New Iberia Senior High School teacher Victoria Landry is very dedicated to and passionate about her profession, and loves coaching tennis, which she did at the school from 2009-2011 and has done again since 2017. She also enjoys helping out the NISH Pride of Cajunland Band, which husband Kelly directs.

But it’s her work with SPED (special education) and other challenged students that brings her the most pride. Landry is one of the people selected for The Daily Iberian’s 20 Under 40 honors.

“When I look back at my 15 years of teaching, and I get so uncomfortable talking about this, but I’ve done really well with my lower kids,” the head of the NISH science department said. “Starting about three years ago I’ve had the highest pass rate of the test scores at my school, especially with the lower kids.”

Starting in the fall of 2010, Iberia Parish started Cohort training, which gathers a lot of those students in the same class so teachers can focus on their level.

“It’s a class where they concentrate lower level kids, kids who have repeatedly failed, maybe even SPED kids and 504 kids, and English-as-a-second-language learners, and they put them all in one class so that the teacher can bring everything down for everybody and really focus on it,” she said. “Nine years ago I was chosen for that class, and I’m one of the only teachers still in it because of my success rate.”

Landry attributes that success to her approach to teaching.

“I say all the time, you have to build relationships with kids, you can’t be a teacher if you haven’t built a relationship with kids, and with those low level kids the relationships are even more important. If they don’t feel like you care about them, they’re not going to work for you,” she said. “But I say it all the time, if they feel like you care about them, they will work 10 times harder than an honors kid for you.”

Her 17-year-old son D.J. is in the band at NISH, and 7-year-old stepson Jackson is energetic and imaginative. 

Landry has had her own obstacles to overcome in her personal life, and that’s given her a different viewpoint of life. She’s also grateful to her hometown for helping shape her into the person she’s become.

“I say it to my husband all the time, and I even say it to my kids in the classroom, I graduated from NISH in the ’90s, and I was raised in New Iberia,” she said. “I mean, I grew up teaching swimming lessons in the City Park, I was a lifeguard in the City Park, and I just feel like New Iberia shaped me into a pretty awesome human being.”

That goes to her alma mater as well, she said.

“I tell my kids all the time, what my teachers in the ’90s did for me is what I want to do for my kids today. I think of the teachers I had like Miss Menard and Miss Morgan and Miss Leleux. I had such amazing, strong, powerful teachers who taught us responsibility and work ethic and giving back to the community, and being a functional, viable member of our community, not just a drain on our community, a functional member of your community,” Landry said.

“That’s what I tell Kelly. I am proud to be a teacher at NISH because I want to be that for these kids now. I want to be that for this next generation of kids, of teaching them the responsibility and the work ethic and how to be a proud, viable member of the community that’s giving back.”

“I say all the time, you have to build relationships with kids, you can’t be a teacher if you haven’t built a relationship with kids, and with those low level kids the relationships are even more important.”                   

— Victoria Landry