Louisiana State Team

Team Louisiana started their journey in a place without a lot of clarity. They were unsure what was and was not working in their state's approach to managing their educator workforce, how different people were being impacted, or what data to use in moving forward.

Team Louisiana faced a number of challenges in addressing educator workforce needs in their state, which ranged from very practical barriers like funding shortfalls and available data, to more far reaching challenges like political climate and a lack of public support.

Through their work at the Collaborative, Team Louisiana was able take multiple steps in overcoming these challenges by improving coordination, streamlining, and identifying new policies, approaches, and resources to move forward.

On their journey map, they listed the ten strategies that were helping them move away from a place of confusion to a place of greater clarity.

By leveraging new approaches, new tools, new opportunities, and new data, Team Louisiana was able to gain a better perspective, clarify their goals and direction, and starting taking coordinated action to address both educator shortages and workforce diversity in tandem.

Team Louisiana is already seeing early success with their efforts, noting that the state has seen several hundred paraprofessionals transition into fully licensed teachers and the overall diversity of the profession has risen by 27%.