Roger Williams spent many long days in the state Capitol this year, taking time off work and away from his children to plead his case to lawmakers. He testified repeatedly that private preschools, like the one where he says his daughter was harmed by another student, must be better regulated.
But when Williams returned to the Capitol in August, it was to celebrate.
“We did it,” he told a child abuse task force after the legislation he’d championed, Act 409, had been signed into law. “This law is not just words on paper — it’s a shield for Louisiana’s children.”
The sweeping 32-page law regulates hiring and training, child supervision and abuse reporting at daycares and preschools. It requires pre-K programs at private schools to obtain a daycare center license — a lengthy process involving background checks and site inspections — and allows families to sue for damages if their children are abused at school.
Advocates like Williams tout the law, which the state Legislature passed unanimously this year, as a major victory for child safety and school accountability. But critics call the regulations excessive and unnecessary given private schools’ existing safety protocols and warn that tuition might rise to offset the costs of compliance, including extra teachers, background checks and facility upgrades.
Less than a week after Williams spoke to the task force, Catholic school leaders appealed to the state board of education for waivers from some of the regulations, which take effect Oct. 1. Howard Davis, head of Providence Classical Academy, a Christian school in Bossier City, said he might file an injunction to stop the law.
“This is not fair to our schools,” he told the board. “It’s just ridiculous.”
Now some private school supporters are urging lawmakers to delay the law’s enactment during a possible special legislative session this fall. State House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, said lawmakers are still studying the issue.
“I’m really hopeful that we can address the concerns that we’re hearing from schools and dioceses,” he said.
For Williams, a major in the Army National Guard who was a driving force behind Act 409, the backlash to the law has been demoralizing.
“In my head, we did it, it’s over, we turned this horrible situation into a positive,” he said. “And yet, here we are.”
Parents push for stricter safety rules
Act 409 might not exist were it not for a disturbing discovery Williams made one afternoon in March 2024.
As his three-year-old daughter was getting changed for gymnastics class, Williams said he noticed blood in her underwear. The girl explained that a boy in her preschool class had touched her inappropriately, Williams said. Williams and his wife, a nurse anesthetist, took their daughter to the hospital and filed a police report. They also informed the school, Kehoe-France Southshore in Metairie, which conducted an investigation.
The couple also contacted the state Department of Children & Family Services, or DCFS, and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. Both said the alleged incident fell outside of their jurisdiction, while the state Department of Education said it couldn’t intervene because pre-K programs at private schools were not licensed by the agency.
In August 2024, the couple sued the school, saying it failed to take proper safety precautions. The lawsuit alleges that the girl’s pre-K classroom was understaffed and that three-year-olds were sometimes allowed to use the restroom unsupervised, which is where the couple believes the incident occurred.
The school denied the allegations in court filings, saying it found no evidence that the alleged incident occurred at the school. It also said the school complied with all of the state’s staffing and restroom-supervision rules.
“We maintain comprehensive health and safety standards that meet or exceed state requirements, and our staff receive ongoing training to stay current with best practices in child safeguarding and education,” Kehoe-France Executive Head of Schools Tanya Price said in a statement, adding that protecting students is the school’s “highest priority.” Price said she cannot respond to specific allegations due to ongoing litigation, but that the school is prepared to “vigorously defend” its position in court.
Williams said the situation highlighted glaring gaps in state law. In January, he addressed a state task force on child abuse investigations, arguing that private schools like his daughter’s should face stricter safety standards.
“My daughter’s trauma could have been prevented,” he said, urging lawmakers to act. “We need your help.”
State Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, who led the task force, responded by sponsoring a bill in the legislative session earlier this year. It required private school pre-K programs to be licensed, law enforcement to investigate allegations of abuse at schools and DCFS to assess the families of alleged child perpetrators. It also limited the number of children that daycare or preschool staffers can supervise and said staffers must be nearby when children use the restroom.
The Legislature passed the bill and Gov. Jeff Landry signed it into law. At the August task force meeting, Barrow marveled at the bill’s bipartisan support.
“Not one ‘no’ vote,” she said. “Everybody understood it and wanted to make sure that we got this right.”
Private schools push back
While lawmakers praise the new law, private school leaders have been sounding the alarm about what they say are its unintended consequences.
Some say it will bust their schools’ budgets to hire more teachers to meet new staffing requirements that take effect Oct. 1. Private school pre-K programs now must have one staffer for every 15 four-year-olds, down from 1 for every 20 students under the previous rules.
Last month, the state education department granted waivers requested by several Catholic schools, giving them an extra year to meet the new staffing rules.
Meanwhile, about 250 private schools with pre-K programs must apply for “early learning center” licenses by Jan. 1. The licenses, which standalone preschools and daycares already have, require state Fire Marshal and Health Department inspections and background checks for all staffers — even those who previously completed the process.
Mark Williams, Catholic school superintendent in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, said he and his colleagues support the effort to bolster student protections. But he argued that the new mandates are redundant. His teachers already cleared background checks and were trained in child abuse reporting. Williams said the new requirements will cost his diocese an estimated $157,000 this fall, adding that because schools did not get any state funding to meet the mandates, they will have to pass the cost onto parents.
“It’s going to increase the tuition,” he said. “There’s no getting around that.”
Others say the daycare regulations are ill-suited for pre-K programs embedded in schools.
Maria LaFleur, principal of St. Catherine of Siena School in Metairie, said the entire school’s dismissal procedures will be disrupted because under the new rules young children cannot be sent home with older siblings. For pre-K students to leave their classrooms to attend enrichment classes like music or art or weekly Mass, they now will need signed permission slips, LaFleur said.
“We are being held to standards designed for day care facilities, not schools,” she said in an email. “Catholic schools have a rich history of preparing students academically, and that’s being undermined.”