As students have returned to Alice M. Harte Elementary School, they have found their old school far from the way they left it on the last school day before Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the city. The building may look much the same as it did on August 26, 2006 but half the faces here are new--from principals to teachers to students. The possessions of classmates and teachers who have not returned are bagged and in storage, waiting for them to come back to New Orleans, if and when they do. Located in the Algiers section on the city's west bank, which was the first section of the city to be reopened to residents because it was spared the flooding caused by the city's broken levees, the school is now a part of the recently launched Algiers charter school system, considered a possible model of things to come for the city's schools. The Algiers charters--three K-8 and two high schools that have enrolled some 2,400 students from across the city--could be called a system of schools, rather than a school system, according to Brian Riedlinger, the interim director of the Algiers Charter School Association, the private nonprofit group that holds the charter awarded by the district school board. Unlike most school systems, where superintendents and school boards make a majority of the decisions, principals in Algiers have control over the hiring and retaining of staff members, and a great deal of control over scheduling and curriculum. Eventually, though not in the first year, they will manage their schools' budgets. Mr. Riedlinger explained that its goal is to create strong and independent schools that grow and flourish on their own. "If I do my job well, conceivably I won't have a job in five years," he said.