For a second time, lawyers argued to judges of a Baton Rouge state appellateย court over the issue of whether charter schools should be considered public schools and continue to receive a share of the roughly $60 million allocated annually by the state via theย Minimum Foundation Program.

Iberville School Board attorney Mike Fonthamย arguedย to the five-judge panel that the state is illegally redirecting Minimum Foundation Program funds from the Iberville school system to charter schools.

"This is unconstitutional," he said.ย "They'reย taking our money and givingย it to the charter schools. That cannot be constitutional."

ถถา๕h's Minimum Foundation Programย is the key source of aid for public schools.

Education Departmentย attorney Joan Hunt told the panel that MFP funds are distributed "equitably," with poorer parishes getting more and wealthier parishes getting less.

"The MFP was to apply to all public schools," she said. "These (charter schools) are public schools."

The litigation began when the Iberville Parish School Board and ถถา๕h Association of Educators, one of the state's two teacher unions,ย filed separate lawsuits in 2014 against the state Department of Education and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

A three-judge panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal firstย heard argumentsย in the case in February. But, because the panel later voted 2-1 to either modify or reverse state District Judge Wilson Fields' 2015 ruling that state education officials wereย properly using tax dollars to fund the operations of certain types of charter schools, the case was reassigned to a five-judge panel of the court.

At stake is the flow of state money to about three dozen BESE-authorized charter schools, including seven in East Baton Rouge Parish, six in Orleans Parish, three in Lafayette Parish and two in Jefferson Parish.

Mark Beebe, a lawyer for the ถถา๕h Association of Public Charter Schools and others,ย warned that the public education of 20,000 students is at stake in the case.

"The Constitution doesn't say 'only,'" he said of the LAE's and Iberville School Board's argument that MFP moneyย can go to only city orย parish school systems.

Fontham, who said he does not agree that charter schools are public schools,ย and LAE attorney Brian Blackwell also argued Wednesday that BESE-authorized charter schools, and those approved by local groups, don't qualify as "city and parish school systems" that the state Constitution requires be provided with MFP funds.

Circuit Judge Guy Holdridge, who sat on theย originalย panel that heard the case, pointed out that the Constitution also says "all students" in public elementary and secondary education are to be funded throughย the MFP.

Circuit Judge John Michael Guidry, a former state senator who alsoย served on the priorย panel, said the state can fund all education, both traditional public schools and charter schools, through the appropriations process without harming the Constitution.

Chief Judge Vanessa Whipple, who did not sit on the three-judge panel, said it is her understanding that charter schools wereย created because some public school systems were not meeting the needs of all students.

"They're either public or they're not," she said of charter schools.

Charter schools are run by nongovernmental boards and they operateย without much of the red tape associated with traditional public schools.

Whipple, Guidry, Holdridge and fellow Circuit Judges Ernest Drake and Wayne Ray Chutz took the arguments under advisement without indicating when a ruling would be issued. Chutz was the thirdย member of the original panel.

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MarkFollow Joe Gyan Jr. on Twitter, @JoeGyanJr.

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