Public education in New Orleans is today wholly entrusted to non-profit charter schools. Multiple networks of independent charter schools are supervised by the elected school board, which functions as the disinterested enforcer of academic standards, provider of resources best offered in a centralized fashion, and owner of school buildings. The resulting highly entrepreneurial environment has transformed educational outcomes throughout the city and afforded to successful charter school operators the opportunity to take over operation of additional schools.

Audubon Schools began as a traditionally-administered public elementary school in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. Almost fifty years ago, four teachers attending Montessori training at Tulane University resolved to find a public school home for this unique pedagogical approach, then and now mostly present in private Montessori schools. The teachers successfully petitioned the Orleans Parish School Board, which authorized “Audubon Montessori” in 1981. Five years later, the school started a French immersion track, which was formally sponsored by the French government in 1990 (The French Ministry of Education supports the program to this day). In the years leading up to Hurricane Katrina (2005), Audubon Montessori became widely referred to as a “public dream school” beloved by its parents (who affixed to their cars bumper stickers sporting this slogan). In the wake of Katrina, Audubon reopened as an independent charter school.

Under the leadership of Superintendent Henderson Lewis (2015-2022), the OPSB adopted a policy of encouraging successful charter school operators to grow by being awarded additional schools to administer. In Gentilly Terrace, an historic neighborhood of the city platted in 1909, the closure of the neighborhood’s charter elementary school was announced in 2016, a consequence of unimpressive academic results and dwindling enrollment. An unprecedented alliance of the Gentilly Terrace & Gardens Improvement Association, the leadership of Audubon Schools and the OPSB was formed to argue for the selection of Audubon as the new operator for Gentilly Terrace’s neighborhood elementary school. In the fall of 2018, Audubon Gentilly began operations, immediately ranking among the most sought-after public schools in the city.

Crescent Growth Capital was hired by Audubon Schools to provide contingent fee-based historic preservation consulting and historic tax credit monetization services, to subsidize the $2.7 million cost of readying the school building for its new operator. Gentilly Terrace School was constructed in 1914, to a design by architect E.A. Christy, and expanded in 1924. The wood-frame Craftsman style building boasts numerous flourishes which typify the Arts-and-Crafts movement, including scalloped rafter tails, decorative friezes and elaborate knee-brace brackets at the gable ends, A contributing element to the Gentilly Terrace National Register Historic District, the school received a rehabilitated ground floor and dramatically re-landscaped side yard play areas incorporating best practices in stormwater management.

Crescent Growth Capital’s in-house historic preservation specialist prepared a three-element Historic Preservation Certification Application over seventeen months. Part 3 approval was received on December 19, 2019, with credit monetization accomplished by Crescent and tax credit sale proceeds delivered to Audubon Schools in July of 2020.