Top New Baton Rouge Charter School Breaks Ground at Woman's Hospital Site

BATON ROUGE, La. and SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The new BASIS Baton Rouge charter school ? set to open to 450 K-5 students next fall ? hosts a groundbreaking ceremony this week on the site of the brand new campus.

BASIS Baton Rouge, which is currently accepting applications for the 2018-2019 academic year, is the first school in Louisiana for the nationally-renowned network of BASIS Curriculum Schools. The open enrollment, tuition free charter came to Baton Rouge via a first-of-its-kind partnership with the East Baton Rouge School District and Woman's Hospital. The school will be located on the Woman's Hospital campus, where the groundbreaking will take place, at the northeast corner of Airline Highway and Stumberg Lane.

The groundbreaking is particularly notable due to the high caliber speakers at the event, who include:

• Craig R. Barrett, Chairman of the BASIS Baton Rouge Board of Directors and former President and CEO of Intel;
• Teri Fontenot, President and CEO of Woman's Hospital; and
• Warren Drake, Superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish Schools.

While the plan is for BASIS Baton Rouge to be K-5 school when it opens, with enough community interest, 6^th graders may also be enrolled next fall. Eventually, BASIS Baton Rouge will serve K-12 students.

"This ceremony is a nice combination of something practical, and something symbolic for BASIS Baton Rouge," said BASIS.ed CEO Peter Bezanson. "Practically speaking, we're building a new schoolhouse from the ground up, and we are looking forward to starting that vital, tangible project. But the symbolism is important too. Breaking ground makes clear our stake in this city, signifies a literal and figurative foundation of something real and durable and useful here."

BASIS Baton Rouge is the 25^th charter school in the BASIS Curriculum Schools network, which now has a total of 32 schools in six states, the District of Columbia, and China. The network is highly-regarded for excellence by any measure ? national rankings, Advanced Placement results, OECD/PISA testing, and college admissions, among other factors. It serves thousands of individual students with the world class BASIS Curriculum and consistently outstanding student outcomes.

About?BASIS Curriculum Schools
The BASIS Curriculum Schools network is among the best in the world, serving students from Preschool through Grade 12. The BASIS Curriculum ? founded in 1998, and cultivating excellence every year since -- educates students at the highest international levels, preparing them to be participants, not spectators, in the 21^st-century global workforce of commerce and innovation. There are currently twenty-four operating public charter schools in Arizona, Texas, and Washington, D.C., five independent schools in California, New York, and Virginia, and two international schools in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China. For more information, please?visit BASISBatonRouge.com, BASISed.com, or vectors.BASISed.com.

SOURCE BASIS.ed