New film and television charter school with connections to George Clooney proposed for Baton Rouge

New Schools for Louisiana is working on establishing a new charter school in Baton Rouge that would offer career and technical training to students interested in the film and television industry.

Kara Maggiore, executive director of New Schools for Louisiana, says the school would be a private-public partnership between her organization, New Schools for Baton Rouge and Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency, led in part by Bryan Lorde and George Clooney.

Maggiore says she’s been talking with CAA over the past year, with the conversation about opening a Baton Rouge school picking up in November. She, along with a group of other Louisiana officials, will travel to Los Angeles next week to meet with CAA leadership and tour the school that the organization currently operates in Los Angeles as well as Fox Studios, one of CAA’s partners.

“[CAA] has a vision that these schools will exist in every major production city, such as here in Baton Rouge and Atlanta,” Maggiore says. “We’ll partner with the CAA folks for the curriculum and provide educational opportunities through partnerships with larger companies.”

Curriculum at the new high school, currently expected to open in 2025, will focus on “below the line” work such as camera work and other production roles. The school will not focus on acting or directing classes.

“The curriculum would prepare students for jobs with benefits that exist in Louisiana that are accessible right after high school,” Maggiore says.

If the deal is finalized later this spring, she says school operators would begin the process of applying for a charter over the course of the next school year.

There are currently multiple sites in the city being considered for the school, which will run from ninth to 12th grades with 100 students in each grade. New Schools for Baton Rouge is providing grant funding to help launch the school, she says.

This story originally appeared in a May 1 issue of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.