Rebecca Snead, special education teacher of East Beauregard Elementary, has been named a 2025-2026 Louisiana Teacher of the Year Semi-Finalist. She has been chosen as one of twenty-four colleagues from across the state for this honor.
The Louisiana Department of Education sponsors the Excellent Educators Award Program annually to recognize the state’s most exceptional teachers.
Those teachers who demonstrate excellence and expertise in their fields, guiding students of all abilities and backgrounds to achieve success, who are leaders and innovators both inside and outside the classroom, who connect the classroom with the community, and who build collaborative relationships that create a positive school culture are considered for the award.
Snead currently teaches fourth and fifth grade special education at East Beauregard Elementary, where she has completed her third year. She has been an educator for fifteen years working at Fairview High School, E.K. Key Elementary in Sulphur, and DeQuincy Elementary, before moving to East Beauregard Elementary.
She is a graduate of East Beauregard High School. She has a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science and a Master’s Degree in the Art of Teaching Elementary Education from McNeese State University and a Special Education certification from Northwestern State University. She is currently pursuing an Educational Leadership certification. She has been a Lead Special Education Teacher and Mentor Teacher, and she has worked with the Louisiana Department of Education to modify curriculum for Students with Significant Disabilities.
She is involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) at East Beauregard Elementary where she is the National STEM Society Sponsor, the K-2 STEM Builders Club Sponsor, and the SeaPerch Underwater ROV Team and the VEX Robotics Competition Team Sponsor. She is also the host of the EBE STEAM Night.
She participated in the 2024 K-12 Computer Science Standards Writing and Steering Committee for the Louisiana Department of Education, helping develop K-5 Computer Science Standards that will be implemented beginning in 2026.
Her motto is: Every student can learn every day, but it might look different to you and me. One of her greatest joys is watching the moment when a student “clicks” with the information she has been teaching. When students grasp new concepts, it is exciting and rewarding, she said.
In Snead’s classroom, students are engaged in their own learning through research, hands-on projects, group learning, expressing their opinions through discussion, debate, and writing assignments, and making classroom information applicable to their everyday lives. Students learn information about the subject and then are encouraged to make their own choices and defend their ideas.
“I have found that my students learn best with integrating multiple learning styles into the curriculum,” Snead explained. This attitude matches her motto in that she is engaging students every day to learn in ways that best fit their needs while also integrating all learning styles so that every student is engage in the learning process during each lesson.
Snead will participate in the program through the summer culminating the Excellent Educators Gala in July where the top teachers and principals will be honored in New Orleans.
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