With several members absent, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board collapsed into dysfunction Thursday when it couldnโt muster the votes to approve a series of items including a proposed expenditure budget for Supt. Sito Narcissesโs dual enrollment expansion.
Falling short were proposals to establish maximum enrollment and grade configurations for two new planned schools in southeast Baton Rouge. Also falling short was an effort to approve all at once six federally funded contracts ranging from $50,000 to $1.4 million.
The board also put other business off until July 14:
- A proposal to put a new medically oriented school on the campus of the former Kenilworth Middle School, a program backed by Ochsner Health Systems.
- New job descriptions for school safety officers and school resource officers, or SRO. The new safety officer positions have raised concern because the officers, unlike the SRO, would not be armed and could not make arrests.
Narcisse urged the board to pass these items right away rather than delaying them, noting that the 2022-23 school is starting in early August.
On each of these items a handful of speakers came to the mike in opposition. Narcisse, however, said these speakers donโt necessarily reflect the broader views in the Baton Rouge community.
โI donโt think itโs fair that people just see what happens in this board meeting and think this is the overall view of this parish,โ Narcisse said. โI donโt think thatโs fair.โ
For much of the meeting, there were only six of nine members present. On most matters, the board needs a quorum โย five members โย to vote yes. Absent were board members Connie Bernard, Tramelle Howard and Dadrius Lanus.
The items rejected Thursday generally were done in 4-2 votes with board members Dawn Collins and Evelyn Ware-Jackson voting no.
Ware-Jackson had concerns about multiple agenda items. She faulted Narcisse for jumping ahead of the board on many issues.
โWe must stop confusing people,โ she said. โThere is enough confusion in this district without us adding to it.โ
When the board voted to reject the six federal contracts, an upset board member Mike Gaudet walked out, leaving the board with only five members left to conduct Thursdayโs meeting.
Gaudet had gotten increasingly frustrated during the meeting, arguing the board was drifting into micromanaging the superintendent.
โWe as a board need to step up to a higher level,โ he said.
The items voted down Thursday canโt be reconsidered for at least 60 days. A workaround is if one of the no votes flips and agrees to allow the item to be reconsidered earlier.
Also, itโs unclear the effect of Thursdayโs actions.
For instance, the rejection of the dual enrollment expansion may have limited reach. Called Pathways to Bright Futures, the goal is to dramatically increase the number of high school students earning college credits while still in high school.
Thursdayโs agenda was described as โConsideration of a request for the approval of the Pathways to Bright Futures expenditures.โ The accompanying document that was rejected, however, was not a budget, but a cost estimate for the program for the 2022-23 school year.
The items postponed to the July 14 board meeting will join a big item previously delayed: Approval of the 2022-23 district budget. Thatโs actually two budgets, a $517 million general operating budget and a $350 million budget for all other funds in the district, what is known as a โSpecial Revenue Fundโ budget.