West Baton Rouge school system taking lead in latest fight over funds lost to charter schools
The West Baton Rouge Parish school system is looking to lead the charge in the latest battle over the amount of local and state tax dollars the Louisiana Department of Education pumps into charter schools annually.
The school district is doing so with help from the Louisiana School Boards Association, which wants the state’s leaders to remove some of what it regards as carte blanche the charter schools have over student enrollment data thanks to recently tightened student-data privacy laws.
The dispute concerns charter schools approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and involves state revenues some local school districts may lose based on where students attending the charter schools live.
“The lack of transparency is very frustrating,” West Baton Rouge Parish schools Superintendent Wesley Watts said Friday.
State Department of Education spokesman Barry Landry said state and federal law does not permit traditional public schools or charter schools to share the identities of students with outside entities, other than for specific purposes spelled out in those laws.
On the state level, Landry is referring to a 2014 amendment to R.S. 17:3914 that restricts local education agencies from sharing students’ personal information, including names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers.
“These laws exist to protect the personal information of Louisiana’s children,” Landry said in an email.
Landry also said state Education Department officials in December met with local school boards and charter school associations to ensure adequate record keeping is taking place.
He said the state agency committed itself to improving the process of auditing enrollment records.
However, Scott Richard, executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association, said they “fundamentally disagree” with the Education Department’s interpretation of the privacy laws. The association also takes issue with BESE’s lack of policies to verify student residency information when it comes to charter school enrollment, he said.
Watts said members of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents aren’t just peeved that the amount of local tax dollars they receive annually through the state’s Minimum Foundation Program keeps shrinking as the number of charter schools increase. He said superintendents also take issue with the fact that they don’t know to whom or where West Baton Rouge school system taking lead in latest fight over funds lost to charter schools | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana: