Suit by St. Helena teachers and school board moving forward

On the same day that the Louisiana Federation of Teachers filed suit to stop two newly passed education laws, an affiliate of the state’s other major teachers union, the Louisiana Association of Educators, announced that its suit against the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the state superintendent of education is moving forward. The St. Helena Parish Association of Educators and the St. Helena Parish School Board sued last year, claiming that the state illegally included sales tax revenue in its calculations for the Minimum Foundation Program, costing St. Helena more than $2.4 million and parishes across the state nearly $3 billion from the 2007-08 school year allocations through the 2010-11 school year. The MFP is the state’s primary funding mechanism for K-12 education. Plaintiff’s attorney Brian Blackwell says the suit will be amended to reflect the MFP allocations for last year and the coming year. He says his clients are asking Judge Wilson Fields of the 19th Judicial District to declare the formula illegal and require the state to recompute the formula correctly and direct the necessary funds to local school districts. Blackwell expects to take depositions from Department of Education officials within the next month and have a trial date by the end of the year. Blackwell says the LAE board of directors meets this weekend and may decide to file suit to stop Act 1 and Act 2 of the Louisiana Legislature, as the LFT did today. —David Jacobs