Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power lights.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

Education savings accounts that provide tax dollars for private education advance in the legislature.

I'll bring you the latest on the proposed legislation.

A pair of Louisiana priests are on a mission to help victims of human trafficking.

It's love that Boot Week, a statewide effort to clean up Louisiana.

And our next young hero.

Hunter Robertson is a bass master, and so much more.

All this and more coming up.

In.

This is about giving the legislature more tools.

Anybody that says that, governor, you just trying to consume more power.

I am here to tell you all in front of the media.

That is completely nonsense.

The process allows us to ensure that some of the sacrosanct things that this, that the people of this state want and demand in their constitution remain in their Constitution.

That was Governor Jeff Landry at a press conference on Thursday.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen, the floor.

Well, the governor is trying to address concerns about a proposed constitutional convention.

He maintains that any changes would be aimed at giving lawmakers the tools to deal with the state's projected budget crisis in the next fiscal year, as well as streamlining the document.

Many, though, are concerned about the speed at which the governor wants to amend the Constitution and the lack of transparency about exactly what lawmakers plan to change.

The proposal heads to the full House for debate.

And speaking of the legislature, two controversial bills dealing with education are also moving forward.

The proposals would create taxpayer funded universal education savings accounts, or essays.

The governor and supporters say they want to give parents more input in their children's education.

Opponents want to ensure that the money goes to families who need it the most.

Here's a look at both the sides and what the plan could mean for public education.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has been vocal in his support for parent choice and public education.

He made his intentions known in his inauguration speech.

I believe the most important voice in a child's education should be that of their parents.

For it is only through education, without indoctrination, that a child finds his or her true potential.

And again in his opening address to the Louisiana legislature.

When we are done this session, let us send a loud and clear message that the parrot is the most important voice in a child's education.

Parent choice in education is making its way through the Louisiana legislature in two bills, one by Representative Julie Emerson.

Members.

House Bill 745 establishes the Louisiana giving all two opportunity to rise or the La Gator Scholarship.

The scholarship sets up education scholarship accounts that will truly allow the money to follow the child and empower the parents to be able to choose the education that is truly best for their child.

Currently, 14 other states have implemented essays, and while the programs are young, they have shown early positive outcomes and achievement.

In Emerson's bill, parents of children in grades kindergarten through 12th could apply for state grants regardless of financial need to spend on private school tuition, tutoring, uniforms, online classes, and other education related expenses.

Some public school systems around the state are expressing concerns that the proposed legislation undermines and will ultimately underfund public education.

Just because choice and air quote, parent choice is a national phenomenon.

I'm Bres right now.

It's like everything else it's it's a fad and because we don't know the unintended consequences, we have yet to find a state that has seen success with implementing school choice and ESEA that does not run the state into a fiscal cliff of of an exorbitant amount of money that no one can per project or predict.

The Bossier Parish School Board adopted a resolution opposing the proposed state legislation, and a unanimous vote to see public funds go to private institutions.

And then we have legislators that want us to er, quote, compete, compete with private schools.

The playing field is not even it's not level.

It's not apples to apples.

And so when you're asking public schools to do more and more and more with less and less and less, it's not fair and it's not for the public good.

Proponents of parent choice and education say universal education savings accounts empower families to make decisions and pay for education in their child's best interests.

Proponents of ESAs would say, well, it's my tax dollars that that I want to take and do what's right for my child.

And while I would agree with them, that that choice A could be theirs and maybe should be theirs, but when you take your tax dollars, you're also taking my tax dollars.

And everyone else who's investing in that system.

The Public Affairs Research Council, a government watchdog group, is not opposed to the concept in theory but is concerned about its rollout.

We actually think the idea of an educational savings account for some students is probably a good one.

If you have students that are trapped in schools that don't necessarily fit for them because they can't afford to or say they have disabilities.

On the flip side, I think especially if it's applied universally, regardless of income, it can end up being expensive.

Some of the estimates are in the, you know, the 200 to $300 million range for the first three years of the program.

And the program is phased in.

So we think it could be a couple of years before we see the real impact.

So maybe you're in 5 or 6.

In our estimates about 520 million.

And that's the big cost driver there.

The Louisiana Gator Scholarship program would offer grants ranging from $5,100 upwards to $15,000 a year.

The bill does require some accountability from participating schools and students.

Students receiving ESAs will also be subject to annual testing requirements, which will either be the Leap test or a CE approved national norm referenced tests like the California Achievement Test.

Representative Emerson's bill has a timeline with a three part phase in starting in the 2025 2026 school year.

The biggest thing we want to see, and what we've testified for multiple times is just if the legislature doesn't appropriate enough to fully fund it, make sure those kids that have disabilities or are at lower income levels, that they get first shot at these slots at private schools.

That's that's the number one thing that we care about.

There's also some things with transparency.

I do think the authors have done a lot of work on that, but I still think we want some basic data from hashtags to headlines.

Here's what's trending this week.

On Thursday, the USS Kidd set sail from Baton Rouge to Houma for much needed repairs to the ship toll.

Now, this is a big deal because the USS Kidd has not left its cradle since 1982, and this is a beloved museum.

It also starred in the movie Greyhound with Tom Hanks.

So we say Bon voyage to the USS Kidd.

We cannot wait for you.

Return in tip top shape.

Well, the NCAA champions, the LSU women's gymnastics team, was honored this week with a big parade.

The gymnastic team brought home the trophy after their meet in Fort Worth.

It's been a banner year for women's gymnastics, right?

So not only did they have this national championship, but they've also won an SEC conference and NCAA regional titles.

So kudos to the women's gymnastics team.

Well, you have to be living under a rock if you don't know that the New Orleans Jazz Fest is underway in New Orleans, it runs from now through Sunday, May 5th, and it is a fabulous lineup, some big headliners.

We've got the Rolling Stones, Earth, Wind and Fire, Chris Stapleton, The Beach Boys and more.

So big crowds.

And I got to tell you, I flew into the New Orleans airport earlier this week and it was packed with revelers, so it's going to be a good one.

It's not a pretty picture litter tainting Louisiana's natural beauty.

In fact, experts say that the state spends more than $91 million each year to address the problem.

But there is some good news.

The largest litter cleanup effort in Louisiana is underway during Love Boot Week, courtesy of Keep Louisiana Beautiful.

I'm taking you to the frontlines of one of the nonprofit's efforts to make Louisiana cleaner and greener.

And some people don't.

People start pollution.

People can stop it.

People of a certain age remember the crying Indian star of those anti litter commercials?

The 1971 partnership with the AD Council became one of the most successful PSA campaigns in history.

I would say, oh, you know, trees are America's most important natural resource.

Woody Allen from the Forest Service urged us all to give a hoot.

Don't pollute.

In the 1980s, since the formation of Keep America Beautiful in 1953, an organized effort to clean up communities remains a public challenge.

The latest litter report from Keep America Beautiful estimates there are more than 50 billion pieces of trash on the ground across the U.S. that's 152 pieces of litter for every American.

We keep litter out of our lakes in Lafayette, Louisiana has its own effort.

Headed by Keep Louisiana Beautiful, a 500 and 1C3 nonprofit that urges Louisianans to let Louisiana shine by keeping it clean.

Keep Louisiana Beautiful is the statewide anti litter and beautification community improvement organization.

We are part of the National parent organization, Keep America Beautiful.

Love the Boot Week is the largest litter removal effort in Louisiana with more than 650 cleanup and beautification events underway throughout the state in a bag.

And there's a pair of gloves in here.

Volunteers pick up supplies and pick up trash at parks, public lands, waterways, trails and playgrounds.

Not only are we picking up trash, we are recycling some of the trash that we're picking up.

Yes, we are recycling.

Last year was our inaugural year to incorporate recycling into Loved the boot week and coming back larger this year.

Recycling number one plastic bottles in 13 parishes across Louisiana and expect to grow that for next year.

The trash picked up today and bag someone can actually go through this.

And so today we actually pre-trained everybody.

And so they'll actually pick up the recycling.

Keep it in a separate colored bag.

we do do total sort.

But because of your sort that there's no reason we're already touching it to begin with.

And we just put it in the right bag.

The two products that we're actually getting, they're a big piece of our litter stream.

It's Pet bottles, our normal water bottles, soft drink bottles and aluminum cans.

And those are two of the main items in the recycling program across the country.

Louisiana's own litter study says the Louisiana Department of Transportation spends $13 million a year on litter abatement cost.

That's more than any other state agency allowing a lot of, trash bags, styrofoam cups, liquor bottles, beer bottles.

just just trash in general.

I got to ask you, what is the most bizarre piece of litter that we've discovered and left a week?

Probably a toilet.

Paper.

We'll throw out anything.

The number one most littered item that we found last year was number was plastic bottles and fast food wrapping.

Cigaret butts still remain to be the number one most littered item in the world.

Keep Louisiana Beautiful aims to keep litter prevention in the public eye through its Let Louisiana Shine campaign, encouraging citizens to adopt preventative behaviors and help spread the word on social media.

Every ounce of litter picked up over this next nine days would have ended up in our water.

Eventually, when the week is over, Louisiana wants everyone to remain litter conscious and report people who trash the state.

If you spot a litter bug, you can call a hotline run by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

They'll get a litter ticket in the mail.

And I'll tell you if you get a ticket, for littering, you're about 80% less likely to litter again.

And if you go out and pick up litter for a day, you're about 80% less likely to litter.

So we can get everybody that litters a ticket or get them out, clean it up.

hopefully one day we want to spend all this money and time cleaning up Louisiana.

Two years ago, experts tracked 992 victims of human trafficking in Louisiana.

Most were under the age of 17 and victims of sex crimes.

While the state is making an effort to better track and record these incidents, a Baton Rouge priest says that there is more that should be done to curb the problem.

So human trafficking in Louisiana, it disproportionately affects juveniles under the age of 17.

And the two of you have helped create a home for girls called metanoia.

How did you first get into this?

And I'm going to start with you.

Well, I produced TV for Catholic TV out of Boston, and a few years ago, matter of fact, 2001, I was doing shows in Rome with the nun that the Pope calls the Mother Teresa of human trafficking, Sister Eugenia Bonetti.

She introduced me to a world that I knew nothing about.

And what about you?

How did you get into this?

Well, I met Father Jeff about 12 years ago, on a little vacation with a friend of mine.

And, he talked about human trafficking.

then I came down to and to Omaha, Nebraska.

I came down and worked in this parish for a while and began to learn about human trafficking.

But how does trafficking in Louisiana compare to other places?

You know, Tara, a lot of people have seen the movie sound of Freedom.

When we think of Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras is where it happens.

In the last six years that we've operated, we have served 98 girls.

87 are Louisiana residents as young as 11 years old.

We've had six from other U.S. states and only four international children.

Now, certainly there's a problem over there, and certainly the current border situations have created a big problem that we've yet to uncover.

But what we're dealing with is local children from our local communities, from the largest to the smallest areas of Louisiana.

There's 42% of the children trafficked in the United States are trafficked by their premier caregiver.

And that was that statistic that he told me surprised me more than anything.

So it's not strangers.

It's people they know.

It's there a specific place in Louisiana where kids are most likely to be trafficked.

You know, obviously New Orleans is a party city.

We have the Super Bowl coming up.

It's going to be a huge event for for human trafficking.

Do we have enough resources in the state of Louisiana to help them?

Well, metanoia has 16 beds.

And throughout the United States for the 4.9 million trafficked people, there are only 250 beds, and we have 16 of them.

We have no place to put them.

So that's a big important thing, is as we become more and more, aware and you get more and more rescues, where where are they going to get well, where are they going to be taken care of?

We we've gotten together with Texas governor's office, former Congressman tempo, former senator Ronnie Johns.

We do a Midsouth trafficking summit.

And basically what we're trying to do is help each other with our resources and our ability.

And you know what?

We don't do a good enough job and this is not slamming anybody.

It's a very difficult the world.

But more severe penalties for for the traffickers.

We're not even starting to identify the consumers.

I would love to see, you know, if you haven't checked with an underage child, that's a crime.

I mean, that's that's not a business transaction.

That's a crime.

Former governor's wife were very helpful.

And I knew Governor, governor Jeff Landry, his is Commissioner Monica Taylor's, called us and come to our conference and is going to work with us.

So we're looking forward to an ongoing relationship.

But are we doing it well enough?

No.

Is anyone know?

But here in Louisiana, what do you want to see from our legislature?

First of all, I would like to see a statute of limitations on a trafficking case.

I'd like to see from the moment the the traffickers apprehended, you can go no more in 12 months.

With resolution of that case, I'd like to see stricter sentencing guidelines.

I'd like to see the DA's and the judges quit blaming on each other and get together and say, this is a national disgrace and a statewide disgrace.

And for the average person that sees this and wants to help, what can they do?

they can never approach to traffic.

The one that you think is trafficking never do that.

You know, if you see something in a mall or something that you think that something's wrong here, just stay back.

Maybe follow for see where they get in the car, get their license plate, and then call the police about that.

And for help with your particular shelter, what can people do?

Well, you know, we're self-finance, so we just started getting per diems.

We have a big gala fundraiser, $6,000 tables coming up September 18th at La Baton Rouge.

You know, but the other thing, and I mean this very sincerely, when you listen to what these kids have gone through, it's evil.

We need prayers.

All this expenses on us, the medical expenses, the psychological, the therapeutic, all that's on education.

Because we're juvenile, we're very protective.

You have to have a state and federal background check to enter our property, because, you know, these.

We want to make sure no one who enters our property is increasing the risk on our children.

All right.

Well, I just want to say thank you so much for both of you for taking the time out of your day to speak with us.

Karen.

Thanks for having us.

Hunter Robertson has had the odds stacked against him from birth.

He was born with a skin disorder that leaves him more susceptible to cancer, but somehow, between biopsy appointments and a vigorous extracurricular schedule, Hunter has found the time to be a role model and even a life saver for his peers.

Our favorite literary tales would have you believe that heroes are born blessed with immeasurable strength and determination.

But sometimes the best stories, the best heroes, just need a little courage.

That's what Hunter Robertson, how did he young age?

He was our second child.

And when I was pregnant.

They have you, do blood test to just to rule things out, to see what to plan for.

And we did the blood test and it came back for positive.

What spinal bifida.

Cheryl Robertson, Hunter's mom, waited for long months, not knowing the fate of her second born.

She'd assumed there'd be a chance he couldn't walk or stand in the future.

She worried his life wouldn't be like other kids his age.

But instead of spina bifida, he was born with something entirely different.

When he came out, he had a black back.

That's the color of his skin.

It went up to his neckline and went down and got a symmetrical line across his butt, and then wrapped around both sides of his arm, of his abdomen.

This condition is called congenital nevus, which is medical speak for a pigmented birthmark.

It's technically harmless despite its appearance, but it does leave children like Hunter more susceptible to skin cancer.

His family prays for the best every time he's biopsied, which happens annually.

Now I just see it as a birthmark.

I don't.

It just doesn't put me to that kind of side.

Hunter doesn't see his birthmark as a negative.

He doesn't even recognize it as a condition.

The congenital nevus is something he's overcome.

The bullying, the taunts.

He's made peace with it.

That was his very first act of heroism.

I turn to my family and they'd be there by my side, but not at school.

So I turn to my friends, and that's when they came in.

That's when they came in to help him.

His second act would come years down the line.

It started with his mother hearing what sounded like a little girl giggling across a lake behind their house.

She heard the sound in the wee hours of the morning.

I just let it go.

Maybe I'm hearing things go back to reading.

I mean, this was ten, 15 seconds later.

I, hear it again and now my mind starts going like it is this.

I really am.

Why?

Like what?

What's going on?

The next sound she heard was definitely a whimper.

Cher was sure of it this time a splash and more whimpering came, but this time it was coming from the direction of our house.

I was like, that sounds like it's coming from our house.

We don't have any kids in that span.

She had the family spread out across the bank to feel out where the sound could be coming from, but Hunter didn't stay at the lake's edge.

Instead, he took a small boat into the water, rowing until he saw a small foot protruding from the lake.

Without his quick thinking his neighbor might not have made it.

She was only four years old.

She was also nonverbal and autistic.

When I pulled her into a kayak with me, she was just looking at me and smiled.

And then I when I put her between my legs, she just held onto my legs and we went over to there, to the bank, and then Mom and Miss Karen and them took her.

I mean, it's definitely told me to be more open to my surroundings because there's always something that could happen or that will happen if I'm not being more, open.

I guess.

Though, this act definitely qualifies Hunter as a hero in most books.

This isn't where his story ends.

In fact, it's only the surface of his philanthropy.

After Hurricane Ida, Hunter cleaned yards and delivered meals to linemen working to restore power.

When the pandemic hit, he made sure to befriend another one of his neighbors.

He taught him how to fish.

I gave him a rod and he rolled it in.

I put it in the boat for him and he was so proud of himself.

He goes, I can't believe I just caught that.

Oh my goodness.

The basis of every call in my life.

So we got a fish with that.

He's still proud of that fish and fishing also happens to be one of his favorite pastimes.

Hunter and his older sister compete annually at fishing tournaments, and in 2021, Hunter was named Southwest Bass Master Club Fisherman of the year, a huge achievement.

Hunter's junior year is coming to a close.

He plans to go to college and become an electrician, but before that happens, his mother says she hopes he continues his hero's journey and continues to help those along the way.

When we first become parents, we're eager to do things with our kids because we want them to experience life.

We want them to experience it all, but we want them to stay humble and stay true to themselves.

What a resilient and inspirational young man, and we want to thank Hunter for sharing his story.

LPB is Louisiana Young Heroes program is presented this year with the generous support of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, the Jalen Tom Benson Charitable Foundation, with additional support from Community Coffee, the US Army Baton Rouge Recruiting Battalion, Demko, McDonald's and Origin Hotel, Baton Rouge.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app.

You can also catch LP news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.