Louisiana

Louisiana schools have an absenteeism problem. The state has a new plan to fix it.

Published

9 months ago

June 14, 2025

Louisiana schools have an absenteeism problem. The state has a new plan to fix it.

As the number of Louisiana students who frequently miss school grows, the state Department of Education has unveiled a new strategy for bringing them back.

The new guidelines released this week, called “The Power of Presence,” focus on district and community-level prevention and intervention efforts, rather than punitive measures, to improve attendance. They come as Louisiana’s absenteeism rate has risen the past two school years.

The 31-page guidebook also offers standard definitions of chronic absenteeism, which is when students miss 10% or more of a school year, and truancy to create consistency across school districts. It also emphasizes consistent data collection and reporting so that districts can better track at-risk students.

Some suggested interventions to promote student wellbeing and boost attendance include providing weekend food bags for students dealing with food insecurity, creating a closet with spare clothes for children whose families struggle to afford school uniforms, and encouraging students to join after-school activities.

While schools aren’t required to adopt the strategies, the framework is intended to give districts evidence-based solutions to combat poor attendance, which research has linked to numerous negative outcomes, including lower test scores, poor grades and a higher likelihood of becoming involved in the criminal justice system, education leaders said.

“We are facing a real and urgent challenge,” Sharon Clark, a member of the state education board, said during an annual teacher conference in New Orleans organized by the state education department. “Students are missing too much school, and we are feeling the impact.”

Even as Louisiana climbs in national education rankings, it was one of just five states out of 36 that have released data where absenteeism rates grew during the 2023-24 school year, according to information compiled by FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank. Last year, nearly 1 in 4 Louisiana students was classified as chronically absent, up three percentage points from the previous year, state data shows.

“Louisiana is the only state in the country where the average student has made” a full academic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said. “But that growth has been minimized by attendance and truancy issues.”

Louisiana’s goal is to reduce absenteeism by 2% annually, officials said. If it achieves that goal, nearly 45,000 fewer children will be considered chronically absent by the 2027-28 school year.

While the framework gives districts flexibility to tailor strategies to their needs, it includes a handful of “universal elements” each school system’s attendance plan should include. Those key strategies include creating partnerships with community organizations, such as churches and local government agencies; keeping families engaged in their children’s education; and forming attendance teams at the school and district level that help track data and coordinate efforts

The guidelines draw on findings from a program piloted by Baker High School two years ago that aimed to drive down absenteeism using simple strategies, such as sending letters home when students rack up absences and checking in with at-risk students to find out why they’re missing school and discuss solutions. After one year, the district saw its share of chronically absent students fall 13 percentage points, to 37%.

While many districts already employ some of the methods the state is encouraging, the new guidelines are the most comprehensive set to date and should lead to more uniformity across the state, said Misty Davis, executive director of attendance strategy at the state education department.

By asking every district to use the same language when talking about attendance, it makes it easier for the state to collect and analyze submitted data, Davis explained. For example, the guidelines make clear when schools should label student absences as excused or unexcused in data systems, she said.

State education department staffers will work with districts that continue to struggle with attendance and help them adopt some of the suggested strategies, officials said.

“This is getting everybody on the same page,” Davis said, “about how we do it and what it looks and sounds like.”

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Louisiana

What channel is LSU baseball vs LA Tech on today? Time, TV schedule

Published

7 hours ago

March 24, 2026

Press Room

What channel is LSU baseball vs LA Tech on today? Time, TV schedule

BATON ROUGE — LSU baseball has won back-to-back midweek games.

But its contest with in-state foe Louisiana Tech (15-10) at Alex Box Stadium on Tuesday, March 24 will be one of the tougher midweek matchups Jay Johnson and the Tigers (16-9) will have this season.

Tech coach Lane Burroughs and the Bulldogs currently rank 66 in RPI, which is nearly 50 points better than LSU, which sits 110 in the rating index. La. Tech has two wins over Ohio State this season.

Louisiana Tech is led by Trey Hawsey and Colby Lunsford, who have hit nine and eight home runs so far this season, respectively.

LSU had a golden opportunity to get an SEC series win over No. 8 Oklahoma this past weekend, but could not pull out either of the final two games of the series despite having multiple chances to win. It dropped two close games to the Sooners by a combined three runs.

LSU baseball vs Louisiana Tech how to watch

Date: Tuesday, March 24
Time: 6:30 p.m.
TV channel: SEC Network+
Streaming: ESPN app

LSU baseball vs Louisiana Tech will be on SEC Network+ on Tuesday, March 24 from Alex Box Stadium. For those who do not have that channel, they can stream the game online on the ESPN app.

LSU baseball 2026 schedule

Date	Opponent
Feb. 13	Milwaukee (W 15-5)
Feb. 14	Milwaukee (W 5-3)
Feb. 15	Milwaukee (W 21-7)
Feb. 16	Kent State (W 10-7)
Feb. 18	Nicholls State (W 12-1)
Feb. 20	Indiana (Jacksonville, Florida) (W 14-7)
Feb. 21	Notre Dame (Jacksonville, Florida) (W 9-4)
Feb. 22	UCF (Jacksonville, Florida) (W 11-0)
Feb. 24	McNeese State (L 7-6)
Feb. 27	Dartmouth (W 5-2)
Feb. 28	Northeastern (W 3-1)
March 1	Dartmouth (W 3-0)
March 2	Northeastern (L 13-10)
March 4	at Louisiana (L 7-2)
March 6	Sacramento State (W 15-4)
March 7	Sacramento State (L 5-4)
March 8	Sacramento State (L 6-1)
March 10	Creighton (W 8-4)
March 13	Vanderbilt* (L 13-12)
March 14	at Vanderbilt* (L 11-3)
March 15	at Vanderbilt* (W 16-9)
March 17	at Grambling State (W 7-1)
March 19	Oklahoma* (W 7-1)
March 20	Oklahoma* (L 4-2)
March 21	Oklahoma* (L 4-3)
March 24	Louisiana Tech
March 27	Kentucky*
March 28	Kentucky*
March 29	Kentucky*
March 31	Southern
April 3	at Tennessee*
April 4	at Tennessee*
April 5	at Tennessee*
April 7	Bethune-Cookman
April 10	at Ole Miss*
April 11	at Ole Miss*
April 12	at Ole Miss*
April 14	Northwestern State
April 17	Texas A&M*
April 18	Texas A&M*
April 19	Texas A&M*
April 21	New Orleans
April 24	at Mississippi State*
April 25	at Mississippi State*
April 26	at Mississippi State*
April 28	Southeastern Louisiana
May 1	South Carolina*
May 2	South Carolina*
May 3	South Carolina*
May 5	Tulane
May 8	at Georgia*
May 9	at Georgia*
May 10	at Georgia*
May 14	Florida*
May 15	Florida*
May 16	Florida*

*Denotes SEC game

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

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Louisiana

Louisiana’s health secretary wants AI on the phones and the website

Published

19 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

Louisiana residents may see changes in calling the state health department or using its website if it turns to artificial intelligence to save money.

The department is examining how it can implement AI over the next few years to make residents’ experiences more efficient and reduce spending, Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Bruce Greenstein said at an AI symposium at LSU.

The first and largest deployment, should the department proceed with it, would be in its call centers. Running the two centers costs over $40 million a year. Greenstein said using AI to answer calls could reduce costs by up to 25%.

That would save the state $10 million a year while still preserving an option to talk to a human employee.

When the department was seeking information about an AI call option, Greenstein said, there was an overwhelming response from possible providers.

Greenstein, who has worked in both the public and private sectors, said he also is interested in using AI to help residents maneuver the department’s website. It houses information on an array of topics from SNAP benefits and Medicaid to oyster harvesting.

“Navigating our web properties becomes challenging if you’re looking for very specific information,” Greenstein said in an interview after the symposium on Friday. “So having chatbots to help people navigate our system is something we’re also considering.”

The department must respect the sensitive clinical information it deals with, Greenstein said, while keeping up with technological advances.

He said he is interested in creating protections in collaborations with health care professionals to codify patients’ rights to privacy.

Some rights would include a consent requirement if patient information was to be run through an AI database. Another would be a notification of changes, especially if a process is losing human interaction entirely.

“So on the AI side, because we’re in kind of the new frontier, what I suspect is that we’ll proceed extra cautiously where the robot takes the place of decision-making for the human,” Greenstein said. “But we’ll have more kind of slack in the system to experiment on the administrative task side.”

Greenstein critiqued other states’ restrictions on AI and said he did not see issues with Louisiana’s implementation yet.

“We are not seeing something that I’m deeply concerned about thus far,” he said. “And within state government, we’ve been taking a cautious but forceful approach forward in analyzing the opportunities but not making any decisions without having a proper amount of security concerns addressed or just thoughtful analysis.”

Gov. Jeff Landry released an executive order in October mandating governmental AI use to be “responsible, ethical, beneficial and trustworthy.”

The order restricts the state government’s use of AI platforms from “free software, especially those created and operated by nation states like the Communist Chinese Party.” He specifically named China’s DeepSeek AI model.

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Louisiana

UPDATE: Plane found in swamp near Cleco lake, RPSO says

Published

1 day ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

UPDATE: Plane found in swamp near Cleco lake, RPSO says

BOYCE, La. (KALB) – UPDATE: Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that officials have located a plane along the west side of Cleco Lake (AKA Lake Rodemacher) at around 5 p.m. on March 22.

RPSO said search and rescue teams have been unable to reach the plane so far as it is in a dense and swampy area of the forest.

No details on the type of plane nor the number of passengers were available from authorities at this time.

RPSO said the National Transportation Safety Board should be on scene by Monday and that all further information will go through them.

The following agencies are all involved in the search at this time:

RPSO
Louisiana State Police
Pineville Fire and Rescue
Alexandria Fire Department
Rapides Fire District-2
Cotile Volunteer Fire
Flatwoods Volunteer Fire
Pafford Ambulance Service
Louisiana State Forestry Service
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

PRIOR REPORT:

News Channel 5 was on scene near Boyce at around 3 p.m. after residents reported a possible plane crash around Cotile Lake on Sunday, March 22.

Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office released details of the search so far.

Red Store Hill Road (Rapides)(KALB)

RPSO said they received reports of a possible plane crash at around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

They, alongside Cotile Volunteer Fire Department, Flatwoods Volunteer Fire Department, Taylor Hill Volunteer Fire Department and Louisiana State Police have begun searching the area.