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Despite Clear Intent, Charter School Vote Reform
Fails After Senate Debate
SB 65 by Sen. Stewart Cathey (R-Monroe) fell short on the Senate Floor Wednesday, failing to advance after a contentious debate over how Louisiana handles votes tied to charter school conversions.
The final vote, 19-17, followed last week’s Senate Education Committee hearing, which previewed many of the same mischaracterizations that played out during today’s floor discussion. 20 votes are required for passage of a bill in the upper chamber.
At its core, SB 65 sought to modernize and simplify how communities decide whether a traditional public school may convert to a charter. The bill would have ensured that when a vote is required, the outcome reflects the will of those who care enough to actually participate—rather than those who do not vote at all.
Right now, the process works like this: a traditional public school can ask its local school board for permission to convert to a charter school, and in some cases, the board may require a vote from parents and teachers associated with the school. If the local board denies the request, the school can then apply to BESE for a Type 2 charter—but before it can even submit that application, a vote by the school’s parents and teachers is required.
The central issue is how those votes are counted. Current law requires what is effectively a “double majority”—a school must win both a majority of those who cast a vote as well as a majority of all parents and teachers eligible to vote. In practice, this means non-voters are automatically counted as “no” votes.
No other election in Louisiana uses this standard. Across the state, abstentions are not treated as voting “no”. SB 65 would have aligned charter conversion votes with every other election in Louisiana by using a straightforward majority of those who actually vote.
Despite that clarity, much of today’s debate was driven by persistent misinformation about what the bill actually does. SB 65 did not expand charter schools, did not eliminate local control and did not change the approval authority of local school boards or BESE. It simply addressed the voting threshold used to determine whether an application may move forward in the process.
During floor consideration, senators looking to make the bill more palatable for some, unanimously adopted an amendment by Sen. Jay Morris (R-Monroe) that would have required “the number of votes cast equals at least 25% percent of the number of pupils enrolled at the school at the time of the election.” Meanwhile, amendments offered by Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews (D-Monroe) that would have brought a conversion vote to every taxpayer in the school district were rejected, 15-21.
Important to note, even under the bill, a successful vote would not have created a charter school. It would only have allowed a school to submit an application for review by a charter authorizer. That application would still be subject to full approval or denial, and historically, most charter applications are rejected.
It is also worth noting how rarely this pathway has been used. In nearly 30 years, only two traditional public schools have successfully converted under this process. Neither of those conversions involved a parent/teacher vote.
While SB 65 did not advance, the debate underscored ongoing disagreement over how the process should work—and frustration over how the bill was characterized throughout the discussion.
The bottom line: SB 65 was a straightforward effort to bring clarity and fairness to a confusing voting standard, but it was ultimately stalled amid a debate clouded by misunderstanding of its intent and impact.