New Orleans, fondly known in better days for its spectacular cuisine, cool jazz, and good times, was the leading story on television news broadcasts the world over when a massive hurricane came. As Katrina took its destructive path, culminating in the devastating rupture of ill-prepared levee systems, the world was riveted by stories about the thousands of citizens huddled in the Superdome, in the convention center, and on a major New Orleans overpass. A combination of no food, no water, and masses of people created the perfect recipe for chaos and unmerciful, undeserved death, increasing the tribulations of an already largely poor, marginalized population. The devastation, shattered lives, lost dreams, obliterated property, and hundreds of deaths will draw a clear delineation in the annals of Louisiana history with the reference point of before Katrina (BK) and after Katrina (AK). In this article, the author presents and shares Ora Watson's sentiments on the status of the schools. Watson suggests that a new beginning could occur with the washing away of an inadequate public school system. Thus, the author states that there is much to consider in determining what it means to begin anew and what should be the guiding vision to make public schools in Orleans Parish more effective, particularly for those poor children who have suffered so greatly because of Katrina. Of course, within the renewing effort, Orleans Parish still falls under the rubric of conforming to the standards set by the Louisiana education department, which includes the state's "School and District Accountability System," the cornerstone of the Louisiana Educational Reform Initiative.