In 2022, my school was honored to be selected as a National ESEA Distinguished School for the work that we do with our multilingual learners. My principal was able to bring a group of teachers with her to attend the ESEA Conference, and I was excited to be one of the teachers selected to attend! Even more exciting was that the conference would be in New Orleans, a city to which I had never traveled. So in between learning in conference sessions, I was looking forward to trying some local food and enjoying the sites of the city! It would also be my first time traveling out of state since the pandemic because, so I’ll admit I was also a little nervous.
New Orleans took their COVID precautions very seriously, though. Restaurants were required to see proof of vaccination in order to enter, and masks were required in all indoor spaces (although, from what I could tell, Bourbon Street did not really enforce these rules). While this definitely made me feel more safe at a time when COVID was still rather prevalent, we also noticed that many restaurants seemed to have closed. Additionally, we quickly saw signs that New Orleans was still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, which happened over 15 years prior to our visit. As we drove into the city from the airport, we still saw homes with tarps covering the missing roofs and damaged buildings. In the end, it all comes down to systemic racism, as explained in this article that is a few years old, but still raises good points. There would be more reminders later in the trip about the inequities that Katrina brought to surface. This was a good reminder to us that equity work needs to start when kids are young–help them understand there is injustice in the world, but if we work together, perhaps we can make the world more just.
Anyway, our main purpose for traveling to New Orleans was for the conference, so we did not have too much opportunity for sight seeing. But we did get to try some delicious food!
No trip to New Orleans is complete without sampling some beignets! Several of us were frequent visitors to Cafe Beignet for breakfast. Beignets are a square-shaped piece of fried dough covered with mountains of powdered sugar. It’s like eating an extremely messy, square-shaped doughnut. They are often enjoyed with a cup of cafe ole, so although I’m not normally a coffee drinker, I was in New Orleans! I had to have the full experience!
On our last morning, a few of us tried out a different coffee shop called The Vintage. They have a variety of unique flavors of beignets. We ordered a beignet flight (three beignets of your choice) and each ordered a breakfast biscuit as well. We tried the S’mores, Raspberry, and Coconut Cream beignets. These were so good!
Of course, there is more food in New Orleans besides the beignets! I also made sure to try some local jambalaya. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant (the problem with blogging a year later), but their jambalaya was very good, but also extremely spicy!
I even squeezed in one final Cajun meal with some gumbo at the airport from the Emeril restaurant!
The conference was happening near the very beginning of Mardi Gras, so we got to see some of the early festivities (before things get too wild)! People had decorations up around town. One morning, we were eating our beignets at Cafe Beignet and were excited to see a few Mardi Gras floats rolling down the street in preparation for a parade later that week. We even got to see the parade, although it was surprisingly chilly that night. I’m also not really a huge fan of parades, so I wasn’t interested in watching the whole thing. It was honestly more fun to me to see the floats the previous day when the parade wasn’t actually happening!
As a school being recognized as an ESEA Distinguished School, we were also given an opportunity to attend the President’s Reception at The Presbytere, a New Orleans history museum. The first floor shared an exhibit on Hurricane Katrina that was very thought-provoking with lots of sad, yet important information. I really appreciated the exhibit, although it was a bit of an unusual backdrop for a celebratory reception. The second floor shared an exhibit all about Mardi Gras, which was more lighthearted and celebratory. Throughout the museum, we were also offered hors d’ouerves and drinks.
New Orleans is also known for jazz music. I had a few opportunities to hear people playing live jazz music around town, including this small group we found playing out on the street:
Of course, the main reason we were there was to attend the conference. That is where we spent most of our time, and we enjoyed learning about topics ranging from equity, to leveraging English language development standards, to understanding how to support multilingual families going through the referral process for special education, to brain research and literacy. However, I know that’s not what people read this blog for, so I won’t go into detail about any of our sessions. However, here is photographic proof that we were there to attend a conference:
New Orleans has a rich history, and I wish I had had more opportunities to explore the sites. Someday I hope to go back on my own just to enjoy and explore. Have you been to New Orleans? What was your favorite part?
Tracy Travels & Teaches 
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