Chasity Paul overcomes battles to win NO teaching award

PATTERSON — Chasity Paul is a 2025 recipient of the New Orleans Excellence Teaching Award, designating her as one of the top 3% of educators in the city.
Paul is a member of the InspireNOLA Faculty at Dwight D. Eisenhower Charter School, in the Tall Timbers subdivision of Algiers, teaching seventh- and eighth-grade English language arts and commuting to work daily from her home in Patterson.
Her accomplishments come despite a 2020 cancer diagnosis.
New Schools for New Orleans feted Paul as a NOETA winner, along with 86 other teachers Saturday during its fourth annual gala at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
“NOETA winners are teachers who are enormously dedicated to their students, bringing immense experience, skill, and care to their work, and they provide a model for new and aspiring teachers to emulate. Their principals have identified them as among the most impactful educators in their schools, and their students have shared what a difference they’ve made in their lives,” a press release from New Schools for New Orleans said.
Paul also received a $1,000 Classroom Excellence Grant with the honor.
She began her career as a Winnie the Pooh Head Start Center Teacher with the St Mary/Vermilion Community Action Agency, then moved on to Terrebonne Parish, where she taught at Ellender High School , Evergreen and Oaklawn Middle.
“I love teaching,” Paul said. “Ever since [she was] a small child, I’ve wanted to be a teacher. I used to play school with my cousins under my grandmother’s carport.
“The challenge for me each day is for me to inspire my students to become the greatest they can be. To be themselves and to be genuine in everything that they do. One of my mottos is, if I have inspired at least one student a day, I have done my job.”
Dr. Shekeitra Matthews, who is Paul’s principal, said she admires her dedication to her students as well as to the profession of teaching.
She said Paul teaches 150 of the 600 students who are enrolled at Eisenhower.
“I was so favored to represent her at this nomination,” Matthews said.
She said the New Orleans Public School District is composed of 68 schools enrolling more than 43, 000 students, so for Paul to be considered among the top teachers across the region is “quite a testament to her dedication, expertise and care to her students, colleagues and the teaching profession.”
Samarick Paul said his mother Chasity is the most influential person in his life, crediting her with his becoming a teacher. Currently, he teaches math and business math at Brown Middle School in Forney, Texas, just outside Dallas.
Paul said what inspires him most about his mother, is the manner in which she approaches life.
“She always shows up,” he said. “She’s selfless and puts everyone before herself. She is the most perfect mother. There has never been a time that I have picked up the phone, and she doesn’t come through.
“Just seeing how she interacts with people, and the way she goes about her business, it’s so inspirational.”
Matthews said Paul’s resilience as a breast cancer survivor is also a testament to her, as well as her school community.
Terri Foulcard said Paul is just a loving, caring person, whose presence is a “light to be around.”
“You just can’t ask for a better person to be around,” Foulcard said. “She walks the walk. She stays clear of any type of drama and always puts God first.”
Foulcard, the St Mary Parish registrar of voters, said she and Paul are members of the Franklin-Jeanerette Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
“She’s very giving, always helpful, always serving,” Foulcard said. ”She shows up to just about all the events, and is a very active member. Inspiring and compassionate.”
Paul said that in 2020, she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at the age of 44.
“It was very devastating afterward, when I went in for a routine mammogram. I had started mammogram testing four years prior,” she said.
“I received a call stating that my mammogram was abnormal. I went to a surgeon who performed a biopsy, which later confirmed the cancer. My life at that time felt like I had been given a death sentence. Just hearing the word was devastating, and all I could think about was me leaving behind my three beautiful children.”
Eventually, she said God spoke to her after she kept asking, “’Why me?’”
“He said to me, ‘Why not?’
“I was picked to fight that battle, because I know God only gives His battles to the strongest. So going through treatments, I would promise myself and my family that I would not give up.”
She went through 16 rounds of chemotherapy, “which was very harsh on my body. My lifestyle changed dramatically.”
“I prayed and sang in my prayer closet daily, while fighting and asking God to please bring me through.”
Paul said she rang the bell noting the end of her treatment in March 2021.
But she cautioned that once the bell has rung, the battle continues.
“I just want to caution everyone, to please take of yourself, get the examinations, and follow through will all treatments and medications.”
“I had no clue of what I was facing on this journey,” she said.
Paul thanked the Lydia Cancer Association in Lydia, the Miles Perret Cancer Center in Lafayette and the Thibodaux Regional Cancer Center for their “unwavering and unmatched support.”
“God is able and He is a healer. No one needs negativity in their life, especially when they’re in a battle. Be proactive instead of reactive.”
She encourages persons who are in a cancer battle to stand on these two Biblical verses: Joshua 1:9 and Matthew 5:7.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Overcome fear with faith.”
What’s next for Paul? She’s currently working on her doctorate.
“Remember God is good. And He can do it for you as well.”