Teach For America spreads its south Louisiana roots to West Baton Rouge

Last fall, Notre Dame University senior Grace Huguley was mulling over what to do after graduation. Huguley, a Class of 2026 psychology and sociology double major, wanted to make a difference, and she liked the idea of doing it from a classroom. She had heard about the national education nonprofit Teach For America (TFA) through her college networks and decided to apply, requesting to be placed at a school in Greater Baton Rouge.

“I really wanted to create meaningful change,” says Huguley, a Gainesville, Florida, native who was eager to return to the South. “That, combined with my love for children, drew me to Teach For America.”

Huguley currently teaches fourth-grade math and science at Cohn Elementary School in Port Allen. She’s one of 48 TFA corps members currently deployed in elementary, middle and high schools across the Capital Region. They work as full-time teachers, filling gaps caused by chronic teacher shortages.

Teach For America launched nationally in 1990, placing idealistic recent college graduates in public schools in six areas across the United States. South Louisiana was one of them. The program works in about 60 sites nationwide today, including Greater Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

“We’ve been operating in Greater Baton Rouge for 35 years, so we consider ourselves a national nonprofit with deep local roots,” says TFA Greater Baton Rouge executive director Laura Vinsant. The Arlington, Texas, native and LSU alumna taught elementary school in Baton Rouge as a TFA corps member before assuming a leadership position several years ago. “We have been here making an impact on kids over the full course of our organization’s history.”

This year, TFA Greater Baton Rouge expanded into West Baton Rouge Parish, placing nine corps members in five schools. Superintendent Chandler Smith says the partnership has been beneficial.

“We have been ecstatic with our experience so far with Teach For America,” says Smith, who has focused on teacher quality since he was appointed to lead the West Baton Rouge Parish School System in 2023. Smith says TFA teachers, while young, come in with significant content knowledge that gives them a jumpstart.

“What’s hard for us is if a teacher doesn’t know the math, English or science. It’s difficult for us to support that,” he says. “But with pedagogy, instruction and classroom management, we can teach that.”

Smith says TFA corps members are helping to address teacher shortages, which have been exacerbated in recent years by a slowdown in education majors.

“We’ve noticed a big reduction in student teachers,” he says.

Vinsant says one of the most significant upsides of TFA’s longstanding work in Baton Rouge is that numerous corps members have remained in the area after their two-year term finishes. About 250 TFA alums currently live in Baton Rouge, she says, many still teaching or working toward the social good.

Baton Rouge Area Foundation president and CEO Chris Meyer is a TFA alumnus, as is Louisiana Blue Foundation president Michael Tipton, also a past executive director of TFA South Louisiana. The successful Baton Rouge charter school Collegiate Academy has TFA alumnus Devan Richard as its principal. Former TFA corps member Sarah Broome founded the successful Baton Rouge public boarding school Thrive Academy, while alum Lucas Spielfogel runs the Baton Rouge Youth Coalition, an organization that helps promising disadvantaged students get into college. It was originally founded by two other TFA alums. 

Moreover, Vinsant says the organization has been in Louisiana long enough to demonstrate generational impact. Four current corps members who grew up in the state were themselves taught by Teach For America teachers.

One is Timmy Smith, a Vidalia native and Southeastern Louisiana University graduate now teaching fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade social studies at the public charter Baton Rouge Ochsner Discovery Academy.

“There was a lot of disparity,” Smith says of his hometown. “And one thing that I saw with the Teach For America teachers was the way they were bridging opportunities. They were showing that, through education, you have the power to do other things in life rather than stay put.”

Louisiana’s high poverty rate and traditionally low education rankings have made it a place that draws young people eager to make a difference. These days, it’s a place that attracts interest because of its progress, says Vinsant, referencing the state’s improvement on The Nation’s Report Card. Between 2022 and 2024, Louisiana’s fourth-grade reading skills jumped from 42nd to 16th. 

“A lot of our college students who are considering TFA want to be part of continuing to accelerate that progress,” Vinsant says. “Greater Baton Rouge and Louisiana really stand out to them as something they want to be part of.”