Cutting through bureaucracy so teachers can focus on what matters most – teaching students
Let Teachers Teach is Louisiana’s teacher-driven effort to remove unnecessary barriers from the classroom. State Superintendent Dr. Cade Brumley launched it in 2024 and built it from the voices of Louisiana educators.
More than two dozen teachers from across the state identified what was making it harder to teach. Their work produced 18 recommendations across six areas: professional learning, required trainings, student behavior and discipline, non-academic responsibilities, curriculum and instruction, and planning.
Since then, those recommendations have changed state law, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) policy, and Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) guidance.
What has changed in classrooms and schools?
Unruly student behavior can be addressed based on what's best for the classroom environment.
Phones were the top classroom disruption named by the Let Teachers Teach workgroup. Now it's state law.
Some were eliminated, some are now one-and-done, others were folded into resource guides.
In grades 6-12, a third suspension in one year leads to an expulsion recommendation and behavior support.
Teachers rated Proficient or higher choose how to deliver the lesson from the curriculum.
Teachers said "Trust us, don't blame us." State policy now protects your judgment on discipline.
Each recommendation below shows what changed and where to find supporting law, policy, or guidance.
While teachers understand the importance of professional learning, they are often mandated to repeat the same sessions year after year. These redundant professional learning sessions can leave teachers feeling disconnected and undervalued.
What changed: Your growth plan must be developed with your evaluator and built on an area of refinement identified in your first observation of the cycle. It is a differentiated coaching plan, not a generic form. If you have three years of experience or more, you now receive one unannounced observation a year. A second, announced observation happens only if that score falls below 3.50 or you ask for one. If you were rated Proficient or higher last year, you should also be given greater say in choosing your own professional learning.
Where to find it: LAC 28:CXLVII (Bulletin 130): §301(A)(4) for the growth plan, §105(B)(2) for what every local evaluation plan must include, §309(B)(2) for observation frequency, and §313(A)(5) for autonomy in selecting professional learning. Your school system must also conduct an annual needs assessment on its professional learning program under §313(C).
What changed: Your school’s instructional program must include weekly, job-embedded teacher collaboration led by a skilled facilitator, focused on implementing high-quality instructional materials and using student and teacher work. Collaboration time has a defined purpose in policy.
Where to find it: LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741: §2303(B)(1). For what a collaboration cycle looks like in practice, see the Professional Learning Roadmap, “Teacher Collaboration,” pages 17 to 20, and “Guidance for S-ILT and TC Cycle Planning,” page 28.
What changed: We recommended to school system leaders that teachers be given uninterrupted time to set up their classrooms before students arrive, and we publish scheduling guidance that builds protected collaboration time into the master schedule. The decision belongs to your school system.
Where to find it: Professional Learning Roadmap, “Implementation Conditions — Scheduling: Protecting Time for Instructional Work,” page 24. The grade-band scheduling and staffing guidance is Maximize Efficiency: Unlocking Effective Elementary Schedules through Smart Staffing, and the middle school and high school editions. For how common planning time is built into a master schedule, see section 3.3, “How should time for professional learning and collaboration be incorporated into the schedule?”
Educators must complete legislatively mandated trainings. It is common for teachers to complete these trainings outside of the normal school day and without compensation.
What changed: Act 686 (2024) repealed the statutes that required dozens of trainings and instructional topics to be repeated every year. Today, seven trainings are required once in your career: adverse childhood experiences, bullying prevention for educators, communicable diseases, first aid, mental health awareness for educators, suicide prevention for educators, and firearm accident prevention and safety. Three still repeat every year, because they fall outside of education: ethics, mandated reporter, and sexual harassment. Several former trainings are now delivered as information in a handbook or shared space, or taught inside content standards, rather than as a session you sit through.
Where to find it: Revisions to Required Trainings: Guidance for School and System Leaders (2026), which lists every topic and its delivery category. Act 686 (2024), effective June 19, 2024. LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §353(A) for the student awareness information your school system must provide by grade band.
What changed: Your school system must run a process every year to review the training it requires of educators, to cut repetition of training you have already completed, and, where possible, to offer pre-test exemptions for experienced teachers.
Where to find it: LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §353(B), promulgated LR 51:55 (January 2025).
Too often, students are not removed from class or school for extreme, disruptive behavior. Furthermore, some students are chronically absent creating challenges for teachers to ensure learning.
What changed: Out-of-school suspension rates are no longer used to label a school. The criteria for the “urgent intervention required” label are subgroup performance scores. The criteria for “comprehensive intervention required” are letter grade, cohort graduation rate, and sustained subgroup performance. Neither carries a discipline trigger.
Where to find it: LAC 28:XI Accountability/Testing §907, amended LR 51:54 (January 2025), and §909, amended LR 51:55 (January 2025). BESE approved the change in August 2024.
What changed: Removing a student whose behavior prevents the orderly instruction of others changed from something you may do to something that must happen. No principal or administrator may prohibit, discourage, or retaliate against you for taking disciplinary action consistent with your school system’s policy. The School Employee Bill of Rights now states in BESE policy that you have the right to have your professional judgment respected in disciplinary action, to be involved in decisions about student behavior management, and to complete only paperwork that is not excessively burdensome. Your school system must give you a copy of those rights at the start of each school year, post them in every school and administrative building, and publish them on its website.
Where to find it: Act 400 (2024), amending R.S. 17:416(A)(1)(b)(i), (c)(i) and (v), and R.S. 17:416.18(B). LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §520, promulgated LR 51:2058 (December 2025) — see §520(A)(4), (A)(5), (A)(14), (B), and (D). Act 539 (2026), the Teacher’s Shield Act, effective August 1, 2026.
What changed: A student in grades 6 through 12 who is suspended a third time in the same school year, for any offense other than one related to dress code or tardiness, must be recommended for expulsion. A student who is suspended or expelled stays under your school system’s supervision in a BESE-approved alternative education program. Where the system contracts with an education service provider, state law requires academic, behavioral, and mental health interventions, and lists them.
Where to find it: Act 337 (2024), amending R.S. 17:416(C)(2). Alternative placement and required interventions: R.S. 17:416.2, in particular §416.2(A)(1) and §416.2(D)(3)(b). Act 324 (2024) requires each school board to adopt a behavioral health intervention and referral program.
What changed: If a student is truant, the parent or legal guardian must make sure the missed work gets done, through after-school tutoring, weekend make-up classes, or other remediation your school board sets, until the student has caught up. The parent must also meet with the school at least monthly on the student’s progress until the work is finished, and attend any assistance fair the school system holds. A student counts as habitually absent or tardy after a fifth unexcused absence or tardy in a semester, once reasonable efforts have failed. Before that point, the principal must notify the parent in writing on or before the third unexcused absence or tardy and hold a conference.
Where to find it: Act 386 (2024), effective August 1, 2024, amending R.S. 17:233(B)(1)(b). Current statute: R.S. 17:233, including §233(B)(1)(a) for when a student is considered habitually absent or tardy, §233(B)(1)(c) for the written notice and conference, and §233(A) for referral to family or juvenile court.
What changed: Beginning with the 2024-2025 school year, students may not have an electronic telecommunication device on them during the instructional day, including wearable technology that receives notifications. A device brought to school must be turned off and properly stowed for the whole instructional day. This does not apply to a student whose Individualized Education Program, Individual Accommodation Plan, Section 504 Plan, or Individual Health Plan requires the device. Your school system had to adopt an implementing policy by January 1, 2025, and submit it to us by March 1, 2025. That policy must define when the instructional day starts and ends and how parents may reach students during it.
Where to find it: Act 313 (2024), effective May 28, 2024. LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §1141(B), (D), and (E), amended LR 51:56 (January 2025).
The responsibility of supporting students’ mental and behavioral health has fallen increasingly on teachers. Teachers should not be expected to be mental health professionals.
What changed: Two laws in 2025 put this work with licensed professionals. Your school must make a mental health assessment available to each student in grades 3 through 12, conducted by a licensed behavioral health provider, when authorized by the parent or legal guardian. Consent is required each year, and the principal decides when and where. Separately, a school board may choose to offer mental health screenings for students in kindergarten through grade 12 in the first semester. If your board does, the Louisiana Department of Health picks and pays for the screening tool, families must be told which tool is used and consent in writing, and results are confidential, destroyed within 30 days, and may not be used for any decision about instruction, academic opportunities, or discipline.
Where to find it: Act 504 (2025), effective August 1, 2025, adding R.S. 17:173.1. Act 469 (2025), effective August 1, 2025, adding R.S. 17:416.24. House Concurrent Resolution 17 (2024).
What changed: LEADS includes a counselor-specific rubric, so counseling practice is evaluated separately from classroom teaching practice.
Where to find it: LEADS counselor rubric.
What changed: Your salary now covers only the duties specifically identified and described in your job description. For work beyond that, your school system must have a uniform supplemental salary schedule that pays certified employees at least $30 an hour. If you are not given the minimum uninterrupted planning time the law requires, your school system must compensate you at your effective hourly rate.
Where to find it: Act 311 (2024), amending R.S. 17:418(A). See R.S. 17:418(A)(3)(a).
Teachers are often forced to “follow a script” and adhere to it strictly, rather than having the freedom to teach with integrity and utilize their own knowledge of best practices. While this may be helpful for novice or struggling teachers, the approach is not appropriate for the vast majority of Louisiana’s educators.
What changed: If you were rated Proficient or higher on your previous year evaluation, no one may require you to read verbatim from a teaching manual or lesson plan. The one exception is the explicit direct instruction required by specific intervention programs.
Where to find it: LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §2303(F)(1), amended LR 51:58 (January 2025) and LR 51:2060 (December 2025).
What changed: Resources are consolidated on the LDOE’s Professional Learning Platform and this redesigned website.
Where to find it: Professional Learning Platform.
What changed: Scheduling, pacing, and implementation guidance for core content is published and named.
Where to find it: Professional Learning Roadmap, “Curriculum Implementation Continuum,” page 34, and “Content Area Lesson Prep Protocols,” page 39. Scheduling guidance by grade band: Maximize Efficiency: Unlocking Effective Elementary Schedules through Smart Staffing, and the middle school and high school editions. Section 3.1 on time for core instruction, 3.2 on time for extra time learning, and 3.4 for the LDOE schedule catalog of sample best practice schedules.
Some teachers are forced to write lesson plans that are burdensome and sometimes do not align with curricula. This causes unnecessary paperwork and many hours of additional work, often outside of school hours.
What changed: If you were rated Proficient or higher on your previous year evaluation, you must be given professional autonomy over the selection and use of instructional strategies, in alignment with state content standards. That autonomy is about how you teach the lesson. The adopted curriculum is still the material you teach.
Where to find it: LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §2303(F)(2), amended LR 51:58 (January 2025) and LR 51:2060 (December 2025).
What changed: For a course with an adopted high-quality curriculum, planning means internalizing the lesson to understand how it is designed to be taught, not writing a plan from scratch. Expectations for internalization must be differentiated to provide professional autonomy according to teacher effectiveness. For a course without an adopted high-quality curriculum, planning still means lesson design in line with Louisiana content standards.
Where to find it: LAC 28:CXV Bulletin 741 §2303(B)(2) and (B)(3), amended LR 51:58 (January 2025) and LR 51:2060 (December 2025). For what internalization looks like, see the Unit Study Protocol and the Lesson Preparation Protocol named in the Professional Learning Roadmap, pages 20 and 28.