La. NAACP says BESE is not doing their job
15th March 2021 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
The Louisiana NAACP last week called on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and other state officials to address concerns brought by educators and advocates that the state-mandated COVID-19 safety measures are inadequate and aren’t being uniformly enforced at all state schools.
In a statement released Feb. 22, Louisiana NAACP Education Chair Jamal Taylor said that while each school system in Louisiana has employed pandemic reopening plans in accordance with minimum guidelines issued by the LaBESE last July, many in communities across the state have witnessed a lack of consistency in compliance and enforcement across districts.
The NAACP is especially concerned that such discrepancies and failures disproportionately occur more in communities with large Black populations, greater poverty issues and other factors affecting marginalized and vulnerable residents.
“We have seen the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education give local school districts the right to gamble with the lives of students and educators across the state,” Taylor said in the statement. “As this pandemic has become more deadly, local school districts have ramped up the return of students to schools.”
The statement added that the lives being risked by shoddy enforcement “is a testament to why we have excelled at being last in education for so long. We must now shift our mindsets to think outside of the box that has kept us trapped at the bottom for so long.”
In a follow-up interview with The Louisiana Weekly, Taylor said over the past weeks and months, NAACP representatives have conferred with education advocates and stakeholders across the state, and the responses the organization have received are troubling. He said such input from local communities reflects concerns about the consistency of reopening policy enforcement and student safety.
“I have gotten feedback from Shreveport, from Lafayette Parish, from DeSoto [Parish] and Jefferson Parish,” Taylor said. We find it reprehensible that [education officials] are picking and choosing which policies they want to enforce.”
Taylor added that NAACP representatives “have been in contact with educators across the state, and we will continue to engage with them to determine what next steps we might be able to take.”
The NAACP is requesting that the LaBESE takes several immediate actions to improve student health and safety, including suspend academic testing for all students this year; suspend contact requirements to allow the closure of district schools when COVID levels top 10 percent in the district; require plans for assessing and reporting the failure of districts to meeting minimum safety guidelines; communicate with stakeholders in the educational process to establish an apolitical plan to adequately begin the school reopening process for next year; and confront and address data showing the disproportionate effect the coronavirus has had on different communities across Louisiana.
Taylor told The Louisiana Weekly that the NAACP had not as yet received a response to its calls for accountability from the Board.
“As is customary, they would rather just wait people out than have a conversation,” he said.
LaBESE Communications Director Kevin Calbert told The Louisiana Weekly that the Board has no comment on the NAACP’s requests at this time, deferring to a statement issued by BESE on Feb. 24 following the recent issuing by the U.S. Department of Education of guidance and extended regulatory flexibility to states concerning assessment and reporting protocols for student performance and safety.
The statement was issued by BESE President Sandy Holloway, Vice President Kira Orange Jones and Secretary Treasurer Ashley Ellis, who framed the Board’s response to the new federal guidelines in terms of the ongoing pandemic and weather crises and the impact they have had on learning environments, productivity, assessment and student safety.
They said that such challenges – including the pandemic and the resulting methods used to protect students and stop the spread of the virus – threaten to leave students in vulnerable populations behind their classmates, adding that the LaBESE will do all it can to address the situation.
“In a year of a sustained global pandemic, impactful hurricane season, and recent winter storms unlike anything we have seen in decades, the lost learning for students was inevitable. Assessing all students not only helps us understand what learning gaps have been created or widened, but also what we must do to close them,” they said.
“We are proud that Louisiana has remained committed both to the health and safety of students and educators and the in-person instruction of students,” they added. “We are following the data and the science on both fronts. Many states across the country have struggled to do both well, and our states’ educators are to be commended for this. We are also incredibly proud that our legislative and state leaders – in partnership with BESE – recently made sure that educators are top priority for receiving the vaccine, some as early as this week.
“We must believe in the ability of our students to learn, grow, and thrive. We must understand where they are and use the academic data to help them. We must remain committed to giving every child an opportunity to realize a life full of possibilities and prosperity.”
However, the NAACP’s Taylor remained skeptical that LaBESE members and other state officials will actually place student welfare over political motivations and soundbites.
“They are politicians,” he said. “I never have hope for politicians. They’re more interested in the next election than the best interests of students and families.”
This article originally published in the March 1, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
