New school districts: Incorporated areas not required, says lawmaker

In preparation for the vote concerning creation of a new school district in southeast Baton Rouge this past legislative session, there was discussion among lawmakers about whether an entity would first have to incorporate the area in question. But Norman Browning, whose group Local Schools for Local Children pushed for the new district, says legislators quieted down when he pointed out that no law exists requiring incorporation. “We don’t have to do that,” Browning says. The House vote taken in early June on whether to put the proposed school district on the fall ballot fell nine votes short of the two-thirds majority needed, or 70 votes. However, as Local Schools for Local Children regroups for a new push in the next session, Browning says concessions would be made for adamant lawmakers insisting on incorporating areas of Greater Baton Rouge—outside the city limits—south of Interstate 12 and east of Interstate 10. “If they put our backs against the wall, we’d be willing to do that,” Browning says. State Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, also dispels the notion that the group needs to incorporate before getting a new school district, analogizing the effort to crime-prevention districts that come about in unincorporated areas. “You don’t have to have city of Central, city of Zachary and city of Baker in front of it,” Claitor says of school districts. —Adam Pearson