RSS Feed

How to address Louisiana’s worsening teacher shortage, teacher pay raises, and steps to recover learning loss sparked by the pandemic will be key topics during the 2022 legislative session, officials said Monday.
The Louisiana Federation of Teachers, Louisiana Association of Educators and Louisiana Association of Business and Industry have started crafting their education priorities ahead of the regular session, which begins March 14.
What the state can do to ensure every public school classroom has a teacher will be one of the topics.
Tia Mills, president of the Louisiana Association of Educators, said her group’s legislative committee Saturday said luring educator retirees back into the workforce is one of its goals.
State education leaders say what used to be chronic shortages in special education, math and science classes have spread to virtually every subject.
Teacher and other school personnel retirements rose 25% from 2020 to 2021.
Veteran educators say they are grappling with unprecedented challenges just to make sure students have a teacher in their classroom.
Mills said the drop has been going on since 2010.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is starting the third year of his second term, likely has one more chance to fulfill his pledge to boost teacher salaries to the regional average. The 2023 session will take place in an election year, and the Democratic governor’s lame duck status will hinder any push for breakthrough measures.
Teacher pay here ranks 12th of 16 states in the South, with average salaries of $51,566 compared to the regional average of $55,205, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.
The U.S. average is $64,133.
The Revenue Estimating Conference was to meet Tuesday to settle on Louisiana’s financial outlook between now and June 30 and for the financial year that begins July 1.
Mills said the LAE also favors a pay raise but has not settled on any specifics.
Stephen Waguespack, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said one of his group’s priorities will be addressing the learning loss sparked by 22 months of education upheaval caused by the pandemic.
Nearly three out of four public schools showed drops in their school performance scores during the 2020-21 school year. That year was marked by a mixture of in-person and virtual classes amid efforts to curb the coronavirus.
Annual public school letter grades were canceled here, part of the freeze on school accountability measures across the nation.

A rather routine agenda faced members of the Acadia Parish School Board as they returned from the holiday break to start the second half of the 2021-2022 school year Monday.
School Board meetings are normally held on the first Monday of each month. The January meeting, however, was postponed one week due to the Christmas / New Year holidays.
Main concerns were directed towards the affect COVID-19 is having on students and staff of the parish school system.
“We are experiencing some increases in positivity during this most recent Omicron wave of COVID-19; however, we are working diligently each and every day to maintain our normal routines and operations to the best of our ability,” Superintendent Scott Richard said when asked about outbreaks and the possibility of school closures.
“All school system staff and the entire Acadia Parish community are making every effort to work together and we are very appreciative of everyone’s cooperation, flexibility and patience — especially the tremendous efforts of our teachers and support staff in the schools,” Richard continued.
“Our goal continues to be to keep all schools open for our students and families.
“We have been very fortunate as we returned from the Christmas break with a full staff and most of our students.
“We presently stand at four and one-half percent in quarantine, but that also includes students and staff who were exposed — not all have tested positive.”
He also noted that all schools are in good shape concerning supplies as a preventative measure against COVID.
Richard added that parents who wish more information about COVID procedures can visit the Acadia Parish School System website.
Under action items, the following were approved by the board:
• minutes of the December 6, 2021, regular session meeting;
• adoption of a recognition resolution declaring January of 2022 as Louisiana School Board Member Recognition Month, calling attention to the public service of all locally elected school board members that govern Louisiana’s 69 school systems; and
• revising policies using the term “guidance counselor” to the term “school counselor” as a result of legislative action.
Two consent items were presented to the board, including (1) assignments and changes of personnel and (2) sales tax report.
Chief Financial Officer Justin Carrier explained that the purchase of two turbines “kind of threw things off with disbursements in December.”
“Without that large expenditure, we are good — we are still looking good, but without that purchase, we would see a better bottom line.”
Following the superintendent’s report, the meeting was adjourned.
Committee meetings for the board are scheduled for Monday, Jan. 24, at 5 p.m. at the School Board office.

In Tuesday’s Post Scripts column we asked if there was a reason for the “hop-scotch manner” in which city streets are being stripped for the ongoing overlay project.
There is, according to Tim Mader, city engineer.
“I can tell you that one reason for this ‘skipping around’ is that we are mostly stripping — aka ‘milling’ — the existing asphalt surfacing only on curb-and-gutter streets as opposed to those street with open ditches,” Mader said. “This may create an appearance of the contractor randomly skipping around when he is simply completing one curb-and-gutter street before moving over to the next curb-and-gutter street.
“This is especially so where a given street has open ditches in some stretches and curb-and-gutter in others.”
The reason for milling only on curb-and-gutter streets is simple, according to Mader.
If the contractor did not strip off the existing inch-and-a-half-thick layer of asphalt — which was installed 25 years ago — before laying down the new inch-and-a-half-thick layer, the edge of the road would be 3 inches thick at the existing gutter.
This condition could cause vehicle tires to drop down into the gutter more suddenly, which could make driving uncomfortable or dangerous.
Mader said the contractor also explained that they prefer to strip the “through streets” first for the purpose of better traffic maintenance during the asphalt lay-down process.
“Combining this preference with the fact that we’re only stripping asphalt off of curb-and-gutter streets can make it difficult to understand the contractor’s mobilization process,” Mader said.
Yet another reason for the seemingly random stripping is that the contractor, in some cases, is also stripping the city streets where they intersect with state routes (Louisiana Highway 13, U.S. Highway 90, for example) in order to smoothly tie in the new overlay with the existing highway surface.
Besides all of that, it’s basically the contractor’s choice.
“For most of the various items of work to be accomplished in a street overlay project, it is left up to the contractor to decide how to mobilize around on the job, that is, what to do first, where to go next and how to finish it up,” Mader said.