Your Mail 6-3: School board group supports bills

As the Executive Director of the Louisiana School Boards Association, on behalf of the 69 locally elected school boards in the state, we urge Governor John Bel Edwards to sign into law a series of bills that were passed by the Legislature. Specifically, we urge that SB 260 and SB 262 by Senator Morrish; and, SB 477 and SB 270 by Senator Boudreaux become law without delay.

SB 260 repeals the provisions in Louisiana law allowing for what are termed “local charter authorizers.” Local charter authorizers are private corporations that could have been given the authority to issue charters to other private corporations to operate “public” charter schools. The local charter authorizer concept was a bad idea that has not been acted upon to date and needs to be removed from Louisiana law.

SB 262, SB 477 and SB 270 were arrived at via collaboration of a wide range of education stakeholders. SB 262 continues the current rules for the state accountability system for public schools to provide for a true transition year under the new Louisiana content standards that are anticipated to replace Common Core. SB 477 modifies the value-added model program of teacher evaluation, currently on hold, to provide that more of a teacher’s evaluation can be factors other than the state’s high stakes exams that students take each spring. SB 270 provides a workable solution to data privacy concerns for public schools and public charter schools.

These bills each improve public education in a way that was strongly supported by a bipartisan effort of the Legislature and meaningful collaboration by a number of stakeholders.

Scott Richard

LSBA Executive Director