LSU Lab School access defended

• By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Mar 4, 2008 - Page: 1A

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At the LSU Lab School, only about a third of applicants gain admission every year.

It’s a public school with selective admissions populated by the children of a number of politically connected figures.

Successful applicants include Gov. Bobby Jindal’s daughter — who very recently started attending — and his chief of staff’s children as well as the children of a former insurance commissioner, past and present legislators, lobbyists, political consultants, a congressional candidate and the president of Southern University.

The kindergarten-through-grade 12 school is considered public even though it charges tuition. The school also receives basic state aid.

A committee of “the director and principals of the lab school” and representatives selected by the director and the LSU chancellor make the decisions on admission.

The school’s application guidelines allow the committee to factor in whether an applicant is a dependent of an LSU employee and whether an applicant has a “significant connection” to LSU, among other things.

The school’s director, Wade Smith, said the school did not recruit Jindal’s 6-year-old daughter, Selia.

“We didn’t go out and solicit the application,” he said.

However, Jindal said Monday that the lab school was one of several schools that contacted him after he won the October governor’s election.

The schools, including LSU Lab School, wanted to know if he and his wife, Supriya, were interested in looking at them, he said.

Smith said he does not dispute that the Jindals received a phone call. He said he does not know who placed it.

“If a contact were made, it was done, at least to my knowledge, independent of the school,” Smith said.

Jindal said he never tried to exert his influence at the LSU Lab School. He said he wanted his son Shaan, who will turn 4 next month, to begin kindergarten at the school this fall. Jindal said school officials decided Shaan was not ready.