New University Lab Schools Can Receive Per-Student State Funding, Under Rep. Kim Carver's Act 335

Louisiana elementary and secondary laboratory schools established on or after Aug. 1, 2026, and operated by a University of Louisiana System institution can receive per-student state funding under Act 335 by state Rep. Kim Carver of Mandeville. The law extends an existing Minimum Foundation Program formula rather than creating a new funding formula or opening a school.

Carver, a Republican, represents House District 89 in St. Tammany Parish. His official House biography says he was elected in 2023, works as a banker and holds an engineering degree from LSU and an MBA from the University of New Orleans. His committee assignments include Education. The Mandeville legislator sponsored House Bill 1132 during the 2026 regular session.

The law is narrower than the bill's original wording. The introduced version would have applied the funding rule broadly to laboratory schools operated by any institution governed by the UL System board. The House Education Committee changed that language before the bill reached the full House. The final act keeps the existing rule for four named universities and adds a separate provision for schools established on or after Aug. 1. The Senate accepted that version without further amendments.

Before Act 335, state law already covered elementary and secondary schools operated by LSU, Southern University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Those schools are considered public schools for this funding purpose. The act does not remove those four institutions or replace their existing funding provision. It adds qualifying new schools at institutions supervised and managed by the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System.

That system includes Grambling State, Louisiana Tech, McNeese State, Nicholls State, Northwestern State, Southeastern Louisiana, UL Lafayette and UL Monroe, according to the system's university list. Act 335 does not say that any of those campuses plans to establish a laboratory school. It sets the funding treatment if a qualifying school is established within the act's terms. The campus photo with this story is illustrative and does not depict a laboratory school.

A laboratory school is an elementary or secondary school run by a university. LSU's University Laboratory School is one example. LSU describes its K-12 school as a demonstration center for teaching methods and a place for observation, research and field experience for university students and faculty, according to the university's academic catalog. Act 335 does not change that school's existing place in the funding law.

The money follows the formula that was already in state law. According to the Legislature's digest, each student enrolled in a covered laboratory school is funded through the Minimum Foundation Program, usually called the MFP. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education allocates an annual amount per student equal to the per-student amount allocated to the school board in the parish where the laboratory school is located. The money goes to the institution operating the school, which must spend it to operate that school.

The MFP is the formula Louisiana uses each year to distribute state education funding to school systems, according to the state Department of Education. Act 335 does not rewrite that formula, set a separate dollar amount for laboratory schools or specify an enrollment total. It places qualifying new schools under the existing per-student calculation. The act's two-page enrolled text changes only R.S. 17:350.21(A)(1).

House Bill 1132 advanced without a recorded no vote. The House Education Committee reported it with amendments 11-0 on April 8. The full House passed it 102-0 on April 14, and the Senate passed it 35-0 on May 13. Gov. Jeff Landry signed it May 22, making it Act 335. The bill page lists an effective date of Aug. 1, 2026.

The law alone does not announce a campus, an opening date or a number of students. It supplies the public-school funding classification and directs how the state allocation reaches the university once a qualifying school exists.

This legislator series has also covered Louisiana's school emergency operations plan law and Louisiana's deer tracking dog law.

Photo: Richard David Ramsey, Wikimedia Commons, public domain (resized). Friendship Oak at Southeastern Louisiana University, photographed Jan. 3, 2010. The image shows a UL System campus, not a laboratory school.