January 9, 2022
The increasing spread of COVID-19 in New Orleans is worrying. Each day, the city is breaking the previous day’s record for COVID-19 cases, hospitalization rates have doubled, and over 30% of people in New Orleans who get a COVID-19 test are currently testing positive.
Orleans Parish:
Clerk - 2nd City Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lisa Ray Diggs
Jefferson Parish (City of Kenner):
Mayor....................................................... Michael Glaser (dual)
Ben Zahn (dual)
Chief of Police......................................... Keith Conley
Councilmember District 2...................... Ronnie Sharwath
Councilmember District 3...................... Joey LaHatte, III
Councilmember District 5...................... Brian Brennan
✔️ HB 510: Ending the Onslaught of Trainings
✔️ HB 363: Teacher Voice in SLTs
✔️ HB 98: Amended
✔️ SB 151: Preserving Local Control of ITEP
✔️ HB 819: Extending Maternal Health Leave to All Employees
❌ HB 986: Privatizing Food Services in Schools
❌ SB 145: Eliminating Local Input in Corporate Charter Schools
➡️ Six Opportunities to TAKE ACTION
The legislative session is in full swing, and the committees are considering important legislation that will impact educators and their families all over the state. One of the most enlightening discussions came on Wednesday during the consideration of House Bill 363.
HB 363 (Bryant) seeks to cement existing BESE policy into law. Unfortunately, the policy often isn’t followed in schools. Under BESE policy, SLTs are supposed to be drafted by teachers at the beginning of each school year, based on the unique needs of their students. Unfortunately, in many districts there is little-to-no discussion. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but it does happen too often, and it deprives our students of the individualized attention they are supposed to get from their educators. HB 363 simply says that if SLTs aren’t “developed collaboratively” with the teacher, those SLT scores shall not be used in the teacher’s evaluation.
It is supported by both teachers' unions and the Louisiana Association of Principals – all the stakeholders involved in this process in the schools. However, it faced significant pushback from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and the Pelican Institute...
This week brought an unexpected twist. The 2022 Regular Legislative Session was paused and interrupted a Redistricting Veto Override Session. On Monday, the legislature announced that a supermajority of legislators did not return ballots indicating they did not want to hold a veto override session. So, constitutionally a veto override session is called.
At the end of the day on Tuesday, the Regular Legislative Session adjourned, and at noon on Wednesday the Veto Override Session began. While scheduled to go at late as Sunday, the veto ultimately took only a few hours. By the end of the afternoon on Wednesday both the House and the Senate voted to override the Governor’s veto of the new Congressional map.
Two weeks into the legislative session and, so far, the legislature has yet to tackle the most controversial bills of the session. Committee meetings have focused on more mundane bills but an obvious elephant-in-the-room as tinged discussions. Legislators are finally waking up to the reality that our schools are in freefall. They are finally, beginning to see the teacher shortage for the crisis that it is. Next week several of the most crucial bills will be heard in committee and on the House floor. Find out what happened this week and what we can expect next week:
On Thursday, the House Education Committee heard a presentation from Dr. Kim Hunter Reed, Commissioner of Higher Education, and Representative Buddy Mincey on the Teacher Recruitment, Recovery and Retention Task Force.