Possibly relocating to New Orleans from Memphis

[KimHFNP]

Hi! I am a Family Nurse Practitioner and I live in Memphis. I have two small children and am married. We may be moving to New Orleans, but I am having trouble getting good info on the city- esp info on education. I know that the public school situation is dicey, but are there ANY public schools that ARE NOT magnet schools in New Orleans that are good? I dont want a magnet school bc I know you have to apply, and we wont be there in time for that. Or are there any DECENT private schools that ARE NOT exprensive? I have been looking on city data forums and they are very skewed towards the conservative. I like a mixed bag of responses. Also, if there are any nurses out there with kids who used to live in Memphis and now live in NO, that would be great! Thank you so much!

[BeeJayCeeYa]

Right now New Orleans is the poster child for charter schools due in no small part to the amount of corruption and incompetence displayed in the past by our school board. After Hurricane Katrina, the school board lost control of all but a few schools; the state took control of a bunch because they were scoring so poorly, different charter groups are running some with varying degrees of success, and (strangely enough) the few that the school board still has left are some of the best performers. The only ones the school board was allowed to keep were the ones with decent testing scores so those schools are good ones to consider. Personally, if I were moving here with children, I would consider not living inside Orleans parish if I were sending my kids to public school (I would lean towards Metairie). If you are considering private schools, Jesuit High School (for boys) is very impressive (and cheap for the quality of education, IMO), deLaSalle is good (and co-ed now, I believe) and there are several all-girl Catholic high schools. Unfortunately, the only private schools I know anything about are Catholic. Any idea of where you are planning to live? In Orleans Parish, Algiers has a very good grammar school (Alice Harte) and also Edna Karr as a middle school but I think that one was made a magnet before Katrina. I don't know what it is now. Basically, to summarize my long and verbose post, Algiers and Uptown both have good public schools up to 8th grade. For high school, I would opt for a Catholic school. But that's me.

Good luck and welcome to our city.

[cinja]

Former Med TICU nurse here looking for some good info on NOLA. Where are the jobs in NOLA and which hospitals to avoid.

[BBQvegan]

I have no kids, and really don't know much about this. But, I have heard that Lusher is the best public school in the city. It's located Uptown near Tulane and Loyola. Look into it.

[*~RN~*]

The best jobs in New Orleans are agency jobs. The money is good and New Orleans needs lots of full time contract nurses. If you work staff, you won't make much money. I work for Symmetric Healthcare Staffing and they pay me well. I work on contract in New Orleans, LA and they provide health insurance and many other unique benefits that other agencies don't provide. They are also Joint Commission Certified which makes me know that I'm working for a solid, sound, and competent company.