Published: May 25, 2022
By: Piper Hutchinson, LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE–The House Committee on Education advanced a bill Tuesday that would adjust the boundaries of the school district in Central, a suburb of Baton Rouge, and exclude potential Black students.
Senate Bill 189, sponsored by Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, adjusts boundaries of the Central Community School System to exclude a planned subdivision, Belle Arbor.
The bill would affect 400 students, many of them from black families. Those students would instead be assigned to the East Baton Rouge school district, which is lower rated than Central schools.
The bill cleared the committee on a 5-4 vote, with committee chairman Rep. Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, casting the deciding vote. The vote was entirely along party lines.
An earlier version of the bill included two other neighborhoods, but those were amended out of the bill.
Belinda Davis, a member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and a professor of political science at LSU, previously spoke against the bill.
Read more at BIZ Magazine
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 