Lafayette Parish schools discuss new accountability system to state officials

LAFAYETTE PARISH, La. (KLFY) -- School leaders, students and city leaders were able to talk with state officials about the 2025-2026 new accountability system going into effect during a tour of Acadiana High and David Thibodaux STEM Academy.

Hannah Smith Mason, the Vice President of the Lafayette Parish School Board and Board of Directors for Louisiana School Board Association said, “It was really important to be here so we could let Acadiana High personally tell their story with our new principal, Principal Jason St. Pierre, he let the students speak, he let the teachers speak and we highlighted what Acadiana high is doing and really revolutionizing in Lafayette Parish. They've created jobs on campus. They've created internships on campus.”

Mason said some of the new formulas that have been created by the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) have put a lot of emphasis on core subjects. The new accountability will be 75% focused on the LEAP or credit from the LEAP.

“Lafayette Parish has said we need work ready students and so the new accountability formula only gives us 8% of that credit and so it's a big change,” she said. “The numbers are flipping and so we just wanted to bring that to the attention of the state legislators to understand that the emphasis is going back to core subjects instead of to work ready and what we've heard from the governor is that he wants work ready kids. Not everyone is going to college, and everyone gets to make their own way and Acadiana high is trying to make sure that we're doing that and we're preparing kids to grow up, live, play, stay in Lafayette.”

Programs such as a PJ’s coffee shop and a Nike store called The Wreck Room for Business Academy students are offering students an opportunity to gain real world skills for the workforce.

Julie Emerson, the State Representative of District 39 said, “We all know that there's a large percentage of students when they graduate, they may not necessarily be going on to higher education. They may go directly into the workforce. So, we absolutely want to make sure that we're preparing them for that.”

“We're going to continue to push on the academics, but we're also equally sure that we will heavily weigh on the CTE (Career and Technical Education) world that needs to take place and we truly don't believe that where we're heading as far as a new accountability is where it needs to be and we're asking them to go back and take a look at this before we start the 25-26 school year,” said LPSS Superintendent Francis Touchet Jr. “Number one, we want to make sure that kids graduate from school. So, the accountability system needs to reflect that. Number two is that there's going to be two types of kids. There's going to be a kid that's going to be academically bound. We need to reflect that and there's going to be a kid that's going to be CTE, bound."

Emerson expressed how on the state level feedback is needed to understand what students need and what the education system needs.

“We totally understand that there are a lot of students who may not make the choice to go into the four-year university or even to community college, and that's okay. So, we want to make sure that they are prepared and certainly we understand that in order for schools to focus on that type of job training and job skills on the job training, that we reward them for doing that,” Emerson said. “I certainly want to give a shout out to the gigantic leap that we made from being kind of bottom to mid-forties to jumping up to 32nd in the country in education. So, we want to continue that. We don't want to rest at 32. We want to continue to climb that ladder, because really, that's what our teachers deserve. That's what our kids deserve and that's what Louisiana deserves overall.”