This Nonprofit Is Bringing Black Teachers Back to New Orleans

Overview: In New Orleans, Black teachers once made up most of the workforce. Yet their numbers have sharply declined as the school system was rebuilt with reform in mind. Founded in 2017, BE NOLA works to reverse that trend, noting that Black students thrive with Black educators.

(WIB) – In the two decades since Hurricane Katrina drowned the city and its public school system, the story of K-12 education in New Orleans has gone something like this: nothing good happened until charter schools, and white reformers, showed up.

But Adrinda Kelly, a New Orleans native, knows that’s not the whole story. The public school teachers she had growing up — most of them Black women — helped prepare her for Harvard University.

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