BATON ROUGE — Two candidates running for school board seats in Zachary and Baker went before a 19th JDC judge on Tuesday, with the candidate for the Baker board seat being disqualified. 

Janice Jones, who was running for a seat on the Baker School Board, has been disqualified and will be removed from the Nov. 3 ballot where she was set to face Elaine Davis and Myra Victor Harris.

Jones' candidacy was challenged by Joe Nathan Jenkins, who argued that Jones, whose lawyer appeared in court on Tuesday, did not live in Baker's District 1 for the required year before qualifying to run for a seat on the school board. 

The suit said that Jones was registered to vote at an address on Turnley Drive in 1995, outside of District 1. According to records reviewed by WBRZ, Jones sold this home in July 2026. 

In April 2026, she reportedly changed her voting registration to an Ector Drive home, which is in District 1. She did not claim a homestead exemption on the new Ector Drive home as of April. 

Rebecca Fletcher, who was running to represent Zachary's District 3 on the Zachary School Board, was permitted to continue her candidacy for the school board seat, which she is running for against Jonothan Borskey Edwards and Craig "CJ" King II.

A challenge to her candidacy claims that Fletcher neither paid nor requested an extension for the payment of state income taxes for 2025. According to state law, a candidate must certify that they have filed tax returns for the previous five years. 

King presented evidence directly from the Louisiana Department of Revenue arguing against Fletcher's candidacy, but it was not certified evidence. Since the evidence was not certified, the court could not acknowledge it.

King argued for a 30-minute delay to retrieve the certified documents; however, the court denied it. 

Fletcher remained on the ballot as of the end of the Tuesday hearing.