He said Third Future teachers in Baton Rouge should on average make about $80,000 a year.
State Schools Superintendent Cade Brumley said in an interview Tuesday that he wanted to find a new group that could take over from Democracy Prep and provide a “seamless transition” so those families aren’t uprooted and have to find another school.
“We are really committed to make sure that we get this right,” Brumley said.
Prescott Middle, along with Capitol High, was among the first group of Baton Rouge public schools taken over by the state in 2008 and moved into the Recovery School District, or RSD.
At its peak in 2016, RSD had nine schools with nearly 3,000 students. By this coming fall, it will have just four schools with about 1,100 students.
Third Future Schools is inheriting about 500 students currently in Democracy Prep’s school. Like Democracy Prep, Third Future will offer instruction in grades in kindergarten to eight, though it’s aiming for a much larger school. Its contract allows it to enroll as many 1,188 students, or 132 per grade. The Prescott facility, however, has an official capacity of 1,000 students and hasn’t enrolled that many students in years.
Another change from Democracy Prep is that Third Future plans to name its new Baton Rouge school, Prescott Middle School, the historic name of the campus.
The nonprofit New Schools for Baton Rouge is providing financial support to Third Future.
Kenneth Campbell, chief executive officer for New Schools, said his organization started looking into Third Future several months ago as a potential replacement for Democracy Prep, which has had chronic academic problems. New Schools helped recruit Democracy Prep to Baton Rouge a decade ago and provided ample financial support.
Campbell said there’s “a lot of work to do” given the short time frame before the 2023-24 school year starts in August. He said he’s hoping that Third Future does well enough at Prescott to take over and turn around more schools in Baton Rouge.
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