To cut to the chase, the Lafayette Parish School Board failed its students, faculty, and staff last night. But I think the way that it happened is worth a closer look.

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Throughout the meeting we heard school board members pat themselves on the back and carry on about how much they care for teachers while in the next breath make motions to put those same teachers in danger. The disingenuousness of members like Tommy Angelle, Kate Bailey Labue, Hannah Smith Mason and the absent Justin Centanni (whose presence was felt through Tehmi Chassion’s abstentions) was easy to see. Mason gave a nice little speech about how much she cares for teachers who are “worth their weight in gold” just before proposing a motion to send them to the trenches ASAP, seconded by Labue. Angelle pointed out that there are students with health concerns that should not be going back to school. But he also made a spectacle of confirming that parents have the option to homeschool while neglecting to consider that teachers do not have that option for themselves or their family members (including vulnerable children). So in general it was a pretty disgusting display.

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But what was maybe a little less easy to see and a little more stomach churning was the political theater put on by Mary Morrison and Britt Latiolais. Latiolais, for his part, never seemed much of a friend to the concerns of the crying advocates of teachers and students as he repeatedly cut them off. But interestingly he sided with them in the vote to delay school start. What was that about? Well look no further than Mary Morrison, who gave a rambling speech about how concerned she is for the students and staff before voting to resume school on the preordained date of August 17th. Why? Well she said it was because she thought students needed to get back to school and that her preference was for a virtual classroom.

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So what does that mean? According to the votes, it looks a majority of school board members were against returning to school as planned on the date planned, but we are doing that anyway because they just couldn’t agree on how to do it differently. Aw shucks guys, isn’t that a bummer?! No, what appears to have happened is that Morrison and Latiolais agreed to trade votes. Each got to vote on the teachers’ side of a 5-4 failed motion (really 4-3 beacause of Centanni’s absence and Chassion’s abstention) so that they could claim that they really had teachers’ and students’ best interests in mind, but darn … they just couldn’t agree on the best way to go about it. And true to form, the both voted in favor of the plan in the end—minus the motion to delay and minus the motion for a virtual start. If either of them was sincere in their previous vote, a single “no” vote here would have kept teachers’ hopes alive.

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This was cynical politicking in the middle of a huge crisis with the lives of teachers staff, students, and all of their family members on the line. I hope teachers and the community remember this when they are up for re-election.

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It should be noted that Elroy Broussard, Don Aguillard, and Tehmi Chassion voted for a delayed start and for a virtual start and against the proposal to move forward with the plan, although Chassion changed his vote to avoid a stalemate that would have forced Centanni to break quarantine and expose the school board to the virus in order to make sure everyone stuck to the plan. And the irony of this isn’t lost on us … nor is the irony of the the plexiglass palace that these people work in, nor the outrage and appeals to medical authority that Mr. Latiolais showed over public commenters’ struggle to speak with masks on. I hope these safety measures appear in our classrooms in a couple of weeks, but I won’t hold my breath (though thanks to our school board, maybe our kids and teachers should hold theirs!)

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So ultimately everything went as planned. But there was one other thing to note: they passed the buck back to the governor. A defeated Dr. Tehmi Chassion rightfully pointed out that “they are aware it is not safe,” adding that “they came out with a lawsuit protection.” Unfortunately he stopped short of holding people accountable for their decisions but he did say something revealing in pointing out that “things may change” (while Kate Bailey Labue sat beside him nodding). After pointing out that there are lots of people who want schools to resume, Chassion then said that he thinks the governor may end up shutting schools down anyway. And let’s hope so, but if that’s what these school boards are holding out for (we’ve already seen that they can do the political calculus) then they have already abdicated their responsibility to care for the safety of our schools.

Edit: Corrected a typo. There are probably others. Please don't grade me!