EBR School Board and The Advocate angered over Basis Charter School's lack of diversity

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Basis charter school's rapid growth among affluent families in Baton Rouge prompts scrutiny

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Just nine months after opening its first school, BASIS.ed has won approval to open a second campus in Louisiana’s Capital City.

The new school will allow the Arizona-based charter school organization to meet some of its already high demand and shrink its huge waiting list, which is nearing 600 kids. The new school is set to open in August 2020 at a location still to be determined.

But in narrowly approving the expansion plans of this nationally celebrated school network Thursday night, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board made clear that it’s not done scrutinizing BASIS, particularly its lack of socioeconomic diversity.

Just 33 percent of Basis Baton Rouge’s current students qualify for free-and-reduced price lunches, an indicator of poverty. It’s one of the lowest rates for a public school in the Capitol Region. Most of the 27 schools in the BASIS network, some of them perennials on national best-of school lists, don’t even offer federally subsidized meals.

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The final vote Thursday night on BASIS’ expansion was 5-3, with board member David Tatman absent.

Of 10 charter school applications submitted this year, BASIS’s was the highest rated by an outside evaluator. School system officials who have visited the school so far have been complimentary of the BASIS’ operations. A parade of parents on Thursday sang the praises of the young school.

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In its application for a second charter school, BASIS set a very low “target” of 10 percent for economically disadvantaged students, a third the rate of its first Baton Rouge school.

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