(KLFY)-- In his first day in office, Governor Jeff Landry made an executive order that has upset many education leaders. He killed a graduation appeals process that was only in effect for 19 days.

The veto happened so fast that just seven students in the entire state had the chance to successfully appeal their graduation. Education leaders are now calling them the "lucky seven."

"It's devastating. The governor's veto of the graduation appeal process is devastating for students. Our students got a lot of hope in knowing that they could show what they knew in other ways. The fact that this has been taken away from them is really devastating to students," Dr. Holly Boffy, an Acadiana principal and former President for the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said.

She explained the board passed the graduation appeals process last year. She said it gave students a chance to show what they knew, aside from a standardized test score.

"Our tests play an important role in our school system, but we have overutilized testing in the decisions that we've made," Boffy told News 10.

She said the appeals process allowed students to show they were ready to enter the work force. It also helped students who may have had straight A's but were not strong test takers.

"What was beautiful about the process as we had written it was that we were really shifting our schools from test prep to life prep, and we need to do that with our public schools. We need to make sure that students are being prepared for successful lives after graduation, and that appeals process was a step in that direction," she said.

Right now, Louisiana is only one of nine states that require standardized tests for high school seniors to get their diplomas. Boffy said we're now the only state without an appeals process.

"What I hope is that families and citizens who do not want a child's future determined by one test score, reach out to their state representatives and their state senators and ask for them to make a grad test appeal policy state law," she added.

Dr. Boffy said making a graduation appeals process state law could underscore the governor's veto. There's now a petition to do just that. So far, there are over 700 signatures.

Latest Posts