Exception secures admission of 70 world language teachers to Louisiana for 2020-2021
BATON ROUGE, La. - The Louisiana Department of Education is pleased to announce that teachers recruited by the State of Louisiana through either the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) or LDOE will qualify for the newest exception to Presidential Proclamations 9993 and 10052.
This exception will secure the admission of 70 teachers (49 teachers of French; 21 teachers of Spanish) to travel to Louisiana for the 2020-2021 school year. These teachers will provide valuable world language instruction in immersion and early world languages programs in 16 school systems across the state. School systems can anticipate welcoming these new International Associate Teachers in the early fall.
"I'm pleased by this positive development. The Louisiana Department of Education will continue to cooperate with our various stakeholders to help assure these invaluable programs remain an option for our children and families," said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley. "Louisiana has a rich heritage founded on diverse cultures. Our immersion programs honor that heritage, while providing our children a world of opportunities."
The State of Louisiana would like to thank our state elected officials, congressional delegation and international government partners for their support and combined efforts in securing this victory for Louisiana school systems. We would like to express particular gratitude to the French Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Philippe Etienne, for his unwavering advocacy for Louisiana's heritage language programs.
These presidential proclamations established certain restrictions on employment-based visas for foreign nationals and restricted the arrival in Louisiana of International Associate Teachers critical to the state's public education system, particularly language immersion education programs across the state for which there is a domestic shortage of highly qualified teachers. An estimated 2,000 Louisiana public school students would have been impacted by the absence of these teachers.
# # # # # #