BESE’s Review of Governance of RSD Schools Begins Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Recovery School District Committee will hold its monthly meeting in Baton Rouge.  One major item on the agenda will be a presentation to the committee by State Superintendent Paul Pastorek and Recovery School District (RSD) representatives laying out their recommendations on whether the Orleans Parish schools transferred to the Recovery School District (RSD) after Hurricane Katrina should be returned to the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) next school year or remain in the RSD for another five years.  They are expected to submit a report detailing the status and recommendations for each transferred school.

This report is the first stage of the year-five review process laid out in Act 35, the law enacted in the fall of 2005 that enabled the RSD to take over most schools in Orleans Parish.  Tuesday’s meeting should see the presentation and some discussion, but the committee is not expected to take any action beyond simply listening and receiving the recommendation.  At the full BESE meeting on Thursday, the board will hear a report from the committee, and under Act 35 BESE then has until December to consider what to do with the schools.  During this consideration period, BESE must also hold a public meeting in Orleans Parish to hear community input before its decision.

For more details on the law, policy, and process guiding this momentous decision, check out our recent brief, Decision Time: Questions and Answers About the Return of Schools to Local Control.  The Times-Picayune also ran a related article over the weekend.  Finally, click here to see the full agenda for the BESE RSD Committee meeting.