“We see it as a good opportunity for the community and for our campus”

New Schools for Baton Rouge's work to recruit and support best-in-class schools has resulted in the state's first corporate-charter partnership between BASIS Baton Rouge and Woman’s Hospital. It is one of only a handful of these types of arrangements in the nation. NSBR worked to recruit BASIS to the parish and will provide support for a successful school launch in the Fall of 2018.

Business charter partnerships were created by law under Gov. Bobby Jindal and allow businesses that provide a significant amount of financial or technical resources to a charter school or donate a significant amount of property to the school to receive a preference for enrollment in the school of up to 50 percent.

East Baton Rouge Parish School Superintendent Warren Drake said, "This new school is an example of how the East Baton Rouge Parish school system and business can partner to provide additional opportunities for our students."

The partnerships are a win for the corporate partner, the charter, and the families they serve. “We see it as a good opportunity for the community and for our campus,” explained Stan Shelton, senior vice president for planning, development and construction at Woman’s Hospital. For Woman's Hospital, the benefits include access to one of the highest performing school models in the world with no tuition expense for employees, increased land value as Woman’s builds out its mixed-use residential development, and the ability to bring a world-class school to South Baton Rouge -- a community in need of high quality schools. Woman’s provided a no-cost 60-year land lease to BASIS. Children of Woman’s Hospital employees will get preferential enrollment for half the seats in the new school. The rest of the seats will be open enrollment, tuition-free, and filled by a lottery.

"BASIS Baton Rouge will be the 25th charter school in the BASIS Curriculum Schools network, which now has a total of 31 schools in six states, the District of Columbia, and China," said BASIS.ed CEO Peter Bezanson. "We know our high-achieving, academically accelerated BASIS Curriculum will offer students in this vibrant community an additional high quality choice, and one that is tuition-free."Evelyn Ware-Jackson, President of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, said she was proud to help forge the partnership. "The BASIS Curriculum is innovation at its best. It's a historic partnership for all parties involved," she said.