BATON ROUGE, La. — With his signature Wednesday, Governor Jeff Landry hopes a package of new laws will change education in Louisiana.
"This historic, dream big package, puts focus back where it belongs and that is on our children," said Landry.
Part of that package is the LA GATOR Scholarship Program. It creates Education Scholarship Accounts, called ESAs. They're made up of tax dollars designed to follow students to a public, private, charter, home, or faith-based school of choice.
“What the bill did was actually create a three-phased approach to where beginning in the school year '25 to '26 it will have the children who are currently in the voucher program,” said republican Santory Beth Mizell from Franklinton.
From there, Mizell says the goal is to open the program to all students. There's no date when that'll happen though. Mizell says it all depends on how phase one goes. It’s also because there are still a lot of unknowns about how the program will work.
“It puts ESAs in statute, but it also puts the formation of the program and the details, it leaves that up to BESE,” said Director of Education and Workforce Development for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry Mary Beth Hughes.
BESE, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, must now figure out how to structure the program, which will then be operated by the Department of Education.
“BESE is going to have to go in at their August meeting and decide ok, this is who qualifies for ESA's, just promulgate all the rules and regulations,” said Hughes.
Hughes says her organization will be working with BESE this Summer.
“BESE has a good bit of liberty as far as if this will only be available to certain students underneath a certain income level or if it will be universal which is what we're seeing pretty much nationwide,” said Hughes.
That will depend on funding. The legislature must pay for the program every year. Hughes says lawmakers set aside $1.8 million this year just to create the framework for it.
By operating in phases and allowing time for regulations, Mizell says it'll make for a better program.
“I think that gave people some level of confidence that we weren't going to open the door too wide, too soon, and not be ready for it,” said Mizell.
Schools will have to be approved by the state Department of Education to be part of the ESA program. Students would then apply directly to the school for eligibility requirements.
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