Wednesday marked the last day of the 2021-22 school year in Lafayette Parish.
There is one teacher who can't settle into the excitement of summer because she is already looking forward to August.
The 2022-23 school year will bring Kailon Babineaux's life full circle.
The kindergarten classroom at J Wallace James Elementary where she will teach is the same classroom where she sat in a desk as a kindergarten student years ago.
Kailon is one of the almost 130 UL students to graduate with degrees in education just two weeks ago. She technically became a teacher with the turn of her tassel but her passion for the profession started long before.
"One thing that drove me into education, I didn't have a lot of black educators growing up. I had my first in the 5th grade here at James. Nothing against my other teachers, but she pushed me and told me 'you can be a teacher one day.'"
As of March, according to the Louisiana Department of Education, there were 2,500 teaching vacancies in the state.
There is also legislation being debated at the capitol to re-hire teachers to help fight the shortage. For administrators like JWJ Principal Dr. Jon Downs, when someone walks through the door eager and ready to teach, relief is an understatement.
"She is someone who started kindergarten here. This school is in her heart," Downs says. "She did her student teaching here and will now be teaching in the same classroom where she was a kindergarten student, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it."
"Miss Babineaux" as she will soon be known to the smiling faces in her classroom says staying in Louisiana but also her hometown is a choice, one she is happy to make. She says in order to impact the community, all it takes is one.
"I hope to touch at least one child that would want to be a teacher. One of the kids in my mentor's class (while student teaching), she was like, 'Ms. Babineaux you know what?' I said, 'what (child's name).' 'I want to be a teacher like you and Ms. Cade when I grow up.' That's the reason why I do this. That's the reason why," Babineaux said.
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