Chris Meyer is the CEO of New Schools Baton Rouge. He was the first in his family to go to college and, after a brief stint teaching in the broken education system of New Orleans, his experiences sent him on a quest to fix it. Starting from the top down, he began working to change education on a policy level before going on to start the organization New Schools Baton Rouge who is actively working to recruit, launch, and support schools with proven track records of success to provide Baton Rouge families with excellent education options.

In this episode, we look at the controversial school letter grading system, the changes in policy to gives schools more autonomy, the impact of charters on the Louisiana education system and the vision for Baton Rouge becoming the first city in the country to have every school ranked A or B.

When we first started this show, one of the questions we often asked is, "what do you think is one of the most pressing issues our city faces." And often, the response that we got was the racial divides. With the death of Alton Sterling and the two police officers back in 2016, the conversations on race were suddenly more prevalent. Leading much of this discussion, was the organization, Dialogue on Race. In this episode as altBR comes to a conclusion, we wanted to circle back to this important topic to leave you all with a bit more perspective, and hopefully, some valuable information that you can use in your own experiences and conversations on race moving forward.

To help us with this, we’re in the studio today with Maxine Crump, who is the President and CEO of Dialogue on Race Louisiana. The model for this program was created more than 20 years ago. Maxine worked with YWCA past board presidents, community organizations like Louisiana Council on Human Relations and professors of History, Political Science and Sociology from both LSU and Southern University to develop a structured program of six consecutive two hour weekly sessions based on scholarly reading materials and led by a bi-racial team of trained facilitators. Maxine has remained involved in a leadership role in Dialogue at all levels, including training facilitators from its inception.

Mina Estrada is the Director of Artist Resources at The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge.

At her core, Mina is a dancer - always has been, always will be. She got a job teaching dance right out of college, got her MFA etc. etc. That's just the tip of the iceberg! She's worked for educational institutions, non-profit organizations and dance troupes for years championing the arts. In fact, over the coming months she'll be teaching and choreographing dance.

But in all of her endeavors, her greatest is still to come. In this episode, Mina drops the bomb of an idea that she's been dreaming up and let me tell you, you do NOT want to miss out on this. You heard it here first.

Well friends... I guess this is it. At least for our humble show, altBR. It started over a Cracker Barrel breakfast and two years later, we feel like we've built something that mattered. We interviewed over 100 people who are the boots on the ground in Baton Rouge, actively making it a better place. From politicians to chefs, activists to musicians, future astronauts to educators, we've run the gamut of industries, races, religions, passions, ages and educations. Because we wanted this show to be about the city. And we have a diverse city.

After this episode, we'll be releasing five more to finish out the show with a few more incredible folks. We've so enjoyed getting to know our city better and the people who make it home. While we wind down this little side project of ours, we hope that the people and the stories they've told have inspired you to take a closer look at Baton Rouge and see the beauty and the hope that is here.

We'll see you around the city.

Morgan is the marketing coordinator for Baton Rouge Area Chamber and Co-Chair of the Barton Leadership Program. Her work in the community with organizations like TEDxLSU and Forum35 have shown a new side of Baton Rouge. A thriving young professional community, an endless number of ways to get involved, serve and give back to the city and, of course, have fun.

In this episode, we also explore the Barton Leadership Program which is a curriculum that focuses on the aspects of leadership development and board governance. If you've had the desire to give back to your community by serving on a board, committee or advisory council, give this episode a listen.

Deborah Sternberg is the Chair of the Baton Rouge chapter of the Young Entrepreneurs Academy. YEA is dedicated to providing high-school students with the education, network and resources to start a business. This program has trained thousands of students across the US, some of which have found themselves making it on Shark Tank and running multi-million dollar companies.

Bringing the curriculum to Baton Rouge, she's pulled together a team of entrepreneurs and educators to invest in the rising generation. From developing a business plan, mapping out a revenue model, prototyping products and strategizing supply chain operations, these kids learn the in's and out's of business.

Donney Rose, is a poet, teaching artist, and community activist from Baton Rouge. In April 2018, Donney became a 2018-2019 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow.

Leslie D. Rose, is a poet, photographer, and media professional from southern New Jersey. She works in higher education and non profit public relations, and offers freelance publicity work with an emphasis on rebranding.

The husband and wife team is bringing a new conference to Baton Rouge this year called Black Out Loud focused on celebrating Black visibility in the realm of arts, media and activism through social mixers, workshops, panel discussions and a keynote address.