Host: Kathleen Vail
Guest: Karley Picou, Lake Charles, Louisiana
In this episode of There’s Power in Teaching, host Kathleen Vail speaks with Karley Picou, a school administrator from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and lead advisor for the school’s Educators Rising program. Picou was honored as an Educators Rising Champion at the 2025 Educators Rising National Conference — part of PDK’s annual recognition program celebrating the school leaders, teacher leaders, state partners, and other champions who are advancing the future educator pipeline across the country.
Picou shares how she first got involved with Educators Rising in 2022 at Washington Marion Magnet High School, starting with just five students, and how the program quickly grew into something that transformed the culture of her building. She describes the unique structure of her middle school club — which focuses on hands-on, school-related service and gives younger students a window into the high school program — and explains how the two clubs operate as a feeder system, collaborating across campuses and building a sense of shared identity and purpose within the Lake Charles community.
Throughout the conversation, Picou speaks to the qualities that make Educators Rising students stand out: their professionalism, their willingness to give and receive feedback, and the open mindset that the program deliberately cultivates. Drawing on her experience as a school administrator who has sat on both sides of the hiring table, she reflects on why these are exactly the qualities that sustain long careers in education — and why she has become one of the program’s most passionate advocates, working to bring the entire community, from parents to local organizations, into the work of supporting the next generation of educators.
Recent Comments