Charles Lussier

1 week ago | theadvocate.com | Charles Lussier

Public school employees in East Baton Rouge Parish earned a substantial pay raise last year. District Superintendent LaMont Cole is not ready to find money for another one, but next year may be a different matter. That approach is outlined in the proposed budget for the state’s second-largest traditional school district.

1 week ago | theadvocate.com | Charles Lussier

Eighteen seniors at Glen Oaks High School flipped the usual chronology last week, earning college-level associate’s degrees and then four days later collecting their high school diplomas. It’s an impressive achievement in which they had to complete a series of courses over the four years they spent at Glen Oaks. They are part of a small but growing trend of students in Louisiana earning two degrees at once when they finish their senior year of high school.

2 weeks ago | theadvocate.com | Charles Lussier

Despite the purchase of advanced routing software, the true routes along which many school buses in Baton Rouge take children to and from school each day are far too often known only by the people driving them. Prismatic Services, hired to scrutinize student transportation in the Capital City, delved into this problem recently when it found that routes detailed in BusPlanner — software the district purchased in September 2023 — often don’t match the route drivers actually follow.

2 weeks ago | theadvocate.com | Charles Lussier

Legislation to create a school district to match the city of St. George has hit a speed bump in the wake of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board's decision to oppose the proposal unless there is greater sharing of an estimated $60 million in legacy costs associated with the breakaway. School leaders also want a new approach to a section of the legislation requiring that students in the two districts be allowed to enroll in each other's magnet programs in perpetuity.

2 weeks ago | theadvocate.com | Charles Lussier

After two months of fruitless behind-the-scenes discussions, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board is formally opposing, at least in current form, legislation to create a school district to match the city of St. George.