e e e e e e all right ladies and Gentlemen let's get started with today's uh legislative and governmental Affairs committee uh can I
have a roll call yes Mr pal Mr pal is present Dr Dr Armstrong Dr Armstrong is present Mr Birkin Mr Burkin is not present here I'm sorry Mr Castile Mr Castile is present miss shampan here miss shampan is
present Dr Clark Dr Clark is present Mr Harris here Mr Harris is present Mr Hollis Mr Hollis is present M Holloway Miss Holloway is present M melerine Miss melerine is present Mr moris Mr Morris is present you have a call
okay what's the first item first item on the agenda is 2.1 consideration of legislative audit report regarding seclusion restraint abuse mistreatment of children with disabilities in public schools thank you uh Mr Mr executive
director um if y'all will remember the last meeting we had the report about from the legislative auditor okay I need a motion to accept this Mr Burkin and Mr Hollis seconded so we had we had talked about the
legislative Auditor's uh report and during that discussion the ldoe came up and of course went through everything that uh was brought uh in that report from the legislative auditor but one of
the things that was uh presented to us were matters of legislative consideration which we identified as a Poss road map to make some changes to statute to make sure that these
ambiguous requirements that were brought up in the legislator's uh uh Auditor's report uh that we could clarify some of that now we know that some of these are going to require additional Personnel uh some of the the the U uh considerations
that they want us to consider it's going to require probably a fiscal note because it will require some resource forces to do so in looking at that and and uh going back to that meeting there were uh a particular interest two
statutes that we needed to uh take up today which were critical in in uh my opinion I think in in ld's opinion to go ahead and try to get something done legislatively and the two statutes are
rs 1761 41621 and then uh uh statute uh RS 17416 uh 21 which is a video so let me what I want to do is just I want to refresh y'all's memory on the matters
for legislative uh consideration and uh it's items 1 through four and then items 7 through 8 on ldo on the the uh legislative auditor uh report and I'll read them real quick
uh because one of them deals with the first statute that I referred to so mlc1 is the legislature may wish to consider amending state law to give ldoe the explicit authority to monitor school systems use of seclusion and restraint
and then mlc 2 was the legislature may wish to consider specifically requiring ldoe to develop a process to verify the accuracy of the number of seclusion and restraint incidents then mlc number three the legislature may wish to
clarify state law to require ldoe to review school system seclusion and restraint policies that they are already required to collect and then the uh mlc 4 was the legislature may wish to consider
requiring ldoe to collect and review school system mandatory reporting policies so uh looking at those it it uh refers to as I said RS 17416
point21 and to do these uh when you look at a a possible Amendment it's going to be pretty pretty meaty it's going to be a lot of stuff in it uh to to be able to do that uh but what I want to talk about
are key provisions and I guess this being our first first meeting to have to vote on some action of the committee to take with the legis lure or to uh possibly to um communicate to them what
kind of legislation that we need for this to happen is we need to talk about the key Provisions that we need to have done in an amendment and then I guess the point the order will be that then I
will make a motion uh at the end of discussion referring to those key provisions and the amendment and also uh the action that we'll take as a committee so kind of bear with me this being our first one and be be uh
happy to chime in at any point in time uh as we go through this but as far as uh 17 41621 the key Provisions that we need to look at and I I will say that I am not an attorney but I have read the
statute and I'm looking at some things that we could possibly do do to to alleviate the problems and Mr Lei you may want to come in and of course our attorney from the AG's office but number one uh we need monitoring
Authority and that is uh this will be explicit explicitly empowers ldoe to oversee seclusion and restraint practices aligning with its broader educational oversight role while providing flexibility to audit and
assist schools so that's something that we got we need in this amendment the other thing is verification process which mandates LOE excuse me ldoe to establish a systematic way to ensure data accuracy including Audits and
stakeholder input addressing potential Under reporting or inconsistencies and the third uh key provision would be policy review which clarifies and strengthens ld's role in reviewing existing school system
policies with which already are required to be submitted but ensuring they meet legal and safety standards and then annual reporting would be another key provision in this statute which enhances transparency by requiring ldoe to report finding
Statewide fostering accountability and then the final one would be an implementation timeline which would be included in the amendment which L ldoe and Bessie which would give them reasonable time to develop uh processes and rules with an effective date aligned
with a school year calendar or the upcoming school year calendar so those are the provisions kind of identified that we need to look at in the amendment on this statute so I'll take any discussion on this
um Mr sherff mat if you don't mind just for context uh I've asked uh Mr Beasley to put on the screen uh for everyone what current statute says I know Mr Harris you passed out but specifically
responsible uh related to the ldoe um on seclusion and restraint the State Department of Education shall publish annually and publish on its website data regarding disciplinary removals disaggregated at the state system and school level and also disaggregate incapable of Cross tabulation by the
characteristics of and there's information there and then finally we shall maintain a database of all reported incidents of seclusion and restraint uh of students with exceptionalities disaggregate that data um and then we shall annually submit compile and submit a comprehensive
report to the legislature so that's what it says you know and that's what that's what we do um and as I've as I've shared with this board and even with the legislature you know if if there's a desire for us to do more we're willing to do it um but as you mentioned we would need the resources to be able to
do that as well as the statutory Authority and and thank you for that and uh addressing the mlc those one through four is what we're trying to do here and there there'll be some discussion of that but I want to remind the committee that if there is legislation put forth
that we will get a fiscal note and that that legislator will then decide how they want to go uh Miss Holloway yeah sure thank you it's been difficult to follow with the computer going off and on but there isn't anything in our packet in writing about what we see up
here and what you read because what I read was just something I came up with and and okay so uh it wasn't anything formal it starts the discussion and we can put that into uh uh the the uh
motion that we have but we we if you'll go back to the mlcc's that we discussed last time which we might I might should have passed those out instead of read them uh but that's what we're trying to address so thank
Senator these items appear gerain to a single Bill and or amendments um two two procedural Pro questions uh maybe it's premature but uh do we know if any legislators are already going to move forward with anything like this that we could
convince to modify to fit our needs uh no because there's only been one bill Dro so far and it dropped this morning cuz I watched that every day but I will say this I think that both of these can be addressed in the same bill that's what I'm saying I your M right
right and and uh the kind of motion I think that we should entertain is that uh it we refer to these two statutes and correcting them uh and and I've got some
language kind of ready to go for that then in that motion it says that we as a legislative committee and Bessie staff look for an author to take this right to take this and then uh go forward you
know with with and Andor an author that's already got a bill that right also would be gerine to this that we could tack on to because being a five Bill session right you know the issues and and I think if we start with the education committee first we probably
may find an author doing it this early but if not that's when we will look for a ger Bill to that's you and I thank okay yes sir Mr Morris yeah I had two questions uh the first one you mentioned obvious potential for a fiscal note um
what kind of uh guidance are we going to provide this potential author with regard to um headcount you know additional resources needed at ldoe uh so that they have some
sort of basis for a quantitative estimate to go forward that will be done with your fiscal note so when the author drops the bill staff will write the bill uh they will refer back probably to these mlcs and try to resolve these
issues that that we're trying to get fixed at which time the bill will be either pre-filed or filed when they start the session at that time they will request staff will request a fiscal note and it's my understanding for my years
of leg ISL that ldoe will then put the wheels in motion to get the uh fiscal uh department at the legislature the information they need and it will be L dooe that determines that what their needs are yes so to to followup he's
he's set that up very well uh Mr Morris what what will happen on any bill and we do this through the entirety of of pression and then session is we have a method in which we calculate uh fiscal impact on any Bill uh and it runs through the various teams that would
have some type of involvement um and if if for instance there is a staff need to accomplish something you know we use um what are the approved salary schedules for certain jobs and we calculate that in and so we have a process and we we turn that that around within a
essentially a day um back to uh the legislative fiscal office and so we we take the bill we evaluate it we um apply C to it and then we submit it back to the legislative fiscal office thank you for that I add one more question Mr
Harris um yes sir and this is this is really outside the scope of uh of the bill but for the the parents and The Advocates that are you know really passionate about this particular topic I think the next question is okay once we
get the monitoring in place then what what happens with that monitoring where where it adds value to address the concerns once once in place can maybe superintend Bry could kind of talk us through that because I know that's an very sensitive very important issue for
those parents and just just want to get it out there and and uh have some discussion on it yeah I want to remind the board too that there's not a um there's not a federal requirement around seclusion and restraint you know that is Louisiana specific law and I'm not I'm not suggesting it's not important I'm
just pointing out there's not like a a federal law that has been violated around seclusion restraint that's not required federally um but I think the answer to your question Mr Morris would be it depends because it would depend on the legislation that's crafted and what it what it says they want us to do um
and based on that we would you know around monitoring we would develop a monitoring protocol um and then a set of analytics behind that protocol that could be reported out but it's it's impossible for me to know what that is because I don't know what any potential bill would look
like right and and remember committee what we're doing today I mean you could you could say today that we don't want to do this at this juncture this is strictly was referred to this committee for us to discuss the possibility of doing a uh having some legislator or do
an amendment to these two statutes so I I do want to make that clear okay now the other uh statute that that we had was the U the one on the videos the sped video um and in order order to uh
address that in Amendment you'd have to have some key Provisions there which would the amendment would explicitly mandate ldoe to review sped camera policies already collected under RS7 1948 I think I'm right about that
ensuring they meet legal standards and protect students it provides a structured feedback and revision process to enforce compliance uh parental notification uh adds a new requirement for school systems to proactively inform parents of
their rights via their website increasing transparency and accessibility the 30-day response timeline ensures timely uh action on request that's a suggestion and then annual reporting enhances uh accountability by requiring ldoe to
report on camera policy implementation Statewide offering a mechanism to track progress and identity gaps and then of course we'd have have to in the amendment have a timeline as to when uh it would go into place given ldoe and
the systems time to work it out that was one I think uh Dr Bromley when we were discussing that last meeting um you said a lot of the the uh systems have already put video in their classrooms without
the the parents asking them to do so and if You' clarify that and then the other option that we did hear last meeting was requiring all systems to do it but I I went this direction instead of that requirement yeah so the the way in which
the present statute is uh is listed it basically says that there's not a requirement for the system to install unless the parent makes a request and obviously there are there are various privacy and and laws that surround uh uh
you know what access parents would have to video footage and those types of things and that's all very complicated and and right y sensitive um but right now um the systems aren't required to install the camera unless there is the parent request now some some systems
have uh decided to just unilaterally go ahead and do that uh despite the the requirement to have to have the parent request but not all not all have from a funding standpoint I remind the board that this was initially an 8 million
allocation for the cameras and we did calculations around um how to disperse that appropriately across the state we disperse that and then over the last two this will be I think the third year we've requested in the executive budget 10% of the 8 million so
800,000 for um upkeep of the camera so that it's not an unfunded mandate on the school systems and so that that funding uh has been made available uh to school systems uh to do that but frankly the um
the the issue that is most sensitive around this is the parent notification piece I mean the parent request piece right okay any uh discussion on any of this anybody uh I do I can give y'all a
proposed uh motion um and then we could discuss that and one thing Mr Harris to point out one of the one of the requests um essentially calls for the ldoe to
um have to monitor the legality of of systems we really don't do that on anything you know systems have their own independent Council that they use and I don't think we want to get into a place where the Department of Education is serving as legal council for school systems and and I don't think systems
want that either so I think on that particular matter we need to be very careful that we're not put in a position where we're extending legal counsil to school systems right and and look there's G to be a lot of leeway once we uh I think uh contact an author and they
look into this and then the staff's going to write the bill I'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion of those particular items what we're it's very difficult to be this 10,000 foot View and try to get into the Weeds on this
this uh statute especially in title 17 um but a a suggested or uh you know uh motion might be that the legislative committee recommend to the full Bessie board the approval and
advancement of two proposed amendments uh centered around RS 17416 21 which would Grant the Louisiana Department of Education explicit Authority uh to monitor school systems use of seclusion and restraint uh and you know we'll just
leave that kind of less detail uh can go further and then also to uh uh an amendment to RS 171 1948 clarifying ldoe responsibility review school systems sped camera policies and requiring
school systems to notify parents via their websites of their right to request cameras and self-contain classrooms the legislative committee uh with then along with Bessie staff identify and secure a suitable author and the Louisiana state
legislature to sponsor these amendments if one is available at the earliest legislative session available which means if we don't do it this year we can do it in the next legislative session okay a
second do we do we have uh uh Miss champagne is moved and is seconded by Dr Armstrong any objections no objections thank you next item please next item on the agenda is 3.1 consideration of an update regarding update report regarding
the 2025 regular legislative session the recommendation is to receive uh Mr Barkin yes and seconded by uh Conrad okay can I I'm gonna make some comments here on this one uh to kind of
give y'all an idea of how it's going to look nothing has started yet uh the first bill hit this morning uh uh and we look at that every single day or I do I've got a little habit thing that goes off and I go legislative website and see if anybody's pre-filed nothing has
happened in the education committees except for this morning and that was on the house side uh and has it pertains to uh properties and Charter Schools uh so as these start hitting then you will start getting notifications have you looked at this
and we would I would ask that you look at the legislation and form an opinion yourself as we send those out there's going to be a whole lot of bills probably filed this year uh but not like it will be next year so this committee
as that I'm going to try to keep you a breast as they hit the computer system so you can go in and I'll even send you a link to go look at that bill uh study it uh think about it let us know your thoughts on it so that we know what
direction the legislative committee may be wanting to take and whether we agree with it stay neutral or whether we want to oppose a bill now we will be working in conjunction with Ben and ldoe because uh a lot of what we do is on the
same page so they he has an excellent spreadsheet that they put together every year with all the bills and uh it will say if if let's say the officers look at it we decide to support a bill it will
say support if we decide to be against it it'll say we're against it are neutral so you'll get that spreadsheet also so as you as we're going along through the the session uh I'll make sure you have that spreadsheet and if you have any
disagreement or any thoughts or any input on that you need to voice it okay so that uh we know what your your thinking is as a member of the legislative committee then as we go into the legislature we
know that there's going to be education meetings on the Senate and the house side so as we're going through that uh we will be in close discussions with ldoe on the things that y'all are uh for uh one in particular we just talked
about today is the mfp formula so uh I will send out a not to say if you can those of you that can make it to this committee meeting the they're taking up the mfp we need we need people in the seats uh and and these are the main discussion points if we have any then we
may have some other bills that come up are being taken up in the education committees we'll try to give you plenty of notice uh about those bills if you want to come uh there's a couple of ways that that uh you can affect the bill you can go to the table acting as yourself
uh not representing Bessie if you feel strongly about something that happened all the time when I was a chairman and then we have of course ldoe will be going to the tables on these bills as we been uh what'll happen a lot of times in committee somebody will say a member of
the committee is there anyone here from Bessie that can speak to this uh I would assume that in the past uh we split the legislative officer person for ldoe and he'd get up there and split it if it's something that we need to address as a
Bessie uh group or legislative Comm committee we'll know that in advance and be be ready for that so um but that's kind of how it's going to work so we're still kind of plotting and uh navigating through this process uh any suggestions
you have any comments don't be ugly to me though uh you can you can tell me how we can improve this process as we go forward you're going to be drinking out of a fire hose when this starts though and you're going to have to look at these bills if you want to be involved
if you want to be what me and Schroeder used to call worker bees which that's the people that work is you're going to have to look at this daily because it is going to be very Dynamic it's a dynamic process and things change by the minute over there so that's kind of how the
process is I look forward to working with all of y'all uh and the main things that we of course got to do right off the bat is mfp and then protect our budget uh as far as Bessie and some some of those other more important things
so just quick question um that spreadsheet maybe it's over here um could could the bill numbers be hyperlinks I can't remember how it was last year I think they were they might have been I'm just asking because I I don't remember last year but then you
click the perfect never mind forget it uh Mr Mars yeah just a couple things if you would just for members benefit uh help us to appreciate the the process here if there is a a member that uh has a question after theyve reviewed a
specific Bill and they want to follow they should contact you directly or who should they contact I I think uh let they can contact me directly or the president uh I think it would behoove you if you do have a to to contact me
and the president maybe the officers on an email uh that way I'm in the loop and I know where the concern is so so we'll know going forward right and then again procedurally the spreadsheet my recollection is that it's posted uh weekly well we looked at it weekly in
the past I don't know how often you update it Ben but right so so members could expect uh an update end of the week uh that'll help you going into the next week and then if there's any questions they can contact you myself or one of the officers absolutely and look when I send you what has posted or
prefiled as it's filed on the system I will send you a link to that bill and uh uh you'll be able to click on that I'll also have instructions how to go to the legislative website which is a good thing to do all you got to do is go down and search by committee hit education
Committee of the house and it'll list everything that's been filed and then same thing on the Senate you you just push on or you click on that bill number takes you straight to the bill uh just as a matter of saving you time you want
to read the title first and then go to the digest especially if it's a thick Bill and then that'll Peak your interest to where you'll go into the rest of the bill it's all there thank you sir and you might you might note that uh just because a bill comes out of a committee you still got to reread it because it
might have been amended to change it to a totally different Bill absolutely and that's what we'll be tracking uh very closely and that's where we'll need a lot of your where your interest is if that's your bill and I'm sure I'm going to be discussing that with some people like I'm counting on you to watch this
through the process and then you'll have to alert the rest of us remember your f notes will be also at that same length so Mr chair uh I'd just like to make comment that if it has a fiscal note it will not only go to the education committee but also the finance committee
correct and it will have to pass those it has to go through four committees at that point one quick comment uh you had mentioned uh worker bees I would I would say that you and Schroeder collectively are worker bees on steroids and grateful that uh you know that you guys go
through that um my question is is do you have have any idea um what number of bills you think will be filed has the chairwoman said what she might expect during years's past okay now I'm really quite surprised that there aren't any but but one pre-filed uh with every all
the conversation that we've had I know that just because it's a fiscal year depending on how hot the educational uh things are it doesn't mean you're going to have a slow year um you know was that Senator Lambert's bill with the political advertising or okay
okay I didn't know if that was the only one or there were other no that is not in the education committee it's a Commerce Bill okay I not he's talking about but it's not been filed yet okay I'm talking it's just just what's been pre-filed okay uh for some reason I thought that was but I I could be wrong
so it's not it's going to be under another committee because it's not okay and then a question you might have addressed this already but I'm um curious as to how fluid will be um so that if we're there if you're there can we speak I you know obviously I would
speak on behalf of one of three entities me personally me as a representative of Bessie district one um I think it's obviously most impactful to say on behalf of Bessie how um are we going to be able to handle that scenario uh in
real time to be as effective as possible well just similarly to what we used to do in the legislature we will communicate days in advance hopefully okay and a day in advance that if if you were there here we don't what we have to
do is stay on the same page and uh you may not disagree with what more the rest of the Bessie board wants and you have every right in the world to go up there and represent yourself you know at the table but when it comes to things that we need to to uh coordinate with ldoa or
even on Bessie if we're uh it's just something that we're alone doing then we will you will have the information and you will know the direction that we need to take take on that committee I plan on being down here for most weeks during the session on education committee days
yeah uh or at least I'll be on the phone with a lot of y'all uh asking for your input and asking you to attend and and look this committee is big for a reason every one of y'all are on it I hate to tell you that so uh uh just it's going
to be a work in progress but I believe um uh when it's done you we'll we'll have a good direction as a as a I agree and I'm excited uh that we're doing it and that our voices collectively or individually will be heard because in our 12 years we felt a bit of a presence
but I would want them to feel you know and knowing how hard you work I can imagine you will be there when when they meet and certainly I'll do my best to join I just would love to be able to opine on whatever legislation is filed and I know that's about to start hitting
pretty hard in the weeks ahead as we come to Mid April for the opening of SE absolutely thank you thank you any other comments okay do I have uh I had the motion second that uh anybody opposed to
that none next item please next item on the agenda is item 3.2 consideration of the legislative impact on funding of the Louisiana quality education support AG fund and the recommendation from beste staff is to
receive okay I have a motion by Mr B perin and second by Mr Hollis to receive and so that's that's a item that we um put on the agenda as the best staff and uh it will be reoccurring every
iteration of our interaction with the state budget and planning office as been mentioned multiple times uh the go the governor's budget recognized as a standstill budget so what you see in the published documents is the funding levels and the funding sources that
currently exist we also um know that if the March 29th election is successful those scenarios would then change uh and so we were asked by the state uh the division of administration uh budget and planning office to come up essentially
with three scenarios and the document that you was handed represents those three scenarios that they wanted us to come up with and put the appropriate funding because they wanted to get an idea about how much state general fund dollars will be requested to maintain
Bessie operations uh and if if a portion of the AG program is salvaged uh or funded through state general funds what that would look like so the document that you have before you is the three scenarios that we went over during our budget hearings with the
commissioner and his staff a few weeks ago um and again it's there for informational purposes for you to receive uh and to offer any ideas about tweaks modifications um um and for this committee to understand where from a Bessie perspective where we are with the
budget okay thank you we do have public comment associated with item 3.2 meline Batson uh information and wishes to speak well good afternoon now Bessie members meline Batson director of policy and research at the Louisiana policy
Institute for Children we are a nonprofit nonpartisan source of data and research on early childhood education in Louisiana over 100,000 children under the age of five in our state lack access to high quality early childhood
education due to this we are particularly concerned about any changes that may lead to families losing access to Early Learning programs which is why we are paying particularly close attention to the proposed elimination of the education Excellence fund and 8G
funds as you know many school districts rely on the education Excellence fund and 8G funds to support quality prek programs for atrisk four-year-olds benefiting approximately 2,000 children in Louisiana right now should these
children lose their seat their parents could face significant challenges in maintaining their Workforce participation including having to arrive to work work late having frequent absences or even having to quit their jobs to care for their child we know this is true because we've actually seen
it in our surveys that we've done um of parents with children under five across our state high quality early childhood education programs prepare children for academic success and future career achievements strengthen the workforce attract businesses and promote Economic
Development thousands of working parents in Louisiana can reliably participate in the workforce and advance in their careers today because they have access to Affordable highquality early childhood education for their children ensuring education continuity for our
children and their working parents is crucial for the state's immediate and long-term success with all of that in mind we urge Bessie and the department to continue to collaborate with the administration and the legislature to secure new funding
for these 2,000 children and their working parents if the education Excellence F Excellence fund and HG funds are eliminated thank you thank you any other questions or comments Mr Burkin so looking at these three
scenarios how do we know which ones are going to come forward so that that is one question that we left collectively uh the best leadership team from those hearing the budget hearing is that we was very firm
in that there was not a firm answer to give us uh so we are patiently waiting on the March 29th uh election to determine um what's going to be the path forward any other questions or
comments there being on any objection to the motion hear none the motion passes next item on the agenda that concludes the agenda okay we are adjourned