Families in the City of St. George who send their children to popular magnet schools like Baton Rouge Magnet High may get to keep sending them there even if a new St. George school district is formed.
That's the intent of legislation filed last week to create a new St. George school system as a companion to the newly formed city of the same name.
The East Baton Rouge Parish school system, however, has yet to sign on to the idea.
Parents with children in Baton Rouge magnet schools proved the staunchest opponents during unsuccessful efforts in 2012 and 2013 to create a breakaway school district in the southeast portion of the parish. The failure of those efforts morphed into the ultimately successful effort to create a City of St. George.
At a March 20 press conference to announce the forthcoming legislation, Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-St. George, said a key goal is to allow students in St. George to continue to patronize magnet programs in Baton Rouge and vice versa. He said he was already in talks with parish school leaders to forge an agreement and was ready for more.
"I love hard conversations. I'm here for it," Edmonds said in March. "I enjoy sitting around the table and hearing ideas, and that's what this is going to take, all of us working together."
A month later, with the bill now filed, those "hard conversations" are off to a rocky start.
"We were told that we would be granted an opportunity to review the bill prior to it dropping," School Board President Shashonnie Steward said. "That didn't happen."
"That's not a good start. Doesn't form a good starting relationship," Steward continued.
In any case, Steward is inclined to delay such negotiations until there's a successful public vote on the proposed St. George school district.
Edmonds said he had previously shared versions of the bill with some Baton Rouge school board members, but he ended up filing the bill earlier than he'd planned because last week the state Senate adjourned early and he was worried about delaying it further with such a short legislative session. Consequently, he said, he was not able to give board members a final bill in advance.
"I’m trying to give everybody as much as input as I can," Edmonds said.
He said the Senate Education Committee, on which he serves as chair, may hear the bill as soon as its meeting Wednesday afternoon, but he said he's still deciding.
was filed last week by Edmonds and state. Rep. Emily Chenevert, R-Baton Rouge. It requires a simple majority to pass.
It's the companion to , sponsored by Edmonds and filed in late March, which calls for amending the state Constitution to enable funding for a new St. George school district.
Under Louisiana law, supporters of a new school district need to win a two-thirds vote of the state Legislature to put an amendment to the state Constitution on the ballot. That amendment then would need to pass with a majority vote of the entire state and the entire parish affected, in this case, East Baton Rouge.
SB25 calls for such a constitutional referendum to appear on the Nov. 15, 2025, ballot; Edmonds said that's a drafting error and the bill will be changed to set the election sometime in 2026. According to SB234, the new school district would not open its doors until July 1, 2027.
In the case of Central, the more recent breakaway district, there were eight months between the successful vote to amend the state constitution and the district's formal opening in July 2007.
Cross-district enrollment did not happen years ago when Baker, Central and Zachary successfully broke away from the East Baton Rouge Parish school system. Students living in those communities who attended Baton Rouge magnet schools were dropped from the rolls and obliged to transfer to schools in their newly formed school districts or find somewhere else to continue their education. The only exceptions were graduating seniors who were allowed to stay put.
Typically, students in Louisiana can only attend schools across district lines if there is an agreement between the two districts.
SB234, however, says that East Baton Rouge and St. George "shall enter into an agreement with respect to the transfer of students." It goes on to say that any student in either district "shall be allowed to attend any magnet program at a school with selective enrollment" in the other district as long as they meet the standards and requirements of that magnet program.
It's unclear what happens if this legislation passes as is and East Baton Rouge does not enter into such an agreement.
Edmonds said there will need to be agreements on a number of issues when it's time to form the St. George school district. He also said he's always open to suggestions for improvements to the bill that are consistent with its intent.
In spring 2019, the East Baton Rouge public school system found that a St. George school district following municipal lines — like Edmonds' legislation would create — would compel nearly 4,000 children to change schools.
A rerun of that analysis last year found a similar but slightly increased level of displacement. Baton Rouge Magnet High would lose the most, 532 students, followed by Woodlawn High, which would lose 504 students. SB234 would prevent all current high school students from having to change schools, not just graduating seniors.
Regarding the financial impact of St. George, a state-sponsored simulation in 2019 found that such a district would result in a 15% cut in funding for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system while making the new St. George the fifth-richest district in the state.
SB234 contains several provisions aimed at blunting that potential financial impact, at least for a while, and dealing with issues that have bedeviled past school breakaway efforts.
One provision sets up a formula for how St. George will offset so-called "legacy" costs, mostly due to the burden of retirees who get medical insurance through the parish school system. Another provision sets aside money for four years to offset potential losses to other school districts by adding a new school district to the state's per-pupil school funding formula known as the Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP.
