Traci Beaucoudray
Education Department Coordinator
Traci is the Women FIRST Clinic Education Coordinator. She manages the Women’s First Clinic (WFC), she is responsible for preparing curriculum and creating individualized education plans for each student based on their Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE).
Traci knew early on that she wanted to teach as she was blessed with teachers who instilled a love of learning in her. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education from the University of New Orleans in December 2001. Her career began teaching junior high school students Math, Language, and Reading where she remained for 11 years. She will be the first person to say that teaching preteens takes a special person, yet she loved every minute of it. Unfortunate events altered her life and she was incarcerated. Unfamiliar with prison life and, at first, afraid of her own shadow, she found herself wanting to make her time away worthwhile. That is when she was asked to teach and her love for teaching was rekindled.
She became the Master Lead Tutor of the Adult Education Program at the Louisiana Transitional Center for Women in Tallulah, Louisiana. Until her release in August 2021, she was able to help over 200 women earn their high school equivalency diploma and even though she helped them gain the knowledge they needed to succeed, she maintains that they taught her more about life than she could ever teach them. As she takes on her newest journey, she brings the knowledge gained while incarcerated to Operation Restoration and is excited to continue enabling formerly incarcerated women to earn something that can never be taken from them – their education.