Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has sued the Jefferson Parish School Board and its disciplinary review panel in state court, arguing that board personnel violated Louisiana’s open-meetings law.
Landry is asking for the 24th Judicial District Court to issue an injunction against the district to ensure open-meetings compliance in the future and to levy civil penalties against the defendants in the complaint filed on Feb. 4. Others listed as defendants are school board president Chad Nugent and district Superintendent James Gray.
The complaint alleges that the disciplinary panel’s Dec. 7, Dec. 14 and Dec. 17 online meetings violated the open-meetings law since they were accessible only to attendees who had a meeting identification and a passcode. A proper written notice to the public about the meetings was not given, and the Disciplinary Review Committee failed to allow public comment on meeting agenda items, the lawsuit says.
“The exclusion of the public from the meetings of the Disciplinary Review Committee Board meeting evinces a fundamental lack of understanding and/or complete disregard of the open-meetings law on the part of the school board its Disciplinary Review Committee, its superintendent and its board president, which has caused irreparable harm to citizens interested in participating in meetings of their school board …” the complaint states.
Jerry Raehal, executive director of the Louisiana Press Association, expressed satisfaction that Landry has moved to enforce the open-meetings law.
“LPA commends the attorney general in asking state and local government to be more open and transparent, especially in the face of high-profile decisions such as those in this case,” Raehal told the Louisiana Record in an email. “However, we recognize that student privacy is very important, even if it is often overused by school districts to shield situations they do not want the public to know about.”
Because the disciplinary panel moved to formulate student disciplinary policies during the meetings in question, those proceedings and actions should be voided, according to Landry’s complaint.
“Disciplinary policies adopted by the Jefferson Parish School Board on or about Jan. 6, 2021, applicable to students in remote education in their homes, are without foundation and unenforceable and shall remain so until the school board … complies” with the Louisiana legislature’s directives, the lawsuit says.
Jefferson Parish Schools declined a request for comment, saying it does not comment on pending litigation