At the January 15 School Board meeting, East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS) Board members re-elected their current officers. Jerry Arbour will remain in the position of president of the Board, as will Vice President Jonathan C. Augustine. Both men have held these titles since January 2008.  Arbour was elected in October 2005, and Augustine began his first term in January 2007.  Board members serve a four-year term; officers serve a two-year term.

Arbour, representative for District 9, is a lifelong resident of Baton Rouge. He is a 1965 graduate of Catholic High School. He received a bachelor’s degree in Personnel Management from the E.J. Ourso School of Business at Louisiana State University (LSU) and his Juris Doctorate from the LSU Law Center. Arbour has practiced law in Baton Rouge for 32 years and is admitted to practice in all Louisiana state courts; the Eastern, Western and Middle districts of the U.S. District Courts in Louisiana; the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit courts of appeals; and the United State Supreme Court. 

He is a member of the Louisiana State Bar Association and its Standing Committee of Legal Malpractice Insurance, the East Baton Rouge Parish Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the East Baton Rouge Parish Board of Elections Supervisors (chairman), the East Baton Rouge Parish Republican Executive Committee and many other organizations. 

Jonathan C. “Jay” Augustine of District 5 was elected to the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board in September 2006 and sworn into office in January 2007.  A noted author for several law reviews and journals, he is a partner with the multi-state law firm Montgomery, Barnett, Brown, Read, Hammond & Mintz LLP and an adjunct professor at Southern University Law Center.  Augustine also is a former election law counsel to Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana’s senior member of the United States Senate.  He earned an economics degree from Howard University and his law degree from Tulane University School of Law.  He is admitted to practice law before all Louisiana state and federal courts and the United States Supreme Court.  Augustine began his professional career as a law clerk to Louisiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson.

Augustine is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. and several non-profit organizations’ boards of directors.  He also is the former general counsel to 100 Black Men of Metro Baton Rouge Ltd. and the Baton Rouge Black Chamber of Commerce.