter schools hire teachers from the community?