Delayed, Not Denied: How the Apprenticeship Degree Helped Paulesta Gilbert Become the Teacher She Always Was

Teaching since 2009. The degree stood between her present and future.

Careers don’t always start where they end up. For Minden, Louisiana, teacher Paulesta Gilbert, her journey to becoming a credentialed teacher began at the local paper mill, where she spent years in a job that had nothing to do with classrooms before substitute teaching pulled her back in.

When she found Reach University's Apprenticeship Degree Program, she wasn't a newcomer to education. She was someone who had been waiting for a door that fit. With Reach University, she found it, then walked through it a full semester early.

She'd Been a Teacher for Years

The degree was new. Teaching wasn't. Paulesta had been working in Louisiana schools in one role or another since at least 2009. While the job title may have changed over the years, her approach didn’t. 

Paulesta’s story shows the gap that the Reach University Apprenticeship Degree is designed to close. The program is designed for working adults who are already in the classroom. People who don’t need to be convinced that teaching matters, but need a path to the credential that doesn’t force them to stop working in order to get it. Through this model, candidates earn their degree on the job, bringing work experience into the classroom, and classroom experience back into the coursework.

Reach University now enrolls more than 3,400 working adults across nine states, including Louisiana, where first-year teachers earn an average of $46,000 per year, almost 125% more than paraprofessionals are paid. Across eight cohorts, 76% have graduated or remain on track to finish on time, compared to the national average of 50%. Gilbert is one of 900 Reach University graduates to date. 

The Secret She Kept for Six Weeks

The moment it finally sank in that she was becoming a teacher happened on March 6, 2025. She was in her school library taking inventory when it hit her. She had a good GPA. She had old college credits at the University of Louisiana Monroe that she'd never transferred in, not because she'd forgotten, but because she'd told herself she needed to start over and relearn everything anyway. She'd been out of school for 20 years. Starting fresh felt like the best thing to do. But that day, something shifted.

She had just passed a practice exam she didn’t study for. To her surprise, she passed the exam,  realizing in that moment that she knew more than she ever gave herself credit for. She called her academic advisor and explained the situation. Gilbert sent her transcript over the same day. A few days later, on spring break, her phone rang. Her advisor told her she was on the May graduating list. She was supposed to finish the following year, and here she was, graduating a semester early.

For six weeks, Gilbert kept this news a secret. When she said she told no one, she meant it. Her husband, sons, and even her own mother (who had wanted this for Paulesta, probably more than she'd wanted it for herself) didn’t know.

Over those weeks, she had two shirts made. The first one she wore read: "Walk in silence and let your success be the noise." The second said something simpler. She saved it for Mother's Day, when she gave her mother a card with a photo of herself in her cap and gown and a copy of her transcript inside. Then Gilbert showed the second shirt, which read “Delayed, but not denied.” Her mom, through happy tears, said it was the best Mother’s Day gift she’d ever received.

What Reach Taught Her About Teaching

What stayed with Gilbert most from her time in the program was the model. When she was struggling with something in class, her professors — specifically Dean Malekah Salim-Morgan and Professor Danielle Ricks — didn't move on without her. They re-explained and redirected. They told her she could do it, and they meant it. Paulesta was harder on herself than they were, and faced moments where she was convinced she couldn’t get it. But she, along with her support system, kept showing up anyway. That experience influenced how she runs her classroom today. "When I have a student who's struggling, I look over and ask, ' Are you understanding?’ And they tell me, yes, ma'am. Okay, show me. And when they can't show me, I say: ‘I got you’."

The peer-learning structure carried over as well. In her cohort with educators from across the country, candidates broke into groups, taught one another, and figured things out together while professors of practice circulated, facilitated, and guided the integration of theory and practice. "I'm able to walk and engage, and also look to see if one of my babies is getting it or not."

When they're not, she goes looking for whatever it takes: a different explanation, a colleague who's been in the building longer, or, she said without apology, ChatGPT —  reflecting a curriculum built on a mix of human-to-human engagement and strong AI, computer science, and digital literacy skills. "I'm going to do whatever I need to, so I can figure out how to help this baby." She's told her current seventh-graders (her first class as a full-time teacher) that she already expects an invitation when they graduate from high school.

Shortly after graduation, an unexpected door opened for Paulesta, but it was one she had spent decades preparing to walk through. Daniel Lee, who had first encouraged her to pursue teaching while serving as Dean of Students at Central Elementary and later became principal, told her there was no immediate opening at the school. Then Professor Cortney McCall, who works for Reach, called about a paid teaching position at Webster Junior High School in Minden, Louisiana, just two streets from her home. McCall had not met her in person yet, but by then Paulesta’s reputation had already been established through years of school-based work, strong relationships, and the commitment she had shown throughout the Reach program. Her hard work and reputation had spoken for her.

Professor Ricks still checks in on her. Her school's administrative staff asks how things are going, and the para currently assigned to her classroom is also a Reach candidate. Gilbert is already doing for her para what was done for her: expecting her to get up in front of the class, reminding her she's not just support staff, telling her to keep every paper and assignment from the program because she'll need it."Pay attention to everything they're giving you," she tells her. "I still go back to it."

What She'd Tell Anyone Who Thinks It's Too Late

Gilbert was 58 when she graduated. Most of her Reach cohort was younger. "I don't care what the age is," she said, "you have something in common with everyone in that program. You're all trying to achieve the same goal. You just have to take it one step at a time." On whether it's too hard: "The day we stop learning is the day we die. You have to learn, you have to evolve."

None of this comes across as someone who stumbled into teaching; in fact, when you talk to her, you can immediately tell how much work and determination went into her journey. She was always on the path to teaching and finally reached where she was meant to be.