BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – The Louisiana Legislative Auditor released a report on December 16 focused on the seclusion, restraint, and abuse of special education students in public schools. This is the third audit from the LLA in the last two years as it has looked into the complaint process and monitoring of special education services in previous reports.

This stems from a nationwide report released in 2023 by the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights. That report found that students in special education classes make up 14% of the total K-12 enrollment, but account for 81% of physically restrained students, and 75% of students secluded.

According to Gina Brown, the audit manager for the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, nobody is monitoring the use of seclusion and restraint across the public school systems in Louisiana.

“It’s not required anywhere to be monitored and so it’s not being monitored. LDOE it is our opinion that LDOE does have the authority to monitor this,” Brown says.

The Louisiana Department of Education responded to the audit, saying it “disagrees with the LLA’s contention that LDOE has the necessary authority to monitor how school systems use seclusion and restraint.”

Brown says in Louisiana, school systems are required to report the number of incidents where students are physically restrained or secluded. She says the data is collected but not really used for anything.

“We found after going into field work and interviewing teachers and talking to those different school districts, we found a discrepancy between what was being reported to the department. Compared to the number of instances that were actually happening at the school,” Brown says.

Back in 2022, the Louisiana Legislature approved $8.8 million for the department of education to give to schools to install cameras in special education classrooms. The funding went into effect in 2023, but so far only $2.2 million has been spent. Brown says that is most likely because parents are unaware that they have to actually request cameras be put into those classrooms for the school to then require it.

“If parents were more informed that they can request this form, they can request a camera, they may be more likely. We might see more of this funding being used,” Brown says.

According to Ted Beasley, the communications director for the Louisiana Department of Education, there have been a total of 181 requests for cameras and 988 cameras installed. Some schools did it proactively.

Another potential problem the audit highlights is the requirements around certifications for teachers. Public school teachers are required to be certified, but they are not required to be certified in charter schools. Brown also says Louisiana is the only state with no code of ethics out of the 10 states they surveyed. Louisiana also does not have a way to sanction the licenses of teachers accused of mistreating students but not convicted of a crime.

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Louisiana will hold a special election Feb. 15 for open state Senate seats in Baton Rouge and Lafayette. 

A runoff, if needed, will be held March 29, on the same ballot as Gov. Jeff Landry’s proposed tax and criminal justice state constitutional amendments.

Sens. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, and Jean-Paul Coussan, R-Lafayette, are leaving the Louisiana Legislature to take their new positions in Congress and on the Public Service Commission, respectively. Their resignations will leave Senate districts 14 and 23 open.

The candidate qualifying period for both Senate seats will take place Jan. 7-9.

State Rep. Larry Selders, R-Baton Rouge, and former state school board member Carolyn Hill, D-Baton Rouge, have both said they will run to replace Fields. State Rep. Brach Myers, R-Lafayette, and Broussard Councilman Jesse Regan, also a Republican, have said they will run to replace Coussan.