I'm sorry. If everyone take their seats, we'll go ahead and get started. >> Good afternoon and welcome to Bessie. At this time, this special call meeting of Bessie to order. Can I get a roll call, please? >> Mr. Appel, Mr. Mr. Appel is not present.
Dr. Armstrong. Dr. Armstrong is not present. Mr. Berkin. Mr. Berkin is present. Mr. Cow. Mr. Cow is present. Mr. Castile. Mr. Castile is present. Miss Champon >> here. >> Miss Shampon is present. Dr. Clark. Dr.
Clark is not present. Mr. Harris. Mr. Harris is present. Miss Holloway. Miss Holloway is present. Miss Melerin. Miss Melerin is present. Mr. Morris. Mr. Morris is present. You have a quorum. >> Thank you. Uh before we get started, I'd like to thank all of the Bessie members
that are here today and LDOE for this special call meeting. Uh this and the staff for working diligently and our school uh stakeholders, school officials for working diligently to get us to this point today. Uh, I'd like to
acknowledge Ashley and a couple of her fellow colleagues because Ashley put in a lot of time in the legislature, not only following this bill, but working with the drafters as well as the senators and representatives on this bill to uh make it make it a good bill
and come to this to us today. As a reminder, any member of the public wishing to speak should fill out a yellow comment card. Please ensure that all comments are germaine to the agenda item. Individuals will be allotted three minutes and groups will be allotted five
minutes for comments. Thank you. Uh first item, please. >> Good afternoon. First item on the agenda is item two, approval of the agenda for today's June 4th, 2026 special call meeting. >> Can I get a motion to approve? Mr. Morris, Miss Holloway,
is there any objection? Seeing none, motion passes. Dr. Brumley, uh, >> read it. >> Okay. I'm sorry, I need to read the item. >> Next item. Consideration of declaration of emergency and
emergency revisions to bulletins in response of SB 441 which is act 587 of the 2026 legislative session regarding bulletin 137 Louisiana early learning center lacing regulations. Bulletin 139
Louisiana child care and development fund programs. Bulletin 741, Louisiana Handbook for School Administrators and Bulletin 741, non-public Louisiana handbook for school administrators. The recommendation is to approve as
declaration of emergency to approve as notice or int or notice of intent. Can I get a motion to approve as a declaration of emergency and notice of intent? Mr. Kyle, Mr. KST.
Superintendent Brumney, can you do you have pro comments, please, on >> Very briefly, um I too want to acknowledge um Ashley Townsen, but also uh Mr. Carter and the entire early childhood team uh for spending so much time out in the field over the last year
trying to address concerns of of providers. We appreciate this is a very sensitive issue and and we absolutely want every uh child in the state of Louisiana to be safe. Um and there was um reasons why uh a law was passed and then there were reasons why the
legislature believed that that should be altered and so they took that action. It was been signed into law and so we just wanted to act as urgently as we can to provide that level of clarification out to the out to the field. You have everything before you uh and we recommend its approval. If anyone has
specific questions, happy to have Ashley come up and and address those. But this relates obviously to uh the act 409 from last session becoming the new act. >> You thank you Dr. Bramley. Uh do I have any comments or questions from the
board? >> Mr. Morris. >> Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Superintendent Brley, I just wanted to uh make sure that we understood uh what uh Bessie's responsibilities were going to be here going forward. Uh my
understanding is that for the um non-public school system and the public school system that the governance situation is a little different in the public school system, the local school boards would be the governing body. Um but I'm a little unclear with regard to
the non-publix and what uh the governance would look like and then also uh what if any uh engagement Bessie would be involved. >> Yeah. Uh Ashley, you want to take that question? >> Good afternoon. Ashley Townson with department. Um so for the governance,
the governing authority of those non-public schools is different from school to school. They have um you know school school leadership in place. What the act does say is that for um schools that have persistent or egregious violations, a couple different things could happen. So for one, um their
accrediting organization could take action on their accreditation. That's something that's possible through the complaint process that different accrediting accrediting organizations have. Um, also it gives Bessie authority to um not approve the prek. So separate
from the school, the school approval could continue, but if there are persistent or egregious violations, then there could be a recommendation to not approve just the pre kindergarten portion of that school. And then Bessie could take action on that at that same time that y'all do your annual school
approval of all the nonpublic schools. My understanding is that DOE will be monitoring uh the school systems and so my my next question would be if you have any DOE has any concerns with regard to compliance that would come back to Bessie as well.
>> So um there is a monitoring provision for LDOE to monitor public and nonpublic pre kindergarten programs um with exist existing staff. We can do that. Last year with act 409, they added um eight positions to the agency that were going to have to handle all of the licensing
responsibilities. There are me um many fewer standards to monitor under these provisions than there would have been under the licensing provisions. So, we can't accomplish that monitoring with existing staff. There's also an exemption for the um for the DOE monitoring for non-public schools that
are accredited or for non-public schools that would be um me members in good standing of an association approved by the board for the purpose of compliance with the provisions of that section. So um in the future schools non-public schools that are not accredited could
form an association to um to peer hold each other accountable for following those standards and that organ that association would be subject to approval by the board so that schools could um claim that exemption as well >> similar to how Louisiana Monatory Association works. They they self credit.
>> Yeah. So if the LDOE's monitoring team funs a non-compliance issue they're going to report it to the accrediting agency. So for the um schools that are accredited, the LDOE will not monitor those schools. We wouldn't go out and visit them um in a standard recurring fashion as we would the rest of the
schools that we will be monitoring. For the schools that we do monitor, if we find an issue, we'll let the superintendent of that school district know if it's a public school. We'll let the governing authority of the non-public school know if it's a non-public school. And then for the ones that we monitor, it'll be posted to the
schoolfinder page um that that we have similar to how we post for license centers right now. There'll be a a spot where you can see what the um what the outcomes of those inspections were. >> So So for the non-public, their board is going to be the governing body as well. Is that what I'm understanding?
>> So for a non-public school, it would be the school leader. like we have a person um listed for that non-public application that is the um you know their board, their school leader. Non-public school structures are different from public school structures. It's not there's an elected board there.
So it would be customized to what the that structure of that nonpublic school is. >> Okay. And so LDOE would be reporting to that individual or that contact person. >> If we receive a complaint um about a school that is accredited, we'll forward that to that contact person for the
board. If it's a diosis in school, it would be the diosis and school lead or the school lead. So it just it depends on what the governing structure of that nonpublic school is. >> Okay. And then um whenever LDOE completes its monitoring, will there be any kind of report to Vessie?
>> No sir, because there will be right now there are um an estimated nearly 700 um sites to monitor and so we wouldn't present an individual report on all of those. Um but it'll be available on our schoolfinder site for public view. And then of course if board members have questions about schools in your area,
you're always welcome to reach out and we can provide that information. >> Actually also I mean that's consistent with what we do now and that's what the public uses now. So any member of the public when they want to get information on an early care provider, they go to our site and they can see the performance profiles. They can see um uh
compliance issues or other concerns that have been noted. So it would just highlight there much like we already do. >> Okay. Okay. And I know that the public uses that because I' I've had members of the public tell me multiple times, hey, I went and used this site and I found this and that helped me make a decision on childcare.
>> Okay. And so what I'm gathering from this, Ashley, is that um this is not going to be any additional workload on LD LOE, no additional staffing requirement, no additional funding, anything like that. It's it's a a different it's an additional workload from what existed
two years ago, but it's one that we can accomplish with existing staff that came on board as a result of legislation last year. >> Okay. Thank you. Last question. Um this group of students was uh previously attending uh some sort of daycare center where there's a set of rules there that
they have to comply with. Now this group of students are going to be attending uh an elementary school. Different set of rules. Um, so that that's what I'm trying to get clarification on for these uh three-year-olds. Um, they'll the school leaders, they'll have to comply
with the with the daycare rules or they'll or or these three-year-olds governance of these three-year-olds will be by the school rules where they're attending. >> So, for public school um pre kindergarten programs for three-year-olds, those have to be licensed. So, they follow licensing
regulation. for non-public school pre kindergarten programs for three or four year olds. They do not have to be licensed. That's a big um component of act 587 is that it um exempts them from lensure and instead lets them go under um these these minimum standards that
are in the statute. Um, and so there is a provision in the act that requires schools to notify parents whenever they are signing their kids up for a pre kindergarten program at a school, whether public or non-public, that the school is that that the program is operated by a school. It's not licensed.
It's not required to comply with the federal um the federal daycare regulations or the Louisiana Early Learning Center licensing regulations. And then um also to provide them with information about monitoring and complaint procedures that are applicable whether that's through the LDOE's
monitoring or through the oversight that might be um through an accrediting organization. >> Thank you. >> Is that all Mr. Morris? You could any other questions members? Any comments from the public?
>> We don't have any. Can I get a motion to approve as a declaration of emergency and uh we've already had that. Uh is there any objection? Seeing none, motion passes. Thank you everyone for being with us today and
taking the time to come for a special meeting. We appreciate it.