Out with the new, in with the old: Baton Rouge School Board abruptly drops new committees (2024)

After just three months, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has cut short its experiment with smaller standing committees and has returned to having the entire board convene in what is known as a “committee of the whole.”

The change will likely have little, if any, impact on the board’s handling of the public’s business.

The narrow 5-4 vote to jettison the new committee structure, though, may be a sign of the fraying of the fragile alliance that in January led to the installation of new board leadership of Board President Carla Powell-Lewis and Board Vice President Patrick Martin V.

That alliance also engineered the voluntary buyout of Supt. Sito Narcisse, who was replaced by Interim Supt. Adam Smith. The board plans to select Narcisse’s permanent successor later this month.

The “committee of the whole,” or COW, returns Thursday. The COW had been used since 2009.

Committee meetings are typically held the first Thursday of the month, and the regular board meeting follows on the third Thursday.

In February, the board voted unanimously to drop the COW in favor of creating three standing committees focusing on the following areas: Budget & Finance, Operation, and Academics.

In many ways, it was a modest change. The three new committees met the same day and during the same window of time as the COW. They handled the same business as the COW would have, but divided up items by subject. These committees met in March, April and May.

At the COW, though, all nine members convene, just like at the regular board meeting two weeks later. It amounts to a dress rehearsal for the regular meeting. The votes taken at the COW are often identical to those taken at the regular meeting, except at times on controversial issues or ones where board members are seeking more information.

By contrast, the new committees each had just five members. That meant just three votes, not five as at the COW, were needed to advance items.

And unlike the COW, historically presided over by the board vice president, the new committees had other board members serving as chairs, a conscious attempt at distributed leadership.

Board member Cliff Lewis, chair of the Academics committee, led the effort to junk the new committee structure. He said the new structure, while it has positives, has led at times to confusing meetings and has meant some board members were left out.

“At times, it’s created confusion in the public and all nine elected board members have not been engaged in meaningful dialogue,” Lewis said.

Lewis’ opposition is notable because he was part of the five-member bloc that refused to renew Narcisse’s contract and picked new board leadership.

President Powell-Lewis, also part of the five-member bloc, joined Lewis. She said standing committees have pros and cons. One issue, she said, is that members who are not on the committee often sit in the audience and ask questions as audience members rather than sitting on the dais with the committee and asking their questions when the committee members do.

The two were joined by board members Michael Gaudet, Dadrius Lanus and Shashonnie Steward, who all voted to renew Narcisse’s contract.

Lanus, once a vocal supporter of standing committees, said he changed his mind because of big issues coming before the board in the future, most notably school consolidations, which he said could impact many schools in his north Baton Rouge District 2. He said he wants a vote at every stage of that process.

“I want to not only be able to talk about it, I want to vote on it,” he said.

Vice President Martin, a backer of standing committees, said they’ve been “very valuable and the results speak for themselves.”

“We’ve had healthier discussions in my view in the past three months in the context of the committee structure than we had the entirety of the last year,” Martin said.

Board member Mark Bellue, who backed Narcisse’s contract renewal, but supported new board leadership, suggested sticking with standing committees longer.

“I think it’s far too early to just throw up our hands and go back to the old Committee of the Whole,” Bellue said.