The current discussion in Baton Rouge is largely centered on the budget for the 2022 – 2023 school year, which will be adopted in the next few weeks. To get a better feeling for community desires for our education system, Stand conducted a poll of 1,823 likely general election voters in EBR. The poll was conducted in May of 2022 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.68%.
Respondents were asked about five specific priority areas from the district’s strategic plan and whether a candidate’s support of that priority area would make them more or less likely to vote for that candidate. While all five priorities had over 80% of people saying a candidate’s support would make them more likely to vote for that candidate, the single highest scoring priority was investing in effective teacher training and coaching on early literacy to help children read by third grade (89%).
The second most important priority was expanding access to quality preschool so more students start kindergarten ready to learn (82%). Less than half of EBR’s kindergarteners start school ready to learn, so Stand agrees that expanding access to quality early education programs is of the utmost importance.
Providing more career and technical education courses and ensuring mental health supports/counseling resources both came in at 81% support while expanding opportunities for high school students to take advantage of courses that enable them to earn college credit received 80% support.
The data above is district-wide and there were no significant differences in support between district, party, race, or gender.
This overview of community and likely voter perspectives provides a crystal-clear picture of the community’s priorities. When considering the budget and direction of our district, Stand calls on board members to both follow the evidence of effectiveness and overwhelming level of community support for these priorities and vote in favor of the student-centered initiatives listed above.
If you would like to email your school board member and ask them to support the proposed budget, which priorities these five priorities and more, please click here.
