Opposition is growing to legislation that supporters say would simplify the overly complicated process of creating new school districts but that detractors say is a backdoor way of forming a long-proposed St. George school district without a vote by residents of the parish.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has come out to formally oppose House Bill 6, by State Rep. Emily Chenevert, R-Baton Rouge. Also opposing the bill is the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.
It’s a reassembly of the coalition that helped block legislative efforts in 2013 to create a breakaway school district in southeast Baton Rouge.
HB6 seeks to remove legal barriers that make it very hard to create new public school districts in Louisiana. In doing so, it could activate a breakaway district in southeast Baton Rouge — a forerunner to St. George — that was approved 11 years ago but never funded.
This “zombie school district,” as opponents describe it, could serve as the basis for a new St. George school district, which would be carved out of the parish school system.
Chenevert’s bill easily made it through two House committees, but has hit turbulence on the House floor. It is scheduled to be debated anew on Monday.
A big sticking point is that, in changing the Constitution, the bill would result in people both statewide and in the affected parish, in this case East Baton Rouge Parish, losing their right to vote on the new school district.
Chenevert, however, has amended her bill after initial criticism. She says in its current form the bill protects the right of people to vote — though only in the school district, not the parish that is being divided — and it removes the statewide vote now required. And creating school districts also would not require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature that is now required.
She came to Thursday’s East Baton Rouge Parish School Board meeting to defend HB6.
In response to a question from board member Nathan Rust, Chenevert insisted it was never her "intent" to retroactively create a Southeast Baton Rouge school district.
"No school district would be formed without the vote of the people,” Chenevert said.
Board members opposed to HB6 were not persuaded, and argued, in any case, that eliminating a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to create new districts set the bar too low.
Board member Mike Gaudet who drafted a resolution opposing HB6, said requiring a supermajority vote helps to prevent bad ideas carried out in the heat of the moment from being enacted. He noted that St. George supporters no longer want a district that looks like the left-for-dead Southeast Baton Rouge Community School System and would seek to change it if it came into effect.
"Something that was passed 11 years ago that lies dormant should be thrown out because it’s something nobody wants,” Gaudet said.
The Baton Rouge Area Chamber, or BRAC, strongly opposed the proposed southeast Baton Rouge district a decade ago and continued its opposition when that effort morphed into the movement to incorporate a city of St. George.
A St. George school district is the long sought educational companion to the City of St. George. Voters approved the city in 2019. City backers won a key victory Friday when the state Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings, clearing the city to begin operations.
On Thursday, the business lobbying organization made clear that its opposition continues at least in HB6’s “current posture.”
“BRAC shares the School Board’s concerns about the potential implications of such a change,” read the statement issued by Brace “Trey” Godfrey, BRAC’s senior vice president of policy.
Godfrey said BRAC has long been skeptical of independent school districts, which are common in states such as Texas, and that HB6 has a “laundry list” of other unaddressed issues, listing nine examples.
For instance: Would the new district owe money for facilities and pensions? Would it take on debt for facilities it takes over?
The School Board resolution opposing HB6 passed by a 5-2-2 margin.
Here’s the vote breakdown:
- For: Mike Gaudet, Dadrius Lanus, Cliff Lewis, Carla Powell-Lewis and Shashonnie Steward.
- Against: Mark Bellue and Nathan Rust.
- Abstain: Patrick Martin V and Emily Soulé.
All four of the board members who abstained or voted against the resolution have constituents either in the dormant Southeast Baton Rouge district or in the municipal boundaries of the proposed City of St. George.
Bellue said he thought the opposition resolution was well-written and informative but nevertheless said he was voting "no" because he doesn’t believe the school system should take a position one way or another on the legislation.
Martin said he abstained because he felt the legislative effort was distant from the core work of serving on the school board.
“This is really fundamentally related to how we go about educating our kids and teaching them to read and write in this district,” he said.
