The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board is considering a resolution opposing legislation that seeks to remove legal barriers that make it very hard to create new public school districts in Louisiana and in removing those barriers could activate a breakaway district in southeast Baton Rouge — a forerunner to St. George — that was approved 11 years ago but never funded.
Four school board members are sponsoring the resolution opposing House Bill 6, a proposed constitutional amendment that would appear on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The resolution argues that HB6, if enacted, would serve to bypass the vote by the citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish that is required now to create breakaway school districts, thereby “completely circumventing the current process.”
“If this constitutional amendment succeeds, school districts statewide could be created and/or existing districts redrawn solely by a majority vote of the Legislature and signature of the Governor, without any vote by the impacted local parents and taxpaying citizens,” reads the resolution.
The School Board is set to consider the resolution when it meets at 5 p.m. Thursday at the School Board Office, 1050 S. Foster Drive.
House Bill 6, authored by Rep. Emily Chenevert, R-Baton Rouge, was debated briefly Tuesday by the full House before it was returned to the table. Before that, Chenevert amended her bill to say that before a school district can be divided there has to be a vote its residents. For final passage, the bill needs a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate.
The proposed amendment targets the section of the Constitution that spells out who can receive state education funding. That funding is distributed via a formula known as the Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP. Only 69 school districts and “no more” are privy to MFP funds. The amendment would remove the words “no more” and extend MFP funds to “any other school system created by the legislature.”
Adding that language to the Constitution could trigger Act 295 of 2013. That act, once enacted, calls for the Southeast Baton Rouge Community School System to “begin actual operation” the following July 1, in this case as early as July 1, 2025.
It would become the 70th school district in the state and the fifth in East Baton Rouge Parish.
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. A St. George school district is the long sought educational companion to the controversial City of St. George, which voters approved in 2019 but is on hold awaiting the outcome of an appeal to the state Supreme Court.
The Southeast Baton Rouge Community School District was approved by a majority of the Legislature in 2013, but a companion constitutional amendment that year fell short of the required two-thirds vote. By contrast, the breakaway districts of Baker, Zachary and Central had previously won supermajorities in the Legislature, and all were subsequently successful at the ballot box.
The resolution is the first visible sign of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system fighting HB6, which was filed Jan. 11. That’s a notable contrast with the fierce lobbying the school system engaged in when the proposed southeast Baton Rouge breakaway district legislation was debated in 2012 and again in 2013.
Four out of the nine members of the parish School Board are sponsoring the resolution: Mike Gaudet, Dadrius Lanus, Cliff Lewis and Shashonnie Steward. None have constituents in the would-be breakaway region.
The new district’s boundaries, carved out of the parish school system, would be shaped like a slice of pie. Those boundaries would start at the Interstate 10/12 split and extend east on I-12 and southeast on I-10 to the Livingston and Ascension parish lines.
Three board members have constituents living within those boundaries: Mark Bellue, District 1; Nathan Rust, District 6; and Patrick Martin, District 9.
District 8, which Emily Soulé represents since winning a March 23 special election, abuts the proposed school district and includes much of the municipal boundaries of the proposed City of St. George.
When it was under consideration in 2013, the proposed southeast Baton Rouge school district would have taken with it 10 schools and an estimated 6,800 students. That is 11 schools now thanks to the addition of BASIS Materra charter school. Those 11 schools currently enroll about 7,700 students.
The boundaries of the new district would split several school attendance zones and likely cut off access to popular magnet schools such as Baton Rouge Magnet High. The result would likely be thousands of displaced students who would have to change schools.
The proposed resolution opposing HB6 argues that the students and families living in this southeast Baton Rouge district “would lose access to (district) magnet schools, focused choice school options and other (district) educational resources currently available to them.”
Elyse Carmosino contributed to this story.
