New Governor, Legislature means new EBR school district could happen without new city

quote:

---

Legislation making its way through the state Legislature seeks to remove legal barriers that make it very hard to create new public school districts in Louisiana. Removing those barriers would likely activate a breakaway district in southeast Baton Rouge — a forerunner to St. George — that was approved 11 years ago but never funded.

---

quote:

---

House Bill 6, authored by Rep. Emily Chenevert, R-Baton Rouge, proposes amending the Louisiana Constitution to make all this happen. The legislation would add a statewide referendum to the Nov. 5 ballot.

The bill easily passed both the House’s Education and Civil Law & Procedure committees. It now awaits action by the full House. For final passage, the bill needs a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate.

Since it went into effect in 1974, the state Constitution has given voters the final say as to whether new proposed school districts receive state education funding. In 1995, 1999 and 2006, voters exercised this power, funding breakaway school districts in Baker, Zachary and Central, adding each one by name into the Constitution.

---

quote:

---

House Bill 6 would ask the nearly 3 million registered voters in Louisiana to give up that power and hand it over to the 144 members of the Legislature.

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.”

---

quote:

---

If voters agree to the change, all that would be needed to create a new school district would be a simple majority vote of the Legislature.

---

quote:

---

Now a legislative liaison for Gov. Jeff Landry, Mack “Bodi” White served as state senator from 2012 to 2023 and led the charge for the breakaway southeast Baton Rouge district and later the City of St. George. He testified recently in favor of Chenevert’s bill.

“If I had been here another term, I would probably have run this bill,” he said April 3.

In 2013, White persuaded a majority of the Legislature to approve Act 295, the law creating the southeast Baton Rouge district.

That act, however, has never gone into effect. It specifies that it “shall take effect and become operative if and when a proposed amendment” to the state Constitution “is adopted.” That never happened. After a furious fight, White’s proposed amendment that year failed, falling short of the required two-thirds supermajority.

---

quote:

---

The new district’s boundaries, carved out of the parish school system, would be shaped like a slice of pie. They 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.

When it was under consideration in 2013, the 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.

---