Talking about the legislative session...

Rep. Jane Smith, Times Archives

As I was doing research for this blog post, I came across an interesting bill, which sounded like it was tailor made for a certain NWLA school district.

HB 1003, from Bossier representative Jane Smith, is called the "Red Tape Reduction Act" and if passed  would give a 2 year waiver to superintendents for low performing schools. The waiver waves everything, rules, regulation, the works, giving superintendents and school district carte blanche to get the schools to improve.Of course the super would have to identify in the waiver application which laws and/or polices they would wave, what will be used instead and how the school will improve.

A bit of background on Jane Smith: she is the former Bossier Parish school district superintendent. She's also a longtime teacher and principal from that district. 

Under this bill, BESE can also can require those schools covered by the waiver to  reward highly effective teachers, professional development for those who aren't, and to fire ineffective teachers. 

BESE could also require districts implement one of these four interventions:

1) Hire new leadership and new staff for the school.

2) Convert a school to a charter or use an education management system

3) Close the school and move to student to a higher performing school

4) Hire new leadership and implement "best practices".

Most of these changes have been implemented in the Caddo school district. In fact, it was one of the first major changed implemented by Superintendent Gerald Dawkins and caused quite a stir among teachers. 

However, that's not the part that was tailor made for Caddo. It's this one:

"A district that entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the board in lieu of having certain schools taken into the Recovery School District may request a waiver for such schools. The effects and requirements of the MOU shall be suspended for the duration of the waiver. If at the termination of the waiver the school has not met its statewide accountability growth targets, the school shall be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Recovery School District."

Each low-performing school in Caddo has entered into an MOU with the state. The school with the longest MOU is Bethune Middle, a school that State Superintendent Paul Pastorek  has said publicly would be the next Caddo school to enter the RSD if it didn't approve. 

With this bill Caddo could ask for a waiver for Bethune and not have to adhere to the MOU. The district could also chose to close the school and move students to other campuses. Why do this? To avoid having another school enter the Recovery School District. 

School board members have said over and over in public meetings that they would do nearly anything to keep another school from going into the RSD. Linwood and Linear, now charter schools, were taken over last year by the state. 

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