East Baton Rouge Parish School System elections (2016)
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The District 4 seat on the East Baton Rouge Parish school board was up for special election on March 5, 2016. Democrats Dawn Collins and Robert Maxie Sr. sought the seat with the unexpired two-year term, which was vacated when incumbent Tarvald Smith was elected to the Baton Rouge City Court in 2015. Collins defeated Maxie for the seat.[1]
Jacqueline Mims was appointed to fill the seat left empty by Smith in November 2015 until the special election could be held. Collins served a two-year term and was up for election on November 6, 2018.[2]
Louisiana elections use the Louisiana majority-vote system. All candidates compete in the same primary, and a candidate can win the election outright by receiving more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate does, the top two vote recipients from the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their partisan affiliation.
For information about which offices are nominated via primary election, see this article.
Elections
Voter and candidate information
The East Baton Rouge Parish school board consists of nine partisan members who serve four-year terms. All of the members are generally elected concurrently by district. This means that regular school board elections are held every four years with all nine members being up for re-election at that time. Any member who, at the end of his or her term, has served more than two and one-half terms in the last three consecutive terms cannot be re-elected for the following term. However, they can be re-elected following a one-term break.
All vacancies on the board are filled by appointment by the East Baton Rouge Parish school board for the remainder of the unexpired term of the vacated seat. If the unexpired term is longer than one year, a special election must be called. The appointed member serves until a successor is elected and has taken the prescribed oath of office.[3] The power to fill vacancies on the board derives from Article VI, Section 13 of the Louisiana Constitution.
School board candidates were required to file a Notice of Candidacy or Qualifying Form by December 4, 2015. At the same time, each candidate was required to either pay a qualifying fee of $115.00 or submit a nominating petition with 100 valid signatures.[4]
To vote in the general election, voters were required to register by February 3, 2016. Early voting ran between February 20, 2016, and February 27, 2016. [5]
Candidates and results
District 4
Results
| East Baton Rouge Parish School System, District 4 Special Election, 4-year term, 2016 |
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| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic |  Dawn Collins |
79.31% | 4,373 | |
| Democratic | Robert Maxie Sr. | 20.69% | 1,141 | |
| Total Votes (100) | 5,514 | |||
| Source: Louisiana Secretary of State, "Official Results," accessed March 21, 2016 | ||||
Candidates
 Dawn Collins 
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Robert Maxie Sr.
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Additional elections
- See also: Louisiana elections, 2016
The East Baton Rouge Parish School System election shared the ballot with the state's presidential preference vote. There were elections for members of the state and county committees for the Republican party and the Democratic party. There were also municipal elections for mayor, chief of police and councilmen in the city of Baker.[6]
Key deadlines
The following dates are key deadlines for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System in 2016:[7]
| Deadline | Event |
|---|---|
| December 4, 2015 | Candidate filing deadline |
| February 3, 2016 | Last day to registier to vote in the general election |
| February 4, 2016 | First campaign finance deadline |
| February 24, 2016 | Second campaign finance deadline |
| February 20, 2016 - February 27, 2016 |
Early voting period |
| March 5, 2016 | Election Day |
| March 15, 2016 | Third campaign finance deadline |
District map
Endorsements
Collins received official endorsements for her campaign from the following people and organizations during the election::[8]
- School board members Kenyetta Nelson-Smith and Vereta Lee
- Baton Rouge Metro Councilwoman Donna Collins-Lewis
- Baton Rouge Metro Councilwoman LaMont Cole
- State representatives Edward James (D-101), Ronnie Edwards (D-29) and Patricia Haynes Smith (D-67)
- State senators Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb (D-14) and Regina Ashford Barrow (D-15)
- Former state senator Sharon Weston Broome (D-15)
- Former United States Congressman Cleo Fields
- United States congressman Cedric Richmond (D-2)
- Service Employees International Union
- Greater Baton Rouge AFL-CIO
- Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers
- Louisiana Federation of Teachers
- Louisiana Association of Educators
- East Baton Rouge Democratic Parish Executive Committee
Maxie received an endorsement from FuturePac during the election.[9]
Campaign finance
Candidates received a total of $28,628.15 and spent a total of $11,008.69 during the election, according to the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program.[10]
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dawn Collins | $14,145.65 | $6,974.84 | $7,170.87 |
| Robert Maxie Sr. | $14,482.50 | $4,033.65 | $10,448.85 |
Past elections
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2014District 1
District 2
District 3Kenyetta Nelson-Smith (D) was re-elected to the District 3 seat on September 5, 2014, when challenger Eugene Weatherspoon (D) withdrew from the race. District 4
District 5
District 6District 10 incumbent Jill Dyason (R) was elected without opposition to the District 6 seat on September 9, 2014, when challenger Tiffany Perkins (R) was disqualified from the race. District 7
District 8: Runoff
District 9District 1 incumbent David Tatman (R) was elected to the District 9 seat without opposition on August 22, 2014. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
What was at stake?
2016
Election trends
The East Baton Rouge Parish School System is a partisan board that changed its makeup in 2014. The board previously had 11 members but reduced to nine members in 2014. Despite the reduction in members, the partisan balance remained. The election in 2010 resulted in five Democrats and six Republicans serving on the board. After the 2014 election, four Democrats and five Republicans sat on the board. The two candidates running as Democrats in the 2016 special election did not change the partisan makeup of the board since they replaced a Democratic member.
Issues in the district
Closed high school in district returns to local control
Control of Istroma High School was returned to local control on January 13, 2016, following three years of state direction from the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). The state board had assumed control of the school in 2012 due to on-going low academic performance. The state closed the school in 2014, but the district successfully petitioned for it to be reopened and returned to its control, agreeing to pay any associated costs.[11]
Superintendent Warren Drake planned to reopen the school in the fall of 2016. After reviewing the estimated $15 million in repair costs, he indicated that the opening date would be pushed back. The school building opened in the 1940's and served as the only high school in its zip code until its closing in 2014. The superintendent suggested taking money from a proposed project for a career academy in the district or scaling back on construction projects at Park Elementary to fund the necessary repairs. While no specific plan had been proposed as of February 1, 2016, board members were not in agreement on the superintendent's suggestions. Board member Evelyn Ware-Jackson commented on the Ardendale Career Academy, "I don't see us taking a dime from Ardendale and putting it anywhere else." Jacquelyn Mims did not agree with the $17 million budget for the Ardendale project, "I, for one, would like to see dollars spread across the district for instructional programming."[12][13]
Candidate survey
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About the district
East Baton Rouge Parish School System serves the entire parish, located in eastern Louisiana. The city of Baton Rouge is the county seat of the parish. The parish was home to 446,042 residents in 2014, according to the United States Census Bureau.[14] The district was the second-largest school district in the state in the 2013–2014 school year and served 41,937 students.[15]
Demographics
East Baton Rouge Parish outperformed Louisiana as a whole in terms of education achievement in 2013. The United States Census Bureau found that 34.2 percent of parish residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 21.8 percent of state residents. The median household income for the parish was $48,506, compared to $44,874 for the state. The percentage of people below poverty level for East Baton Rouge Parish was 19.2 percent, while it was 19.1 percent for the entire state.[14]
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Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'East Baton Rouge Parish School System' 'Louisiana'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
| East Baton Rouge Parish School System | Louisiana | School Boards |
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, "Candidate Inquiry," accessed January 14, 2016
- ↑ The Advocate, "East Baton Rouge School Board calls March 5 election to fill District 4 seat vacated after Tarvald Smith elected judge," November 2, 2015
- ↑ St. Tammany Parish Public Schools, "School Board: Policies," accessed December 31, 2014
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, "Fees/Nominating Petitions to Qualify for Office," accessed January 18, 2016
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, "Election Calendar East Baton Rouge," accessed January 15, 2016
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, "Candidate Inquiry," accessed January 14, 2016
- ↑ Louisiana Ethics Administration Program, "Schedule of Reporting and Filing Dates," accessed February 1, 2016
- ↑ Dawn Collins School Board District 4, "Endorsements," accessed February 26, 2016
- ↑ FuturePac, "Endorsements," accessed February 26, 2016]
- ↑ Louisiana Ethics Administration Program, "Louisiana Campaign Finance Reports," accessed March 21, 2016
- ↑ The Advocate, "BESE committee approves return of Istrouma High to EBR system," January 12, 2016
- ↑ The Advocate, "Drake says charter competition has East Baton Rouge schools in ‘fight for our lives’," January 30, 2016
- ↑ The Advocate, "Istrouma High reopening may be delayed; superintendent unsure can meet August opening," January 25, 2016
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 United States Census Bureau, "Quickfacts:East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana," accessed January 18, 2016
- ↑ National Center for Education Statistics, "ELSI Table Generator," accessed November 16, 2015
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, "Official Results," accessed September 2, 2014
| 2016 East Baton Rouge Parish School System Elections | |
| East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana | |
| Election date: | March 5, 2016 |
| Candidates: | Dawn Collins • Robert Maxie Sr. |
| Important information: | What was at stake? • Key deadlines • Additional measures on the ballot |
