Lafayette School Board Won the Comeaux Lawsuit. It Still Has to Pay $45,000 and Redo the Process.

LAFAYETTE, La. — The lawsuit over the Lafayette Parish School Board’s attempt to close Ovey Comeaux High School is done. But the judge who spent three days in that courtroom, watching board members stumble through questions about their own policies, recessing to weigh contempt charges, and listening to employees say they feared coming to court, wasn’t going to let the board walk out without hearing from her first.

According to The Current, the Third Circuit Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday night that the board’s April 15 vote to rescind its March 12 closure decision resolved the underlying lawsuit. The board had undone the action that started the legal fight, so the appeals court agreed the case no longer had a basis. Wednesday morning, 15th Judicial District Court Judge Valerie Gotch Garrett held a final hearing to close out what remained.

What remained turned out to be a bill.

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LPSS Pays the Tab for a Fight It Picked

Garrett immediately rejected requests from school board attorneys to reduce or discount what the plaintiffs were owed. She set a May 29 deadline for payment: roughly $45,000 covering plaintiff attorney fees, court costs, and expenses for the Baton Rouge firm that represented lead plaintiff Suzanne Lajaunie.

That’s on top of what LPSS spent defending itself.

The board won in court, technically. The case is dismissed. But the path it took to get there cost the district money it didn’t have to spend. It refused to take corrective action quickly, fought the dismissal argument at the appellate level, and blew up settlement talks Monday night.

"I Hope You’ll All Do Better"

Garrett didn’t let the school board leave quietly. She called the case “one of the most difficult trials I’ve ever had to hear,” telling board members that people across the community were affected by how the district handled the closure decision. She told them she hoped they’d learned “some valuable lessons about public integrity.”

“I hope in the future you’ll all do better,” she said, according to KATC, “and you serve the community you were elected to serve.”

She also called out an assistant superintendent for not paying attention during proceedings, and told board members directly that the disrespect she observed “was unnerving.”

Garrett had recessed court Monday to consider whether to hold board members in contempt. That came after District 3 board member Josh Edmond testified he had voted at the April 15 special meeting to rescind the closure, a vote taken while Garrett’s preliminary injunction was in effect prohibiting the board from taking any action on Comeaux.

What Allegedly Blew Up the Settlement

The parties tried to settle. They didn’t get there. The board met in executive session for more than two and a half hours Monday to consider a proposal from the plaintiffs. When members returned to the table, LPSS attorney Bob Hammonds said the board had proposed changes to the plaintiffs' settlement terms, and the plaintiffs had rejected them.

The sticking point, according to Lajaunie and reported by The Current: the board wouldn’t agree to protect employees who testified from retaliation.

Lajaunie said that wasn’t hypothetical. Her mother works in human resources for the school system, and until recently her kids were allowed to wait at her mother’s office after getting off the bus. That ended last week. “My family is already starting to experience retaliation,” Lajaunie told reporters Wednesday.

Comeaux High Principal Erin Atkins and Lafayette High Principal Layne Edelman had both testified under subpoena, and both told the court they feared retaliation for doing so. Lajaunie said efforts to recall Board President Hannah Smith Mason and board member Kate Labue will begin immediately.

Mason testified during the trial that she was unaware of a 2016 board rule requiring a public hearing before closing a school — a rule available on the school system’s own website.

LPSS Responds to Court of Appeal Decision

The Lafayette Parish School Board released a statement Wednesday calling the Third Circuit's decision a vindication of the board's handling of the situation.

"The Lafayette Parish School Board is pleased that the Third Circuit Court of Appeal has decided to dismiss the case regarding the repurposing of Comeaux High," the statement reads. "The Court recognized that there was no reason for the trial to continue."

The board framed its April 15 rescission vote as a proactive step to avoid additional legal costs, saying members acted when they became aware of "a possible error in procedure." The statement says the appeals court confirmed board members "were well within their authority to rescind its decision regarding Comeaux" at that meeting.

The board also argued the Third Circuit agreed the April 13 injunction "was overly broad and restricted School Board members from doing the job they were elected to do." The appeals court's actual ruling dismissed the case on mootness grounds — that the rescission gave plaintiffs most of what they sought — and did not address the scope of the injunction on the merits.

On a separate front, the board disclosed that the Louisiana Attorney General's Office issued a letter on April 29 stating it had reviewed an open meetings law complaint tied to the March 12 meeting and determined "the complaint was unreasonable and that no violation occurred."

The statement closed with a forward-looking pledge: "Moving forward, the Board will focus its time and energy on what matters most: providing students with strong educational and career opportunities that prepare them for success in school and in life."

What Comes Next for Comeaux

The legal fight ending doesn’t mean the Comeaux question is settled. The appeals court noted the board rescinded the closure vote and gave plaintiffs most of what they sought in the lawsuit, but it didn’t resolve whether Comeaux should close. It just reset the clock.

The school board will likely move to restart the closure process, this time with the public hearing the 2016 policy requires. The next regular board meeting is May 14.

Parents, faculty, and students who’ve spent months fighting this fight may soon be doing it again, only now through a process the board was supposed to follow in the first place.

Plaintiff attorney Brian Blackwell put it plainly outside the courthouse. “I think it’s important for people to step up,” he told reporters.