Who’s running for a seat on BESE? Vote for who you want to lead school board for Louisiana
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Voters will soon select representatives for the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The members help set rules and standards for public early and K-12 education.
BESE decides curriculum and classroom policy, sets program budgets and creates regulations for schools, administrators and teachers.
Election day for the Louisiana primary is Oct. 14, and early voting runs from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sept. 30 through Oct. 7 (except Sunday, Oct. 1). Across Louisiana, voters will cast ballots for the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer.
The seats for districts 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 have yet to be filled.
Qualifying for state and local races was Aug. 8-10. If a race had only one candidate at the end of qualifying at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 10., that person is set to take office at the start of the next term. Other candidates could have withdrawn or been disqualified.
Sharon Latten Clark, Democrat, won the District 2 seat unopposed. Eric J. Jones, Democrat, had initially been qualified to run, but the Secretary of State website now has him listed as Other/Disqualified.
"Sandy" LeBlanc Holloway, Republican, won the District 3 seat unopposed. This district includes Iberia and St. Mary parishes, as well as parts of parts of St. Martin and St. Landry parishes.
District 5 includes most of Evangeline Parish, District 7 includes Acadia, Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jeff Davis and Vermilion parishes and most of Lafayette Parish and District 8 includes parts of Lafayette and St. Landry parishes.
While the primary will determine some races, the general election will be Nov. 18. Learn where you can cast early ballots here.
Meet the candidates for BESE seats
District 1
- Paul Hollis, Republican
- Lauren Jewett, Democrat
District 4
- Paige Hoffpauir, Republican
- Stacey Melerine, Republican
- Emma Shepard, Democrat
District 5
- “Toby” Brazzel, Republican
- Lance Harris, Republican
District 6
- “Ronnie” Morris, Republican
- Jodi Rollins, Republican
District 7
- Cathy S. Banks, Republican
- Kevin M. Berken, Republican
- Erick Knezek, Republican
District 8
- Preston Castille, Democrat
- Dolores “DeeDee” Cormier-Zenon, Democrat
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