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3059 Higgins Boulevard, Bldgs. A&B ▪ New Orleans, Louisiana 70126 ▪ (504) 428-8711

THE ROUNDTABLE The Official Newsletter of Benjamin E. Mays Preparatory School ▪ Home of the Knights

Mays Prep Prepares to Walk Into History

Ruby Bridges Timeline

1954 – Ms. Bridges was born 1958 – Ms. Bridges and her family move from Tylertown, Mississippi to New Orleans 1964 – Ms. Bridges enters the William Frantz School in New Orleans’ 9th Ward 1968 – Artist Norman Rockwell painted The Problem We All Live With 1995 – The Story of Ruby Bridges is published 1998 – Ms. Bridges receives the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Bill Clinton 2010 – Ms. Bridges is honored by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, commemorating the Anniversary of Frantz School’s integration

** Mays Prep prepares to transition into one of the most culturally significant school facilities in America **

For two years, Mays Prep has been

serving children in temporary trailers provided by FEMA as short term replacements to the devastated school facilities caused by Hurricane Katrina. Very soon, this will change. As a part of the 1.8 billion dollar FEMA grant that New Orleans recently received to rebuild and renovate the city’s public schools, Mays Prep has been chosen to occupy the historic William Frantz Elementary School building. Currently, the building sits abandoned and in desperate need of wholesale repair.

Not just any school building

Of course, William Frantz is not your everyday school facility. It has become a symbol of the progress made during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s as the iconic Ms. Ruby Bridges first integrated the school in the fall of 1964. Since that day, the Frantz School building has served as a landmark for the city of New Orleans. Honoring a proud legacy Mays Prep is proud to transition into the historic William Frantz building primarily because it gives us the opportunity to preserve the school’s cultural legacy. Even more, the children of the city of New Orleans are deserving of the opportunity to learn in a first class, modern facility. Equipped with a variety of impressive features, we hope to leverage our new campus to expand our course

offerings and extracurricular activities including a middle school sports program and a host of other supplemental school activities. Among other things, __________________________________________ “…the school will boast a full court gym, state-of-the art-science labs,

designated green space for organized play, and solar

paneling so as to ensure natural light.”

__________________________________________ Altogether, this project involves a 24 million dollar investment, and our hope is that it will signify Mays Prep’s long term presence in a community that we have been working with since inception. END.

Mays Prep scholars enjoy the groundbreaking ceremony with State Board member

Ms. Louella Givens

r

Quick Facts About Ms. Carryl Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio Alma mater:

Oakwood University, B.A.

Tulane University, MA.

Why Mays Prep?:

Dr. Michael Lomax

Mays Prep Staffer Lends Voice To National Conference

At Mays Prep, we take a tremendous amount of

pride when our teachers asked to share their professional perspective about what we simply call, “the work”. This past summer, 3rd grade teacher Ms. Nicole Carryl served as a featured speaker at a conference organized by Tulane University’s African and African Diaspora Studies Program entitled, “Before and After Katrina: Black Education in New Orleans.” consisted of local and regional educators who were charged with sharing research, offering perspective, and pushing forward the dialogue around the topic of Black Education in New Orleans. Despite being one of the youngest of all the featured panelists, Ms. Carryl shared her thoughts on the impact that various external forces like housing, healthcare, unemployment, and public safety impact have on public education. Her reviews were phenomenal. Each day, Mays Prep welcomes staff members who, like Ms. Carryl, share a similar passion for education and more specifically, for the fulfillment of our school-wide mission. To that end, we are lucky to have her – and so are our scholars. END.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOCAqruOApE

The conference’s panelists and presenters “I am passionately

committed to a

healthy disregard of

the impossible”

-N. Carryl

Watch it here!

Third Grade Teacher, Nicole Carryl

Mays Prep Needs You: 3 Ways to Support Our Work

Mr. Matt Candler, volunteer and Mays Prep supporter, spends a little

time with a scholar

1

2

3 REPRESENT-Shirt: We welcome you to

purchase a Mays Prep T-shirt and wear it in support of public charter schools in the city.

DONATE: We would be appreciative of donations of any sort; especially books, computers, and cash contributions.

MENTOR: We have several scholars who are in need of mentors. Volunteering time in this way could be immediately impactful.

grade in the Recovery School District. Ms. Carryl is a native of Brooklyn, New York and is a 2004 graduate of Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. She first arrived in New Orleans in 2007 to pursue graduate studies at Tulane University and has since combined her professional, volunteer, and research experience to the field of education. Mays Prep is pleased to have Ms. Carryl on our team!

Ms. Nicole Carryl is in her first of year of service to Mays Prep, having previously taught 4th

TEACHER SPOTLIGHT

Partnerships Make Mays Prep’s First Annual Holiday Giveaway a Smash!

Recently, Mays Prep partnered with

QCS Logistics, Feed the Children, All-Pro Sports and Entertainment, and Crocs Cares to execute our first annual Holiday Giveaway. The significance The event represented an opportunity for us to leverage our local and national partnerships in a way that benefits the school, and the greater Mays Prep community. School leader Duke Bradley says, “Of course partnerships are essential to the success of Mays Prep, but ___________________________________________

“…Memorandums of Understanding set on paper mean less than those partnerships that have some demonstrable benefit

to our school community.” ___________________________________________ Through this event, we were also able to express our appreciation for the support that our families have shown us throughout the year while coming together to fellowship and enjoy one another. What a day! What a day! Stemming from our new partnerships, Crocs Cares outfitted every Mays Prep scholar with a new pair of shoes. In addition, Feed the Children provided over 1000 individual boxes of non-perishable food items and personal care products to every single Mays Prep family. We can’t forget the additional food donations provided by QCS Logistics. To top it all off, All-Pro Sports and Entertainment supported the event by arranging for the appearance of current and former New Orleans Saints stars Courtney Roby and Willie Roaf. Altogether, this event represented the true power of partnership. END.

Former Saints great Willie Roaf (left)and current star Courtney Roby (right), support Mays Prep’s

Holiday Giveaway

Mays Prep scholars and friends enjoying themselves during Holiday Giveaway ceremony

PHOTO OF THE MONTH QUOTABLE

New Orleans City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson enjoys herself while

reading to a group of Mays Prep scholars.

“The new decade ought to loom as a dynamic and enormously creative era [in] addressing our educational challenges. We’ve set heroic goals, are constructing remarkable tools, and have an opportunity to rethink the very shape of teaching, learning, and schooling. Yet we find ourselves rehashing

Taken from Education

Week, “The Same Thing

Over and Over”

tired debates between public school defenders and self described innovators….We don’t need “innovation” or to “protect” public schools. The truth is far simpler, and more frustrating than that.

Yesterday’s structures are ill suited for

today’s ambitions. Rethinking them is

not an attack or a solution; it is just

the inevitable precursor to crafting

better answers to today’s

challenges.” – Frederick M. Hess

Discipline As a Cornerstone of Success

At Mays Prep, we subscribe to 6

core values: Hard Work, Excellence, Respect, Discipline, Determination, and Leadership. Each of these values are explicitly taught and every member of the Mays Prep community is held accountable for actively demonstrating them. We call it “Living the Values”. Perhaps the most seemingly ill- defined of these values is discipline. To us, however, discipline is not ill-defined at all and actually manifests very distinctly within our school. It should be noted that the Mays Prep definition of discipline extends beyond the most obvious features of most other

realized, a certain mindset must be in place. In that sense, we view discipline as a cornerstone of success in school and in life. Ms. Jasmine Graves who serves as our Dean of Students and Families says, ______________________________________

“Maintaining a disciplined school community allows us to create the conditions whereby

our students can perform…” ______________________________________ but we also want discipline to correspond with an attitude that permeates our school community and penetrates the spirit of our students.” “It must be more than just a mechanism to control student behaviors and promote operational efficiencies. It must be a part of our psyche.” END.

disciplined school communities like fanatically straight lines and eerily quiet hallways. We use discipline as a tool to instill a certain quality within our students that will support their ambitions and inform their habits beyond their days at Mays Prep. Our hope is that this quality will inspire an unrelenting pursuit of academic excellence and a belief that academic excellence can actually be achieved. We believe that for this to be

WE ARE MAYS PREP!