Title 17. Education

Chapter 24. Board of Regents

Part I. General Provisions

17:3138.12      Louisiana’s Foundational Integrated Research System for Transformation (LA FIRST)

<Section effective upon appropriation of monies. See italic note, post.> 

A. The Board of Regents shall establish and maintain Louisiana’s Foundational Integrated Research System for Transformation (LA FIRST). 

B. LA FIRST shall be developed and maintained by the Board of Regents at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette within the Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center. 

C. (1) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, no later than December 1, 2023, data-sharing agreements shall be executed by LA FIRST through the Board of Regents, the office of technology services, and the following state entities: 

(a) The Louisiana Workforce Commission. 

(b) The Department of Children and Family Services. 

(c) The Department of Public Safety and Corrections. 

(d) The office of juvenile justice. 

(e) The Louisiana Department of Health. 

(f) The Department of Education. 

(2) No later than December 1, 2023, data-sharing agreements shall be executed by LA FIRST through the Board of Regents and each public postsecondary education management board. 

D. LA FIRST, using the data center services of the Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center, shall develop and annually publish the following reports: 

(1) Launch Louisiana report with an in-depth analysis of the elementary-and-secondary-school-to-college or -career transition. 

(2) Louisiana’s Employment Outcomes report with an in-depth analysis of linkages between workforce, credit and noncredit, and postsecondary training and education. 

(3) Causes and Consequences of Criminal and Delinquent Acts report with an in-depth analysis of the criminal justice system leveraging linkages between education, employment, adult corrections, and juvenile justice. 

E. Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, LA FIRST, through the Board of Regents, shall be provided access to all data listed in the data-sharing agreement developed with each state entity. Access to the data of each entity listed in Paragraph (C)(1) of this Section shall be provided through the office of technology services on equipment provided by the office of technology services. Once the Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center has been provided access to the data, the policy center shall comply with all restrictions imposed by law on any of the data received that is deemed confidential, privileged, or otherwise restricted, and any reports that use the data shall be released or published only in a manner that complies with the restrictions. 

F. Notwithstanding the provisions of R.S. 17:3914 or any other law to the contrary, each city, parish, or other local public school board shall directly share student data with the Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center and any department listed in Subsection C of this Section in order to carry out the provisions of this Section and the goals of the data-sharing agreements. 

G. Data sharing shall commence upon execution of data-sharing agreements but no later than December 1, 2023. The data shall include at least five years of historical data in order to establish a baseline for each data set. 

H. (1) All data shared shall include a minimum set of personally identifiable information to enable high-quality matching to other records within the system. 

(2) The shared data shall be separated into two parts, personal and nonpersonal information. Personal information shall be used only to generate a unique identifier for each record, which shall then be combined with nonpersonal information to allow for matching of records across the data system. Research and analysis shall not be conducted on data that includes personally identifiable information. 

Added by Acts 2023, No. 394, § 1.