A total of 28 undergraduates in the College of Education started their Teacher Residency in the Ouachita Parish School System at the beginning of this school year.
Of the 28, 15 are ULM students, 10 study at Louisiana Tech, two from Grambling and one from Northwestern State.
A resident is an individual in the undergraduate teacher preparation program that is placed in an accredited school under the direct supervision of a fully certified classroom teacher and university officials for a full year.
The majority of these students will graduate with their Bachelor’s Degree in Education in May 2024.
“You have started the interview,” said Ouachita Parish Superintendent Todd Guice to the group of residents assembled at the Ouachita Parish Central Office Wednesday morning. “We are investing in you. We want to have you a part of this year and beyond.”
Four of the residents are spending the school year at West Ouachita and Ouachita High School, while 10 are scattered among seven middle schools across the district. The majority of the residents are on the elementary level, totaling 14 future teachers across seven different elementary schools in the district.
“It’s a benefit to have the full-on experience and to know how everything is the whole, entire year, and getting to know the relationships with your students and how to handle different situations, and just to know more and learn more,” said Gracie Robinson, who is in her residency at Drew Elementary. “I feel like the more experience you have, the better off you are.”
Robinson, who said her inspiration to become a teacher was from her mother Lisa, will graduate from Louisiana Tech in May and will be certified to teach Kindergarten through third grade.
Charlotte Guice is also in the College of Education at Louisiana Tech and said she chose to study at Tech because of the residency program.
“I think it’s interesting to have the perspective from the beginning of the year to the end of the year because coming to a school midway through is not the same as in the beginning,” said Guice, who is also at Drew Elementary. “You need to know how to setup a classroom, behavioral management, and all of that from the start.”
Like Robinson, Guice knew she wanted to be a teacher from very early into her childhood. She would “teach” school in her pretend classroom to her father – who she said would always end up in detention.
However, undergraduates like Colby Armstrong started college with something different in mind. The Ouachita Parish High School graduate originally enrolled at Mississippi College on a soccer scholarship and majored in biomedical engineering. After two years, he returned home and became a youth pastor at Victory Baptist Church in Monroe, while taking classes at ULM.
“I have a personal connection with (ULM professor) Dr. (Amy) Weems, so we started talking about it when I decided to move back and go to ULM,” Armstrong said. “She talked about this one-year long residency … I think that’s where the best experience is going to come from is being in the classroom and teaching and having someone watch over you and giving you criticism every once in a while. I feel like that’s the best way to learn.”
Armstrong is doing his residency at Sterlington Middle School under Robbie Evans, who won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science in 2022. It is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government for K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics teaching.
Armstrong met Evans during one of his teaching practicums, where undergraduates go in and observe a classroom and how a certain subject is being taught. He enjoyed Evans’ teaching style so much that Armstrong requested him as his mentor for the residency program.
Louisiana Tech student Anna Martineau is on the opposite side of the parish from Armstrong, spending her residency at Calhoun Middle School. As a child, she moved around a lot, attending Lafayette High School, one of the largest high schools in the state, and graduating from a high school in Colorado that averages around 2,000 students.
“I feel like most of the schools I’ve been to have been really big, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but I really like the small community atmosphere,” Martineau said. “At Calhoun Middle, I know all of my students’ names, even the ones who aren’t in my class.
“It seems like, at least at Calhoun Middle, I assume it’s the same all over Ouachita Parish, it seems like a very tight-knit, close community.”
TEACHER RESIDENCY BREAKDOWN:
TOTAL: 28
ULM (Total: 15)
Sterlington Middle (1)
Swartz Upper (2)
Boley (2)
Sterlington Elementary (1)
Lakeshore (1)
East Ouachita (1)
West Ridge (2)
Central (1)
Ouachita Junior (1)
Good Hope (1)
Ouachita High (1)
West Ouachita (1)
LA Tech (Total: 10)
Drew (5)
West Ouachita (2)
Calhoun Middle (3)
Grambling (Total: 2)
Robinson Elementary (2)
Northwestern (Total: 1)
West Ridge (1)
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