New Orleans Public Schools Partnered With Consultant ‘Beloved Community’ for a District-Wide Racial Equity Project

In November 2020, New Orleans Public Schools partnered with Beloved Community for a “District Wide Racial Equity Project.”

According to the NOLA Public Schools website, the school board approved engaging a racial equity consultant in 2020. The board’s full resolution, which included statements like the one below, may be found here.

NOLA Public Schools then partnered with Beloved Community, whose stated mission is to “build systemic change.”

Beloved Community’s Listed services include:

Awa Equity Audit: “a free tool which allows teams to explore hundreds of indicators on how diversity, equity, and inclusion are currently manifesting within your organization.”

Consulting: “Our Cohorts, Deep Dives, DEI Trainings, and Online Courses are all designed to equip leaders to drive sustainable change for diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Online Courses: Prices range from $99- $599

The school district’s 15 paged project plan includes “equity audits” that include students and parents. The document does not mention data privacy. The results of the equity audit may be found here.

According to PublicSchoolReview.com, elementary schools in New Orleans have an average ranking of 3/10, which is in the bottom 50% of Louisiana public elementary schools.