France will continue sending internationally recruited teachers to work in immersion schools across Louisiana.
For decades, the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) has had agreements with France and other countries to preserve the French language through immersion programs, inviting teachers from French-speaking countries around the world to teach in Louisiana. The council was created by Louisiana’s legislature in 1968.
Sen. Jeremy Stine (R-Lake Charles) and Ronnie Morris, president of Louisiana's state board of education, met with French officials in Paris and signed an agreement earlier this month, extending the partnership for another four years.
CODOFIL already has 155 teachers working in 14 parishes and more than 40 schools, according to Peggy Feehan, its executive director.
It recruited 54 international teachers during this year’s campaign. Around three quarters are from France. The rest are from other French-speaking countries like Belgium, Canada, Cameroon, Senegal, and Ivory Coast, according to Feehan.
Feehan said the teachers are here on J-1 visitor visas, which CODOFIL sponsors. The visas are good for three years and can be extended for another two.
Fourteen parishes have French immersion programs, including Orleans Parish, which has programs at Edward Hynes Charter School, Audubon Charter School, International School of Louisiana and Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans.
The state’s immersion schools are mainly present in South Louisiana, but Caddo and Lincoln parishes have launched their own programs in recent years.
Feehan said three teachers will be placed at École Pointe-au-Chien next school year. The new school in Terrebonne Parish is the first Indigenous French immersion school in the state, and possibly the country.
You can find a list of Louisiana schools with French immersion programs here.
