Louisiana’s public-school system is grappling with a problem repeated nationwide: burgeoning staff numbers even with student enrollment plunging, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In Louisiana, the school workforce grew by 6% over the past decade while enrollment fell by 7%, according to federal data from 2014 to 2024,” wrote Patrick Wall for nola.com. “Post-pandemic, the state’s public schools lost nearly 44,000 students, yet added more than 11,000 staffers — mainly teachers, but also classroom aides and administrators, according to 2019 to 2024 figures.”
Much of the funding used for the hiring spree involved federal pandemic relief, which ended in 2024. Critics of the current system, including Gov. Jeff Landry, warn school districts need to adapt by cutting “the waste and the bureaucracy,” according to the article.
The number of those “that school boards are employing, non-instructional, has risen at the detriment of our teachers,” argued Landry, who has called for a reduction of nearly $170 million in state school funding.
“I’m going to keep hammering this until people understand. The amount of students in the system keeps going down, and the amount of money we spend keeps going up.”
