Centenary welcomes Dr. Kerry Laster, a former assistant deputy superintendent of Louisiana schools, to the Department of Education as an adjunct professor. Dr. Laster will focus on literacy education within Centenary’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) graduate program.

Dr. Laster has a long and distinguished career as a classroom educator and administrator in Louisiana public schools. After more than a decade teaching at the elementary level in Concordia Parish and Caddo Parish, she served as principal of Shreve Island Elementary School in Shreveport before being named superintendent of Concordia Parish Schools in 2003. She served in this role until 2007 when she became executive director of literacy and numeracy, pre-K and high school redesign, for the Louisiana Department of Education. From 2010 through 2014, Laster was assistant deputy superintendent for pre-K, literacy birth-12, dyslexia, 504, speech/language pathologists, and IDEA Programmatic for Louisiana public schools.

Dr. Laster has previously served as an adjunct instructor at Centenary as well as at Louisiana Tech University, Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge, and Louisiana State University-Shreveport. She holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in reading education from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She is currently teaching Reading 516/Teaching Children with Language Disorders, an MAT course focusing on assessing and addressing students who experience difficulty in learning to read.

“Although I am enjoying retirement from a very long career, the opportunity to teach again was presented, and I am enjoying the students as well as learning many new things myself,” said Laster. “My educational goal is to provide research-based information and strategies to my students so that they will learn how to work with students having reading difficulties. My personal goal is to master ZOOM and Canvas this semester!”