Gov. Edwards on Thursday signed an update to his Public Health Emergency declaration related to the COVID-19 outbreak, which waives some education requirements in the law and also suspends some laboratory requirements to speed the process of coronavirus testing, among other things.

Click here to read the proclamation update.

“The pace of testing has to increase in Louisiana and this order will allow more laboratories in Louisiana to process COVID-19 tests, which is critical as our state fights the spread of this illness,” Gov. Edwards said.

Education changes in the proclamation apply to the 2019-2020 school year and address suspensions to testing administration, school and district accountability, teacher evaluation, student attendance, teacher work days, and charter school application and enrollment. Some of these suspensions will be effective only if the United States Department of Education grants a waiver of the relevant provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act at the request of BESE.

“The education of our students is extremely important, and I want to thank everyone who has worked so diligently and quickly to adopt distance learning practices – especially our educators and school administrators,” Gov. Edwards said. “The plan is still to open school later this year, but our request is to waive the LEAP testing for students in our state.”

This is the fourth update to the Governor’s Proclamation of a Public Health Emergency. They are:

March 11: Original declaration, restrictions

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/25-JBE-2020-Public-Health-Emergency-UPDATED.pdf

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/25-JBE-2020-Public-Health-Emergency-UPDATED.pdf March 13: Transportation, health care, administrative

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/27-JBE-2020-Public-Health-Emergency-COVID-19-Supplement.pdf

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/27-JBE-2020-Public-Health-Emergency-COVID-19-Supplement.pdf March 14: Restrictions on establishments, closures, legal deadlines

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/29-JBE-2020-Public-Health-Emergency-COVID-19.pdf

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/29-JBE-2020-Public-Health-Emergency-COVID-19.pdf March 19: Education, health care, administrative

https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/Proclamations/2020/JBE-32-20-Additional-Measures-For-Covid-19.pdf

In addition, Gov. Edwards issued a proclomation on March 13 moving Louisiana’s elections, which can be found here.