Building a School:

The Story of the Priestley School of Architecture & Construction

The Carrollton United Neighborhood Organization had a dream: to reclaim and revitalize their neighborhood.  They intended to do it by renovating the Alfred C. Priestley School that was closed and boarded up on a beautiful square block right in the middle of their community.  Priestley had produced many community, city and state leaders in years past, and the Carrollton United Neighborhood Organization (CUNO) believed that it could do so again! 

In the spring of 2005, before the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the CUNO decided, by means of a community survey, to plan for a school with an architecture and construction career focus.  Little did they know how critical the industry would be to the revitalization of not only their own neighborhood, but to their entire city, region and state!  The wheels were put in motion and work began to negotiate with the Orleans Parish School Board to secure the Priestley building and open the school.

With the advent of Hurricane Katrina, the CUNO determined a more expedient course of action was to apply for a charter and open the school, supported by Goodwill Industries of Southeast Louisiana, the School to Career Initiative of United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area and countless business & industry, community and individual partners who wanted to play a part in launching this unique school. The Priestley charter was granted by the Orleans Parish School Board in October 2005, the Board of Directors was formed, a strategic plan was developed, and in July 2006 a Principal/CEO was hired.  The faculty and students were recruited and the school opened in September 2006 with 35- 9^th graders and a plan to increase the school one grade level each year until it reached a full four-year high school with a student body of 400 by the fall of 2009. The enrollment quickly rose to 75 students once the Priestley students began to make their mark in the community.

Housed its first year at the Ronald McNair School on Carrollton Avenue, Priestley shared the facility with another new charter school.  Such was the case for many new schools in the aftermath of the storm.  The student body and faculty flourished despite not having a home of their own.  Of the 75 original students, only 12 were reading on grade level upon registration.  They ended the year with all but 4 being promoted to 10^th grade and 78% of them scoring at approaching basic or above on the state iLEAP test.  Needless to say, strong academic remediation programs had been put in place throughout the year so that the students, 96% of whom received free or reduced lunch and some of whom live in impoverished homes from all across the city, could achieve at levels the faculty believed was possible for them.  To quote one student who drives over 18 miles to attend the school, “Our teachers at Priestley don’t talk to us like we’re dumb kids.  They work with us like we can really learn!  And we learn about architecture and construction in every class we have!”

The Priestley faculty has provided its student body with a learning environment rich in academic rigor and relevance and built a culture of caring and respect.  In the 2006-07 school year, the students participated with LSU School of Landscape Architecture students in design charettes where they gave input into the design of the Priestley site.  They visited the 17^th Street Canal where the waters breached the levy after Hurricane Katrina, courtesy of Boh Bros. Construction. During this trip they were able to see the work being done there by the Corps of Engineers to shore up the levee. They worked with an architect from the Tulane School of Architecture and the New Orleans Saints to landscape and beautify their entrance at the McNair building, and to create a recreation room in their section of the McNair building.  They studied the famous shotgun and Cajun homes of New Orleans and South Louisiana.  Working with a computer assisted design tool called Sketch Up was a highlight of this study. The students worked in teams with 100 architects from the firm of Perkins & Will to collect the data needed to do the as-built designs of the Priestley building and to do the architectural study of the building.  The Panthers continued learning math by connecting it to the construction of bridges, while coming to the realization that many of the types of bridges they were studying made up the landscape of their own city. Attending an opera performance and viewing a movie on creative writing where the students earned the praise of officials at the theatre for their exemplary behavior, were only two of the many opportunities for exposure that the students had in their first year.  Every student in the school traveled to Washington, D.C. to engage in their first architectural study of different sites in our nation’s capitol. During the summer, the students had a rare opportunity to study the art of the blacksmith at the Pitot House Museum in New Orleans with blacksmith Darryl Reeves, and old world blacksmith artisan. This gave the students the opportunity to create restoration hardware design book, where their hardware drawings will stand for perpetuity.

The word spread!  School opened in August of 2007 with both 9^th and 10^th graders . . . 220 students all told. Yet, suitable facilities were not available.  While architectural drawings were provided pro-bono by Perkins & Will Architects, and a feasibility study and financial projection for the renovation of the Priestley site were completed, funds for the $8- $10 million project were yet to be secured.  And so, the school was moved to the St. Henry Catholic School for the 2007-2008 school year while the Board continues to work on a capital campaign to begin the renovation of the Priestley building at Leonidas and Green Streets.  It is a home of our own, but a borrowed one, and one that was outgrown even before taking occupancy.

And so, our quest continues.  The Priestley Board of Directors, its committed administration and faculty, its energetic and capable students, and its many friends and supporters need YOU! 

Won’t you join in this exciting venture to Build a School?

Our school will be a beacon of hope for our children, a pipeline of prepared and competent employees for an industry that will be needed here in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast for years to come, and a prototype for other school districts to look to as an example of how educators, business & industry, community and individuals can come together to redesign education for the 21^st century.

Priestley: Stimulating Minds, Building Scholars and Constructing the Future.

Priestley: 821 Gen. Pershing. St. New Orleans, LA 70115, 504-324-7200, fax 504-309-0384.

Priestley students working with members of the New Orleans Saints