Of all the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board races on Tuesday’s ballot, the three-way District 7 race is the one that perhaps best exemplifies the crosscurrents currently roiling public education in the Capital City.
Incumbent is being challenged this year by two first-time candidates for public office who come from different ends of the political spectrum.
Gaudet has been a big supporter of Supt. Sito Narcisse, willing to take arrows during the periodic controversies that have punctuated Narcisse’s 21 months at the helm.
“I truly believe he is a dynamic leader,” Gaudet said.
Though Narcisse has had missteps, Gaudet argues much of that criticism is rooted in entrenched resistance to change. He said the district is improving but the results are not yet there to prove it.
“It takes time to build a system, but the building doesn’t go up overnight,” he said.
Gaudet, a 69-year-old retired Albemarle executive who joined the board in 2017, has faced opposition at election time twice before, but then he had a big financial edge. Charter school-friendly education reform groups all backed him and he was the lone Republican running in a Republican-friendly district.
Those advantages are much reduced.
Opponent , 52, a Republican and a physical therapist, is being backed by some of the political players who backed Gaudet in previous elections. They are lodging sharp attacks that portray Gaudet as a hothead and an apologist for an unacceptable status quo.
Gaudet recently called the attacks on him “character assassination, misinformation and lies.”
Opponent , 45, a Democrat, is a dietitian and an outspoken parent of three children in the public school system. She co-leads the group Friends of Public Education.
Carmichael is critical of charter schools and wants the school district to do a better job of listening to and honoring the desires of its teachers and parents.
Carmichael does not have the same financial firepower as Gaudet and Wall, but she has a passionate base of supporters who are often critical of Narcisse and the board.
The crowded field may force a runoff on Dec. 10.
Part of why Gaudet has lost support to Wall is his complicated position on charter schools.
While he’s supported several charters, and was a founding board member of one, Gaudet worries about approving more charter schools than there is demand for, which would lead to schools closing and instability for children. The charters already approved, he calculates, will eventually account for 40% of students in public school in Baton Rouge.
“We are getting to the point where either we are all charter, or we have charter schools and traditional schools co-existing,” he said, saying he prefers the latter.
Gaudet has raised the most money for his own campaign, almost $32,000, followed by Wall with almost $16,900 and Carmichael with about $7,700.
Gaudet and Wall, but not Carmichael, are benefiting from heavy outside spending on their behalf by outside groups.
Stand For Children has reported spending about $51,000 so far in support of Gaudet. The Baton Rouge Alliance For Students, via its political arm Red Stick Leaders for Students, has reported spending almost $21,000 so far on Wall’s behalf.
Wall, who said she had no previous plans to run for public office, expressed discomfort with the negativity of the race, but she said she’s not commenting on it.
“From the beginning, I’ve been saying I’m not going to play politics, avoiding any controversial things that don’t have any relation to why I’m running,” she said.
District 7 includes LSU and City Park, bounded on the north side by I-10, on the south by the Mississippi River, and on the east by Kenilworth Parkway and Gardere Lane.
Of the district’s nearly 25,000 registered voters, 73% are White, 18% are Black. Nine percent are other races and ethnicities, the highest percentage of any of the nine School Board districts.
All three candidates came to Baton Rouge as adults after growing up elsewhere.
A native of the small town of Liberty, Miss. Wall is an avid runner and triathlete, and she’s long been active in a variety of philanthropic causes. A public school graduate, she said she’s been frustrated that there’s so little confidence in the public schools in Baton Rouge, and popular magnet and gifted programs are often difficult to navigate. She recalled taking a day off work to help figure out the magnet school options for her grandchild.
That helped lead her to enroll in Changemakers, an education leadership training program run by the Baton Rouge Alliance for Students, in hopes of better understanding why public education in the Capital City is the way it is.
“I think it answered some questions and created more,” Wall said.
Wall said too many schools are failing now and that has to change.
“I want every school to perform at C or better,” Wall said.
Wall is open to charter schools – her granddaughter was a student at BASIS charter for awhile – but she said her preference is to revamp neighborhood schools.
“In my world, neighborhood schools would all provide high-quality education just like a magnet program would,” she said.
Carmichael is part of a coalition of six School Board candidates who pledge they won’t be influenced by outside money.
While the attack ads have yet to target her, Carmichael said those likely are coming if she makes a Dec. 10 runoff.
The school system that submitted a public records request seeking all communications it had with Carmichael. Carmichael said Koay also submitted a similar request to LSU seeking similar information from her employer, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
“They probably found some email saying, ‘Could you come tune the piano at Wildwood (Elementary),” Carmichael joked.
Carmichael has tried to make light of the whole thing. During Halloween, she had a costume that featured snippets of the attack mailers she’s received; she said her husband dressed up as Koay.
