Orleans Parish School Board Minutes

The Orleans Parish School Board Minute Books

These minute books are part of the larger Orleans Parish School Board Collection (MSS 147) in the Louisiana and Special Collections Department at UNO’s Earl K. Long Library. The physical collection of minute books covers meetings from 1841 through 1996. In these minutes, researchers can find discussions and debates surrounding religion in the schools, gender-related issues, teacher salaries, new construction, health policies, hiring policies, textbooks, and more. Ongoing discussions about corporal punishment and the negative reactions from parents – and their lawyers – when their children were disciplined, are among the many issues found in this material.

Digitization of the OPSB Minute Books is an ongoing project, and more minute books will be scanned and uploaded as resources allow.

“Unclaimed History: The Orleans Parish School Board Collection at the University of New Orleans”

In 2009-2010, scholars from the UNO Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies conducted a pilot project to index several volumes of handwritten school board meeting minutes dating back to the 1840s. Through a systematic reading of the minutes, the project staff summarized the actions taken at the meetings and collected the names of those who appeared before the Board.

Project staff attempted to verify names against census records or newspaper accounts; however, the efforts met with limited success due to multiple spellings and illegible writing. Names that could not be guessed were left within brackets ([ ]). Those using the summaries are cautioned, prior to any publication, to make every effort to verify the names and quotations included in the database.

This pilot project, funded by a Louisiana Board of Regents grant, indexed all or part of the following three volumes:

• City of Lafayette, Public School Board of Administrators, minutes, June 1, 1847 – July 5, 1854.
• Orleans Parish, Public School Board of Administrators, minutes, May 17, 1852 – April 30, 1856.
• Orleans Parish School Board, Second District, minutes, September 9, 1862 – November 29, 1863. Volume also contains records of Central High School Student attendances, grades, assignments, etc. May 7, 1869 – September 29, 1871.

These represent but a small selection from among the many volumes of school board minutes in UNO's Orleans Parish School Board Collection.

Unindexed minute books are also being scanned and added to this digital collection with minimal descriptive data until future efforts can be directed toward indexing them as well. All volumes in the digital collection should be searchable by date whether indexed or not.

How To Use This Collection

To search just this collection, use the basic search box near the top of the page or click “Advanced Search” for more search options.

To browse available minute books, click “Browse the OPSB Collection” in the menu along the top of the page. Each row on the results screen represents one volume of OPSB meeting minutes.

Click on a volume’s “Title” to open it. Browse the volume by using the table of contents to the right of the image viewer. Learn more by reading the descriptive data below the image viewer (volume data on top in the “Object Description” section, page data below in the “Description” section).