








In the main office of Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary School in lower Algiers, Principal Cynthia Bernard chats with teachers while writing in large black letters across the back of a white banner: Dwight D. Eisenhower Charter School. It's different now, said Bernard. That's why we changed the name. The banner that used to say Eisenhower Elementary will read Eisenhower Charter as it hangs on the front of the school Wednesday morning, symbolic of the changes within New Orleans Public Schools since Hurricane Katrina hit in August. Nearly 1,600 students will return to five West Bank schools in New Orleans this week - Eisenhower, Martin Behrman Elementary, Alice M. Harte Elementary, O. Perry Walker Senior High and Edna Karr Senior High. Eight more schools are scheduled to reopen as student enrollment increases.The schools, formerly under the Orleans Parish School Board's control, will be run by the Algiers Charter School Association, a separate board.I never studied charter schools before. I never had to, Bernard said. But you're allowed flexibility with a charter. You either have enough rope to swing from a tree or hang from a tree.While the schools look the same, the teachers and principals are different. Teachers are working with colleagues they've never met and students are sitting next to new classmates.We could have kids from two entirely different cultures here, said Bernard, former principal at Paul B. Habans Elementary School in Algiers. But what we want to do is develop a new culture. Since Hurricane Katrina, things have to change. Our perspective has to broaden.The schools will open half-days through Dec. 22.
