Agenda made no mention of Baker school, takeovers
BY CHARLES LUSSIER Staff writer
Louisiana’s top school board failed to properly alert members of the public that it was considering taking over two low-performing schools in Baker, an appellate court has found.
The decision by a five-
The schedule for the fourth annual Zachary Really Hot Air Balloon Festival is out.
The event is from Aug. 14-15 at BREC Zachary Community Park, 20055 Old Scenic Highway, Zachary
The festival opens at 4 p.m. each day and has free admission.
Food trucks, BREC games, a photo booth, mechanical bull, and arts and crafts and other vendors will be on hand from 4 to 9:30 p.m. Tethered balloon rides will be from 6 to 9:30 p.m., weather permitting. The balloon glow will be at 7:45 to 9 p.m., weather permitting.
judge panel could force changes at the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE.
The agenda for BESE’s meeting on March 12, 2025, made no direct mention of the schools in Baker or the takeovers. Instead, the agenda referenced a report by a BESE committee that met the day before; that committee had recommended taking over the two schools. Four of the five judges from the Louisiana First
Circuit Court of Appeal found that wasn’t enough to comply with state open meetings law
ing with respect to taking control of the two Baker schools.”
with recent BESE decisions to seek further litigation on similar grounds.
On Friday the 225 Jeep Club will be on site from 5:30 to 7 p.m. On Saturday, Zachary Cars & Coffee will be on-site from 4 to 5 p.m. On the entertainment stages, for Friday, a DJ will play from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Miss Zachary royalty will be introduced at 5 p.m. and Thomas Cain will perform from 7 to 9:30 p.m For Saturday, a DJ will play from 4 to 5 p.m., the Lauren Lee Band will play from 5 to 7 p.m., and The Chase Tyler Band will play from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Community tailgate set
The Zachary Athletic Foundation invites everyone to kick off the 2026-27 athletic year with the Community Taste of Bronco Tailgate Event, an afternoon of food, fun and Bronco pride.
The tailgate tasting experience is $10 and celebrates the athletes, coaches and traditions of Zachary
The event is 2 to 5 p.m. Aug. 15 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church gym, 4826 Main St., Zachary
It will include a performance by the Zachary High School Band, a performance by the Zachary Belles and a performance by the Zachary Cheerleaders, as well as introduction of the coaches, and team captains and representatives from Zachary athletic programs. Purchase tickets at square. link/u/FUDHMmos?src=sheet.
Back to school events
Dr Martin Luther King Jr Committee of Zachary Back to School Supply Giveaway starts at 10 a.m. Aug 1 at the Zachary High School gymnasium, 4100 Bronco Lane.
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“The agenda item does not state what actions the committee was to take or consider at the meeting,” according to the panel’s 10page opinion. “Without any reference to other agendas or outside information, an observer would not be able to discern what actions the committee or BESE as a whole would have taken in the March 12, 2025 meet-
If the ruling stands, the 11-member state education body will need to add a lot more detail to the traditionally bare-bones agendas of the seven or eight regular meetings it holds in a year The ruling could force other public bodies in Louisiana that act similarly to make changes of their own.
And the ruling, which was issued Tuesday could open the door for others unhappy
The First Circuit panel sent the matter back to a Baton Rouge judge for “further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Dannie Garrett, an attorney representing the City of Baker School District said he plans to ask that 19th Judicial District Judge Eboni Johnson Rose declare BESE’s vote last March as “null and void.” Garrett said he also plans to ask Rose to
award him attorney fees. Regine Williams, a spokeswoman for BESE said the board is mulling over whether or not to appeal.
“BESE has always sought to conduct its meetings in compliance with Louisiana law,” Williams said. “We will carefully review the court’s opinion and consider whether any changes to meeting agendas or related procedures are appropriate to ensure continued
Took another trip to Colorado to avoid the heat last week and marry off one of my kids. I was joined by two of my brothers for hikes in the Rockies. It was during one of those hikes when the eldest pontificated that “the cosmos is in alignment with the sun, planets and stars in all the right places.” To which I replied, “Yeah, about time for fall camp.”
This goes back to a long personal and familial history of football and the grueling preparation for the season. For me, my four brothers and father (the old ball coach) fall camp meant two-a-day or three-a-day practices under the late July and early August unforgiving sun. To this day they, and I, have nightmares of those days when coaches “tore us down to build us back up.”
Back when I was younger and “in it” the nightmares came from exhaustion. Thirty-four years later the nightmares are triggered by a not-soinsignificant decision I made as a freshman. At the plucky age of 18, the Louisiana Tech coaches posed the question to me of “play immediately or be redshirted with the rest of the freshman class?” I chose to play
For those of you unfamiliar with the redshirt process, a redshirt meant you had five years to play during games for four seasons. Of course you had to go through fall camp five times. Yeah, I chose to play so I didn’t have to go through fall camp five times.
Presently, the nightmare begins with a call from a coach barking at me to be in Ruston on a particular day because I owed Louisiana Tech one more year (but I didn’t take the redshirt, I meekly respond). Of course, I’m 56 years old and in no shape to make it through a single practice, much less a season. I wake up in a cold sweat and then feel tremendous relief when I realize it’s only a bad dream. At the ZHS athletic center on Thursday morning, I watched the latest group of aspiring gridiron greats check in for “boot camp.” Though time has passed since my torture, the temperature has not gotten cooler, and coaches have found new ways to maximize performance.
have written about the ZHS
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It’s open to elementary, high school and college students. Attendees are highly encouraged to bring at least one canned good to donate to the Zachary Food Pantry Free school supplies, sno-balls and other refreshments will be given out as supplies last. Scholarship winners will be honorees. A free ID card will be offered. Community partners, educational resources, support services and vendors representing a variety of businesses will be on site. To support or for information, contact Johnnie Evans, (225) 933-6431, or Tina Clark, (225) 202-1076, or mail donations to MLK Zachary Committee, 6539 Donnie Drive, Zachary, LA 70791. The Zachary Men’s Club annual Back to School Extravaganza starts at
10 a.m. Aug. 8 at Zachary Men’s Club, 5746 Rollins Road, Zachary Free logo T-shirts and
school supplies will be available for kindergarten through high school. For students with proof of insurance, Southeast Community Health Systems of Zachary will provide vaccinations needed for the school year and will offer athletic physicals. Blood pressure, HIV and other screenings will be offered.
Miss Zachary Pageant set
A Miss Zachary Pageant will be Aug. 8 at the St John the Baptist Church gym Divisions range from babies to adults. For information, email contact@ lacotillionaux.org. Miss Zachary queens will reign as hostesses at the Zachary Really Hot Air Balloon Festival to represent and promote the festival.
Market set for Baker
Baker’s Fresh Market will be held from 11 a.m to 2 p.m on Aug. 22, Oct 24 and Nov 21 at the city of Baker School Board Office, 14750 Plank Road. Email Leila Pitchford at lpitchford@theadvocate. com.
transparency and compliance with applicable legal requirements.”
The takeover of Baker Heights Elementary and Baker Middle schools was put on hold soon after BESE approved the idea.
The initial state plan was to take over one of the schools, Baker Middle, in May 2025 and hand it over to an Indiana-based charter school network, GEO Academies.
The City of Baker City School Board filed two lawsuits. One is the case involving state open meetings law The other alleges that BESE failed to follow state laws associated with school takeovers.
That latter lawsuit prevailed initially Judge Tarvald Smith in April 2025 temporarily blocked the state takeover Smith found that BESE erred when it neglected to first accept or reject a required reconstitution plan for the two F-rated schools submitted months earlier by the school district.
The state appealed, and five months later a different First Circuit panel reversed Smith’s ruling. That panel found the state had sufficient power to take over the schools because both had been labeled as academically unacceptable for four consecutive years. Indeed, Baker Middle had been an F school for nine years.
The open meetings lawsuit followed the opposite path.
Ad hoc Judge Michael McDonald ruled in May on that case. He was filling in for Rose, who at the time was suspended from the court. McDonald agreed that the wording of the March 12, 2025, BESE agenda “does leave some room for improvement,” but found that it did not violate state open meetings law
The appeals court came to the opposite conclusion.
The appellate judges zeroed in on a state law that requires that items on the agenda of a public meeting “shall be listed separately
and described with reasonable specificity.” The judges found that McDonald erred by giving weight to the BESE committee meeting the day before the final vote, its “agenda and minutes were improperly admitted into evidence” and that such information is “extraneous to the issue before us.” The only thing that matters is whether the agenda for the March 12, 2025, BESE meeting “lacked the required statutory detail, not whether the agenda and minutes of another committee sitting on a different day complied with the law.”
The prevailing judges were Kelly Balfour Blair Edwards, Christopher Hester and Walter Lanier III.
The only dissenter was Judge Elizabeth “Beth” Wolfe, who said she would have upheld McDonald’s ruling on the Open Meetings law She said McDonald was the “fact finder” and his conclusion was “reasonable in light of the record
reviewed in its entirety.”
As courts have considered these lawsuits, the Baker school district has taken action on its own, hiring Helix Community Schools to educate children in the school district. Helix is a charter group whose president and CEO is Preston Castille Castille is also a BESE member whose district includes Baker and was once a resident of the small city Castille was the only BESE member who voted against the Baker school takeovers. Helix’s current schools in Baker — Baker High and Park Ridge Elementary School — both showed notable academic improvement in one year under Helix, especially the elementary school where the percentage of students at the mastery level on LEAP tests improved 7 percentage points compared to the year before.
Email Charles Lussier at clussier@theadvocate. com.
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“boot camp” before, but will reiterate that this tradition is one of the things that has made the program so successful. Though they may be faced with physical challenges, “boot camp” eliminates player distractions like girlfriends, social media and, since school hasn’t started, there is no homework. Nothing but football and conquering physical and mental challenges over a grueling camp with teammates. Don’t think for one moment that the coaches leading this endeavor have it easy or had it easy when they were eligible in high school or college
The players and the coaches are required to live in the athletic facility throughout the camp.
Thirty-six hours into camp on Friday afternoon I checked into see how the multiple (more than two or three) practices a day were going for the 2026 Broncos and get a perspective and history on fall camp from some of the coaches Coach David Brewerton indicated that when he was in high school fall camp consisted of two-a-day practices. Defensive line and special team coordinator Hunter Crowder indicated that when he played at ZHS for Coach Bob Howell that they lifted weights, watched film and practiced once a day for fall camp but went through two-a-days at Louisiana College. Wide receiver coach Chandler Whitfield went to “boot camp” three years with coach Brewerton and two-a-days while competing for ULM and Southern. Offensive line coach Jason Davis spent both high school and college (McNeese) practicing twice-a-day in the hot Lake Charles sun. Running backs coach Kendall Cleveland graduated from two-a-days in high school to three-adays at LSU which he indi-
The Broncos defense walks through alignments.
cated they nicknamed “the grind.”
The 2026 Broncos have several spots to fill from last year’s state semifinals team
They just spent a long weekend with more than a couple practices together The work put in since the end of last season, over the summer and during a long weekend in late July will dictate if this team will be the next state champions.
It’s been three years since the Broncos last made the trip to New Orleans and five years since the last ZHS state championship team. Could this be the team to give Brewerton and his staff state championship number five?
Warren Brady covers sports for the Advocate/ Plainsman. To contact Brady, email zachary@ theadvocate.com.
