Towana Pierre-Floyd’s first test as an educator came in August 2005, when, two weeks into her teaching career, she was evacuated from her hometown of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina struck.
With many of her students, Pierre-Floyd moved to Houston, where she spent the rest of the year teaching reading to seventh graders displaced from New Orleans at KIPP New Orleans West (NOW) College Prep.
“I became really passionate about being at a place that cared that much,” she said. “I recognized that students may need more than just a teacher in the room who can teach a concept. They need someone who cares.”
Now, Pierre-Floyd is accepting a new challenge: she is founding a new school in New Orleans, KIPP Renaissance High School’s Early College Academy, as part of KIPP’s selective Fisher Fellowship.
The year-long fellowship program puts emerging school leaders through rigorous leadership development programs, sends them around the country to visit high-performing schools to learn from school leaders, and encourages them to spend time developing their concepts for new schools. This past year, there were 16 Fisher Fellows, many of whom are planning to open new schools this fall.
“The whole year is spent designing your school, detailing all your plans and everything you’re going to do,” Pierre-Floyd said. “You have to wrestle with and explain the gamble you’re taking around what makes a good school, and what makes a great school and what’s going to make your school great for the community that you serve.”
Pierre-Floyd said the school will provide its 137 incoming freshmen — and the students who follow — with the opportunity to graduate with both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. Along the way, students will also have opportunities to travel domestically and internationally and get involved in their local community.
“What I’ve already told my staff, and what I believe deeply, is that we exist and can exist because of the great work that KIPP already does,” she said. “We are firmly and proudly part of that legacy and plan to live up to the KIPP credo of ‘ever better.'”
