By Tyana Williams - bio | email
BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - Members of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to officially take over eight Baton Rouge schools, but it was the issue of improving local school boards that caused one board member to disagree with the others.
Chas Roemer stayed quiet through much of Wednesday's meeting as BESE members voted to allow the legislature to form a task force to improve local school boards, but Thursday, the lone no voter got verbal.
At Wednesday night's meeting, dozens of educators from across the state sat at the table defending their jobs. "Three hours of listening to ya'll about the governance of 20 or 30 schools, I wonder how this board can govern 68 school systems from a distance," said a Desoto Parish School Board member.
Up for discussion, Superintendent Paul Pastorek wants term limits and pay cuts for parish school board members. Pastorek says part of school reform involves new blood with new ideas. "This is not a BESE issue," said BESE member Linda Johnson. "It's an issue for the legislature." A majority of the state board members agreed that they have no authority to change those things. Instead, members voted to let the legislature handle it, making it a done deal.
Thursday's BESE meeting had no presence from parish board members, so Roemer decided to speak up. "That's not the truth," he said. "You're against school board reform because it threatens your position." Roemer hopes state Representative Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge follows through with his plan to file bills limiting terms and pay on school board members. "We have term limits on the president of the United States, term limits on governor, term limits on legislature, and on ourselves. Now, you tell me why we shouldn't have them on school boards," Roemer said forcefully.
BESE decided how the takeover of the eight Baton Rouge schools will work. Capitol Elementary and Capitol Middle School will be run by the state's recovery school district. The recovery district will also operate Banks Elementary and Park Elementary, and then they will be run by a charter starting in July 2010. Dalton Elementary and Lanier Elementary will be run by Advance Baton Rouge. Crestworth Learning Academy will get Crestworth Middle. The Pelican Educational Foundation will take over Kenilworth Middle.
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