Voices of Reach: Juanique Dugas

Coordinator for Post-Baccalaureate Licensure and Alumni Engagement

Voices of Reach highlights members of the Reach University community and their work to live Reach’s mission, core values, and commitment to expanding access to work-embedded higher education.

When Juanique Dugas thinks about supporting new teachers, she draws on her own first-year teaching experience. The memory of her first year still shapes her work today as Reach University’s Coordinator for Post-Baccalaureate Licensure and Alumni Engagement. In her role, she supports candidates and graduates on the path to teacher licensure across Reach’s partner states and helps build alumni engagement efforts designed to support graduates beyond degree completion.

As a seasoned educator, Juanique Dugas has seen it all. She’s been in the classroom with young students as well as adult learners, which gives her a unique vantage point for the work she is doing now at Reach University. Long before she joined Reach, Juanique was a first-year teacher learning what it meant to lead a classroom while wishing she had more support. Today, she helps make sure new teachers know they do not have to take that journey alone. “I never want a first-year teacher to feel the way I felt,” she said.

Her passion for helping fellow first-year teachers began from her own experiences in South Louisiana years before she even heard of Reach. Juanique was raised in a small, rural town by an aunt who made one expectation clear: she was going to school, and she was going to finish.

Juanique never had plans to become a teacher. For years, she pictured herself helping children through healthcare, first as a pediatrician. She started college at Louisiana State University studying microbiology and pre-med, then later transferred to what is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to pursue nursing. But during her first clinical semester, she realized nursing was not the right fit. “I love people. I love helping people,” she said. “But not in this way, because I can’t cry along with them.”

Her aunt, who had helped raise her and supported her financially through college, did not let her walk away mid-semester. Juanique finished her clinicals, but by then she was well past the traditional four-year college timeline her aunt had planned for. She needed to make a decision that would help her finish school and move on. When her aunt suggested teaching, she couldn’t believe it. At first, the appeal was practical: steady paychecks, weekends, holidays, and summers off. But the longer she thought about it, the more it made sense. She loved children, wanted to help people, and knew schools in her hometown needed teachers. From then on, it was decided. In fall 2007, she stepped into her first classroom, teaching in the exact room where she had once been a third-grade student.

“When I stepped foot in the classroom and learned the needs of my community, it finally registered. These were my family members. This was my childhood school,” Juanique said. “From the moment that we first started that school year, I knew that I was supposed to be a teacher.”

Juanique spent 12 years in the classroom, teaching grades three through five across multiple parishes in South Louisiana. She later moved into district instructional coaching before joining the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators (LRCE), an alternative certification program for aspiring teachers in Louisiana.

Through LRCE’s partnership with Reach, Juanique began teaching LRCE methods classes at Reach in the fall of 2023, with seven candidates. By fall 2025, those classes had grown to 148 candidates.

For Juanique, that growth represented more than enrollment. It represented working adults finding a supported path into classrooms where they were already connected to students and communities. 

That belief now shapes her work with both candidates and alumni. Throughout May, Juanique hosted live Zoom focus groups with 2025 graduates to better understand what alumni need and want from Reach. The response was deeply encouraging. “There was not one person who did not say how much they love Reach,” Juanique said.

Many alumni shared that they were already encouraging colleagues in their districts to consider Reach. Hearing that directly from graduates helps solidify the importance of continuing to support candidates after graduation.

Her work closely reflects Reach’s value of being uplifting: investing in human capacity and success. For Juanique, that’s just a regular day, helping candidates and graduates feel capable, connected, and encouraged as they move into the next stage of their careers.

One of her next priorities is reaching out to spring 2026 graduates as a pilot group for first-year teacher support. “The candidates are reaching their goals while supporting the children in their communities,” Juanique said. “They just needed a little lift.”

At Reach, Juanique is helping make sure they get one.