In the spring of 2021, there were 2,500 teacher vacancies across Louisiana – and by the fall of 2022, the state still had more than 1,200 open positions. Across the state, districts have launched multiple efforts to increase teacher hiring – from bringing educators out of retirement to quick-turnaround teacher training programs.

The Times-Picayune / New Orleans Advocate’s Jefferson Parish reporter, Marie Fazio, tells us about efforts to increase teacher hiring across the state. She’s joined by Baton Rouge high school science teacher Megan Hall, who was recently awarded the District-Level Teacher of the Year award after her first year at Arlington Preparatory School.

Slavery was abolished in 1865 – but its echoes remain.

In many states, including Louisiana, court cases in which enslaved people were regarded as property are still cited as good legal precedent. Sometimes these cases are used to support lawsuits in the courts today.

The Citing Slavery Project is documenting these instances, and calling for change. The project’s director, Justin Simard, is an assistant professor at Michigan State College of Law. He and  Audrea Dakho, who is a project editor for Citing Slavery, working on Louisiana-specific cases join us to discuss their work. 

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our assistant producer is Aubry Procell. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12 and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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